Farmers' Market in Santo Domingo, Costa Rica
Believe it or not, this is a classroom. Or at least that's how I thought of it. Every
Saturday morning I would come here to buy mangoes and papayas and bananas and plantains (large bananas) and broccoli, as well as to practice my Spanish...part of my regular, weekly routine. A lesson, if you will.
In the process I was wending myself into life there. For I was in C.R. on an "immersion course" or experience, where you live in a barrio or neighborhood and partake of the language and the culture. You learn how to order the plate of the day (plato del dia) say, or how to barter for mangoes, and then you go out and do it. On-the-job training, only with language. What a concept, uh?
Wannna see my "school"?...
Actually it's a regular house or casa where I rented a room. But Spanish is taught here. That's Ski, the owner, out front with the weed whacker. His real name isn't "Ski," of course. It's Roman Olkowski. He's from New Jersey originally, of Polish extraction. Anybody familiar with northeastern Penna, especially with the Wyoming Valley, has heard that nickname for sure.
Note the fence around the property and the watchdog lying in the shadows at right. This is typical in the suburbs of San Jose, the main city in C.R. A lot of ladrones or thieves roam here, so people have to take precautions. Most of the fences have razor wire curling around on top and most of the windows have bars -- my own bedroom, for instance, was a little like a jail cell in that respect. Dogs or los perros lurk in many of the yards, and a lot of them are pretty mean.
Here's a close up of Ski and "Maggie," his beloved pooch...Don't let that look of hers fool ya -- she can be mean if she has to. She and I got along well, thank goodness.
On a typical day, I'd get up at 0600. After a few sun salutations (yoga), I'd study Spanish, do workbook exercises and listen to tapes for three or so hours. Maybe talk to Ski for a while, getting feedback on my pronunciation and such. Then I'd head out, usually taking a bus into San Jose, which lies seven kms away (30 min.). There I would "immerse myself" into everything from shopping to eating, using espanol in conversation as much as possible, of course.
Speaking of that, this is the Farmers' Market in Santo Domingo again. I'd go to this stand to get some juice or hugo every Saturday.
And that's la senorita huga, by the way -- the juice girl. Something I looked forward to all week. A real treat. And the juice wasn't bad either! Ha, ha.
With machetes her co-workers would skin those sugar canes to the right and then run the fibery innards through that contraption with the wheel. The run-off could be mixed with orange, papaya, or various other pulps to give you a custom, to your taste, cup of juice...a real tropical pick-me-up.
So this is what I did, more or less (mas o menos) for five weeks. On previous trips I was touring or traveling through various countries, viewing a lot of scenic and fascinating things. Check out www.getjealous.com/mordoman for more on that.
This was more of a linguistic adventure, an expanding of my world through language. Now you might be wondering, why Spanish? Well, if you speak Vietnamese, for instance, you might speak it in one or two countries. If you speak Spanish, on the other hand, you can speak in twenty-some. It "opens up" almost every country south of the U.S. border, which includes almost an entire continent. Those of you wondering, this should give a hint as to my future travel plans.
Talk was circulating this week about lifting the travel ban on Cuba, so the list of Spanish-speaking countries to visit may be expanding. Just for information, it has not been illegal in past decades for Americans to travel to Cuba; it's been illegal for us to spend money there (and thus support the Communist regime).
But back to C.R. Another reason that I didn't do much touring this time is that it's the "green" or rainy season. In May, when I got there, it rained for two or three hours every afternoon. By mid-June, this had progressed to where the skies were opening up for ten and twelve hours. This makes it tough to get around the cities, much less to tromp through rain forest or whatever.
A couple of times Ski and I were going to take a bus to a village in the highlands, only to have the trip aborted due to landslides blocking the roads. One Sunday morning I took a bus for two hours up to the top of the Irazu Volcano, with it down pouring almost all the way. I paid $10 U.S. (expensive) to enter the park and then sat shivering in the snack bar at the summit for an hour until it let up. Finally it did and I hiked out through freezing winds to take this photo.
Crater, Irazu Volcano
Note how there's no other people visible. This is because most would dash up, teeth chattering and jackets clenched at their necks, and rush back into the park headquarters building (the summit's about 11k feet). Like I say, especially for people used to the heat, it was cold.
At any rate, you get the idea -- it was a good time to be on a linguistic-type adventure in C.R.
burdel -- one of the friendly neighborhood brothels in San Jose. Prostitution is legal down here, as it is in almost all of the countries I've visited.
Un Burdel
On my "rounds" through San Jose I walked past this and various others almost on a daily basis. It's located near the Supreme Court Building and often I'd see judges, politicians, etc., people I'd see on the news, slipping in here around mid-day. This, plus the dog, gave me quite a chuckle.
They tell me that there's almost no sex scandals in this country. (Al Gore, for one, would probably like to know that.) It is, after all, a different culture, and they don't seem to worry about some things that we do, and vice versa.
As regards the news, that was another of my assignments -- to watch the local media. Three days a week I had a tutor in the afternoon. A nice woman named Thelma. One of the things she told me was that listening to Spanish was harder than speaking it, and that I should cultivate this as a skill. She was correct on both counts because while I've developed some conversational ability, I still have a time understanding the native speakers. My "Spanish ear" needs a lot of work.
Before fall, when I jump off for America del Sur (South America), I'll have time to improve. For what it's worth, I've been to fifteen countries now, and in most of them I have not been able to speak the language. It's a much, much better travel experience, I have found, if you can speaka the lingo, however humbly.
For now then, buena suerte, amigos and hasta la vista!
