Maybe I should begin this post sighting the fact that 27 people from Sweden have looked at my blog in the past few days, since there really is no better place to start from. What a thing. Hopefully they all enjoyed themselves reading about my anxieties/+adventures on the other side of the globe. If they didn't know already, it's incredibly beautiful here. However, it's been a while since I've said that - the information they were receiving wasn't exactly up-to-date, hopefully there are no grudges being held.
Meanwhile, here I am...sitting on my bed with still-packed bags, scratching bug bites. It's the late afternoon and I feel deflated, and at the same time like there is an immense pressure on me. I've just come from essentially finishing my Block II of this ICADS Field Program.
Students in my group have been talking about how sad this is all day - - the truth is I really don't give a damn either way. Maybe I'm just too tired to give one. I think it's more that I'm just exhausted with how fast and relentlessly time flies. Always, always, always. And we're always complaining about it, too, like it's some new phenomenon. Like wasting our time by saying how time goes so fast will slow it down. Or maybe let other people realize how much we value the time the time we've already lost with them. Calling it 'lost' time in itself seems fairly morbid, since there is no physical way we will ever get that time back. Ugh.
More than ever in my life I've been noticing how whiny I am these past three weeks. Maybe I should clarify - more than ever I've been noticing how I can't stand to listen to myself whine.
And before I get too deep into this - I know, I should be writing about everything I've seen and done - but I haven't the faintest clue about where to begin...so this is where we're going to start.
Probably it's the closeness with a small group of other students my age, from similar socio-economic backgrounds,which has amplified how much I notice the way I speak about the world, and how I react to it outwardly (and inwardly as well - just as, if not more importantly). Over the past three weeks I have seen more and learned more than I ever did in my entirety of high school, and yet the whole time I probably spoke more about a variety the little things I was dealing with (such as food, mosquitoes, fatigue, heat...the list goes on) more than I did about the actually tough subjects I've come to Costa Rica to learn about.
We culminated the Field program by completing one of the seemingly-longest hikes (in reality probably one of the shortest I've been on). We were climbing up through dry-forest to visit limestone bluffs to see out across expanses of marshland and rice paddies in Guanacaste. Recently, the entire country (continent even, maybe) has been soaking wet from endless rain, meaning the whole way we were swarmed by mosquitoes.
Not to whine yet again (it's endless! I can't believe it), but it was the same whining in my head that ruined the hike for me, and later really stung (more than the bug bites) when I realized how much I've missed just from grumbling over the petty annoyances of day-to-day life during these past three weeks. They held so much sway over me, practically controlling not only what I was thinking about but also how I felt in response. And in general, I'm an agreeable person, who tries to enjoy herself around everyone and everything (that's actually an exaggeration - but I do try). And where does place everyone else I know? What have the other students I was with gathered? What have students from past years gathered?
This anxiety possible comes from the pressure I've begin feeling now that I realize I have learned every single event on our crowded three week syllabus, attended class from 7 AM to 8 PM, and am now leaving with an intense sense of insecurity about how substantial what I have actually come away with is. Or whether I have come away with enough in comparison to how incredible the things I've just seen and done are. For some reason it feels incredibly inconcrete, like I've filled up my belly with food and will be hungry again tomorrow morning, or that the experiences I've had will slowly begin to seep out through my ears until there's nothing left but the shell of the memories. I won't remember the names of the people I met, their shoes, the smell of their houses. Or the shape of the leaves or the stripes on the beetles wings. In fact, I possibly won't remember very much at all from these past three weeks. And I don't think keeping a journal (if I'd ever had the time) could have changed that. Or any amount of sitting and thinking about how beautiful each moment is and how much I want to keep it.
All of this sounds ridiculous. And it is. But I'm just throwing a fit since the real intangibility of everything is sinking in - or maybe for the first time I feel dwarfed by how much there is to learn and yet personally responsible for not learning enough. Where the fuck do I go from here?
Well. I'll say where I think I'm going, at least for the next three weeks. But the foundations of everything else seem to be on the wobblier side right now, and I don't think any presumptions should be made on this blog about where I'll be a year from now, or worse, two years from now. Right now, all I can (and should - as I am realizing) be thinking about is right now, with a dash of spice from the past.
Nevermind! I'm not going to tell you where I'm going. I don't have time right now - but I'm around all week doing exams and will write more. For now, apparently I just came to brood and grumble a little. You'll have to wait for the cheery stuff for later.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Now some Neruda for myself
While I am writing, I'm far away;
and when I come back, I've gone.
I would like to know if others
go through the same things that I do,
have as many selves as I have,
and see themselves similarly;
and when I've exhausted this problem,
I'm going to study so hard
that when I explain myself,
I'll be talking geography.
Dear anonymous public,
If you were worrying, please don't! I'm alive and well, bug-bitten and be-freckled.
I will write about the past two couple weeks as soon as I have a moment to get caught up!
Thanks too for your maintained interest in my ramblings.
xoxo Cady
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Medicine and a Museum
Today I received some well-wanted advice telling me that I should write less but more frequently so as to not get too overwhelmed. Like a new diet-plan. I don't know whether that will go hand-in-hand with my program here though - seems like I'm only going to be getting on the world wide web only occasionally over the next three weeks - but it seems a lot more sensible.
I'm packing right now actually, but haven't made progress for hours and would rather procrastinate here than move forward with my baggage. I can't figure out how I'm going to fit everything with this winter coat I have to bring, and need some time to puzzle that together in my head.
So I've been a little traumatized over the past 24 hours by this cold. I decided to stay in last night, thankfully; I've since been plagued by hours of racking coughs and endless bloody noses. But now I'm on the other side of the cold, I just needed to whine since I've been downplaying it to my poor host family who has to deal with me.
I did go to the pharmacy and buy some medicine this morning. After a rough sleep last night and waking up to yet another bloody nose, my host mother counseled me on what medicines to ask for over a breakfast of fried torillas and fresh cheese, giant pinapple slices, bananas, fruit juice, and coffee. She's been incredibly sweet during this whole ordeal. Despite my host aunt Ana recovering from a serious surgery right now, Rosy has been devoting time to feed me strange fish soups and hot ginger and lemon juice teas, and to make sure I don't get my hands wet, all in order to help me get better. My Spanish teacher also had some folk wisdom - make sure my back doesn't get cold or wet.
Either way, what I ended up buying at the pharmacy I dropped on the sidewalk during the 20 meter walk back home, while I was feverishly juggling my umbrella, purse, and bag full of tissue boxes (stocking up for this week's trip). With a sinking heart, I shook the little bag of medicine and heard the liquid sound of a smashed bottle becoming swirling shards of glass. I was already at the red front gates of my home, so I dropped the rest of my things in my room, shook the plastic bag (the corners of which were now leaking clear, smelly Tutti Frutti flavored medicine) for my host mother Rosy, and she lamented and cried "Ohhhh, Cady! No..!" On my next visit, the people at the pharmacy ended up giving me an extra mini-bottle of the foul cough syrup for free, since it's expensive, and I think they felt terrible - I was such a mess and clearly can't be trusted to carry a plastic bag.
Rosy at some point around this time sent my host dad down and across the street to the pharmacy to help me and make sure I didn't drop the second bottle. He asked me a lot of quick questions and started harassing the doctors who work there a little for me, which just made me drop more things in the store. I think that most of the time people tend to assume that since I can't speak Spanish, I don't try to get messages across. Or they guess that people won't understand. The very frank truth is, yes, I don't speak this language. But on the other hand, I'm constantly telling people all the shit they need to know and they're all totally getting it. So the doctors at the pharmacy knew what was up, and despite having dropped the medicine, I was able to fend for myself and get my ailments taken care of. My host mom did spoon feed me the cough syrup though. That one took me by surprise. I thought she was handing me a spoon to do it myself but by then the medicine was poured and on its way to my mouth, "Like a baby!" she said. At that point I was glad to give up my facade of being in control and to let her go wash the spoon and let me curl up in bed and finally sleep without coughs.
I slept most of the day. It took 9 hours to upload one 45 minute episode of Mad Men, and I can't figure out what it was about beyond Bob Dylan and homosexuality in the 1950's. But it's a pretty show, and it cheered me up a little, even though I've decided it was a silly idea to try to watch any tv. I sent a few half-assed emails, and read the Russian novel I picked up on a bookshelf at ICADS called "The White Guard". It's about fear and frustration waiting for the effects of World War II in a city in wintertime. Every chapter begins talking about the hoar-frost, and there's a lot of drinking, lamps, and warm weather clothing.
Which brings me to my second (umpteenth) thought. Yesterday I went with friends to the Museum of Contemporary Art in San José. We all met in the central "Cultural Plaza", where giant flocks of hundreds of pigeons circled just feet above our heads, and ended at this museum, located in a shockingly clean and open area full of museums and other serious institutions. But this museum was great! Small, though clearly a well funded and well connected institution. There was a wonderful Japanese collection there with a lot of nice pieces, such as a number of aesthetically crispy photos and sculptures, some modern societal-caricature-through-calligraphy, and a couple electric fish harps. But what struck me most about this museum was its small corner in it's top floor, where there was a a collection of photos of colorful Japanese festivals, and of the survivors of the recent earthquake and tsunami. One wall had a tv playing on loop the testimony of the miraculous survival of several people who were nearly swept out to see in the backwash of the tidal wave in their cars or homes, and who somehow managed to escape being carried out and lost to the ocean.
As I watched these testimonies alone in sadness, snuffling through my stuffed nose, I realized that there was a Japanese woman snuffling behind me, in tears as she walked through these ten to twelve photographs. In that moment, in this strange attic exhibit in this empty museum in Costa Rica with this crying woman who I also know did not belong there - but at the same time belonged there more than I, I felt incredibly lost and out of place. There was something so deeply sad about these two people who have uprooted themselves (who still have strong roots to what we were looking at, roots through our families and friends) looking at photos of people who have lost their homes and their families and their friends.
I don't in any way mean to trivialize the experiences of those we were observing by focusing on the two of us instead, rather just wanted to try and convey my personal reaction.
What was so clear was the connectedness of it all - of the earthquake, of this woman, of why we were both there. There was so much more as well, a connectedness to the people who miraculously survived and who lived to show the bridges and cars that saved them on tv so it could be played in loops in a museum in San Jose, as well as a connectedness to those who were swept into the sea, to the people I meet on the street, to the people back in every home I call home, to me. And I was more aware of this connectedness than I have in a long time.
It's so easy to allow oneself to get boxed up into one's own small, conditioned life that you become blind to how relevant every single thing is to who you are. You can never keep up with it all, no, but you also never have to limit yourself, or blind yourself into thinking in terms of what interests you've decided upon at that time, or what priorities seem the most important in that moment, or what future goals seem the prettiest. I think that traveling - never mind it's other nice qualities - quickly is able to snap the boundaries we've created (or accepted) for where our life ends and other's begins, and at least for me, I suddenly remember my own values beyond final papers and rent checks, in terms of what really means something deeply to me. I kick myself every time I feel this happening, too, because I should be able to this to myself. I should be in control of my own vision. As we all should. I'd say that maybe that's something that comes with age, but on second thought, there are many older people who've let themselves be blinded by accepting different rules and concepts of what is right and how we have to be, and what we need to want in life in order to ever go anywhere. It's probably good for the economy, or something.
I have no idea how this turned from me whining to such a long post. Hopefully it makes up somewhat for how short the rest of my posts will be over the next couple weeks as I travel..
My host sister sounds like she's crying in the next room with her boyfriend, the bus that got wedged in the intersection in front of my house finally got unstuck after several hours, and the karaoke bar across the street has finally turned down it's disco music. I think I need to sleep. So much for writing something short.
I'm packing right now actually, but haven't made progress for hours and would rather procrastinate here than move forward with my baggage. I can't figure out how I'm going to fit everything with this winter coat I have to bring, and need some time to puzzle that together in my head.
So I've been a little traumatized over the past 24 hours by this cold. I decided to stay in last night, thankfully; I've since been plagued by hours of racking coughs and endless bloody noses. But now I'm on the other side of the cold, I just needed to whine since I've been downplaying it to my poor host family who has to deal with me.
I did go to the pharmacy and buy some medicine this morning. After a rough sleep last night and waking up to yet another bloody nose, my host mother counseled me on what medicines to ask for over a breakfast of fried torillas and fresh cheese, giant pinapple slices, bananas, fruit juice, and coffee. She's been incredibly sweet during this whole ordeal. Despite my host aunt Ana recovering from a serious surgery right now, Rosy has been devoting time to feed me strange fish soups and hot ginger and lemon juice teas, and to make sure I don't get my hands wet, all in order to help me get better. My Spanish teacher also had some folk wisdom - make sure my back doesn't get cold or wet.
Either way, what I ended up buying at the pharmacy I dropped on the sidewalk during the 20 meter walk back home, while I was feverishly juggling my umbrella, purse, and bag full of tissue boxes (stocking up for this week's trip). With a sinking heart, I shook the little bag of medicine and heard the liquid sound of a smashed bottle becoming swirling shards of glass. I was already at the red front gates of my home, so I dropped the rest of my things in my room, shook the plastic bag (the corners of which were now leaking clear, smelly Tutti Frutti flavored medicine) for my host mother Rosy, and she lamented and cried "Ohhhh, Cady! No..!" On my next visit, the people at the pharmacy ended up giving me an extra mini-bottle of the foul cough syrup for free, since it's expensive, and I think they felt terrible - I was such a mess and clearly can't be trusted to carry a plastic bag.
Rosy at some point around this time sent my host dad down and across the street to the pharmacy to help me and make sure I didn't drop the second bottle. He asked me a lot of quick questions and started harassing the doctors who work there a little for me, which just made me drop more things in the store. I think that most of the time people tend to assume that since I can't speak Spanish, I don't try to get messages across. Or they guess that people won't understand. The very frank truth is, yes, I don't speak this language. But on the other hand, I'm constantly telling people all the shit they need to know and they're all totally getting it. So the doctors at the pharmacy knew what was up, and despite having dropped the medicine, I was able to fend for myself and get my ailments taken care of. My host mom did spoon feed me the cough syrup though. That one took me by surprise. I thought she was handing me a spoon to do it myself but by then the medicine was poured and on its way to my mouth, "Like a baby!" she said. At that point I was glad to give up my facade of being in control and to let her go wash the spoon and let me curl up in bed and finally sleep without coughs.
I slept most of the day. It took 9 hours to upload one 45 minute episode of Mad Men, and I can't figure out what it was about beyond Bob Dylan and homosexuality in the 1950's. But it's a pretty show, and it cheered me up a little, even though I've decided it was a silly idea to try to watch any tv. I sent a few half-assed emails, and read the Russian novel I picked up on a bookshelf at ICADS called "The White Guard". It's about fear and frustration waiting for the effects of World War II in a city in wintertime. Every chapter begins talking about the hoar-frost, and there's a lot of drinking, lamps, and warm weather clothing.
Which brings me to my second (umpteenth) thought. Yesterday I went with friends to the Museum of Contemporary Art in San José. We all met in the central "Cultural Plaza", where giant flocks of hundreds of pigeons circled just feet above our heads, and ended at this museum, located in a shockingly clean and open area full of museums and other serious institutions. But this museum was great! Small, though clearly a well funded and well connected institution. There was a wonderful Japanese collection there with a lot of nice pieces, such as a number of aesthetically crispy photos and sculptures, some modern societal-caricature-through-calligraphy, and a couple electric fish harps. But what struck me most about this museum was its small corner in it's top floor, where there was a a collection of photos of colorful Japanese festivals, and of the survivors of the recent earthquake and tsunami. One wall had a tv playing on loop the testimony of the miraculous survival of several people who were nearly swept out to see in the backwash of the tidal wave in their cars or homes, and who somehow managed to escape being carried out and lost to the ocean.
As I watched these testimonies alone in sadness, snuffling through my stuffed nose, I realized that there was a Japanese woman snuffling behind me, in tears as she walked through these ten to twelve photographs. In that moment, in this strange attic exhibit in this empty museum in Costa Rica with this crying woman who I also know did not belong there - but at the same time belonged there more than I, I felt incredibly lost and out of place. There was something so deeply sad about these two people who have uprooted themselves (who still have strong roots to what we were looking at, roots through our families and friends) looking at photos of people who have lost their homes and their families and their friends.
I don't in any way mean to trivialize the experiences of those we were observing by focusing on the two of us instead, rather just wanted to try and convey my personal reaction.
What was so clear was the connectedness of it all - of the earthquake, of this woman, of why we were both there. There was so much more as well, a connectedness to the people who miraculously survived and who lived to show the bridges and cars that saved them on tv so it could be played in loops in a museum in San Jose, as well as a connectedness to those who were swept into the sea, to the people I meet on the street, to the people back in every home I call home, to me. And I was more aware of this connectedness than I have in a long time.
It's so easy to allow oneself to get boxed up into one's own small, conditioned life that you become blind to how relevant every single thing is to who you are. You can never keep up with it all, no, but you also never have to limit yourself, or blind yourself into thinking in terms of what interests you've decided upon at that time, or what priorities seem the most important in that moment, or what future goals seem the prettiest. I think that traveling - never mind it's other nice qualities - quickly is able to snap the boundaries we've created (or accepted) for where our life ends and other's begins, and at least for me, I suddenly remember my own values beyond final papers and rent checks, in terms of what really means something deeply to me. I kick myself every time I feel this happening, too, because I should be able to this to myself. I should be in control of my own vision. As we all should. I'd say that maybe that's something that comes with age, but on second thought, there are many older people who've let themselves be blinded by accepting different rules and concepts of what is right and how we have to be, and what we need to want in life in order to ever go anywhere. It's probably good for the economy, or something.
I have no idea how this turned from me whining to such a long post. Hopefully it makes up somewhat for how short the rest of my posts will be over the next couple weeks as I travel..
My host sister sounds like she's crying in the next room with her boyfriend, the bus that got wedged in the intersection in front of my house finally got unstuck after several hours, and the karaoke bar across the street has finally turned down it's disco music. I think I need to sleep. So much for writing something short.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Une Adresse Générale Au Public Français
So she had passed her childhood, like a half-wild cat. Philip Pullman
La semaine derniere, j'ai trouvée un facon de voir quelle, de toutes les pays en ce grand monde, lisent mon blog, et quien veulent apprender un peu plus de ma vie costaricien. Tous les jours, il y a au moins sept personnes francais qui lisent. Et de voir cette statistique me rende trés heureuse - j'ai toujours peur que j'y vais perder mes amis francais au passage du temps; les changements d'age, de charactere, ou simplement de lieu. Je sais personellement que est super difficile de guarder contacte avec amis qui vivent trés loin. Avec chaque année qui passent, je peux voir sur Facebook comment mes amis changent, et comment, peux a peux, ils divient de plus en plus loin de ces jeunes que j'ai eu la chance de connaitre en France - maintenant il y a presque six années.
Ici en Costa Rica, je ne parles pas souvent de mis amis et famille en France. Je reconais enfin la chance que j'ai eu (et que j'ai) d'avoir pu faire une sejour si longue en un pays si magnifique, et je reconais aussi que ici, beaucoup de monde ne peuvent pas engager avec ca. D'aller en Europe est comme une reve - et c'est la meme chose aux Etats Unis, mais j'ai eu la chance de realizer cette reve. Je parles de mon sejour d'un an seulement quand je veux m'exuser pour mon accent terrible (je n'arrive jamais a faire le "R"), quand quelqu'un me demande en quelles pays j'ai deja voyagée (es surprenant combien de temps j'ai deja respondu a cette question), ou si ils demandent si je me sens seule parce que je suis une fille unique (aussi, trés rares ici). En realité, je me sens trés, trés loin d'etre une 'fille unique', mais c'est une histoire pour une autre fois.
Malgré tout, le voyage et les rencontres que j'ai fais en France a la jeune age de seize y dix-sept ans sont en ma tete quasiment tous le temps. En los Etats Unis, j'ai peux me separer un peu de la parte de me espirit qui voulaient retour en France, et qui parlaient en francais en les ombres de me pensées, et pensaient toutes les jours a ma maison et famille francais, parce que je ne pouvaient pas continuent de vivir en deux pays a la meme fois, sans me perdre dans le monde que j'ai vecu physiquement.
Il y a un livre, je pense que c'est "La Bousoulle d'Or" en francais (au fait, je l'ai vu en France avec ma soeur d'accueille, il y a maintenant beaucoup des années). Je ne me souviens pas completement de la livre, car mon pere et moi le lisaient quand j'etais tres jeune, mais dedans il y a une petit fille, et su espirit se manifeste a l'exterieur d'elle en la forme d'un animal. Son pere, un homme trés inteligent et trés mal, est en train de faire des experiments sur d'autres petits enfants, de voir et capter l'energie quand les enfants et leurs espirits sont separés. Je devrais le relire, parce que je croix il y a beaucoup de choses que je n'ai pas apercu en lisant la premiere fois comme jeune fille, mais en ce moment seulement je voulais montrer le parallele que je vois (un peu!) avec l'histoire - de laisser une culture, un lieu, et une facon de vivre et penser derriere est comme de perdre un morceau de son espirit, et tous que nous perdons avec ca, ou d'apporter les deux a la meme temps et d'essayer de faire une sorte d'equilibré..
Je ne sais pas ou je veux aller avec tous ca, je croix que peut etre j'ai voulu seulement partager un peu comment je me sens en ce moment. Et ce n'est meme pas avec l'addition de la culture costaricien de plus..Tous est trés, trés déconcertant en ce moment. A hier Antonio, la chef de mon programme a ICADS - Le Institut de développement de l'Amérique Centrale), parlait des ponts. Il disait que nous sommes maintenant (et peut-etre etions deja) des ponts entre deux cultures - et que la chose qu'est dificile pour los ponts est que ils ne sont jamais d'une cote de la riviere ou l'autre. Je croix que meme avant de partir en France, je me suis toujours trouvée avec deux pieds en deux mondes diferentes: entre multiples maisons, etats, parentes, amis, écoles. C'est un peu du coté dramatique, mais c'est la verité. Et maintenant, meme plus que quand j'étais en France, ou depuis quand je rentrais en Maine, je n'arrive pas a trouver ou j'ai mis les pieds ou l'equilibre que je tenait avant d'intoducir ce nouveau pays et culture.
Mais je veux pas me plaigner, j'ai tant de chance de pouvoir venir en Costa Rica pour 3 mois et demi. Je ne sais pas comment je suis arrivée ici, il y a beaucoup de choses qui marchaient ensemble, mais maintenant je me trouve en un pays practiquement désigné pour tous que j'etudie a la fac - la justice environnementale, la biologie, et l'histoire de la conquete et les droits des Amerindiens, et tous les jours je rencontre plus de choses fascinantes...Pour la premiere fois dans ma vie, je suis dans un pays qui a la majorité de tout qui m'interesse en forme brut. Je ne sais pas ou commencer.. Tous les jours, en la rue ou en mes classes, je suis écrasée par toute l'information que j'apprends. Mais a la meme fois, je ne suis pas trés heureuse en cette ville, ou necessairement en ce pays. Bien sur que c'est magnifique ici, et j'adore ma famille d'acceuille, la nourriture, la langue, et l'histoire et charactere unique de Costa Rica. Peut-etre c'est seulement parce que nous n'avons pas encore voyager beaucoup en Costa Rica - autour del capital San José est tout. Nous verrons, parce que pour la prochaine 3 or 4 semaines, je vais voyager partout avec ma classe en la 'Programme de la Campagne' de ICADS, rentrant les weekends pour laver nos vetements sales. Nous allons voir et aprender de agricultores, de profesors d'histoire, la politiques, et la science, de gens qui travaillent pour des associations importantes ici en Costa Rica, de immigrantes et autre gens qui n'ont pas du voix ici....C'est trés possible que apres trés semaines d'avoir vue beaucoup plus de ce pays, je vais avoir une autre (et peut-etre plus réel) comprehension de ce pays. En ce moment c'est plutot concontrée autour de San José, une ville moche (comme celles des Etats Unis!) qui est dangereuse - plus pour les femmes plutot que hommes. Honnetement, la chose qui m'embete le plus est que je ne peux absolument pas me promener en la nuit, et comme j'ai toujours venu dans des lieux trés isolées mais quand meme sans danger, c'est etouffant pour moi de vivir ici, en une vallée polluée qui est loin de la mere. Heureusement, j'ai eu la chance de me trouver avec une famille d'accuielle ici qui tiene deux petites fermes autour de la ville - une dans les montagnes de Cartago, l'autre je ne sais pas ou encore.
Je sais que a peu pres juste 1 en 5 arrive a comprendre toutes mes pensées normalement quand j'ecris en anglais.. et je sais aussi que ce n'est pas juste de ecrire seulement en anglais, seulement pour les gens en ma vie qui parle cette langue. Mais en ce moment honnetement pour moi le travaille est de me forcer d'ecrire et de penser a tous les choses que je rencontre tous les jours, et la fait que les gens peuvent lire mon blog est un peu bizzare pour moi - especialement si ils parles anglais et peuvent comprendre tous mes pensées intimes. En ce moment, tous est trés confondu en ma tete, et maintenant le monde entier peux partager cette sensation avec moi. C'est assez etrange..Mais c'est pour ca que je veux dire que si jamais il y a des personnes qui voulent que je fais plus de traductions (je ne peux pas tous le temps - ils sont super dificiles maintenant que j'apprends espagnole), je serais plus que contente de les faire. Je ne veux pas excluer les gens - c'est exactement pourquoi j'apprends espagnole en ce moment! Pour pouvoir communiquer avec tous! Si ambitieux! Je sais! Mais je suis jeune, et de d'etre jeune signifié que je peux essayer de faire l'impossible. Et si je n'arrive pas, bah - je vais essayer de faire autre choses encore plus dificiles.
Last week I discovered how to see which, of all the countries in this big world, are reading my blog, and who is trying to learn a little more about my Costa Rican life. Every day there are at least 7 French people who read. To see that statistic makes me very happy - I'm always afriad that I am going to lose my French friends to the passage of time, development of age and character, or simply a change in location. I personally know how very difficult it is to keep in touch with friends who live dar away. Every year that goes by I can see on Facebook how my friends have changed, and how, little by little, they become something further and further from the young people I had the luck to grow to know in France - now almost six years ago.
Here in Costa Rica, I don't speak often about my friends and family in France. I finally truly recognize the luck that I had (and have) to have been able to stay for so long in a such a magnificent country, and I also recognize that here, very few people can engage with that opportunity that I had. To go to Europe is like a dream here. And it's the same thing in the U.S., but I still had the opportunity to realize this dream and make it a reality. I speak of my year-long homestay only when I want to excuse myself for my terrible accent (I never ever can make the "rrrr" sound), when someone asks me what countries I have visited (it's surprising how often I've been asked this question), or if they ask me if I am lonely since I am an only child (also, very rare here). Honestly, I feel very, very far away from being an "only child", but that's a story for another time.
Despite everything, the time and the encounters that I made in France at the young age of sixteen and seventeen years are in my head nearly all the time. In the United States, I was able to separate myself from the part of my spirit that wanted to return to France, which spoke in French in the shadows of my mind, and which thought every single day of my house and family in France, because I could not continue to live in two countries at the same time without losing myself in the world I actually inhabited. Which I did a little anyways, perhaps one of the side effects of having gone abroad so young.
There's a book called the "Golden Compass" (in fact, I saw the film in France with my host sister several years ago now). I don't remember the book completely, as my father and I read it when I was very young, but in it there is a little girl, and her spirit manifests itself outside of her body in the form of an animal. Her father, a very smart and very evil man, is conducting experiments on children, to observe and capture the energy released when the children and their spirits are separated. I should reread it, because I believe there are a lot of aspects I missed reading the book as a young girl myself. For the moment I only wanted to show a parallel that I saw (just a little!) with the story - - - to leave a culture, a location, and a way of living and thinking behind is like losing a bit of one's soul, and everything that we lose with that, or to try to live the two at the same time and to try to create a sort of balance..
I don't know where I want to go with all of this, I believe that possible I just wanted to share a little of how I feel in this moment. And that's not even with the additional of the Costa Rican culture on top.. Everything is very, very confusing right now. Yesterday Antonio, the head of my program at ICADS, spoke about bridges. He said that be are (and possibly already were) bridges between cultures, and that the thing with bridges is that we are never on one side of the river or the other. I think even before I left for France, I have always found myself with two feet in two different worlds: between different homes, states, parents, friends, schools. It's a little on the dramatic side, but it's the truth. And now, even more than when I was in France, or after when I returned to Maine, I can't seem to remember where I put my feet, or how I managed to put them there, or what balance I had before introducing this new country and culture and language.
But I don't want want you to think that I am complaining - I am so lucky to have been able to come to Costa Rica for 3 and a half months. I don't even know how I came to be here, there were many things that worked together, but now I find myself in a country that is practically designed for everything I study in university: environmental justice, biology, and history of conquest and the rights of Native Americans. And every day I encounter more and more fascinating things.. For the first time in my life, I am in a country which has everything I am interested in, in a much more raw form. I don't know where to begin. Every day, in the street or in my classes, I am crushed by how much I'm learning. But at the same time, I am not very happy in this city, or even necessarily in this country. Of course it is magnificent here, and I love my host family, the food, the language, and the unique history and character of Costa Rica. Maybe it's only because we have not yet traveled much within Costa Rica - outside the capital city San Jose is really it. We'll see, because for the next three or four weeks, I am going to travel everywhere with my class in the Field Program, coming back only for weekends to do laundry. We're going to see and learn from farmers, professors of history, politics, and science, from people who work for important Costa Rican associations, from immigrants, and others who do not have strong voices in the country. It's very possible that after three weeks of seeing so much more of this country, that I will have a totally different (and possible more realistic) understanding of this country. In this moment it's rather concentrated in and around San Jose, an ugly city (like US cities!) which is dangerous - for women more than for men. Honestly, the thing that bothers me the most is that I absolutely can't walk around at night, and as I've always lived in very isolated places where there was no risk, its stuffy to live in a polluted valley full of cars that is far from the sea. Happily, I have had the insane luck to land in a home with a host family that has two little farms outside of the city - one in the mountains of Cartago, the other I don't know where yet.
I know that just about 1 in 5 french people are able to understand my thoughts when I write in english..and I also know that it isn't fair to only write in english, only for the people in my life who understand that language. But at this time, honestly for me the work is to force myself to write and to think about all the things that I encounter on a day to day basis, and the fact that people can read these thoughts on my blog is a little strange for me - especially if they're english speakers and are able to clue right into and understand all (well..maybe) my personal thoughts. Right now, everything is a little crazy in my head, and now the whole world can share that confusion with me. It's pretty weird. But that's why I wanted to say that if there are ever people who would like me to translate (I can't do this all the time - it's super hard now that I am learning Spanish - otherwise I'd already be doing so), I'd be happy to. I don't want to exclude anyone without even realizing - that's exactly why I am learning Spanish at the moment! So I can communicate with everyone! So ambitious! I know! But I am young, and to be young means that I can try and accomplish the impossible. And if I can't, well, I'll try to do something even harder.
La semaine derniere, j'ai trouvée un facon de voir quelle, de toutes les pays en ce grand monde, lisent mon blog, et quien veulent apprender un peu plus de ma vie costaricien. Tous les jours, il y a au moins sept personnes francais qui lisent. Et de voir cette statistique me rende trés heureuse - j'ai toujours peur que j'y vais perder mes amis francais au passage du temps; les changements d'age, de charactere, ou simplement de lieu. Je sais personellement que est super difficile de guarder contacte avec amis qui vivent trés loin. Avec chaque année qui passent, je peux voir sur Facebook comment mes amis changent, et comment, peux a peux, ils divient de plus en plus loin de ces jeunes que j'ai eu la chance de connaitre en France - maintenant il y a presque six années.
Ici en Costa Rica, je ne parles pas souvent de mis amis et famille en France. Je reconais enfin la chance que j'ai eu (et que j'ai) d'avoir pu faire une sejour si longue en un pays si magnifique, et je reconais aussi que ici, beaucoup de monde ne peuvent pas engager avec ca. D'aller en Europe est comme une reve - et c'est la meme chose aux Etats Unis, mais j'ai eu la chance de realizer cette reve. Je parles de mon sejour d'un an seulement quand je veux m'exuser pour mon accent terrible (je n'arrive jamais a faire le "R"), quand quelqu'un me demande en quelles pays j'ai deja voyagée (es surprenant combien de temps j'ai deja respondu a cette question), ou si ils demandent si je me sens seule parce que je suis une fille unique (aussi, trés rares ici). En realité, je me sens trés, trés loin d'etre une 'fille unique', mais c'est une histoire pour une autre fois.
Malgré tout, le voyage et les rencontres que j'ai fais en France a la jeune age de seize y dix-sept ans sont en ma tete quasiment tous le temps. En los Etats Unis, j'ai peux me separer un peu de la parte de me espirit qui voulaient retour en France, et qui parlaient en francais en les ombres de me pensées, et pensaient toutes les jours a ma maison et famille francais, parce que je ne pouvaient pas continuent de vivir en deux pays a la meme fois, sans me perdre dans le monde que j'ai vecu physiquement.
Il y a un livre, je pense que c'est "La Bousoulle d'Or" en francais (au fait, je l'ai vu en France avec ma soeur d'accueille, il y a maintenant beaucoup des années). Je ne me souviens pas completement de la livre, car mon pere et moi le lisaient quand j'etais tres jeune, mais dedans il y a une petit fille, et su espirit se manifeste a l'exterieur d'elle en la forme d'un animal. Son pere, un homme trés inteligent et trés mal, est en train de faire des experiments sur d'autres petits enfants, de voir et capter l'energie quand les enfants et leurs espirits sont separés. Je devrais le relire, parce que je croix il y a beaucoup de choses que je n'ai pas apercu en lisant la premiere fois comme jeune fille, mais en ce moment seulement je voulais montrer le parallele que je vois (un peu!) avec l'histoire - de laisser une culture, un lieu, et une facon de vivre et penser derriere est comme de perdre un morceau de son espirit, et tous que nous perdons avec ca, ou d'apporter les deux a la meme temps et d'essayer de faire une sorte d'equilibré..
Je ne sais pas ou je veux aller avec tous ca, je croix que peut etre j'ai voulu seulement partager un peu comment je me sens en ce moment. Et ce n'est meme pas avec l'addition de la culture costaricien de plus..Tous est trés, trés déconcertant en ce moment. A hier Antonio, la chef de mon programme a ICADS - Le Institut de développement de l'Amérique Centrale), parlait des ponts. Il disait que nous sommes maintenant (et peut-etre etions deja) des ponts entre deux cultures - et que la chose qu'est dificile pour los ponts est que ils ne sont jamais d'une cote de la riviere ou l'autre. Je croix que meme avant de partir en France, je me suis toujours trouvée avec deux pieds en deux mondes diferentes: entre multiples maisons, etats, parentes, amis, écoles. C'est un peu du coté dramatique, mais c'est la verité. Et maintenant, meme plus que quand j'étais en France, ou depuis quand je rentrais en Maine, je n'arrive pas a trouver ou j'ai mis les pieds ou l'equilibre que je tenait avant d'intoducir ce nouveau pays et culture.
Mais je veux pas me plaigner, j'ai tant de chance de pouvoir venir en Costa Rica pour 3 mois et demi. Je ne sais pas comment je suis arrivée ici, il y a beaucoup de choses qui marchaient ensemble, mais maintenant je me trouve en un pays practiquement désigné pour tous que j'etudie a la fac - la justice environnementale, la biologie, et l'histoire de la conquete et les droits des Amerindiens, et tous les jours je rencontre plus de choses fascinantes...Pour la premiere fois dans ma vie, je suis dans un pays qui a la majorité de tout qui m'interesse en forme brut. Je ne sais pas ou commencer.. Tous les jours, en la rue ou en mes classes, je suis écrasée par toute l'information que j'apprends. Mais a la meme fois, je ne suis pas trés heureuse en cette ville, ou necessairement en ce pays. Bien sur que c'est magnifique ici, et j'adore ma famille d'acceuille, la nourriture, la langue, et l'histoire et charactere unique de Costa Rica. Peut-etre c'est seulement parce que nous n'avons pas encore voyager beaucoup en Costa Rica - autour del capital San José est tout. Nous verrons, parce que pour la prochaine 3 or 4 semaines, je vais voyager partout avec ma classe en la 'Programme de la Campagne' de ICADS, rentrant les weekends pour laver nos vetements sales. Nous allons voir et aprender de agricultores, de profesors d'histoire, la politiques, et la science, de gens qui travaillent pour des associations importantes ici en Costa Rica, de immigrantes et autre gens qui n'ont pas du voix ici....C'est trés possible que apres trés semaines d'avoir vue beaucoup plus de ce pays, je vais avoir une autre (et peut-etre plus réel) comprehension de ce pays. En ce moment c'est plutot concontrée autour de San José, une ville moche (comme celles des Etats Unis!) qui est dangereuse - plus pour les femmes plutot que hommes. Honnetement, la chose qui m'embete le plus est que je ne peux absolument pas me promener en la nuit, et comme j'ai toujours venu dans des lieux trés isolées mais quand meme sans danger, c'est etouffant pour moi de vivir ici, en une vallée polluée qui est loin de la mere. Heureusement, j'ai eu la chance de me trouver avec une famille d'accuielle ici qui tiene deux petites fermes autour de la ville - une dans les montagnes de Cartago, l'autre je ne sais pas ou encore.
Je sais que a peu pres juste 1 en 5 arrive a comprendre toutes mes pensées normalement quand j'ecris en anglais.. et je sais aussi que ce n'est pas juste de ecrire seulement en anglais, seulement pour les gens en ma vie qui parle cette langue. Mais en ce moment honnetement pour moi le travaille est de me forcer d'ecrire et de penser a tous les choses que je rencontre tous les jours, et la fait que les gens peuvent lire mon blog est un peu bizzare pour moi - especialement si ils parles anglais et peuvent comprendre tous mes pensées intimes. En ce moment, tous est trés confondu en ma tete, et maintenant le monde entier peux partager cette sensation avec moi. C'est assez etrange..Mais c'est pour ca que je veux dire que si jamais il y a des personnes qui voulent que je fais plus de traductions (je ne peux pas tous le temps - ils sont super dificiles maintenant que j'apprends espagnole), je serais plus que contente de les faire. Je ne veux pas excluer les gens - c'est exactement pourquoi j'apprends espagnole en ce moment! Pour pouvoir communiquer avec tous! Si ambitieux! Je sais! Mais je suis jeune, et de d'etre jeune signifié que je peux essayer de faire l'impossible. Et si je n'arrive pas, bah - je vais essayer de faire autre choses encore plus dificiles.
Last week I discovered how to see which, of all the countries in this big world, are reading my blog, and who is trying to learn a little more about my Costa Rican life. Every day there are at least 7 French people who read. To see that statistic makes me very happy - I'm always afriad that I am going to lose my French friends to the passage of time, development of age and character, or simply a change in location. I personally know how very difficult it is to keep in touch with friends who live dar away. Every year that goes by I can see on Facebook how my friends have changed, and how, little by little, they become something further and further from the young people I had the luck to grow to know in France - now almost six years ago.
Here in Costa Rica, I don't speak often about my friends and family in France. I finally truly recognize the luck that I had (and have) to have been able to stay for so long in a such a magnificent country, and I also recognize that here, very few people can engage with that opportunity that I had. To go to Europe is like a dream here. And it's the same thing in the U.S., but I still had the opportunity to realize this dream and make it a reality. I speak of my year-long homestay only when I want to excuse myself for my terrible accent (I never ever can make the "rrrr" sound), when someone asks me what countries I have visited (it's surprising how often I've been asked this question), or if they ask me if I am lonely since I am an only child (also, very rare here). Honestly, I feel very, very far away from being an "only child", but that's a story for another time.
Despite everything, the time and the encounters that I made in France at the young age of sixteen and seventeen years are in my head nearly all the time. In the United States, I was able to separate myself from the part of my spirit that wanted to return to France, which spoke in French in the shadows of my mind, and which thought every single day of my house and family in France, because I could not continue to live in two countries at the same time without losing myself in the world I actually inhabited. Which I did a little anyways, perhaps one of the side effects of having gone abroad so young.
There's a book called the "Golden Compass" (in fact, I saw the film in France with my host sister several years ago now). I don't remember the book completely, as my father and I read it when I was very young, but in it there is a little girl, and her spirit manifests itself outside of her body in the form of an animal. Her father, a very smart and very evil man, is conducting experiments on children, to observe and capture the energy released when the children and their spirits are separated. I should reread it, because I believe there are a lot of aspects I missed reading the book as a young girl myself. For the moment I only wanted to show a parallel that I saw (just a little!) with the story - - - to leave a culture, a location, and a way of living and thinking behind is like losing a bit of one's soul, and everything that we lose with that, or to try to live the two at the same time and to try to create a sort of balance..
I don't know where I want to go with all of this, I believe that possible I just wanted to share a little of how I feel in this moment. And that's not even with the additional of the Costa Rican culture on top.. Everything is very, very confusing right now. Yesterday Antonio, the head of my program at ICADS, spoke about bridges. He said that be are (and possibly already were) bridges between cultures, and that the thing with bridges is that we are never on one side of the river or the other. I think even before I left for France, I have always found myself with two feet in two different worlds: between different homes, states, parents, friends, schools. It's a little on the dramatic side, but it's the truth. And now, even more than when I was in France, or after when I returned to Maine, I can't seem to remember where I put my feet, or how I managed to put them there, or what balance I had before introducing this new country and culture and language.
But I don't want want you to think that I am complaining - I am so lucky to have been able to come to Costa Rica for 3 and a half months. I don't even know how I came to be here, there were many things that worked together, but now I find myself in a country that is practically designed for everything I study in university: environmental justice, biology, and history of conquest and the rights of Native Americans. And every day I encounter more and more fascinating things.. For the first time in my life, I am in a country which has everything I am interested in, in a much more raw form. I don't know where to begin. Every day, in the street or in my classes, I am crushed by how much I'm learning. But at the same time, I am not very happy in this city, or even necessarily in this country. Of course it is magnificent here, and I love my host family, the food, the language, and the unique history and character of Costa Rica. Maybe it's only because we have not yet traveled much within Costa Rica - outside the capital city San Jose is really it. We'll see, because for the next three or four weeks, I am going to travel everywhere with my class in the Field Program, coming back only for weekends to do laundry. We're going to see and learn from farmers, professors of history, politics, and science, from people who work for important Costa Rican associations, from immigrants, and others who do not have strong voices in the country. It's very possible that after three weeks of seeing so much more of this country, that I will have a totally different (and possible more realistic) understanding of this country. In this moment it's rather concentrated in and around San Jose, an ugly city (like US cities!) which is dangerous - for women more than for men. Honestly, the thing that bothers me the most is that I absolutely can't walk around at night, and as I've always lived in very isolated places where there was no risk, its stuffy to live in a polluted valley full of cars that is far from the sea. Happily, I have had the insane luck to land in a home with a host family that has two little farms outside of the city - one in the mountains of Cartago, the other I don't know where yet.
I know that just about 1 in 5 french people are able to understand my thoughts when I write in english..and I also know that it isn't fair to only write in english, only for the people in my life who understand that language. But at this time, honestly for me the work is to force myself to write and to think about all the things that I encounter on a day to day basis, and the fact that people can read these thoughts on my blog is a little strange for me - especially if they're english speakers and are able to clue right into and understand all (well..maybe) my personal thoughts. Right now, everything is a little crazy in my head, and now the whole world can share that confusion with me. It's pretty weird. But that's why I wanted to say that if there are ever people who would like me to translate (I can't do this all the time - it's super hard now that I am learning Spanish - otherwise I'd already be doing so), I'd be happy to. I don't want to exclude anyone without even realizing - that's exactly why I am learning Spanish at the moment! So I can communicate with everyone! So ambitious! I know! But I am young, and to be young means that I can try and accomplish the impossible. And if I can't, well, I'll try to do something even harder.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Cold, Barrio Neuvo, and Bill
"In the eyes of the mourning the land of dreams begins." Pablo Neruda
I'm wildly upset at the moment. I have a terrible cold that's making my whole body ache. I spent the night thrashing in and out of sleep, and woke up at 5 am with a pounding headache. I'm happy that I'm enough of a worrier that I packed a bunch of Nyquil and Dayquil. Since today is the second day of final exams, it could not be more needed right now.
Another good thing, I suppose, is that this cold has escalated to the worst it will get in 48 hours. Since our Field Program leaves for the week (& next three weeks) on Monday at 7 am, and we'll be traveling in cramped little cars, I'm aiming to have a gross, very sick weekend, followed by good health!
I'm not sure where I got it, could have been at the hospital last weekend (a friend was hurt), or at the Barrio Nuevo we visited on . Barrio Nuevo is a shanty town largely made up of undocumented Nicaraguan immigrants. We were doing interviews (I still haven't written about the interviews we held with street vendors in San Jose!), and this woman's grand daughter grabbed by hand to lead me around at one point, and also spoke incredibly close to my face. Since she and her sisters spend their days running around a dirty neighborhood that has no real septic system except for the river, it's almost certainly from there.
What a wild afternoon though. Tiny little shacks clustered one next to the other, creating a miniature city of 600 people. Children and dog crawling all over, and food being cooked in pots over fires in the street. Each home probably houses 5-15 people (the one we were in had about 10, and three tiny rooms). Most of these people came here for greater prospects, and now can't even get jobs since getting documented as a migrant has an upfront cost that is about what a migrant would earn in a month. And there is no law, and no barriers between the lawless and law abiding. We followed these two little skipping grand daughters to the river, to see their bridge to the next town (rocks with an electrical chord to hold on to - a dangerous option when it rains and the river rises), and suddenly found that they were skipping around crack dealers, shrieking and giggling as people sniffed and snorted in front of us.
The Nicaraguan grandmother was carrying a baby, and we were climbing up uneven stairs to where she would drop us off and pick up the "gift" of compensation from ICADS for her time - a bag of groceries (there's a shadow of something overwhelmingly desperate, and at the same time cruel in this). She told us about her worries for her grand children, but that despite having better opportunities for work in Nicaragua (she worked in the fish market), as well as a real home that she owns, and no negative attitudes due to her migrant status, she stated that will stay, so her young granddaughter with special needs may get the attention she needs to learn in Costa Rica. However, here she rents a tiny home for sky-high prices, from a Costa Rican land owner (who most likely doesn't even own the land she lives on), and her sole occupation is cooking enchiladas on Friday and Saturday night, and selling them to the towns people.
I don't know where to go from here, I don't think many would. But at about 1 am last night I found a short film about one of Amherst's townies, whose name I've known for a year but who still have never talked to. As you can see, he is not easy to approach. I once overheard a piece of the therapy session he was receiving in the park, and since have greatly admired the mind inside. It's a beautiful little movie about a sad and beautiful life.
I'm wildly upset at the moment. I have a terrible cold that's making my whole body ache. I spent the night thrashing in and out of sleep, and woke up at 5 am with a pounding headache. I'm happy that I'm enough of a worrier that I packed a bunch of Nyquil and Dayquil. Since today is the second day of final exams, it could not be more needed right now.
Another good thing, I suppose, is that this cold has escalated to the worst it will get in 48 hours. Since our Field Program leaves for the week (& next three weeks) on Monday at 7 am, and we'll be traveling in cramped little cars, I'm aiming to have a gross, very sick weekend, followed by good health!
I'm not sure where I got it, could have been at the hospital last weekend (a friend was hurt), or at the Barrio Nuevo we visited on . Barrio Nuevo is a shanty town largely made up of undocumented Nicaraguan immigrants. We were doing interviews (I still haven't written about the interviews we held with street vendors in San Jose!), and this woman's grand daughter grabbed by hand to lead me around at one point, and also spoke incredibly close to my face. Since she and her sisters spend their days running around a dirty neighborhood that has no real septic system except for the river, it's almost certainly from there.
What a wild afternoon though. Tiny little shacks clustered one next to the other, creating a miniature city of 600 people. Children and dog crawling all over, and food being cooked in pots over fires in the street. Each home probably houses 5-15 people (the one we were in had about 10, and three tiny rooms). Most of these people came here for greater prospects, and now can't even get jobs since getting documented as a migrant has an upfront cost that is about what a migrant would earn in a month. And there is no law, and no barriers between the lawless and law abiding. We followed these two little skipping grand daughters to the river, to see their bridge to the next town (rocks with an electrical chord to hold on to - a dangerous option when it rains and the river rises), and suddenly found that they were skipping around crack dealers, shrieking and giggling as people sniffed and snorted in front of us.
The Nicaraguan grandmother was carrying a baby, and we were climbing up uneven stairs to where she would drop us off and pick up the "gift" of compensation from ICADS for her time - a bag of groceries (there's a shadow of something overwhelmingly desperate, and at the same time cruel in this). She told us about her worries for her grand children, but that despite having better opportunities for work in Nicaragua (she worked in the fish market), as well as a real home that she owns, and no negative attitudes due to her migrant status, she stated that will stay, so her young granddaughter with special needs may get the attention she needs to learn in Costa Rica. However, here she rents a tiny home for sky-high prices, from a Costa Rican land owner (who most likely doesn't even own the land she lives on), and her sole occupation is cooking enchiladas on Friday and Saturday night, and selling them to the towns people.
I don't know where to go from here, I don't think many would. But at about 1 am last night I found a short film about one of Amherst's townies, whose name I've known for a year but who still have never talked to. As you can see, he is not easy to approach. I once overheard a piece of the therapy session he was receiving in the park, and since have greatly admired the mind inside. It's a beautiful little movie about a sad and beautiful life.
Bill; The Man Behind the Legend from Alex Echeverri on Vimeo.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Some Neruda for my dog
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
Part I: Nicaragua
It has been a very long time since I've been able to write. Lots has been going on, and now I realize that I never even wrote about my week in Nicaragua. Maybe that is where I should begin then? It's been so long already, so much has happened since, but I suppose I should keep going in order to stay sane. But I am tired, and feel like I'm getting a sore throat, so am going to try to cover as much as possible in as little time as I can!
So, we left for Nicaragua on Sunday morning (September 18th!) at 6:30 am. I got very, VERY sick about half an hour after getting on the bus. I'm not even going to talk about it here, because I'd actually forgotten, but someday I'll tell all those curious folk out there. The bus ride took another eight or nine hours, which were punctuated by frequent pee stops and David, our biology professor giving loud lectures through the bus microphone. Crossing the border into Nicaragua, we had to present ourselves to a ramshackle border house that has been denounced by Costa Rican and Nicaraguan officials as being corrupt (if you pay, you can get through quite quickly). Once on the other side of the Costa Rican border, we drove through 100 ft of no-mans land, filled will endless cargo-carrying trucks (they have to wait 2-3 days to cross the border - sometimes up to a week), street dogs, and people peddling cashews and sea shell statues. Once our passports had finally registered on the Nicaraguan side, we had to drive the bus through a fumigation zone that sprays some sort of pesticide on vehicles. As though the wind wouldn't blow invasive species across the invisible border line...?
We finally got to the hotel in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, at about 8 at night, after which we ate and then attended a lecture by Keith Poe. Keith has worked with micro-credit loan agencies and spoke about how problematic giving loans to women in Nicaragua has been, in particular to agrarian families. During my course last year on environmental justice in the age of climate change, we'd discussed the socio-political dynamics of how sustainable micro-loans actually are, and why in some areas and to some populations they have been vastly more successful than in others. It was pouring rain that night, and we were listening to the lecture under an aluminum roof, and much of what was said was drowned out by the tinny echoes of raindrops. I wasn't tired after a day of sitting and nodding off in the bus though, so I stayed awake with classmates, drinking tea, and trying to speak Spanish with the son of one of our guides. It's particularly embarrassing when I try to converse and then have to announce: "WAIT UP. I don't know the past, or future tenses. Any of them. So use your imagination and try to figure out what the hell I'm saying, please?"
I slept very deeply that night, thankfully - since the next morning was jam-packed with activities. We woke up at 6 am, and after a brief breakfast got a speedy bus tour of the city of Managua. We visited Lake Managua, one of (or maybe THE biggest lake in Central America?) and learned about the planned restoration projects they have for it. Since bodies of water will clean themselves, the plans for the future are essentially to stop the pollution that drains into the river and keeps the chemicals out of balance, which prevents all sorts of wonderful things, such as fish, birds, bugs and people from swimming in the lake with happy abandon.
Then we visited the site where the Nicaraguan people once held a revolution - in some respects. It is a square which would now contain the President's home, if he did not chose to live elsewhere since there is a legend that it is dangerous and haunted (despite having been built by the Tibetans!). Two previous president's daughters (and maybe a son?) have died there - so current president (and running Sandinista party candidate) Daniel Ortega has opted out of living there. We were there especially early, so the square was empty besides for some stark morning light, and a couple carriages drawn by very ribby horses. There are giant propaganda signs for the next election surrounding the square, many of which are pink and covered in cursive writing (Ortega's wife's favorite color, and handwriting), and other of which appealed to the Nicaraguan historic sensibility of being a revolutionary country.
I find the sentiment of being attached to the revolution-of-yore both (somewhat) inspiring and (somewhat) alarming. In France, I saw something very similar, of people describing their unique nationality and locating their identity within an idealized struggle that happened at some point in the past, and which often overlooks the current struggles of today. The United States, and probably most countries that have unified through revolution do the same. In the case of the United States, we look to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, these two documents written by a gaggle of slave-owning white males, as references to tell us how to address the abortion of a young female who was never given any sexual education because her school district decided - on the advice of the State - that it was unconstitutional? What? It's clearly more complicated than that, and what I said barely make any sense - and yet it's probably happened over two dozen times in Alabama alone. Who were these men, and how have we let their words become our bible? What is this human condition that necessitates idolizing the past, reasoning our present with it, and betting our futures on it? How can this possibly make us sleep any deeper at night?
And though that seems to have diverged off into a tangent, the point is, nationalism can lead to crazy extremes. In the case of France, the USA, and also Costa Rica, nationalism has led to some extreme levels of xenophobia and h8erade towards migrants, who, as we all know I'm sure, are the backbone of our labor force. No matter where you go, there will always be someone who follows behind you and takes the work that you wouldn't do. I think that's what they call economics, and they tell me it's one of the things that keeps this planet spinning (albeit with some wobbles here and there).
So for Nicaraguans, nationalism has become an extreme form of propaganda that panders (for many) to the still-burning hearts of repressed Nicaraguans who fought to overthrow the Samoza family dictatorship during the Sandinista Revolution of the 1960's. The Sandinista Revolution lasted for about 40 years, until the 1980's when the United States decided to intervene with the well-meaning socialist programs that were reshaping the country (though with some clumsiness here and there, inevitably). Under a bright faced and bushy tailed Ronald Reagan, the United States secretly trained 12,000 troops in Columbia to overthrow the Sandinista government. In a little known war, the U.S. trained and directed operatives killed over 10,000 Nicaraguan civilians, and wounded hundreds of thousands more. Through this, the U.S. was able to sign a new pact for the Nicaraguan people stating that no alternative to the Panama Canal would ever be built with any country besides the United States, and...the rest of the incentives for war aren't really coming to me right now. Communism? That's probably the big reason. Since Che was giving the dapper young Sandinista government a hand. After all, they are neighbors, and why wouldn't one revolutionary give another revolutionary country some help? Oh, also worth noting - the war wasn't official. Congress and the United States voted no, but hey, shit happens, Reagan signed some papers, and 10,000 people died. Ugh.
Writing about the things I learn about here makes me feel like I'm in a terrible nature documentary, that doesn't know the correct names of different species, or step carefully so as to protect all the delicate little ecosystems. I'm just a fat picnicker laying my blanket out and chowing down on a ham sandwich while looking at the scenery.
It isn't a good feeling.
Neither is being so tired that I've only written about day one so far! Alright:
We then visited the "Heroes of Nemagon", and learned about their court cases against Dole and United Fruit for misinforming them about the toxic pesticides they were working with. They have been camping in front of the capital for years now (many up to twenty years), waiting for some sort of restitution. They suffer from many different ailments, a barrage of cancers and organ failures, and only in the past 3 years have they received government homes. I wrote a paper about government housing projects in Nicaragua, which I will include on here at some point. Until then, to learn more you can go here to learn more: http://www.goodplanet.info/eng/Contenu/Points-de-vues/Nicaragua-The-march-of-no-return-for-the-victims-of-Nemagon
After visiting the Heroes of Nemagon, we got lunch at a hot little restaurant where I ate a pickled pepper that made me cry, and where later we discussed our reactions to the visit to the ex-banana plantation workers who'd suffered exposure to nemagon. For me, as I wrote in the paper that I'll eventually include, in which I go more in depth, I was incredibly struck by the sense of community that has been created by universal suffering. The Heroes of Nemagon (Daniel Ortega relabeled them from the victims to the heroes of Nemagon) feel universal compassion with other workers who have been, and who are being exposed to toxics worldwide, and for many, their family is now in Managua, in this public park where the approximately three-hundred victims/heroes have been living their protest for the past decades. Once the discussion was complete, we drove to a volcanic crater on the way to San Ramon, where our Nicaraguan host families live. The crater was beautiful, but not as beautiful as San Ramon!
I'm going to save writing about my Nicaraguan host family, and the rest of my visit for another time! All good things in time! Until then here's the album of photos from my trip. Maybe it's a slideshow?! Wow - let's see if that works.
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