Friday, March 26, 2010

Sprinting in Costa Rica

So March 11th marked my one year “anniversary” in Costa Rica, and the end of May will be one year here in Guatuso….its been a little surreal to think about those milestones and all that has happened since I arrived at the airport in San Jose. And while it was a big deal, I’m not going to reflect back on my first year of Peace Corps service…this blog is going to be about sprinting in Costa Rica…

So you may be thinking, why am I writing about that? Well I have been trying very hard (especially since arriving in site) to stay in shape. And since there is nothing that would even resemble a gym here, I’ve had to go “old school” to do cardio. So I do sprints 3x a week on the relatively quiet street in front of the Catholic church. Flashbacks to track practice in high school and Mr. Dobry yelling at us are common. Normally there would be nothing noteworthy about this, but here in Costa Rica, of course, it’s a little different and there are lots of obstacles I have to confront in order to get my sprints in.

It starts before I even get out of bed. First, I have to fight with the weather. As I have said before, in Guatuso, if it’s not f’in hot, its raining…so I need to check the weather before I get ready to go. If its raining, well, I’m basically screwed…I tried to sprint once in the rain…it was not fun and basically not worth getting soaked. You try being out in the rain and then coming back home just to take a COLD shower. And if its not raining it will be pretty f’in hot by about 6 or 6:30am…so this means that I need to get my sprints in before that if I don’t want to faint from heat exhaustion. There is also a lot less traffic before 6am, which I will explain shortly. So my alarm goes off at 5am…I roll out of bed, fight with my mosquito net and find my flip flops. Then I turn on the light and look for cockroaches. Why, you ask? Well, not that long ago, there was one in my room while I was getting ready to run. The f*in thing hid all over the place so it took me like 45 minutes to kill it!!! And of course, by then it was after 6am…and I was so frustrated and mad that I didn’t even do my sprints. So cockroaches are the newest obstacles to my sprinting.

If it’s not raining and there are no cockroaches in my room, I’m good to go by 5:30/5:45am – perfect timing to get all my sprints in before the sun really comes up. But I’m still not in the clear. The street itself where I do sprints basically doesn’t have traffic, but it’s right in front of the main road/highway to the next closest city to the north. So, there’s a good amount of traffic that goes by and I also have to fight with that. First, there are a lot of fields out that way and so a good number of farm workers head out about the same time I am sprinting. So I get random cat calls from men on bikes or in the back of trucks…not so bad though, and I think by now a lot of them are used to seeing me so they don’t really say anything.

My other obstacle is all the trucks that go by as well since anything going north-south or south-north has to pass through Guatuso. I sprint from the dead-end side of the street to the opposite corner…however this intersection is the one that all the truck, cars, guys on bikes go through on their way to wherever. So I also have to time my sprints so I don’t end up “running into” a giant truck or, worse, a man on a bike. When I first started sprinting, I didn’t know this, so I didn’t pay attention if there was a truck coming or anything. Twice it happened that I freaked the crap out of a guy on a bike and another time a truck driver because they didn’t know if I was going to stop or not before the intersection. So they slammed on the brakes and then gave me weird/annoyed looks when I stopped before getting into the intersection. So timing is important.

My last obstacle to sprinting is something that is common all over Costa Rica: stray dogs. Costa Rica has a lot of them and Guatuso is no exception. Usually there aren’t that many where I sprint and the ones that are there don’t really bother me. But this past Wednesday I had to fight with a dog (I think he actually belongs to the church, so not really a stray) and that day he won. I woke up late so it was about 6am when I went out to sprint…and when I went out to the street there was random dog sitting in the middle of where I normally run. So I thought, no big deal…there’s another dog that sometimes hangs around there and he never even moves while I’m sprinting. So I do my first sprint fine, just a little off from my normal path because of the dog. But, while I am sprinting my second set, as I pass random dog, he leaps/jumps over at me. He doesn’t get close enough to bite me or anything like that, and it wasn’t an attack-type leap…just more of a curious what-are-you-doing thing. But of course it startles the crap out of me and I make this huge swerve in the middle of my sprint (I’m sure it looked really funny if anyone had been watching). Random dog totally messes up that sprint. So I think, ok, whatever, now he’ll go somewhere else….not a chance. He sits downs exactly where he was before and actually looks a me for a while, like he’s waiting for me to sprint again so he can play too. I do another sprint and thankfully don’t have to swerve or anything, but decide to call it a day anyway…it was “late” (lol almost 6:30am!) and I didn’t feel like fighting with random dog anymore…like I said, he won that battle.

These are the obstacles I confront 3 times a week when I go out to sprint. Thankfully, the other 3 days a week that I exercise, I can do so in my apartment so my only obstacles are getting out of bed and looking for cockroaches – a piece of cake basically. Considering all that, I think it’s almost a miracle I actually get my cardio in...

This week is Holy Week, or Semana Santa, here in Costa Rica it means VACATION!!! If not the whole week, at least starting Wednesday night, pretty much everyone is OUT. And there is no school all week for anyone so you know what that means lol...I will be at the beach Tuesday-Friday :D

Hope everyone has a joyous Easter (if you celebrate it) and otherwise have a great end of March/beginning of April!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Welcome to 2010

So the New Year has been off to an adventurous start so far….except for the first week of January when it rained and was cold for a week straight…I was considering coming back home for bit (j/k).

My first adventure of 2010 was FINALLY going to Rio Celeste (“blue river”, though if you want to get technical, it would be “light blue river”)…basically everyone I have talked to in Guatuso has asked me if I have been to Rio Celeste, and when I would tell them no, they would be very incredulous and sometimes offer to take me themselves so I can finally experience one of the few tourist attractions the county of Guatuso has to offer… So, I finally went…me, my host mom, Jen from Upala, and friends of the family who have a truck. So since we went in early January, it was a cloudy morning, especially up in the mountains where we were going. And since it had been raining so much the past couple days, the trail to Rio Celeste was all mud lol it was very fun hiking uphill through puddles of mud. I was glad I wore my hiking boots! I can’t really describe the beauty of Rio Celeste…just look at the pictures on facebook….the water is a color I have never seen in a body of water….apparently no one knows why or how it changes color…just another mystery of nature I guess. But the trip was a lot of fun, we laughed a lot and I feel accomplished now that I have finally visited the famous Rio Celeste.
My second adventure was a trip to the beach with my host family…and when I say my host family, I mean the entire extended family on my mom’s side, which includes 9 brothers and sisters and all of their families, plus the grandparents, plus 2 other families, plus me and a couple other “random” people. I was a little nervous…especially because I thought we were ALL (there were 50 some people) staying in the same house the entire 5 days…..ummm…yeah…
Thankfully my fears were unfounded because we stayed in a compound-type place where everyone was spread out between 4 or 5 different cabinas (cabins). It was a really great trip, very relaxing and feel I grew a lot closer with my host family (and the extended fam). We spent a lot of time in the ocean, and one night we went out and had a crazy dance party with some gringos that were at the same bar that night...super fun!

The adventure has continued with finding and moving into my own apartment! It happened pretty quickly, though I had been thinking about it for a while. I found a nice little apartment next door to the family I am renting from...so far so good...though my first week I had to wage a war on the cockroaches...but I am slowing wearing them down....

My “End of Summer” Camp was also a success! We had a blast and I will hopefully be doing one again (with more adult help) come summer vacaction (mid-July for those wanting to plan donations...wink wink...)The pic to the right is me sprinting it out during the relay races we had for camp with the younger kids haha...I tied for second fastest...that's an accomplishment right there...

And now that the school year has begun again, I am back to work planning different projects and programs. I have a lot that I want/would like to do in both the high school and the elementary school…we’ll just have to see what works out and what doesn’t. My first project right now is a theatre workshop in the high school…I can’t believe I am attempting this haha…lets hope all those years in the drama club will pay off… the reason I want to do it is a) to give the kids another recreational option, increase their self-esteem, public speaking skills, etc but also b) because my region in CR is putting on a Arts Festival and I would like to bring a group from my high school to participate. The festival is a really cool idea that was actually started a few years ago by a group of Costa Rican artists…it basically consists of a series of workshops about peace and violence issues, plus learning an art technique (whatever form of art you want). Each volunteer facilitates the workshop in his or her community and then they all get together and have a big festival to share what they’ve learned and just have fun basically. So the plan is to bring my theatre group to the arts festival, which will be March 20th. Wish me luck!

So that’s mas o menos where I’m at right now…I hope all the snow is melting away up in PA…its sunny and pura vida here in Costa Rica…sending sunshine and warm vibes…