helplessness and unpredictability

get ready for the longest post ever of my life

This home stay experience has been the CRAZIEST shit of my life. Okay. Yesterday morning I got picked up by my mama. She looked HOT. Like super young and pedicured and wearing kitten heels and a sexy white tank top. I didn’t really know what to expect. But we walked around the market for a bit, bought some bread and then ran into her mom. This I thought was really cool and weird. Because we were just in the city center waiting for the bus and then like, oh, it’s her mom. Anyway, we got on a bus to her house. She was really good at making conversation with me even though I am inept at Spanish. This was the beginning of a weekend of communication difficulties. Anyway, we got off the bus and we were walking down the street (crazy steep and not paved, and her in heels just chillin) and told me one house was her uncle’s, one her sister’s, one her aunt’s… and basically that her entire mother and father’s family lives on the same street. Everyone we walked by she hollered at… it was great.

Then we got to her house and I met her 6-year-old son Maicol. He is adorable. She put on some karaoke videos (???) and I just hung out with him while she cleaned the house. And watched Celine Dion music videos with English subtitles. Her house (which I thought she told me was her sister’s house that she was just staying in because it’s bigger, but I mean it was definitely her house so I really don’t understand. Also her dad was there most of the time. He might live there too? This was all very confusing to me) was very quaint. Like, the perfect Costa Rican house. Houses are typically really small with a small living room/kitchen and a porch and a bathroom and then some bedrooms. I stayed in a room with a big bed and a TV that might have been her room but I really couldn’t tell? I mean I couldn’t understand a single thing. That anyone said to me. Except Maicol just started continually asking me, “Tu tienes abuelos? Tu tienes hermanos? Tu tienes hermanas?” And found this really entertaining.

Then we headed out somewhere, to where I had no idea. But I was huuuungry. We just walked and walked and walked and stopped to talk to people and she told me about how this house was her friend’s house, and this house was her cousin’s house… It was great. Then we were up next to a little bar and walked up to a house right next to it, where one of her friends lived with a little babyyyy. Can we talk about how incredibly perfect and beautiful Costa Rican babies are? We sat and chatted for a while and then left and kept walking through her back yard because she has a lot of land with a huge garden. So beautiful. We encountered turkeys and chickens and then climbed this rock. It was cute. You couldn’t really see anything but there were lots of plants up there. Then we climbed down and walked up a really steep hill up to where there were all these empty lots that are being sold to Americans. She said a lot of people from the United States are buying property in Atenas. It really is beautiful and perfect. So this was kind of a long jaunt, but Maicol held my hand and it was nice just being with people who weren’t the people in my program and just wandering.

We turned around and started walking back and only almuerzo was on my mind, of course. And we stopped back at her friend’s house and just sat down and I was so confused as to what was going on… And then she fed us. And I wonder how people deal with feeding people here porque I have no idea why or how we ended up eating at her house. Was this predetermined? Also, Eyleen just straight up doesn’t have a job. She’s a homemaker and spends everyday doing what we did this weekend. We talked about this as we were walking (because two of the only words I understand in Español are ‘trabaja’ and ‘Estados Unidos’ and she kept saying “En Estados Unidos, trabaja trabaja trabaja” and in Costa Rica everyone gets to rest.) and it’s true—all she has to do is cook and clean and watch karaoke videos. I don’t understand.

Anyway, then we hung out there for a while… Mailcol and Valerie (baby) just hung out and Eyleen and her friend hung out and I fell asleep in a chair.

We walked back and I was able to take a little siesta, which was nice. Except Maicol kept coming in and visiting me every 15 minutes. When I woke up, there were all these people in Eyleen’s house just watching TV… and I got to watch some Costa Rica television for a while, which is absolutely hilarious. Then Eyleen put on one of her favorite peliculas (movies), of which she literally has hundreds. She has more dvds than any person I have ever met, no joke. Most are karaoke. She put on “A Walk in the Clouds” starring Keanu Reeves. Which is probably the most ridiculous movie I have ever seen. In case you haven’t heard of it, watch the trailer.

At this point I kind of realized what a crazy perception Costa Ricans must have about Americans. Like, everything that doesn’t come out of their everyday lives is American. Movies, music, their economy… They just watch these movies and music videos and everything with Americans in them. And somehow everything that you watch that is American but dubbed in Spanish seems so silly and over the top. Also we were learning about this in class but everyone here is just racist, but it doesn’t really matter. There is something called “white legend” and it’s better now than it used to be, but Costa Ricans adapted the perception that they are entirely white, and disregarded the ethnic composition of the rest of their background. And now they just talk about negroes and cheenas like it’s nobody’s business. Yes, this experience was a culture shock. Living like an American in Costa Rica is just not the same as living as a Costa Rican in Costa Rica.

Anyway, I watched this hilarious movie with Spanish subtitles and then we ate dinner. Arroz, frijoles, vegetales y pollo. Sound familiar? It’s still delicious, every time I eat it. Afterward, Eyleen asked if I wanted to go out to a ‘party’ so we walked back to the bar that we had been at earlier. Mind you, now it was pouring rain, and it’s about a 20-minute walk up hill on loose rocks. Eyleen is wearing 4-inch heels. She’s ridiculous! On this walk, she told me about her 60-year-old boyfriend, and her French boyfriend… I didn’t really understand. But she said that men in America are muscular, and men here are fat. Also she told me she has 9 siblings, and she is the youngest. We could hear the music for almost the entire walk there. IT’S KARAOKE NIGHT!!!!!! No way, karaoke? No way.

As soon as we walk up, the guy in charge of karaoke (Chase, Eyleen’s gay friend who is the shit) hands Eyleen the mic and they just start rocking some duets straight off the bat. So cute. Then we just sat at a table and listened to everyone rock karaoke (pretty much only guys because there were only guys at the bar), which was awesome and hilarious. Three Costa Rican men serenaded me. This was great. And then more ticos asked me to dance! And then MORE ticos bought me drinks! I was sitting very pretty this night.

Then I was pretty drunk and we got in this car with these two guys that had been hitting on us hellaaaa. I thought they were giving us a ride home. So it seemed. Then we were driving and driving and we were not home. We ended up at this little sketch bar and I had no idea where we were. I was exhausted and I just kept saying ‘Estoy cansada’… just waiting… then Eyleen said to me, ‘Quiere a mi casa?’ and I said sí so we got back in the truck and waited for the driver guy. Then he got in the truck and we were driving and driving and driving… and just not going home. And the guy driving was wasted. And swerving of the road and driving on the wrong side of the road at ridiculous speeds and then stopping really abruptly and trying to get Eyleen to kiss him and this was terrible. This was drunk driving at its worst. This is when I was sure I was going to die because I was crammed in the back of this truck with no seat belts and I had no idea where we were. This went on for a really like time. Way too long. This is when I thought we were being kidnapped. I just closed my eyes and buried my head into the shoulder of this boy that had fallen in love with me. (At the bar, I just straight up could not understand anything that he was saying. Because the music was loud. And I don’t speak Spanish. So we passed notes and he was like, "Me gusta usted" or something and then wrote some other stuff about his job that I didn’t understand. Whatever, he was nice.) Then eventually we turned up at a discothèque. I had no idea why this was happening because I can’t understand the language that they speak. So I just tried to keep my spirits up and stay as close to Eyleen as possible. We danced for a little (which was actually cool because the discothèque was a tight place and everyone dances salsa, not like bump and grind) and then got back in the truck. And after another life threatening car ride, where the driver asked me “Porque no sexo?” we made it home. And my ears were ringing, but I was feeling pretty good. All in all it was quite the experience.

Today I woke up to papi watching something on TV at a ridiculous volume at six in the morning. Everyone here watches TV all the time. And at ridiculous volumes. And the walls are solely for… I really don’t know. They have no function. They are just paper. I lay in bed for a while until Maicol came in to check up on me, asking “Tiene sueño?” Then he left. Then he came back thirty minutes later and this time I wisely did not open my eyes so he would not bother me. Instead he started rubbing my arm until I opened my eyes. “Tiene sueño?” I rolled over. He left. Then he came back and I just completely ignored him. So he crawled into bed with me and turned on the TV and started watching cartoons at a volume to wash out the sound of the TV in the other room. Then he started writhing and being antsy until he was practically jumping up and down on top of me. This was kind of cute. It was also kind of annoying. Maicol is the most precious boy, but he doesn’t have the most social grace. He also told me he was three years old three times, until his mom corrected him and told him he is six. Also he does this thing when he gets excited where he puts his arms down at his sides and then starts shaking his hands and the rest of his body frantically. Then he puts his head down and looks up at you with only his eyeballs. This was funny. But weird.

I awoke to cousins and sisters and who knows who else milling in and out of the house. I crawled onto a sofa and listened to all the noises of this life. Eyleen was talking on the phone for hours, and I drifted off into a doze. As I came in and out of sleep, my brain pretended that Eyleen was speaking English and I understood the conversation… this was so pleasant. No obligations but this couch and a doze. The morning went on like this for a while until Eyleen said vamos around noon and we were off. To where, I had no idea. I assumed lunch. So we walked down the road, in the opposite direction of where I had been. And we walked and walked: Eyleen, Maicol, her niece Lisette, and me. And the pooch. And walked. Then we veered off the road into a little pasture. Someone’s backyard maybe? But we kept walking and continued into some thick brush. A picnic? Then we climbed down this pseudo path and then across a stream and then down a canyon, barefoot, because otherwise we would slip and die. It was at this point where I stopped trying to keep my clothes clean and sat on my butt and slid. At the bottom, we had a view of a beautiful waterfall. This, I thought, was very nice. I took pictures and we turned back. When we got back to the stream, instead of heading back, we continued monkeying along the riverbank, which was a canyon. Of slippery rocks. It wasn’t long before I slipped and fell into the river. I was annoyed that I was wet. But I kept a smile and kept walking. Ah, no worries though, because it wasn’t long before we just hopped in the river ourselves and started wading. First ankle deep, then knee, then upper thigh, then the entire bottom half went down, and before I knew it, we were chest deep in river. Little Maicol was just swimming along. We just waded along in the water… until we turned around. Then we walked up another waterfall back where we started and finally after about two hours of exploring, we put on our shoes and headed back to the road. What an adventure! I was just completely unprepared and taken by surprise, but it was SO great. Eyleen and her perfect pedicure and four inch heels likes to get down and dirty. I never would have thought. I was definitely out of my element here, more so than my company at least, but it was so fun. They kept telling me to take pictures. None of them use a digital camera much, so they got a big kick out of looking at all the pictures after.

The entire walk back, Eyleen exclaimed “Tengo hambre tengo hambre!” Then we saw PARROTS! They were sooo cool. They were in a tree right next to the road just putzing around. I tried to help Eyleen around the house on the trip, but I don’t know how or if you’re supposed to push it on people. I kept asking, ‘Puedo ayudar?” but she just said “Esta bien” and I didn’t know what to do after that. So she made lunch and we ate and tried to communicate… and it was nice. Then she put in a CD of thousands of English tunes (My Heart Will Go On, Complicated, Don’t Stop Believing, The Proclaimers, Imagine… pretty wide array) and we both sang. She sang just the sounds that she had memorized, which was basically gibberish, and it was so cute. And then it was time to go. And I left.

Okay, that was three pages of every minute detail of my life this weekend. But it just felt like a dream. So surreal. I was just a member of this Costa Rican family, trying to live like them and from their perspective. And completely helpless because I don’t understand them. I can’t imagine waking up in that tiny house everyday and singing karaoke and talking on the phone for hours while I sweep the carpet, and make potato, carrot and mayonnaise ensaladas, and watch my six-year-old son play with a plastic action figure from a burger king happy meal and then shudder with excitement, and give my papi pills throughout the day, and watch my cousins come in and out and talk to me, and walk everywhere you need to all the time, no matter the distance… Because all you have is time and relaxation. And that is how the Costa Ricans live and it's just perfect.

My most shameful self-confession is I am a full-fledged American, and a helpless victim to consumerism. We are not warned about these addictions, ones I never realized existed. How long will it take to not miss going online and buying anything I need and having it delivered directly to me, or making a quick and small investment in face wash at Wal-Mart, or getting in a car and driving somewhere I need to go (a necessary destination includes Kirstin’s house, or the video store), or pulling out my cell phone and texting someone when something text worthy happens, or forgetting my water bottle or shopping bags, and just using disposable ones. Obviously, I only do these things when I absolutely need to. And it’s not that often and it’s never very much (well, maybe not texting, so how much harm can it be doing? Ah well, I need it enough to actually feel the loneliness when it’s not there. Not everyone is like Americans. (No shit?) And practically no one lives like us. It’s scary to come to the grips with the fact that at this point, it straight up wouldn’t be easy to live differently. Definitely possible, but I can’t say how long it would take to adjust. And some addictions just don’t ever go away! That’s scary. The helplessness of privilege; being born in America.

And maybe the hardest part is that, as people become wealthier and as Costa Rica becomes more developed, they just want everything to be more like America. I was talking to some of my friends who stayed with people who were, for lack of a better word, rich. And they all reflected that everything they did was just more… Western. Video games, cars… I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel like the right way to go.

It’s good to feel like a family here. It’s a great boost to my self-esteem that ticos just want to mack on me hella. It was amazing having a weekend away from this center to spend in dreamland. And that is the end of the four pages of the beautiful things I do, mi amor. Pura vida.

Eyleen is the shit.