Loosing Things

I have lost a good amount of weight since my arrival to Costa Rica.  I think somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds.  I attribute my weight loss to a few things.  First, my diet.  Switching from a college student’s diet to the diet of the 3rd world country defiantly took a few inches off my waist. Instead of eating burritos and 2:30AM and drinking three nights a week, I eat a diet of almost purely rice and beans and only get served food when it’s meal time.  And yes I am hungry a lot.  The second cause of my weight loss is sweating.  It is always hot in Vergel. and it’s not the dry type heat that I was used to in Arizona, its a wet, muggy, jungle heat.    

The combination of my weight loss and the nonexistence of dryers here has caused many of my cloths to stop fitting properly. My pants especially is where I’ve noticed the biggest difference.  I officially had to go up a loop in my belt.

The problem with my weight loss/clothes got me into a little bit of trouble on one of my recent trips to Dominical.  It was a typical Sunday afternoon.  The sun was out, the beach was packed, and the waves were big and powerful.  I decided to go out for a quick surf before the US and Brazil went at it in the final of the Confederations Cup final later in the afternoon.    

The waves were good and I caught a few really fun rides.  It was however when on one of my paddle outs that my troubles began.  I duck dove under a wave and on my way up to the surface I felt my shorts slide down a little bit. I didn’t have time to pull them up before the next wave came, so I duck dived it leaving them where they were.  This time on my way up to the surface my shorts fell completely off.  They didn’t stop down around my ankles, they fell completely off.  I was laying on my board totally bare-assed and there was another wave coming toward me that I was going to need to get under.  Rather than trying to duck-dive again, and moon the entire beach in the process, I decided to ditch my board, swim down, and try to fish out my shorts.  Luckily I found them down around my leash.  I untangled them and pulled them back on all the while trying to dodge the big waves breaking in front of me.  I paddled back out to the line up happy that I didn’t have to give the crowded beach too much of a show. 

I tied my shorts as tight as they would go and kept surfing.  It was however only a few minutes later when I found myself in almost the exact same position; in the water, naked, trying to find my pants.  I fished them out and pulled them back on.  As I was treading water tying to tie the drawstring a wave came.  I dove down under it, and just as I reemerged on the other side I felt my leash snap off my ankle.  

I swam the 50 yards or so to the beach and when I arrived I couldn’t find my board anywhere.  I signaled to my friend Jeremy, who was sitting under a palm tree if he saw it wash ashore.  He pointed over to the lifeguard tower and gave me a little applause. Not really understanding what the applause was about, I walked over to the lifeguard tower and saw my board lying there broken into two pieces.

The board had a huge buckle in it and I new that it was going to break sometime soon, I was actually surprised it lasted as long as it did, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.  Two little kids came up to me and asked it they could have the board.  I knew it was going to be way too expensive to fix it so I gave them the broken pieces.

The Confederations Cup final was about to start so me and some friends went to our favorite beach-side bar to watch it.  Jeremy bought me a beer to ease my pain and we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the game.   The bar was packed with Americans and Brazilians so I’m sure you could imagine the atmosphere was pretty exciting.  Unexpectedly, the US took a 2-0 lead over world-number-one Brazil in the first half.  Jeremy, who is a huge soccer fan, and I ended up getting a little too excited and ordering a few too many drinks.  But thats another story.  

I wish I could have broken my board doing something cool- like pulling into a ginormous close out barrel, or landing wrong after boosting a huge air.  But  my weight loss and stretched out shorts denied me of that.  Oh well.  At leas it was only a board and a leash that were permanently lost and not my pants.   

Post Vacations

Nothing too exciting has happened since I returned to Vergel after our July vacations. Anyhow, here is a little bit about what’s been going on the past few weeks.  

(Note: I think I’ve been scaring my mother a little bit too much with my stories about run ins with crocodiles, police, and big waves (sorry ma), so Ill save some stories from my vacation for a later time.  Also, in case you were wondering TIco means Costa Rican.)  

The first Wednesday back after vacations my WorldTeach boss, Leilani, came to El Vergel to observe me teach.  I was a little bit nervous about this especially because Wednesdays I have 3rd grade, and 3rd grade means Carlitos.  Carlitos is by far the most hyper and poorly behaved student in the school.  I was praying he would 

behave and not embarrass me in front of my boss.  But, of course, he did. 

During class we were playing one of Carlitos’ favorite games, airplanes.  Carlitos called one of the girls in the class a bad name and she punched him in the face.  Both of them were put on a time out.  Carlitos couldn’t stand sitting out while the rest of the class played his favorite game and ended up having a complete breakdown.  He started crying, screaming, and rolling around on the floor.  It was awful and very embarrassing, but just another day at Escuela Vergel.  

Leinani made me feel a little bit better about the Carlitos situation and told me that I handled it well and I defiantly had better control of the kids then any of the past volunteers did.  Although I do enjoy teaching more now than I did in the beginning of the year, the kids do still drive me nuts sometimes.  

My first weekend back after vacations turned out to be pretty fun.  My host brother, Pablo, asked me if I wanted to go with him down to the boarder so he could do some shopping.  He said there was a market there that sold chunche (stuff) for really cheap.  Being a Sunday and having nothing to do I said claro.  The boarder isn't too far from Vergel, only about an hour and a half.  So at around eight in the morning Pablo and I jumped on a bus for Pasa Canoas, a small town on the Tico side of the boarder with Panama.   

Pasa Canoas is exactly how you’d picture a typical Central American boarder town. It’s dirty-- full of poverty, half finished buildings, and crime.  So I was a little bit skeptical about the legitimacy of this “shopping” we were about to do.  I pictured the place as a sort of out door flee market, where one could bargain for suspicious merchandise from shady salesmen.  

So after a quick stop at bank, I followed Pablo through the crowded streets of Canoas up to where the market was.  I had no idea where we were going, and kept thinking “where the heck is this place” because since arriving I hadn’t see anything even closely resembling a market.  

I stayed right behind Pablo as we dodged a few last street beggars, then Pablo made a sharp turn down a dark ally.  The ally was so tight I had to turn myself sideways just to fit in it.  Again I was thinking “where the HELL is he taking me? we’re going to robbed and murdered here!”  Then it appeared. And I couldn’t believe my eyes. We popped out on the other side of the ally into a long corridor packed with people. The corridor was impeccably clean, everyone was wearing expensive brand-name clothing (Polo, Loccoste), and there was even AIR CONDITIONING!!!   WHat?!! The market was totally legitimate.  One side of the corridor was lined with small mom n pop type tiendas, and on the other large two-story department stores that sold everything, and I mean everything!  Bathtubs, plasma screens, brand name clothing, birdcages, shoes, sports equipment. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was like we stepped into another world!  I felt like Harry Potter stepping on to Diagon Ally for the first time.  It was surreal!  

Pablo and I spent the next few hours shopping around.  Pablo ended up buying a pellet gun (which he says he’s going to use to protect our mamon trees from birds but I really think he just likes to shoot stuff), a couple pairs of shoes, and a zip drive.  I wasn’t even planing on buying anything, I was just along for the ride.  But I found that the pric

es we so low that I couldn’t afford not to.  I ended up buying a pair of pair of Reef flip flops for $12. a Croatian soccer jersey (something I had been searching for for 2 years and in 3 different countries) for only $4. 

I later found out that all the merchandise was once on its way to Panama but couldn’t pass the boarder for whatever reason and ended up in those stores. Shopping was defiantly a cool experience I think I’m going to go back sometime in December to buy some Christmas presents.  

The only other thing that i can really report on is that have a new favorite food, mamones.  I thought that after avocado season ended I wouldn’t have any new harvests to look forward to, however one good thing about living in Vergel is that almost every month some new fruit or vegetable starts sprouting.  I absolutely love this about Vergel

, and I absolutely love mamones.  

            Avocado and mamones (upper right corner)

In case you have never heard of a mamon before, a mamon is a small neon-colored fruit about the size of a golfball.  They are most commonly yellow and purple but can also be red, blue, green or a mix of those colors.  On the outside there a thick, spike-covered rind, and Inside there is a tasty white fruit wrapped around a pit.  To me they taste like super sweet grapes.  

Mamones are just as tasty and cool to look at as they are fun to eat.  In order to eat a mamon you have to rip open one end of the shell (or you can be like a true tico and bite it open), pull the fruit with your teeth, suck the fruit off the pit, then spit out the pit. 

Eating mamones is a great activity for porch lounging (vergel’s favorite activity), as they provide for an endless possibility of games, which is really good because since april when my family cut off the TV, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of people so bored.  So anything that can be made into a game or some kind of entertainment is good thing. Some of my favorite games include seed spitting contests, rind toss into a wast basket contests, juggling contests, and who can fit the most mamones in their mouth at once contest (Melissa usually wins this one). 

Thats all for now. Hope you enjoy reading.