La Pura Vida

I learn by going where I have to go.

Quote courtesy of Mom - she saw it in the front of a cookbook and passed it along yesterday. Attributed to a man named Theodore Roethke.

I´m sitting in an internet cafe now for the first time ever, after hearing about them for years and envisioning the cosmopolitan people inside, deftly recording their thoughts and travels. Very cool to finally be in one. The internet was just down at ICADS - sad to discover, but luckily I heard mi madre mention that this one existed and so here I am with a friend from the Spanish immersion program (different from mine which focuses on the internship). It´s just down the street from ICADS - a short walk yet filled with much rain and car-dodging (San Jose is the vehicle accident capital of the world).

Hmm... what to record? Since I wrote yesterday we all went to lunch in a nearby Costa Rican restaurant - got the traditional meal of rice, beans, and vegetables with delicious and completely natural fruit juice. We had our first Spanish classes (was that just yesterday? feels as though I´ve been here for much longer...) - I´m in class with three others: Laura from Chicago, Ceci, 16, whose parents speak Spanish as they´re from Venezuela and somewhere else, but she hasn´t learned all the official grammar rules, and then Jess who goes to U Mass at Amherst and will be a senior (have especially connected with her). Our professor´s name is Hilda (pronounced EE-lda) - she is maybe the most animated person I´ve ever met. She is from an Afro-Caribbean area of Costa Rica, Limon. She has a wonderful and fun to watch method of communicating, and is all about how teaching is not a top-down sort of thing - all about communication, penetration, discussion... An example - we were all a little afraid of the subjunctive tense, but she quickly set the record straight (with many sweeping hand motions and much passion) - this tense in Spanish is her favorite, as it provides access to another entire world, that of feelings, desires, things which aren´t necessarily certain... We spent most of the time going over our placement tests. We had a lecture on the history of Costa Rica - very interesting to hear about the accidental and also intentional isolation which has made this little country what it is. (distinctive approaches such as no military) Walked home for the first time by myself which was luckily uneventful.

---I´m sad that I just lost much of my entry. I don´t know what I´m doing with these Spanish commands! ahh. was trying to save it before I submitted it. darn.

here is what I wrote about-will expand later as I need to leave while it´s still semi light out

last night - games with Daniela
dinner
class today
fruit festival
lunch - first hummus (oomoos) here
internship meeting! so many options. urban, rural? structure, no? could work on organic farm, with women´s rights like in the past, with indigenous cultures, human rights groups in San Jose-anything. world is open. more on this later, must think about myself and passions and whims

off for now. too bad about lost words but que sera, sera. that´s what I get for trying to be cautious. until next time!

posted by Colleen @ 5:03 PM