La Pura Vida

Update from el campo!

Hello dear ones! Have discovered that there are 2 internet cafes in Guácimo, which is about a 5 minute taxi ride from Africa... (crazy how the internet really is everywhere) I´m happy to be able to write here some on this Saturday a little before noon, feeling good today. This morning I woke up as usual around 6ish (wasn´t sure if that schedule would change on the weekends, but apparently not. For one thing the roosters are loud starting early, and then also I can hear everything in the rest of the house easily - loud music played by Adrian next to me, Erlinda cooking in the nearby kitchen - because there are open spaces at the tops of the walls in most rooms...for ventilation I suppose...windows are also open air, with bars instead of glass or plastic. hello bugs) Ok that was a long in-parentheses description. Read a chapter of 100 Years of Solitude and then had breakfast - gallo pinto (recooked leftover rice and beans), coffee, and surprise! a pancake. Read some more and then went running! Glorious. Glad for that...ran for an hour on a (very rocky) road that I discovered yesterday. Funniest part when I ran past some cows and the 7 or so gathered there slowly moved their heads in sync as I moved past...laughed out loud.

Ok, how to do this - need to revamp my blogging style. Clearly can´t give as much detail as before, or as above - I´ve transferred that kind of writing to my journal. I´ll try to give a summary of my environment and prospective work.

I live in the first house after entering Africa, a community of about 1000 people. Erlinda is my madre/mentor. She is a busy woman who intimidated me upon arrival, and still does a bit though I´m getting to know her more - very, very active in the community, and also one of 5 regional government representatives. She is warm in the sense that I know she cares but in much more of a tough love way than Mary. Fast moving and pretty much always productive. Her husband, in contrast, is Mario, a soft spoken gentle man who I immediately felt at ease talking to. He mostly takes care of the farm. He often tells me fascinating and long stories from locally and also far away (ex: the cities hidden underground in Switzerland, inspired by watching the team play in the World Cup)...can see the grandfather side in him when he does that. Adrian is the youngest, good sense of humor - attends a university in San Jose for some sort of agricultural engineering during the week. Other son is Freddy, who is about 23 and loves all sports, in contrast to Adrian´s love of reading/intellectualism. He works at a supermarket during the day, and his (really sweet) girlfriend Krissia is pretty much always over at night. One daughter Janet lives across the street with her husband Venicio (who works as a prison warden on a one week on/one week off schedule) and 6 year old son Josue (the little brother I never had). Other daughter, the eloquent and fast-talking Jenny, still lives in the house but is currently constructing an apartment with her boyfriend of 8 years Jose. She owns her own law office in Guacimo...impressive. Jose also works in that office, with one other person I think. The house is large and surrounded by constantly circling hens, roosters, turkeys, and 3 dogs. Most people leave during the day for work but usually come back for lunch around 12:30.

As for my work - developing a plan has been a process to say the least. I chose this placement to work with Pastoral Social, a group that does human rights work all over the country... Erlinda is a member, of this and other activist groups, but as her daily work consists of going to different meetings and she isn´t in one central place, my own work plan development is a bit fragmented, and because of the lack of structure I need to take more initiative than I have in the past. A little scary. So far I´ve attended long meetings with her for Foro Emaus, a team of professionals/farmers devoted to stopping unregulated pineapple plantation expansion - because of a medley of serious potential effects - chemical, health, labor rights related and more. Very interesting to observe meeting operation... I´ve also worked with a local women´s cooperative that is doing environmental work by recycling would-be trash, and met with several ladies for are part of other groups to talk about options... worked on the farm of AMUDA, the Africa women´s development organization... visited a school to talk about giving classes there related to violence... a bit of many things.

Last night sat down with Erlinda to form a plan for the next 2 weeks. Glad for that. My weekly work will be all over the place. Tentatively thinking: Monday, work with the women´s recycling group (I like them a lot! wonderful spirits and yay for coffee breaks), Tuesday I´ll go with someone named Doña Clemencia to the city of Limon for an all day conference with a union of women from all over this Caribbean area. Wed will include planning for leading a meeting of women on Thursday on the issue of self esteem! A little overwhelming but there are some good ideas in the works, with Erlinda´s help. More on that later. Friday I´ll work on the farm. The next week at some point I may visit a Guácimo orphanage as well as retirement home, work with recycling women, farm with AMUDA, help the pineapple activists plan for a big 10 hour event on the 14th that will include the media and politicians. Will be working to plan a day of cleaning for local youth for the weekend - and also going to different meetings with Erlinda.

Whew. This summer is an education in community involvement and grassroots organizing... and observing the idea behind the quote ¨Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it´s the only thing that ever has.¨ in action.

Probably time to return for lunch and then different meetings of the day, but a little about my emotions thus far... it´s been very interesting. For one thing, being away at school I noticed with concern that I didn´t really actively miss people-always much going on. In the last week, however, I´ve longed for people desperately - there have been times when I´ve felt utterly overwhelmed/alone because of the number of days that remain here. Lots of tears at times. But then I regain composure and step back into life here. Writing about this part is much more difficult than writing about family details. :) Ineffable I suppose - no way for me to sum this part up at this time.

Back I go. What an experience. Thanks for reading-happy July!

posted by Colleen @ 11:44 AM