More Skills - cleaning off mold

Washing mold off of everything is a very important task here.  And yes, it grows on everything from shoes to yoga mats to umbrellas!!!... It even grows on walls where you never splashed any water. 

This is new for me because where I am from there is like 0% humidity. 

My mold cleaning morning:

The harsh sun is the final magic touch to the cleaning process.

Simple, but Important Skills

The skills I have learned living in this country:

How to peel fruits (way more effectively than I was doing before)

How to kill cockroaches without being afraid of them (still working on that one… sometimes I just choose to pretend they’re not there and hope they go away).

How to ignore mosquitoes and mosquito bites.

How to cut and peel garlic (by smashing it first with the knife).

How to cook beans and rice (through several rough attempts).

How to clean a fan and that cleaning it makes the air soooooo much cooler!! (I didn’t even know you could clean fans). 

How to take out the trash bag before the maggots hatch… (or how to put the trash in the freezer so that it doesn’t attract insects).

The list will surely grow… but I find it amusing what I have learned so far and I smile every time I peel a fruit well or get a clean peel on the garlic.  It’s the little victories. 

Road Trip to the Movies

The closest movie theatre to Quepos is a 1hour and 45 minute bus ride to the city of Jaco.  That's like driving from Tucson to Phoenix just to see a movie!!!   But, when that's all you have... it doesn't seem like a hassle, it seems like a mini vacation :]

On a Thursday, nonetheless.  

We found a cafe to hang out at while the downpour passed

This is a manifestation of the teacher's strike that has been going on for the past 3 weeks.  It blocked traffic for a little while. 

And of course, I brought my own homemade salsa to the cafe... we're such "comen huevos."

Also, I never thought I would like an action movie like X Men... but I loved it!  It was like time travel mixed with tons of crazy plot lines and characters battling to overcome their own obstacles while struggling to come together as a team.  Totally worth the trip. 

*Addition to "Funny Things Students Say"

The word for his/hers/your is the same in Spanish. 

For this reason, my students tell me things like....

"She is doing the laundry for your boyfriend."
"She is at your house, cooking dinner." 
"I made a cake for the birthday of your mom."

Being the Representative of the Local Theatre in the Independent Theatre Collective

I have no idea how I became the representative of Copaza, the theatre in Quepos.  I guess it is because I show up.  Anways, here I am... the representative of Copaza. 

This means that I travel to our meetings in other parts of the country with the three other theatres that are in the collective. 

This past weekend, the meeting was in Puntarenas.  Since the director of the play that I am in lives in Puntarenas, we drove up together after our preview of the play on Saturday night.  The preview was for a private group of "Alcoholics Anonymous" who must have been so anonymous that they couldn't show up for the play.  So that we had any audience at all, we called the police who came over from their station down the street  and a few family members of the actors came by to watch. 

Even though the audience was pequenito... It was good for us to have a real dress rehearsal, since even that morning when we rehearsed in the discotec (the local night club that one of the actors owns) actors were forgetting their lines and not knowing what was going on.  Did I mention that we rehearsed in the disco?  That in itself is hilarious.  Also, whenever I go out there to dance... I feel like a VIP which is super cool. 

We had to drop off my friend's friend at the airport in Alajuela so that she could be in the play that night.  We drove there first, and then made a big triangle to go back to Puntarenas.  When we finally arrived, it was 2:45 in the morning!  But, we did get to eat at Hooters in Alajuela and have a fun road trip :]  Besides, I love hanging out with those guys.  They are some of my best friends in Costa Rica. 

The meeting was supposed to be on Sunday morning, but one of the theatres missed their buss.... so the meeting was a little later.  We walked around Puntarenas and had a photo shoot :]  There was a construction worker jack-hammering while wearing a blue woman's sombrero.... which was hilarious.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of that. 

The meeting consisted of talking and eating.  Also, in this meeting I became the "social action coordinator" or something like that.  That means that I record all of the social action projects all of the theatres in the group do and type up some sort of report.  Also, we are all going to have a theatre festival in November in San Jose where we have a pajama party in a gym after - at least I think that's what I understood. 

The Day the Electricity Went Out and I Became a Spanish Teacher

Sometimes unexpected events lead to happenings you couldn’t have created if you tried.  This is the opposite side of the last post. 

8:40am – I arrive home from the high school and there is no electricity.  It is suffocatingly hot without a fan.  A woman in the neighborhood tells me that the electricity will be out until 4pm because they are re-hanging the power lines. 

9:00am – I call the Spanish school to ask if I can go work there for the day…. Hang out in the office and do the grades that I need to do.  They say, of course.  I make some rice and eggs for lunch and head out. 

9:30am – I arrive at the school and start working on my grades. 

10:00am – The director of the school arrives and gives me a mango. 

10:10am – The director asks me if I’m busy.  I say that I am, but that I can do something if he wants.  He asks me for an idea that I have used with teenagers…. Yes, a question that vague.  I answer with an idea from my literacy class in college – a graffiti wall.  He says, “Great.  Go upstairs and help K plan the summer camp we’re having for middle schoolers.” 

That’s it.  That’s how I went from 1 and 1/2 years ago - being in that same classroom in an intermediate I Spanish class (that I struggled to understand) to planning a summer camp Spanish curriculum.  In Spanish.  In that moment, I felt so proud of myself. 

And, our plan rocks!  Together, the Spanish teacher and I are a dynamic creative team that seems as though it is working from one mind.  I really hope that I get to help with the camp. 

The Epedemic of the No Show's or Waiting for Gadot en Costa Rica

Lately, waiting for my students to show up or not feels like I'm in the play Waiting for Gadot.  I'm in some sort of weird existential existence where no plans actually come to fruition. 

I know I have talked, previously, about how I love that each day is a surprise - one never knows what might happen... but this is just getting ridiculous. 

For example, this week, five out of my seven private students have canceled or not shown up for their lessons.  The craziest one is the boy who lives in the house I live behind.  How is it that he doesn't show up when we share the same laundry area and I can hear all conversations that happen in the house? 

Today, nothing has gone as scheduled - which is actually getting to be normal.  My 10:00 student dropped out, my appt got canceled (but when I showed up we decided to have a business meeting about helping with publicity in English), I had an emergency meeting with someone at the high school about grades (which are already due... go figure), and then the boy in the house didn't show up. 

It can be very frustrating, to say the least.  I always have other projects to work on, though, and stay busy.  And also, I remember when I visited my friend in Peru during her time in the Peace Corps; she would hike 3 hours through the Andes Mountains only to have one person show up to her community meeting that had been announced several times over the radio (the source of all information there).  So, there's that. 

I think it is time to come up with a new business plan, though, - like making people prepay for lessons.  Either that, or switch professions. 

Trusting Myself, and then Trusting Myself More

...Knowing when to not think. 

As the title of this blog states, life begins at the end of your comfort zone.  I have really made this my mission the last ten months - constantly doing things that I had never done before: things that I thought I wasn't able to do and that scared me.  From hanging up flyers for my English lessons to running an improvisational comedy troupe in Spanish, I have really impressed myself with what I am able to build if I believe in myself and stop thinking so much.  Stop thinking about the what if's.  The what if nobody comes.  The what if I don't know what to say.  The what if I fail. 

And what IF I fail?  When I look back on all of the events so far in my life... I don't think I can think of even one that I would say was a failure.  I think the truth is there is no such thing.  It is just an idea... a scary idea... but not a reality.  Things often don't go as one had planned.  You loose your work or a class goes super poorly, but none of that is failure.  It is all just an experience from which to learn and move forward, that much stronger and more ready than before. 

I have talked a lot about the emotional and intellectual comfort zone, but not much about the physical. 

"Why not do something that scares me like hanging upside-down  from ribbons in the Manuel Antonio community center?"  This was more or less my thought yesterday as I decided to get on the bus for aerial dance class.  In that moment of commitment, I put aside the thoughts in my head saying that I wasn't strong enough or skilled enough to do something like that.  I thought, "well, I can always just watch the class..."

HAHAHAHAHAHA!  Watching the class was not an option, because I WAS the class.  There we were, Vane and I, running around the dirty fake grass of the indoor soccer field, putting up the dusty ladder to let down the ribbons.  The next thing I knew, I was doing somersaults and handstands against the wall.  I must say that I had been afraid of doing somersaults and handstands for a long time.  Whenever we did them in yoga, I kind of "half tried" and the other half held back.  My mind told me, "It's ok... you just aren't built to do these things. Maybe one day you'll work up to it" and other things of that sort. I thought I was just being kind to myself...

But, yesterday.... I did them. "Stop thinking. It is your mind that is stopping you," says Vane as I flail around.. kicking my legs up towards the wall... crumpling to the floor.  

"Don't look down at the ground.  Change your focus. Use your momentum to keep going.  Go faster.  No thinking."  There was no option but to do it.  She wasn't going to allow me to give up on myself.  And this was exactly what I needed.  It turns out, I could do these things.  The "maybe I will work up to it someday" became today. 

"Trust yourself.  Ok, now trust yourself more."

From the warm-up, that was already beyond what I thought I could accomplish, we moved to the ribbons.  The mind out of the way, I was ready to do whatever crazy task was ahead.  I mean, I had already done at least three things I thought I couldn't do.  And I had a teacher by my side that believed in me.  A belief that wasn't like a "I think you can do it" but more like a "you already did it... you just haven't experienced it yet."

So, up we went.  Climbing, tying ourselves in knots, flipping upside-down.  In moments where my hands felt like they were slipping and I was about to flip back over and come down, there was Vane saying, "Trust yourself.  Ok, now trust yourself more.  When you think you can't hold on anymore, hold on one breath longer."   It is true.  I held on that one breath longer and I was still ok.  I was still in the air. 

As you can probably already tell, these words and these experiences apply to a lot more than aerial dance.  These are ideas by which one can live life. 

Dance teachers can be such wise people and I've been blessed to have had some really excellent ones.  Ones that not only believe in me, but help me to realize how much I believe in myself. 

Funny things my students say:

"In the open and close of an eye" - blink of an eye

Me: What is a rainbow?
Student: (With extreme enthusiasm) My little Pony

In a journal entry: What did you do over the weekend?
I watched movies with my girlfriend and then we slept together.