iguana means iguana

Here comes a long post, so get comfortable. I suggest a nice cup of Costa Rican coffee (or kindly say no thank you and drink tea instead as I often do) with a piece of mango or pineapple to enjoy as well while you read it, it’ll help set the mood.

Ready? Okay updates will now commence.

I am on day three of my rural stay. And though I have more internet then expected, and am not living without running water or electricity, I am definitely in a rural location. My pueblo (town) has a population of about 5.000. So everybody knows everybody. This means that everyone who asks me whom I am living with has some connection to my host mom and dad, such as my mom being the godmother of the daughter I was sitting next to on the bus. It also puts my gringa/macha status on a new level. Also, if you were ever wondering where the phrase gringo comes from, it developed from American’s love of traffic lights. We will wait even when no one is around for the green light to go – green, go – gringo (add an “a” on the end to make it feminine). Everyone I have met has been friendly, and I look forward to getting to the know the town over the next two months. I already made friends with the guy in the post office, and today took a two hour walk through all possible town center streets and a good long way down most dirt roads. The whole time I was accompanied by one of my three dogs. Her name is Becky, and she is a very good travel companion. So here is a photographic replication of my town tour with my good friend Becky.

Here is where our walk begins. Thats Becky. 

We first followed my road for as far as possible. It becomes dirt, and not really paved, with some farms and such along the edges. Becky enjoyed the fallen foliage.

This is a hill we trudged up. It was probably harder for her. In the distance is a cowboy. Or atleast a man on a horse. I like to think of him as a cowboy.

This is Billy. He and Becky are not friends. At all.

We then hit the town. Here is Becky strolling, as she shows me a local pizza shop.

We continued on our merry way. 

We looked at some schools, and then considered the possibility of hitchhiking to far off lands. I convinced Becky another day would be better, we didn't even have a snack with us. 

The plaza infront of the church. Spy Becky if you can. 

She stopped for a quick drink. I told her that was gross. 

People tend to not want their houses anymore and kind of just leave them here. I think Becky Especially liked this one because it was pink.

And now that I am here, I can officially explain what my research process will entail. Though there is always the possibility that things do not go according to plan in the next couple weeks and the whole project gets revamped. But hopefully, knock on wood, everything works out. (If you want to knock on wood now too just for good measure I would appreciate that). On Monday, I had four different meetings with important people to explain my study. Both my advisors and the other two students (Maggie and Chloe) who are working with me came to all the meetings as well. Since it was a group effort it made it a lot less intimidating and nerve racking then I had imagined. We were well received at each meeting and have now each begun our research in our individual towns. My research is slightly stalled, as a meeting I had with the area’s superintendent was rescheduled for Thursday, leaving me with two days where I couldn’t go to schools. 

This is the building of the MEP where my superintendent man works. He said he could make me an office there. So I guess this is my office building. Whoa. 

I have utilized the free time for productive research related work, made flash cards of every household item I could think of, and spent a good many hours walking and running around my town. Oh, and also a good many hours drawing pictures with my new host sister Angelina. I will include a picture of her, so you can understand how overwhelmingly adorable she is.  

Thats another one of our dogs. Toti. He's Angelina's, which she reminds me very very often (Toti es mio!!)

Once I do have permission to go the schools (that hopefully occurring sometime mid

 afternoon tomorrow) I begin my solo adventures of presenting myself to schools to explain my study to principals and teachers, and handing out surveys. Then I hope to return in about a weeks time to gather anthropometric data (height, weight, abdominal circumference) to accompany the results to the survey. Then comes A LOT of data entry, as I expect to be giving out surveys to almost everyone in each school, which have between 60 – 150 students in them. Then comes the big high school, with over a 1,000 kids who I can’t just give stickers to so they’re happy like I will in the preschools and elementary schools. But having not left the teenage world very long ago, I think I will be able to find a common ground.

The next two months promise to be a big change. I am not with all the other students in my program as before, so besides internet and some pleasure reading books, my whole mundo (world) is in Spanish. Though it’s hard occasionally as almost no one speaks a word of English here, it will be a wonderful learning experience. I am also in charge of my own schedule, in terms of when I work and play. I think that’s probably the only time I will have two months like that (especially where someone cooks all my meals for me) in my whole entire life. So I’m determined to make the most of it. I have finally started to realize that while I am abroad the rest of the world is not, and thus their lives have continued on as normal.  It’s weird to think of CC trudging through it’s blocks, of Boston slowly melting into Spring, and life events happening when I am so far away. I have tried to avoid usual habits of facebook stalking when I use it, or constant use of the internet for outside world updates, as I want to live in this moment while I am here. But now I have come to appreciate the contact I have from the outside world. So though my responses to your attempts at communication may be a bit lenta (slow) keep them coming.

I would also like to mention that in between the work ‘English’ and ‘here’ in the above paragraph, I was interrupted by the fact that a giant iguana was in my kitchen and we had to chase it. Now it is stuck under the fridge. But don’t worry, I got pictures. (And just figured out what I'm going to title this post) 

 

                      This is him when we found him.     Then my mom tried to get him out the back door.

Instead he ran under the fridge, and as far as I know is still there. A new housemate, super. 

Well that was a lot of words and pictures. I still have a lot of tidbits and such, but I will include those on a later date. But its time for a ‘cafecito’ (like afternoon tea in great Britain except with coffee and snack) so I bid you ‘Adios’.