An Australian in Costa Rica

Part Five

Ahh, Costa Rica.

Ok, so since my last email things have definitely gotten better. I have discovered that gullible is definitely a good thing - especially when one uses it to their advantage! So everyone in my group is now aware that I feel like an outsider because I do not have the same sense of humour, and nobody can understand my accent. Whether this has anything to with the fact I that they cannot understand my jokes  . . . !

I have started to make friends, but have not yet gone to the other side! Still retaining my sense of me!

So I have a letter that I am going to send to my mum:

Dear Mum,

I have recently discovered that you are lacking in certain areas as a mother. When I return home I would ask that in the mornings you serve me breakfast as soon as I get out of the shower. I like fresh fruit (water melon and cantaloupe) and a scrambled egg. No herbs are necessary but about half a cup of butter usually does the trick for flavour. The coffee should definitely be Costa Rican, and freshly brewed.

When I arrive home, I would like to discover that you have cleaned my bedroom, mopped or vacuumed my floor, and found my dirty washing (which I keep trying to hide in different places) and washed, folded and ironed them.

In evening when I arrive home, dinner should be already ready. I could help out if I desired but really it should be done already. And if I am late home, then you should make the whole family wait for me.

I now like dinner to consist of kidney beans, rice, and some kind of meat.

If I offer to wash the dishes, I would expect an argument to ensue as you would rather wash them, so I can play and speak English with my brothers.

And when I get really tired, I would like you to bring a large bucket of warm water into the living room for me to soak my feet (and no matter how much I protest) wipe the dirt off them, and then dry them.

Your loving and faithful daughter

Mucho Amor
Mykel.

Induction classes are still incredibly boring. The Spanish ones are good, but sapping any energy for the afternoons. We had another cultural adjustment session the other day where we had to write down our worse case scenarios. Mine were that my bus falls off a cliff and no one knows.

That’s a worse case scenario.

Another class was learning "how to teach" but it was like learning to suck eggs. Anyway, one of my mates decided he’d had enough. So we had this kid’s game to play where you were shown a fruit and the first person to yell out the name was the winner.

He YELLED out the answer. Someone would say platano, and he would bellow PLATANO!  (banana)


Anyway itinerary is as follows: tomorrow I go to my site, Garza for a weekend visit and no one knows that I am coming. Good.

Garza is where I will be living for a whole year. These are the people I am going to see everyday for the next eleven months.

Worse Case scenario: all the people from WorldTeach decide to come and live with me.

Next weekend I am going Coffee bean picking! I am so excited. I have never done anything like this before. My family in La Lucha can’t understand the excitement!

After the coffee bean experience I am going to Manual Antonio which is the most beautiful beach town in Costa Rica. I am going with some pretty cool people (Heather[who I met in Boston], Jeff [who has spent a lot of time with Brits], Dan [the wanna be med student who went to Brown], Michael [who is not referred to as Mike so makes my life confusing, the one who yelled out PLATANO], Jenni [who I also met in Boston, very cool chick and down to earth], Sam [nice smart down to earth], and Christa [looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch model]. These people definitely qualify as cool. And everyone here is really good looking so if you ever want to come down, or invest in a World Teach calendar.

Luckily the jewellery wearing and bacterial hand soap after every meal types are going to the other side of the country.