In any case, 2 thoughts from #19:

1)  “And yet the more friends we have, and the more widely they are scattered, the more numerous are our fears that some portion of the vast masses of the disasters of life may light upon them…For if their life has solaced us with the charms of friendship, can it be that their death should affect us with no sadness?  He who will have none of this sadness must, if possible, have no friendly intercourse.”  (684)  Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  Love is high-risk.  It practically guarantees pain.  But it is worse to cut yourself off from people entirely.

I have been thinking that my life, particularly my spiritual life, is too concerned with self and not enough concerned with community…

2)  “He must be an uncommonly stupid, or a shamelessly contentious person, who has read through the foregoing books to this point, and can yet question whether the Romans served wicked and impure demons.”

Augustine doesn’t mince words, does he?

The news is different because they don’t hesitate to show shots of dead bodies (generally covered with sheets, but one does catch glimpses of blood).  The other day a man was robbed of everything from his car to his clothes.  They showed video of him being taken away on a stretcher (covered with a sheet, of course).  I wonder how the camera people get there so quickly.  If a car strikes and kills someone we are sure to see shots of the smashed car and the sheet-covered body.  It just has a different feel to it, I think.  But maybe CNN is similar? 

I have watched bits and pieces of a telenovela.  These are famous for Spanish students the world over.  They don’t last long periods of time like US soap operas, but they seem to be every bit as dramatic.  The one I have seen is ¿Dónde está Elisa?.  The teen daughter has disappeared, and everyone has deep dark secrets.  The mother has lots of crying scenes…and is of course really pretty.  I think maybe she is the one behind the crime…

1.  toad

2.  nerd

3.  one who meddles, gets into everything

VERB (sapear)

to meddle

A child might tell his mother what his older brother was doing wrong at school….sapeando.

As the police left the scene of the fight during the soccer game one could hear people yelling ’sapos’!

My first warning was when Adrian, the activities coordinator, told us, while we were still in the van, that we could not bring coins into the stadium.  Since there have been problems in the past with people throwing coins on the field no one is allowed to bring them in any more.  This means that there are tons of people asking you to donate your coins outside the stadium.  Anyway, as I have LOTs of coins, I was probably several pounds lighter when I got out of the van.

It also came to light that no alcohol is sold at soccer games.  These things cause one to wonder what, exactly one is going to see.

I was patted down before I was allowed to enter the stadium, also a bit of a surprise.  Having already dumped my coins and having left my firearms back at the house (totally kidding), I was a shoo-in.  I think we were all a little surprised at the seating inside, though it makes perfect sense for an open air stadium in a rainy climate.  There weren’t any seats, just concrete rows arranged stadium style.  And of course many areas were wet, since there had been a light rain.  (I should mention that outside the stadium people were mainly selling ponchose in case of rain.)

Everything is a show in a soccer game.  The refs spend just as much time warming up as the players, and they do it together, so it looks more like a choreographed dance than a warm-up.  Apparently one can find fun youtube videos with refs warming up to ballet music.  Sometimes the players did some stuff together as well.  Meanwhile, in diagnolly opposite corners of the stadium are the ‘barras’, where the really rabid fans hang out.  Please note that they are deliberately placed as far away as possible.  They bring huge bass drums, called ‘bombos’ with which they make a lot of noise.  They have huge banners stretched out all the way across their section, balloons, streamer things that they throw, etc.  And EVERYONE chants, claps, dances together, yelling about how they are going to crush the competition.  Of course everyone in the other barra is doing the same thing, so there is lots of competitive shouting.

We sat behind one of the goals, nearer the ‘other’ team, from Alajuela.  But of course the Saprissas called them ‘Malajuela’.  Anyway, there was tons of energy in the air before the game even began.  Adrian explained other interesting details about soccer games.  For example, the Alajuelans were holding up a purple Saprissa shirt which they had probably taken from a fan in a fight.  Getting the shirt is a trophy.  They also had white shirts that were stuffed and painted with opposing players’ numbers.

I had not expected to find soccer so exciting.  I think I see how soccer must have been the inspiration for Quidditch in Harry Potter.  I have never been to anything like it.  I don’t even care about soccer and I was mega-tense everytime the opposition got close. Sometimes half the stadium would be screaming stuff in unison, like ‘they couldn’t do it’ or ’scared’ or, well, better not get too detailed here.

There was a big fight in the Alajuela barra some time during the game.  5 or 6 policemen in helmets and wielding batons went charging up toward the top row, hitting out at whoever they could.  Meanwhile the fans pressed down from above, apparently hitting back.  !!!  5 or 6 more policemen came running to join the fray, and they closed the gates to that section.  I was amused to see somebody with a tv camera somewhere in the swirl.  I heard something about a mostly naked individual, but did not pick up on that myself.  They carried two people away on a stretcher.  We were too far away to make out details but close enough to see that the first guy’s arm was bloody.  Meanwhile we were all standing, straining to see as much as possible.

Adrian said that the two groups in the barras tended to get in fights afterward, outside the stadium, and that sometimes people threw rocks at buses, etc.  I guess I was scared, though it is hard to find words to describe it.  It was sort of like riding a rickety roller coaster…or maybe standing on a hill watching the flood waters come up and not knowing just how far they would come.  In any case, when I stood up at the end of the game one of my knees wasn’t merely stiff, it genuinely hurt.  I think I was seriously tense.  Part of that I would just attribute to culture shock.  I have some idea of what fans in the US will and will not do, but I had no idea what kind of limits there might be here.  The reaction lasted kind of awhile.  I woke up at 4 in the morning with a soccer-game type of tension.  Like I said, culture shock.

I made quite sure not to get separated from the group on the way out (I had gotten a bit lost in the mall before going to the game.  Maybe I should go to a school where they work on developing one’s sense of direction).  We had to pass by a row of mounted policemen who were blocking the street.  Some faced up the street and others down the street.  A few men were running down the street in the direction of the police officers screaming ‘policia’!  They sounded like they were excited about an upcoming fight…but we did not stick around to see what would happen next.

It was a completely worthwhile experience.  Nobody ever scored a goal, by the way…I can’t decide if I regret that or not.  From what I hear it sounds as if the stadium completely explodes when that happens.

A taxi may beep before passing a bus in order to say, ‘hey, I’m passing, don’t hit me.’

While walking to school last week, one driver slowed down and beeped to another car that was leaving the driveway to say, ‘go ahead, I’ll wait,’ and the car in the driveway beeped back to say, ‘thank you’.

I also observed various drivers beeping (short, friendly beeps) as they approached an intersection to remind other cars that perhaps were contemplating a crossing that they were coming.  This may have something to do with the widespread disregard for stop signs that I have observed.

I was all excited to see a volcano on Saturday- Irazú.  However, it was so foggy we generally could not see more than 50 feet in front of us, so it did not feel much like a volcano.  However, it was still pretty cool.  At 11,000 feet of elevation we were still seeing plants with HUGE leaves.  And every so often a bit of fog would blow away and we would catch a glimpse of something (say, a mountain top) that we hadn’t known existed.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the house of Doña Flora’s married daughter.  It was a bit of a drive to get there, but the house was magnificent, not to mention the plants.  She lives more in the country than anything else, and I saw some really cool birds.  I was so tired coming back that I was falling asleep in the car…and it was not that late, either!

I wondered how much that idea influenced some of the people doing pilgramages in honor of Costa Rica’s patron- ‘La Negrita’, which is one of the many names that Mary the mother of Jesus has taken in the Catholic faith here.  Perhaps I explained some of this earlier?

While driving through San José Saturday, MIL noticed that all the people were walking in the same direction.  They were all walking to the church in Cartago to pray to La Negrita.  There is something about seeing a hundred plus people at a time all walking for such a purpose.  Our tour guide parked about a block from the church so we could go see it- he was concerned that it would be difficult to drive any closer.  There were a lot of people.  There appeared to be a sort of continuous service going on outside the church…we could hear a singer (cantor?) and organ music.

The church had a main entrance and two side entrances in the front part of the building.  The middle entrance (by far the largest) had a sign announcing that one should go through that entrance if one wanted to approach the altar on one’s knees.  We took the side entrance…certainly we were there as tourists.  People travelled the whole length of the church on their knees.  One man was holding a video camera as he did so.  There were a lot of people and the church was beautifully decorated.  It left a strong impression on me.

Roughly translated, the church bishop said the following (I got this from today’s paper):  ‘Let us take off the dirty rotten rags that are filling us with agression, intolerance and a lack of respect for life, and let us put on the pure clothing of the Virgin, the dress of love for one’s neighbor, and so we will have a better Costa Rica.’

The workshop had two parts.  The first part was a lot like the inside of an old garage or barn.  There seemed to be a water wheel providing some power.  We walked where we chose and noone suggested that it was at all dangerous.  A set of rickety wooden steps led upstairs.  There were no real walls anywhere, by the way, just roofs.  This was in sharp contrast to the souvenir store we visited earlier which was spotless, well-lit, and clearly designed for tourists.  We went there first because it was pouring rain.  The other part of the shop was for painting.  I had fun taking pictures in both parts.  One never knows…some of them might even come out well.

We were about to head back when we got the brilliant idea of stopping for ice cream.  Our guide (the same one who took us to the InBioParque the other day) was happy to stop as well.  The oddest flavor of ice cream was the one that had raisins.  I am ashamed (but not really) to say that I went for the brownie sundae.  I should  mention that we have started to notice that we have eaten a good deal more rice and beans than we are accustomed to.

I tried to find out how to say ’scoop’ but was unable to communicate my question to the girl behind the counter, who kept assuring me that I could have a cup or a cone.  This was a slight problem for Mil later on when she wanted just one more scoop and instead got one more ice cream.  Or maybe it wasn’t such a problem.  It was yummy ice cream.

In any case, it is interesting to see the types of crafts that various regions develop, and the connections one must make to history, etc.  I should mention that we pass small coffee plantations all the time.  Yesterday we also got to pass some sugar cane fields.  The cool thing about going on all of these excursions is that every single bend in the road gives one something new to see, because we never go to any place that I have already seen.

I have been watching a good deal of TV.  Yesterday I saw a shot of a car crossing a hanging bridge that appeared to be made of wooden planks.  Members of my host family told me that one can feel the whole bridge sinking as one reaches the middle, and that it sways alarmingly.  Doña Flora said she preferred to cover her eyes.  There are a few of these types of bridges around…though I have yet to see one (which is fine, really!).  The biggest news items around here are which roads are washed out and where Wild Bill is located.  Not sure if that made the US news at all….

My favorite new words, which I think I forgot to mention earlier are words for speed bumps:  ‘muertos’ or ‘policia durmiente’.

I’m struggling through my thinking on the relationship between culture and language, so this may not be very organized.

Some things I do not like about the way of life here:  cold showers and hard rain every afternoon.  Things that get wet do not readily dry.  The skirt that got soaked last Sunday was still damp in spots yesterday.  Of course it was really soaked.

Language is a way to express a culture, but I am more interested in how the culture influences the language.  Why are language teachers supposed to teach culture too?  My best metaphor for this so far is a Costa Rican road metaphor.  Imagine a road in an area that has gotten so much rain that bed under the pavement has eroded away so that it won’t take much for the road to crumble away.  (I think the central american highway is closed in at least two spots because the road is destroyed.)  So, while I cannot explain this as I’d like to (just don’t have the words yet), I think learning a foreign language without studying the culture is like that heavily undermined road.

I was looking at the words to a song from a CD I purchased yesterday.  The title of the song is ‘Soy Tico’ (Tico is the word Costa Ricans use to describe themselves).  But part of the song talks about how the speaker is Tico because the rain acts on him as it would on a seed…that has a lot more meaning when one knows about the (very) rainy season.

We passed a car accident the other day.  Two SUVs had plunged through someone’s gate and stopped just before hitting the house (or perhaps they did see it).  Another reason to have bars…protection from the streets.

Tuesday we went to InBioParque, which is a biological research station that also hosts a zoo.  White-tailed deer here are smaller and have smaller antlers.  The young look like Bambi as a baby…very rounded heads and huge eyes- incredibly cute.  We unfortunately did not see any sloths, though the guide looked high and low (well, mostly high) for them.  I did learn to identify several commen birds.  The sparrow equivalent here is known as a corn-eater….comemaíz.  The zanate is like the crow, though not as big.  Loud and obnoxious…and fun to watch.  We saw a very odd long-legged bird known as a pone-pone.  ´Pone huevos´means ‘it lays eggs.’  The pone-pone lays a LOT of eggs.

Yesterday we went on a canopy tour….zip lines through the rain forest.  The final one was like flying.  There were some interesting metaphors there.  On the final one, when one is suspended horizontally, one has no control at all…like life, though I often think I am in control.  On the high-wire type bridges, I grab frantically for every possible hand-hold, forgetting that I can’t fall because of the cable above me to which I am attached…

Favorite joke-one person asked the guide if the mosquitoes carried malaria.  No, he said, they carry Dengue.  Ha ha ha.

I arrived at the host family´s home soon after my mother-in-law (hereafter referred to as MIL, by mutual consent) and Colleen.  The home is beautiful and, like all the homes, safely esconced behind layers of iron bars.  They also have an alarm system that is quite talkative.  And they have a LOT of little dogs as well as a cat named Manuel.  Manuel is as aloof as one might expect.

The house is actually in San Lorenzo, about a mile from San Joaquín de Flores.  We decided to walk into town and get a snack.  We ended up at SuperSnack, where we ordered three appetizers (fried yucca, tortillas, and candied plantains).  We also had blended fruit drinks (water and fruit, at least) called licuados, only one of which was a flavor we recognized (mango).  The others were called mora, which appears to be mulberry, and cas, which is a tropical fruit I have never heard of.

We got caught in serious rain on the way back and I, scorning the umbrella, was drenched to the skin.  I had been lulled into a false sense of security by the rain from the day before. The water poured down across the roads.  A surprisingly large number of cars slowed down to avoid drenching us.  At one point we saw three or four teens running toward us on the sidewalk, clearly hoping to pass by a certain puddle before a car got there.  Their forlorn oooohhhh when they were unsuccessful was funny- and understandable.

Our host mother (our mamá tica) cooked us a very nice dinner last night.

Today we spent a good deal of time in various orientation activities.  It was 10:00 before we were actually in classes.  I am in a class with two other students.  We spend a good deal of time talking and then some time on grammar.  The goal for this week is the subjunctive (which did not show up on the placement test, though I found a way to use it in the oral interview portion of the test).  I had thought I would be disappointed to study it here, but it is a good thing…reinforcement, filling in the cracks.  I intend to have it down by the end of this summer.  And, as the teacher said, one might spend months on the topic.

We went on a walking tour of Heredia today, where we went to a very nice market and tried lots of different tropical fruits- jocote, mamón chino, granadilla, guanábana, anona, manga, and cas.  Guanábana looks sort of like a white watermelon with the same type of seeds.  It is very sweet and pulpy.  Cas is bitter…Colleen had thought the flavor like grapefruit when we tried it yesterday, not knowing what it was.  The mamón chino has the coolest look…sort of like a sea urchin.  Then we tried tortillas de queso….more like a pancake in thickness, a corn flour dough mixed with cheese.

We walked through the catholic church.  The decorations were very beautiful.  We had to be quiet because there were a fair number of people praying…