El Terremoto

Costa Rica was just starting to feel like home and its already time to say good bye. The past four weeks have been a blur but I think i picked up a great deal of experience with the language, practical knowledge for the engineering, and had a ton of fun. After school we often played some pickup soccer or basketball in between rain storms. We often played against local guys on this court right in the middle of our residential area. They seemed particularly excited to exercise their repertoire of vulgarities in English and amiably referred to me as "Strong Man."

My only regret for the weeks here was that I didn't get to spend enough time with my host family. Last night we took some time and had some fun with the kids. Jonathan and Esteban were very excited to show off the song and dance they learned from a clown at a birthday party while Antoni was all radiant smiles as usual. They're quite a handful- especially Jonathan (wearing the dress and women's shoes). Flory calls him el terremoto (the earthquake).

City Tour

For Spanish class today, my group hit the streets of San Jose to see how the city was put together and how historical events persist in the architecture and culture of the city. San Jose was chosen as the capital city of Costa Rica for its convenient location nestled in the central valley between the coffee plantations on the west coast and the port cities of the Caribbean shoreline. As a city of government and trade, the city was built around two centers of power on the northern slope of the central valley. The commercial and economic center was based at a railroad and customs complex while the executive power was built around another locus with the courthouse and legislative buildings. Fanning out between the two centers towards the north (uphill) the upper middle to high class houses loom over well-paved streets and thick wrought iron gates. From a given street corner you might see the foreign influence on the upper classes: a German high sloping roofed house with earthy colored trim faces a bright Spanish villa and is backed by the arched and columned frontage of an Italian domicile. As you look southward, elevation and economic status decline sharply.

Costa Rica is one of the three countries in the world with no armed forces. They have been without a standing army for fifty eight years but would proudly tell you longer. As a reminder of the violence and lack of diplomacy that comes with having an army, the last functioning barracks still proudly displays bullet holes on its turret just ten blocks from the center of the city. A section of the Berlin wall serves a similar purpose poised outside of a legislative building.



The morpho is the Costa Rican national butterfly. This one at the national museum is drying its wings having recently hatched. You can just see from the picture the inside of its wings is stunning blue mirrored display.

The 4th and Patines Musica

Three of my favorite EWHers and their host mother, Rocío, baked a double layer American flag cake for the 4th of July. Funfetti cake, vanilla icing, red fruit loops, and an unconventional but intuitive inter-layer bed of sprinkles entertained and satisfied nearly the entire program. Thanks girls!

Patines Musica is your typical Costa Rican roller skating rink. A hard-floored, tin-roofed room substantially smaller than most roller skating rinks in the states (but with twice as many people) reverberated with the sounds of N’sync, Celine Dion, and Bob Sinclair. Patines also seemed to be hosting the national convention of All-Costa Rican doubles figure roller skating- some of the talent there was incredible.