Moment of Clarity

Every now and then, I take a step back from the insanity that is life as a Peace Corps volunteer. I focus my outlook like the lens of a camera, and realize that I am living in a truly extraordinary place.

This often happens on a Friday night, at the end of a long, busy week. As Shabbat rolls in, I pour myself a glass of red wine, and look out my doors. As the sun inches its way toward the horizon, the cloud ridden sky becomes illuminated. The clouds over the mountains in the east reflect the calm colors of the sunset in a purple glow. Like Monet’s water lilies at dusk, the mango tree in my back yard takes on a new beauty. Heavy with scarlet-ripe fruit, it hangs its branches in the glow. I never thought my small patch of yard could bring me such comfort.

When I first arrived in my site, I complained to my mother that Costa Rica does not have much fine art to speak of. Coming from the city of museums and artists, paintings had always been a vital part of my life. The walls of the apartment I was raised in are filled with all kinds of art: paintings, drawings, photographs. In her conciliatory voice, my mother told me to forget all that. “The country is the art,” she told me. “The forests, the mountains, the beaches, the people: this is the art you must appreciate.” She couldn’t have been more right.

As I have accustomed myself to laid-back life in Costa Rica, I have learned to take joy in its pastimes. I now find myself enjoying an afternoon spent sitting on a wire rocking chair in the shade, watching the clouds pass through the sky. I almost relish the regular bus ride from my site to downtown Puntarenas. Looking out the window, I take note of the beauty found in the little things. A group of kids playing soccer, a pair of auto mechanics sharing a cigarette, a mother holding a baby. These are all scenes that I must not forget to appreciate.

In the past year, I have talked my fair share of trash about Puntarenas. However, I have managed to knock myself back to my senses as of late. Puntarenas is a unique place. As I have said before, it is a seedy port town, but it’s my seedy port town. “The water is dirty,” I used to complain. But who am I to complain about dirty water? I was raised by two big, dirty rivers, the Hudson and the East; they served me well. In the waters off the Puntarenas piers, exciting things happen. Giant pelicans glide above the water in flocks, and dive like missiles toward the surface when they come upon a school of fish. Creating an explosion of water, they startle the nearby herring gulls and come up with mouths full of fish. I’ve seen men haul up meter-long tuna from the water using only a spool of line and a baited hook. The water is filled with life.

Lately, I have truly been able to appreciate Ticos. It was not easy to do so earlier on in my service; the negative aspects of the culture were so in-my-face that they were difficult to get past. Maybe my Spanish has reached a level in which I no longer have any problem communicating with Ticos. I’ve had a year to travel and get to know the country; I’ve been able to meet many different kinds of Ticos, each with something different to offer. Moreover, I’ve been here so long, that I no longer feel like an outsider, but rather one of them. I constantly find myself doing classic Tico things, and thinking like a Tico. I use Tico dichos, or slang. Never before in my life would I catch myself thinking, “looks like it’s about to rain, maybe I should cancel classes for the day.”

Yesterday, I helped run a planning meeting for the PANI (Tico children’s services) national youth congress. The meeting was attended by the youth representatives of each region’s children’s advocacy group. PANI personnel accompanied the youth from as far away as Quepos to a beautiful nearby hotel; I was amazed that they could get teenagers to give an entire Saturday for such a meeting. However, not only did they come, they were engaged. None of them knew each other at the start, but within an hour, they were chatting it up as if they had known each other all their lives. They worked hard and are all very excited about the upcoming national congress.

What I admired most about the youth, and all the participating Ticos, came at the end of the meeting. I was very surprised when I came to the end of the agenda to find “3:00 PM: Dance Party.” I looked skeptically at my gringo friends and said “only in Costa Rica.” So after getting through the meat of the agenda, the PANI personnel, youth representatives and we Peace Corps Volunteers made our way to the dance floor. Within a few minutes, all of the kids were dancing like crazy. The PANI workers, the bus driver, the hotel owner, and we three gringos were in the mix too. We danced for hours until we had sweat through all of our clothing. I thought things were going to slow down at around five, when the dance instructor sat down to take some coffee. However, this was when the karaoke took off. These kids who had never seen each other had their arms thrown over each other’s shoulders, belting out their favorite songs. By the time we split up to get on different busses, they were already texting each other on their phones, and preparing to Myspace each other. It was so classically Tico.

On the bus home with my fellow PCV, Casey, I noted how fantastic it was that Ticos could make friends so quickly. “Imagine,” I said “if the New York Administration for Children’s Services had a youth outreach meeting, you think it would have been anything like that?”

“You kidding?” replied Casey with eyebrows raised.

“Exactly.”


Like the sunset drenched mangos in my backyard, or the open-air houses I pass on the bus, I have found beauty in the Costa Rican people. It is not that I never appreciated Ticos before, it is that I am becoming more and more enamored with the culture. I am starting to think that maybe Ticos have got certain things right that Americans could learn from. Maybe Americans need to dance more. Perhaps family should trump all, the way it does here. Maybe it isn’t unreasonable to clear one’s schedule on account of the rain. As I take a minute to stop and take in the Costa Rican beauty, I feel both fulfilled and sad. For these are the things that I will miss when I leave Costa Rica and return to the American way.