HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PHIL!!

Just thought I'd write this now. My culture class is taking a trip to Limón, Costa Rica and we'll be gone until Sunday.

I miss you, Phil!

Have a wonderful day!

SKYPE

Dear Friends and Family,

I just added a Skype gadget to my blog. I don't know if it will work, but if it does, you should be able to chat with me (send me instant messages), and or send me files. I'm not sure if you need to already have a Skype account or not.

Okay, thanks!

Comments

Dear Friends and Family,

Please, please, please feel free to write comments to my posts. I have adjusted my setting so that you may do so. Also, I don't know how many of you read this as often as I write it; therefore, I don't plan on sending out an email to everyone when I write something new. However, if and when you have questions, please do not hesitate to email me at my SAU address. I still check that.

Even if you don't have questions, write me an email and tell me about your day! I might not get to it for a while, but I would love the correspondence if you are able.

I miss you all!
Lots of love,

Elise A
Student of Language and Culture
San José, Costa Rica

More -itos

I didn-t quite explain, but -ito is the suffix/random syllable used on most words to make them either a) endearments, or b) smaller. For instance, "gato" is a cat, and "gatito" is a kitten. Or, my host brother Edgar is named after his father Edgar, so we have don Edgar, and Edguitar.

SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK:
So, sweetened condensed milk is used more or less like a sauce here. The Ticos put it on ice cream, in deserts, as a spread on sweet breads, with vegetables...everything.

DOGS:
I have only seen two cats in the last week I-ve been here. Two. Also, it-s considered cruel and unusual punishment to neuter or spade dogs. That-s why there are so many different kinds here.

THE ENVIRONMENT:
Everybody that I've met here in Costa Rica is very environmentally conscious. If I didn't know better, I'd call the entire country a bunch of tree-huggers. But it goes beyond that. Even though there is trash in the street, the majority of Ticos pick up after themselves and recycle plastic bottles, or newspapers, or take the bus instead of a car, or they walk to excercise, or jog, or they can tell you on the spot how many gallons of water are wasted if the tap is left open during a 10 minute shower (it's 30, by the way, for those of you who are curious).

WEATHER:
I was mistaken in my previous post. It is not winter here, it is their summer. Great. That means it gets colder from here on out.

FOOD:
Just a small list of some interesting things I got to eat on my weekend at the beach: green mangoes, ceviche, hot dogs Tico-style, and starfruit. The green mangoes are very, very bitter. "Acidic" was the word used when I asked. You're supposed to dip it in granules of salt and eat it. Also, ceviche is made of diced tomatoes and cilantro, a rough equivalent to the pico de gallo that Hacienda serves with its entreés. Tico-style hot dogs were the hardest for me to eat. I have this thing about hot dogs...I don't like them. Unless they've been roasted over an open fire. Then they are manageable. The Ticos use REAL frankfurters, where they have to split open the casing, and then they boil the frankfurter in water. It is served on a bun with shredded raw cabbage (raw as opposed to cooked), with ketchup, mustard and mayonaise on top. My host mom insisted on adding crushed potato chips to mine, saying it tasted better. And starfruit is not sweet. It's like eating lemon peel. I liked it though, but mine was too bitter, and I chucked it when no one was looking.

THE UGLY AMERICAN:
It's weird, but now I can see how I might have looked to the Ticos on my first day. I hope I wasn't as insensitive as I've seen, but at the same time, it's weird. I've seen tourists in Central San José try to buy ice cream. Many of the names of companies from the United States are still in English, and I've watched the tourists speak slowly and deliberately the one thing they want. When the girl at the cashier repeats the order to them, they try to correct her, as she isn't saying the English words correctly. If she asks them something else, I have not seen any attempt to use Spanish to communicate. In fact, I have more often seen that the tourists become frustrated that the Costa Rican girl cannot speak English, and they are verbal about it to each other. Grant me one more say, friends and family, but shouldn't the tourists try to speak Spanish in a Spanish-speaking country instead of insisting that everyone should know English?

AMERICANS:
I was asked this question recently, and have found that many Ticos are slightly annoyed as well: why do we from the United States insist on calling ourselves "Americans"? We call someone from Argentina an Argentine, as much as a person from Costa Rica is a Costa Rican. However, all of these countries are a part of "the Americas". Technically, any Canadian should be able to call himself an "American" too.

NAMES:
I mentioned in an earlier post that the Ticos are fond of naming their pets names that the Ticos can hardly pronounce. My extended family had three dogs: Lucas (nicknamed "Killer), who growls when petted or touched; Sweet, who bites people she doesn't know, and Terry, who is more sheep than dog and pants as though she were hyperventilating. The two dogs in the house I live in are Beky and Sandy. Beky looks older and has a little bow in her hair. Sandy is extremely energetic and all black.

SHOWERS:
Here, everyone but everyone takes showers in the morning. There are few exceptions.

APPLES:
Apples are expensive here, like avocados can be expensive in Indiana.

MILK:
It comes in cartons, like they had in Mexico. They are homogenized and pasteurized, but can be stored unopened in cupboards until needed. They taste the same. Also, many milk products come in squeeze-able packet-containers. They're hard to describe, but each has a spout from which to pour or squeeze the product. One milk-based product that I like is called natilla, and is more or less a light sour cream. It is squeezed into a cup and used as a dip for bread and/or vegetables.

V vs. B:
Here in Costa Rica, it seems that every word with a 'b' in it is pronounced with a 'v' sound, and every 'v' is pronounced as a hard 'b'.

Okay. That's good enough for now.

Weekend Fun

We went to the beach this last weekend, with a tiny dog nicknamed "Killer", a dog named "Sweet" who bit people, and lots of relatives. What I don't understand is why the Ticos insist on naming their pets names that they can hardly pronounce...

As soon as I got back from school, I hurriedly took everything out of my backpack and replaced my books with pjs, my swimsuit and toiletries. Then my host family and I tried to fit ourselves in the Toyota station wagon. We didn't all fit. There were six of us, my host parents, their sons Edgar and Esteban, and their grandson José Daniel. José is 15, and a very bright kid. I didn't quite understand everything that happened; doña Isabel kept saying something about the nephew of her only brother, but she never seemed to finish her sentence before she was interrupted by something else. Needless to say, we pulled up in front of a house some 20 minutes later, and I got out of the car, and began trying to help bring things in. It didn-t look like the beach to me, but what do I know? Isabel saw what I was doing, and handed me back the pillow I was trying to give her, and told me to wait in the car. I did as I was told. At one point, everyone disappeared inside the house while I was waiting. Eventually my host parents came back, and got in the front seats of the car. We were dropping off the other three to ride with cousin Carlos.

I cannot accurately describe the next two hours it took to make it to the coast. With no one to talk to after the conversation ran out, I realized how tired I was. Isabel encouraged me to lie down in the back seat on everybody-s pillows and take a nap. I did.

The house was owned by Isabel-s only brother, Carlos, who works with an electricity company that bought lots of land on the coast. It was small, but spacious. It had three doors, and when we arrived, all were thrown open to receive the breeze. Did I mention it-s warmer by the coast? It-s warmer by the coast. So warm, in fact, that I wore my swim suit under shorts and a t-shirt for both Saturday and Sunday. It was paradise! "Uncle" Carlos took us to see the sunset on the beach on Saturday. At first I thought it was the light, but when I got closer I realized the beach had black sand. I-ve never seen black sand before. I wanted to take a handful, but decided that was a dumb idea. What would I do with black sand?

I got darker too. According to my Tico family, I now look Costa Rican. The expression they use here for going to the beach to tan is that I went to "agarrar mi color", or "take my color". I was privy to several "traditional" Costa Rican foods, music etc. For instance, I didn-t know this, but there are such things as green mangos. The Ticos eat green mangos with salt. It has a very bitter taste, but when I said the mango was "agria" or "sour" they corrected me and said it was "acido" or "acidic". They are two different flavors, apparently. I was also able to eat starfruit right from the tree. My family assured me that starfruit was "dulce" (sweet), but I didn-t think so. When no one was watching, I pitched it in the garden.

Here in Costa Rica, 18 is the legal age to both smoke and drink. I think that don Edgar and doña Isabel were the only two who weren-t drinking all the time. My extended family was surprised that I didn-t "tomar" (drink alcohol) even though I was 2 years "past age". I tried to explain that in the United States the legal age is 21, but they insisted that while I was here, I was legal and I should enjoy myself. I even got the famous "you don-t know what you-re missing" line. I said I-d find out when I came of age. Maybe. Maybe not.
Only one of the aunts could really be considered a "drunk", though. Everyone else drank to be sociable, it seems.

It was still fun, and I-m hoping that next time, I have the space of mind to remember my camera. My host parents practically promised that they-d take me with them again because the family is fun to be around.

*DISCLAIMER*
I am at an internet café right now, and the keyboard is in English and Korean by the looks of it. So, once again, I apologize for the puncutation errors.

-itos

The following posts will be very short, more of a collection of random things that I don't feel like writing a page about:

GABRIEL'S OBOE:
It's an orchestral/choral piece of music with oboe as the solo instrument. Here in Costa Rica, I hear it on the television along with the announcement of someone's death.

LANDMARKS:
They're everywhere. On top of that, so few of the streets have actual names that direction to any location includes more things to look for than street signs. For instance: I know I am about 5 minutes from the house when the bus turns the corner and there's a big Shell station. I have no clue what street that is. When I get off the bus on that road, I continue until I see the purple wall, then turn right, and pass two panaderías or bread bakeries, before coming to my street.

CULTURE SHOCK:
Oddly enough, I think I've already endured it. According to Don Antonio (one of my "culture" profs), culture shock has 5 stages that can be encountered during or even before entering the new culture. They are: the Honeymoon stage, where the new is exciting; the valley "Culture Shock", where new is apprehensive; the Surface Adjustment stage, where the person begins to figure things out; the Unresolved Question stage, where personal cultural values are questioned; and the Feel at Home stage, where one accepts the new culture. Of course, these are followed eventually by the Departure Concerns stage before the person leaves. To anyone who has read my blog through, I had already been through the first four even before I stepped on the plane. I think the Feel at Home stage kicked in once we landed in San José.

GESTURES:
We had a discussion about this after class one day. The Ticos have an arm gesture for telling people to come near which can be confusing for many North Americans. They use their arm to push and pull. Think of doggy-paddling in a pool. That motion. When done by North Americans, it looks as though the speaker (gesture-er?) is telling others to go away, but the Ticos understand it as a come here motion.

WAL*MART:
Seriously, Wal*Mart rules the earth. Here, they are called the local MásXMenos, and they are owned by the Wal*Mart corporation. In fact, they are formally know as Wal*Mart Sudamérica, or South American Wal*Mart. And anyone who knows some Spanish will see the pun of the store's name, but for those of you who don't... The name is pronounced mahs pohr meh-noes, and literally means "More for Less", another slogan of Wal*Mart's.

TOILET PAPER:
In many homes, toilet paper goes in the trash, not in the toilet because it clogs.

Well, that's as random as I'll get tonight. I didn't sleep last night at all because I was reviewing those dumb direct objects, indirect objects, and pronouns in my head ALL NIGHT LONG!!! I kept trying to sleep, but my brain would find another way to keep me up. I'm so tired!

Oh wait, I almost forgot. The Quote of the Day goes out to fellow LASP-er Regis Coburn:
"Whenever I plug my laptop in, sparks come out of the socket. Is that bad?"

Good times.

Good night everyone!