Missing other places

Today I got homesick. Not for Bloomington, not for Malvern, not even for anywhere else in the U.S. I am homesick for Venezuela. I moved out of my Costa Rican host family here 3 days ago and last night I made arepas in my new kitchen. Since I live in a very rural place with not many choices other than rice and beans in the grocery store, I decided to buy the harina de masa that was used all over Venezuela since it is easily available. I’m not very good at making arepas without the arepa maker Laura and Rosa gave me, but I tried to make them in the skillet just as my host family had taught me nearly 10 year ago. I also made beans and scrambled eggs to put inside of the arepas like we ate for so many breakfasts. My arepa dinner prepared in Portero, Costa Rica couldn’t have been more delicious. It tasted just like the arepas I used to eat in Anaco, and I began realizing how much I miss the other places I’ve lived in South America as well. The arepas, trips to the huge markets in Venezuela, men selling chipas in the streets in Paraguay, the ease of getting around by bus in Lima, the historical sites in small Peruvian towns.

I am finding where I live in Costa Rica to be a very strange place in many ways. I chose to come here, among many other things, because it was going to be safer than many of the places I would have wanted to go. Going completely on my own this time, I wanted to be in a country that is known to be less hazardous to female travelers and that is safer than many Latin American countries. However, in many ways I feel like I’m living somewhere between the U.S. and Latin America. I speak English everyday since I work with other Americans and also am teaching children and adults English. I also see English-speaking people all over in the restaurants in Portrero and in the vans that pass through as they take tourists on excursions to nearby beaches. In the nearby tourist beach town the clubs played all American music and dollars and colones are used equally here. It feels really strange to pay in dollars and get change back in colones.  

In addition to seeing English speakers all day that are foreigners, I am teaching very eager students to speak English. They are desperate to learn English to improve their lives. For better job opportunities, so they can work with the tourists, to communicate with people from other places, they say.  On one hand English and foreigners are so needed for them to continue with their livelihoods, but on the other hand,  foreigners are taking over the places they live. There are huge gated houses on the hillsides that are used by the people who drive through Portrero with their clean cars and tinted windows. People from town, many Nicaraguan immigrants, clean and maintain these huge houses during the times the families are not here. I’d like to know more how the people of Portero feel about these hillside mansions.

The plane ticket here was cheap, but I’m finding that the prices here are so high that it probably wouldn’t have mattered if I had gone to Lima, for example, since living costs would have been lower there. Some of the expensive prices in Portero are due to transportation costs since we live so far away from the large cities, but a lot of stuff cost the same in Alajuela, right next to San Jose. Some people live here on $500 a month, but almost all of the food is about the same price as in the U.S. (except for rice and beans). I’d also like to learn more about the economics of this country – U.S. prices, but not nearly equivalent salaries.

What I might miss most is being asked why I am here. Instead of people being curious as to why I am here, they automatically assume that I am a tourist here staying in one of the resorts in Flamingo. Today we took a taxi home after teaching our adult class in Brasilito and we asked to be dropped off near the hotel in town. He thought that we were staying there when really it was just a convenient place to be dropped off. It seemed almost incomprehensible to him that we were staying in Costa Rican houses. In other places I’ve lived in South America, I’ve enjoyed being asked why I chose their country and what I was doing there. Here, people mostly come for the beaches and ecotourism and it’s assumed that they are here on vacation. I’m getting kind of sick of being ripped off in taxis, buses, and restaurants because we are given the tourist price instead of the local price. It’s because I’m living in the touristy area since I’m near the beaches here. I felt the same way after living in Lima and visiting Cusco for the weekend.

I also don’t feel like I have felt the Costa Rican hospitality that is talked about. While people are nice here and always help when I ask, I think some of the other countries have been much more hospitable. I wonder if this is also a difference from living in large cities versus living in the rural town. From my conversations so far with adults in the town, I have enjoyed talking to the Nicaraguans most. They are happy to talk to me about what they do here, how they have to go back to Nicaragua every month to renew their visa (EVERY month!!) and about their families that are still in their country.

In addition to feeling like I am stuck between the U.S. and some foreign country that speaks Spanish, I began thinking about the peculiarity of living in a rural place. I’m sure I’ll experience reverse culture shock to some extent when I return home, but have experienced it even here when I leave Portero. I have gone to Liberia twice now on the way to hikes in national parks and been awed each time that I go into the supermarket there. It’s small in comparison to any sort of store I shop in at home, but after living in Portero on dirt roads with cows, pigs, and chickens everywhere, it’s a huge shock to go somewhere where people are dressed up and not splattered with mud, and are shopping in stores with shopping carts and more than just dim lightbulbs illuminating the aisles.

I wonder what it is like to grow up here in Portero with other parts of the world so much a part of the life here, yet so far away. For example, almost every house has a TV and people watch many American shows or shows from Mexico or other larger Spanish speaking countries. I was watching the world news today and realized how weird it is to be watching people in a clean, air conditioned office in suits talking in English or even Spanish from another part of the world. Many people here have never left the Guanacaste province and some of the children have never left Portrero. I wonder if they also find it strange that to watch shows that seem like they are almost in a different world than the small, rural community here. Even though I was watching the same sorts of shows when I lived in the cities in Peru, Paraguay, and Venezuela, I didn’t feel the same way because the effect of globalization and tourism was not nearly as apparent in the larger cities.

Even though I don’t like being pegged as a tourist here and using dollars and colones together drives me crazy, I couldn’t be happier about my choice to come here for the summer. While I may not be learning as much Spanish as I did in other places, I have learned far more from living in a place completely different than anywhere I have ever been. The need for English is so great all over and it has truly been eye opening to see young children and adults alike explain to me that they have to learn English for their future. I may miss the hustle and bustle of the capital cities of Lima and Asunción (and real stores and cheap food!), but I’ve learned yet another form of Spanish (oh how I miss pure, fast, Venezuelan Spanish), about important issues and problems surrounding Costa Rican education, and what living in a rural place is like. Oh, and I also have beautiful beaches to swim in and from which to watch colorful sunsets. I just have to remember the AFS saying- Costa Rica isn’t bad, it’s just different than other places where I’ve gone to live and learn Spanish.