From Disorientation to Orientation

Dear Dr. Thacker,

I'm sorry these posts are so late...I haven't been able to get internet for the past couple of days, so this was actually written on July 2. Therefore, "yesterday" means July 1, and "today" means July 2. Just fyi....

Yesterday and today we had orientation to the culture, the program, and the school, but before all that we had quite a disorienting experience…

Yesterday, we didn’t have to be at the school until 2, but we were up at 7:30 for breakfast (it’s not as miraculous as it sounds…we’re still operating on Indiana/Vermont time, so it felt like 9:30).  Since we didn’t know what else to do, we decided to explore the area around the house.  Our primary goals were to find a place with free wi-fi (apparently very few and far between here) and to find a bank to change our money.  We accomplished neither of those goals, but we did have an interesting adventure. 

Our host family lives in a neighborhood called Sabanilla, which is about 2 miles from the University.  We wandered around for a while, admiring the brightly colored houses and the beautiful vegetation.  Then we started realizing that we had very little idea as to where we actually were…

The streets in San José don’t have names.  There are no street signs and very few directional signs at all.  That, combined with my innate lack of sense of direction, got me very lost, very fast.  Luckily, Hannah is better at remembering where we came from and places we had passed, so we found our way around…sort of.

After wandering around for a few hours and stopping at a supermercado to buy shampoo and body wash and stuff like that, we somehow wound up back at our host family’s casa.  We ate lunch, and then our host mom rode the bus with us to the University for orientation. 

After orientation, Cindy (our host sister) came and picked us up.  On the ride home, she taught us some street Spanish.  We learned that “mai” means “dude,” “tuanis” means “cool,” and “pura vida” means, basically, that life’s good.

When we got home, we relaxed for a while before dinner.  The food is excellent; our tica mom is an awesome cook.  As Hannah said, “It’s like living in a free restaurant!”  After dinner we talked to Cindy some more.  She’s 25 and really awesome.  She was joking with us and warning us to look out for the “Costa Rica ninjas.”

This morning we woke up at 7:30 again for breakfast, then went to the University for more orientation.  We learned about the classes and profs, got a tour of the HUGE campus, and got to see a Costa Rican dance team perform for us.  It was pretty cool, but kinda strange.  They make these high-pitched noises with their voices at random times during the dance; it freaked me out at first because I thought it was some kind of siren.  But once I got used to it, it was kinda cool.

After we ate lunch, I had to take a placement test; Hannah escaped that fate because she signed up for the grad-level classes.  How does that make sense? 

While I was taking the test, she found a flyer for a volunteer organization that was having a meeting today.  We miraculously found where it was and knocked until someone let us in.  They were in the middle of some meeting where some representatives from the Red Cross (Cruz Roja) and some children’s hospital were talking about the ways they volunteer.  During a break, we talked to several people, including the director of the organization (I think), who told us that if we came back on Monday at 2, we can meet the guy who organizes volunteer opportunities for people who are here for a short time.  So hopefully we’ll get to do some volunteer work while we’re here!

After we left from there, we walked back to Sabanilla, where our family lives.  On the way, we passed a clinic and stopped in to see if Hannah could shadow a doctor there.  She’s probably going to get to observe in an ambulance!  Sounds scary to me, but she’s really excited. 

Also on the way back, we stopped at an ATM, where I got some colones.  Then we stopped at a supermercado called Mas X Menos (Mas por Menos) so I could pick up a few things and get some smaller bills in change.  While we were standing in the crazy-long line, we met this random girl from Texas who’s also studying here.  She’s an elementary school teacher and really nice.  Hannah instantly bonded with her (I don’t know what’s up with her and elementary school teachers…it’s like instant bff-dom), and they ended up making plans to go to a volcano tomorrow!  I would go too, but I signed up earlier today to go on a one-day cruise to Tortuga Island tomorrow!  I’m pretty excited about that.

After coming back to the house, we ate dinner, then went out again so that Hannah could change her money.  We went back to Mas X Menos, and she tried to buy a couple things with a US $20, but two cashiers wouldn’t take it because it had a tiny tear in it!  It was kinda ridiculous.  But then she went to the Western Union inside Mas X Menos, and they changed it with no problem.

We walked back home and collapsed.  With all this walking, I’m going to be in such great shape at the end of this month!