A day in the life...

August 4, 2010

Quirky things I´m probably taking for granted that are in fact amusing... A day in the life of my Peace Corps days thus far:

Regular bike ride into to town... I see what looks like a freakin´coral snake in the middle of the road right in front of the local elementary school. I have just got to confirm, so I

U-turn and approach cautiously. As I am leaning over to look, a man on a bike drives by and says in Spanish, “Yep. That´s a coral snake, sweetie”. Yep, it sure is. It´s dead of course, but I still find this intriguing--- a coral snake! Those are poisonous and it was in the middle of the road I ride down everyday... in front of the school...

Next, I decide to stop by the super and grab a liquid yogurt. In walks 6 or 7 clearly American tourists so they could buy bottled water (which is funny because you can totally drink the water here). They were quite a spectacle with their water bottles, shorts with tall socks and hiking boots (everyone around here just wears sandals or flip flops. it´s hot), big toursity hats, and as usual, raggedy holy shirts and shorts. I am tickled because I now understand why Costa Ricans think Americans are dirty and don´t bathe. LOL. (I have had to explain to many a Costa Rican that we Americans do bathe daily even though some of us Americans opt for the... outdoorsy look. They are not convinced, however). I decide not to introduce myself to the foriegners because my sole purpose in Peace Corps right now is to integrate into the community and they would not help the cause, so I get on my bike and blend right in with the Costa Ricans. Keep it moving.

I roll my bike on to the PANI office so I can get some work done on my community assessment that´s due in 3 weeks to Peace Corps. There´s nowhere for me to work since a shipment of office furniture is taking up all the offices and the hall. So, I crash the social worker´s office to share some space with her. She doesn´t mind at all. I´m working on my laptop sharing Janet Jackson number one hits with her (goal 2 of Peace Corps) and she casually grabs a long knife to jimmy the lock to her own file cabinet! I love it. She grabs a paperclip and the knife and is going to work on that lock to break it open. I am cracking up and she looks at me like, “What? This is normal.” She does this on a daily basis because they never had a key to the file cabinet to begin with and this knife paperclip routine was the maintenance guy’s solution. And so it is.

Today I am unconnected to my cell phone, land line phones, and the internet. It hasn’t been working all day. I think to myself -- Not so bad for me. I can survive a day without it. But, as it turns out, everyone in at least the entire county of Talamanca and part of Limon has no cell phone signal, the land line phones are dead, and the internet is down! That is a LOT of people without access. The cause: a fire at ICE’s main network headquarters in Limon... ICE is Costa Rica’s electric company and is the only provider for electric, phone, cell phones, and internet in the country. And so, if there is an emergency, dios guarde (god forbid), the only communication is radio through the taxi drivers per the announcement on the news!!!!

And it’s only 1:45 in the afternoon. So I will jam on with the social worker to Janet Jackson.