Used Book Stores in Costa Rica--A Must-Do. Also, Happy Independence Day

Books in Costa Rica:

Costa Rica is not a book culture.  Even the copy centers here blatantly ignore all copyright laws.  Nobody seems to have books in their home (with The Bible being the exception).  This is likely due to the fact that a book here costs anywhere from $10-$40.  It's absolutely absurd.

Fortunately, I've never been one to buy books new anyways.  Proof that a book is worth reading is the fact that it's taken decades of abuse.  I love the smell, taste, and feel of used books.  I don't know why anyone would prefer a new book, especially at four times the price.  With a few tips from my Tica roommate and a general idea of the "academic district" of downtown San Jose, I went book hunting.  This is what I found:

(Entrance of one book store)

(Another photo taken while walking through the shot.  Books are stacked 3 rows deep.)

(Finding a specific book is difficult)

(Especially if the book you're looking for is "up" in storage)

(The owner of this--actually helpful and well-stocked--bookstore with my purchases)

As you can tell from the photos, these bookstores are crazy.  The proprietor takes your "request" and walks you through the store.  From what I can tell the books tend to be grouped in "categories," but if the ghost of Melvil Dewey every passed through Costa Rica there would be a poltergeist.  Some of the books are quite damaged from the storage conditions, and others are impossibly buried.  One of the stores had cats climbing on and scratching the stacks.  It was very sad.

That said, I had an amazing time.  I would love to take my sister (Rebecca) and my grandma (Margi) through this part of San Jose.  The smell of paper will floor you.  The combination of colors, structure, and pathetic visual fallacy (I believe that's the term when your surroundings are a metaphor...?) is incredible.  There is one famous used book store in San Jose that is a 4,000+ sq./ft. historic mansion with every single room filled with used books.  I could spend a week in each store.  Unfortunately, I had to get back to Politecnico (my school).  I bought a few titles and split; a very fun $11 to spend.

1. Mamita Yunai by Carlos Luis Fallas -- A very famous Costa Rican novel about life on a bananal (banana plantation).  Full of Costa Rican history, and of course... Spanish Vocabulary

2. El Libro de los Primeros Auxilios -- Not exactly a book, but more of a public service handout.  It's a "parents and children" friendly first aid instruction packet.  Great for emergency medicine vocabulary, but not exactly a long read.

3. Don Juan Tenorio by Jose Zorrilla -- The famous drama that started the cult of Don Juan, the world's most famous mujeriego.  This should be a difficult read, and it's written as a play, but it's another good way to get more Spanish culture.

4. El Cuerpo Humano Jitan by Rusibeth Oviedo Jimenez -- A small, basic, anatomy coloring book.  I couldn't believe the store owner was able to find something that fit this request.  If only it was bilingual...

Independence Day Parade: 

Today (September 15th) is also Costa Rican Independence Day.  Who knew?  I accidentally slept in and missed the opportunity to head in to San Jose to watch the parade with Politecnico professors, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Feeling like one of my parents (because low-squats yesterday left me feeling like I had a spring in my step) I walked from my place to downtown Heredia to watch the parade and the masses.  It was impossible to see any part of the parade, as the Ticos were packed twenty deep on both sides.  I finally managed to snake my way through the crowd and cross the parade route to get to the central park.  My brilliance paid off--the lack of buildings and central location made the park a perfect place to go.  There were street vendors and performers, there was a first aid tent, there were food kiosks, and even a big fake train.  It was beautiful.

The best part about the parade (a rather long, mediocre, and small-town affair) was my perch were I sat.  I found a great tree to climb.  The first eight feet of the tree was limb-free, but I was able to wow the Ticos by coming at the tree with a running start and man-handling the thing. I was twenty feet high and loving the view.

After the parade I bought some incredible fruit out of the back of a pick-up truck (and even got a free papaya!).  As dull as I am, there's nothing better than relaxing at home for the evening on Independence Day. Hopefully there will even be fireworks to watch from my balcony later tonight.

Pura Vida,

Z

My First Day with Fundacion Salud Sin Fronteras (FSF)

After a few dozen emails, phone calls, and resume-in-hand inquiries, I finally found a volunteer opportunity in Costa Rica.  I offered myself to everything from sanitation programs to rehab centers, including schools, sustainable farming foundations, palliative care centers, and the government.  Nobody seemed interested.  The few that returned my calls or emails were apologetic, but uninterested in a foreign volunteer.  I was shocked and disappointed with the results I was getting, but I kept applying.

Finally, I heard back from Javier Malca at Fundacion Salud Sin Fronteras (FSF).  In addition to responding to my email with optimism, he asked that I call to set up a meeting.  Within three days I was on my way to Parque Merced in San Jose to meet with Javier and head to one of the clinics.  He no-showed!  I was worried at first, dejected, and finally resolved to find the clinic on my own and see what was going on.  He was not answering his phone or responding to text messages; either something was wrong or FSF was another dead end.

After an adventure with a cab driver, I found my way to the main clinic of FSF.  As it turned out, Javier was called to a medical emergency meeting.  The sub-director, Italo, came to meet me at the clinic and discuss my potential volunteer work with FSF.  Once Italo arrived, everything turned to gold.

Fundacion Salud Sin Fronteras is a non-profit operating in Costa Rica to provide at-cost medications and procedures to the lower socioeconomic strata of the region.  While health care here is only $20/month, that is still economically unfeasible for a number of citizens.  The foundation works with doctors, drug suppliers, the government, and the people of Costa Rica to deliver health care to a greater number of patients.  To date, FSF has seen over a million patients, at 14 clinics, and has provided over $40,000,000 in treatment to aid the Ministry of Public Health here in Costa Rica.

Fundacion Salud Sin Fronteras

I am truly excited to be a part of this organization.  Italo can provide me with (limited) desk space, fairly unlimited shadowing and clinical/surgical volunteer experience, administrative tasks and non-profit development, and an opportunity to be part of a very positive force in the world.  They'll take me 2-3 days a week, on my schedule, for my entire time in Costa Rica.  I think I'll be at one of the clinical sites every Monday and Wednesday.  I may also be helping out with the planning and logistics of a health-relevant music festival happening this summer (January).

My First Day With FSF


Friday was my first day volunteering at FSF.  I picked up a scrub-top and pair of Crocs, and wore them with a pair of khakis for my first day in the office.  It was a very exciting morning.  The doctor showed up at around 8:15am, and by 8:45 I was holding a bite-block in place as the doctor narrated a gastroscopy.  I expected that assisting a GI specialist would have involved a lot more horrible smells, but the procedures were mess-free.  I was also taken aback by the use of versed and the invasive procedures done without more staff, resources, and emergency equipment present.  The treatment seemed top-quality, I just had anxiety about precautionary measures when I compared the FSF clinic to the outpatient surgical practice where I worked in Virginia.

I will certainly be starting a notebook to document everything I do with FSF.  I know that my future with the organization will afford me with a ton of opportunities for participation, observation, and difference-making.  Though I did little more than help groggy patients out of bed and protect the doctors scope from patient's teeth, it was a great learning experience.  In the future I should be present for a wide array of procedures (any time paying voluntourists aren't visiting the clinic), and I should have an impact on a large part of the practice.

My goals are to have the website translated, and to have begun a self-guided review course for a Spanish-English medical interpreter exam by the end of October.  Everything that I am doing here is part of my path to becoming a doctor, and every aspect of my day is moving me forward towards my dreams.  Even though I'm short on close relationships, furniture, art, books, and certain articles of clothing, I have to admit that I am happy.

I'm headed to a used bookstore tomorrow in the hopes of finding some intermediate Spanish literature, some anatomy/first aid textbooks, and maybe a book or two in English for my high schoolers.

Pura Vida,

Z

First Few Days of Classes and Brazilian Independence

I need to get better at posting consistency with this blog.  The problem is that Sunday is the only day here where I really have a chance to catch my breath.  This week was particularly crazy.

Teaching

I am now in full-swing with my two English classes.  The high school class is truly remarkable.  They have turned in some very impressive assignments already (including very artistic postcards written to friends while on vacation, and advertisements for vacation destinations).  Although I have only had the class three times, we've already covered so much.  Most recently, we've started our literature focus.  The entire rest of the course will be taught as a survey of English literature and written media.  I am so pumped about the prospect of teaching English through short stories and selections because I love to read.

Our First story--a personal selection--was All Summer In A Day by Ray Bradbury.  It is a short science fiction story about an elementary school class on Venus.  If you haven't already read the story, I recommend that you do.  The effect the story had on the class was profound, and we (or at least I) had a lot of fun reading it.  We covered terminology such as setting and inference, and highlighted some vocabulary within the text.  Mostly though, we focused on reading for comprehension.  These high school students are truly amazing.  They started studying English only three years ago, and they are now noticing pathetic fallacy and buried metaphors to a degree that they would wow an English teacher in the US.  It must be due to excellent teaching.

We have our first exam next week.  It's going to be a joke of an exam, mostly because I'm expected to test them after only three classes (and this past Saturday was the first day we had the textbook or syllabus).  Test test will be:

1. Day/Time/Date/Condition/Weather
2. Questions and answers about the weather
3. Vocabulary pertaining to vacations/destinations and nature/environmental issues
4. Essays on the reading: setting, action, inference

My class at Politecnico is proving to be a little more difficult.  First, they were fairly neglected compared to the other specialists at the institute.  Over the past academic quarter they have had four different teachers and have fallen eight full weeks behind!  I'm not expected to catch them up fully, but I am expected to cover the material.  The hardest part of the class is going to be to get them back under control and disciplined.  It seems that they're used to setting the pace of the class and goofing around in their L1 (Spanish).  I can't have that if I'm going to get them to learn what they need to learn.

Any advice on managing a classroom of extra-large children would be much-appreciated.

We have covered small towns and big cities, as well as jobs and working conditions.  I am fortunate that the first two weeks for my high school class was out of the textbook I'm using for my G10 language specialist class.  I will likely use the same verbs and grammar topics in both courses.

So far teaching has been excited, exhausting, inspiring, demoralizing, and every other effect one can imagine.  I'm hoping that by the end of next week I'll feel more like a normal teacher.  I begin tutorials this week (paid office hours to help struggling students) which will bring me closer to economic self-sufficiency and allow me a more normal routine.

Brazilian Independence

So, though I'm neither Brazilian nor in Brazil, I celebrated Brazilian Independence Day yesterday.  Some of my new Tico friends (who I met through my orthodontist friend Karina) called me yesterday and invited me to tag along with them to a party.  I worked all day Thursday and Friday, and was entirely draining from my commute and class on Saturday, but I couldn't refuse the invite.  After all, I can sleep Sunday and Monday, and there's always time to sleep when I'm dead.

The event was slightly uncomfortable, but we had a good time.  We talked with some very interesting girls: Brazilians, Portuguese language students, and Ticas who like a good party.  There was typical Brazilian food, Capoeira demonstrations (Brazilian break dance fighting... honest!), Samba and other Brazilian dances, a mariachi band, masked goblins and "giants," as well as an angel sent to mingle and dance.

(From left to right: Wisconsin, Kenneth, an angel from heaven, me, Toni)

It was a great night, though I was very full (from a huge meal I cooked and ate right before they called me) and exhausted (from a crazy week).  I think sometime in the next few weeks I'll convince the guys (Kenneth, Toni, and Wisconsin) to go out with me in Heredia and crash at my place.  Regardless, I'm started to feel a little more linked in.

Pura Vida,

Z

Kittens on our front porch

The title really says it all.  My Tica roommate Ariana (a self-acknowledged hippie) saw a young pregnant street cat and decided to give it a safe place to have her litter.  She put out some food for the fat little cat, made a nest of the sorts out of cardboard boxes and ripped newspaper, and made sure her own cat (a male cat that looks more like a small tiger) was kept out of the area.  Less than a week after Ariana started showing this cat kindness, we had five little kittens calling from the garage.

I'm not a fan of cats, and I really don't like large pets in general (save Ernie, my awesome dog from college).  Still, I have to admit that this little kittens are growing on me.  It's fun to lay out in the hammock and watch them crawl around.  They can't see yet--something to do with their eyes not being able to open--so they stumble around and use smell (poorly) to find their mom.  She seems pretty bewildered; Ariana says the mother is still pretty young herself, but she's figuring it out.

I don't envy the young mother, but it'll be fun to have kittens crawling around our garage for the next few weeks.  We've already found a vet that will neuter the mother and give away the kittens.

Here are some photos of the rascals on their first day:

(the match stick and shoe for size-comparison was entirely accidental)

Don't you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Pura Vida,

-Z