Things I learned in Costa Rica
One of the other students at the school in Costa Rica has this deal with her family when they travel to another country, they make a list of things they learned while there. She emailed it to me, and I'm going to post it on here. Some of them are hilarious, others you probably won't get without some explanation. My commentary will be added after each one! I might add some more down the road...
1. Cleanliness is next to godliness and God likes his sheets ironed
at least once a day.
-Every morning before I'd leave the house, I'd tidy up my room so the maid didn't have to spend any time in there. When I'd get home, I'd have a fresh towel and freshly finished laundry. The room would be swept and mopped and the trash taken out. I told her one day that she didn't need to do my towel every day. I just didn't want to be a nuisance. She said that in her house, towels were cleaned every single day...No more arguments from me...
2. If you aren't served at least 3 large plates of food for every
meal, then you're malnutritioned and your mama tica doesn't like you
very much.
-The first few days I was there, they would fix my plate for me and put it down in front of me. It would weigh about 10 pounds. That would be the first plate, there'd be more to come. Especially breakfast. By the time that I'd be finished eating, I'd have at least 3 plates on the table, and be almost miserable. I eventually asked if I could make my own plate. Had I kept eating at their rate, I'd be as big as a house.
3. Believe it or not, there ARE mosquitoes in Costa Rica, especially
at the beach---as evidenced by the 24 large red bites I have on my
left leg alone---Yeah Malaria, West Nile and Dengue fever!!
-I didn't have the 24 large bites on my leg like this girl did. I had at least 10 though. One night in Manual Antonio was unbearable...I always figured I got the most bites because I'm so sweet, but I don't think they really cared too much about that.
4. Bed bugs do exist--and here they're considered family.
-Again, I didn't have bed bugs in my house, but some of other students had them at hotels and in their own houses. Miserable...
5. If you're not completely soaked, then you obviously haven't gone
outside today.
-I was in Costa Rica for 5 weeks, and it rained every day except for probably 5 of those. There would be beautiful mornings, then around 2:00 it would cloud up, and rain for a few hours. The first weekend we were there a group of us went downtown and saw all the big buildings and museums. One of the big features is the National Theater. We bought tickets for that night and planned on going back to watch a concert that night. We all met at the mall to get a cab. On the walk from my house to the mall though, I got so soaked that we had to get the cab to stop by my house so I could change real fast. I couldn't wear my shoes for 3 days. I had a rain jacket, but it didn't do anything other than keeping my torso dry. I don't think even an umbrella would have worked.
6. Using the words "exited" and "hot" to express emotion or your
current temperature is not a good idea unless you're looking for a
Costa Rican fling.
-This one is funny. You don't want to use the exact translation of excited to explain how happy you are about something new. If you say excitado, you are saying you're horny. Remember this one folks.
7. Lane lines are merely an indication of the minimum number of cars
that can fit next to each other on the road.
-We're so used to the way people drive here, that when we leave the country we are shocked with how crazy the roads are in other places. Costa Ricans are crazy drivers as well. However, you say fewer wrecks there than you'd imagine. I wouldn't recommend driving there, unless you are super aggressive. I still think the worst drivers, or craziest I've ever seen were in Rome.
8. " Vaya derecho" and "vaya derecha" are not simply masculine and
feminine forms of "go right" (derecho means "straight")
-All words are either masculine or feminine. Some that you'd think are masculine actually turn out to be feminine, and vice versa. Why can't a word just be a word???
9. Stealing's not a crime (no really...the most they'll do is shake
their finger at you)
-Any kid under 17 doesn't get in any trouble. If it's bad enough, they send them off to a special school for a while, but they don't really get in any big trouble. I never had anything stolen from me, but I did have a guy come up and tell me a big story about how all his stuff got stolen and he needed the bus fare to get back to his hotel. Perfect English and all. After he walked off with the $5 bucks or so our group gave him, we started seeing the holes in his story. Oh well, it wasn't too much money. The best part of this story, is that when my Dad and Charlie got down there, we were going to have dinner at the mall. We were waiting to cross this street, and a guy comes up and tells me the exact same story. I was trying to ignore him, but he was really laying it on thick. So I turned around and recognized him to be the same guy that had told me the same story 3 weekends before. I told him, "man, that's a sad story. I met you 3 weeks ago, and you told me the exact same thing". He said, naaaa, it wasn't me, I told him, yes it was. He just said sorry, and walked off. A city of over 1,000,000 people, and we were in the opposite side of town, and the exact same guy came up and asked me for money again. What are the chances of that!?!
10. All roads are one way until oncoming traffic says otherwise.
-Pretty self explanatory. Most drivers will reach for the horn before they reach for the brake...
11. Whatever's biggest has the right of way.
-Yup
12. A hot shower's worth risking your life for-literally. Showers are
heated by electrical heat-coil units mounted right on top of your
showerhead- affectionately known as "suicide showers."
-I was lucky enough to have a hot water heater in my house. The others did not. The hotels we stayed in had these suicide showers. I have a picture of the suicide shower in one of the photo albums listed below...
13. If a child is over 5, "Would you like to buy a __________?" (fill
in with chocolate, candy, chicle, fruit, etc) actually means "May I
steal your wallet?"
-Kids sometimes will go up to people and ask for a dollar or something like that. When the person would take their wallet out of their pocket, or purse, the kid would grab the wallet and take off. Leaving the person standing there usually with just the dollar they were going to give the kid. Never happened to me, but a student that was there the month before I got there had around 200 dollars and his wallet taken.
I'll think of more someday. Good stuff though I thought....
1. Cleanliness is next to godliness and God likes his sheets ironed
at least once a day.
-Every morning before I'd leave the house, I'd tidy up my room so the maid didn't have to spend any time in there. When I'd get home, I'd have a fresh towel and freshly finished laundry. The room would be swept and mopped and the trash taken out. I told her one day that she didn't need to do my towel every day. I just didn't want to be a nuisance. She said that in her house, towels were cleaned every single day...No more arguments from me...
2. If you aren't served at least 3 large plates of food for every
meal, then you're malnutritioned and your mama tica doesn't like you
very much.
-The first few days I was there, they would fix my plate for me and put it down in front of me. It would weigh about 10 pounds. That would be the first plate, there'd be more to come. Especially breakfast. By the time that I'd be finished eating, I'd have at least 3 plates on the table, and be almost miserable. I eventually asked if I could make my own plate. Had I kept eating at their rate, I'd be as big as a house.
3. Believe it or not, there ARE mosquitoes in Costa Rica, especially
at the beach---as evidenced by the 24 large red bites I have on my
left leg alone---Yeah Malaria, West Nile and Dengue fever!!
-I didn't have the 24 large bites on my leg like this girl did. I had at least 10 though. One night in Manual Antonio was unbearable...I always figured I got the most bites because I'm so sweet, but I don't think they really cared too much about that.
4. Bed bugs do exist--and here they're considered family.
-Again, I didn't have bed bugs in my house, but some of other students had them at hotels and in their own houses. Miserable...
5. If you're not completely soaked, then you obviously haven't gone
outside today.
-I was in Costa Rica for 5 weeks, and it rained every day except for probably 5 of those. There would be beautiful mornings, then around 2:00 it would cloud up, and rain for a few hours. The first weekend we were there a group of us went downtown and saw all the big buildings and museums. One of the big features is the National Theater. We bought tickets for that night and planned on going back to watch a concert that night. We all met at the mall to get a cab. On the walk from my house to the mall though, I got so soaked that we had to get the cab to stop by my house so I could change real fast. I couldn't wear my shoes for 3 days. I had a rain jacket, but it didn't do anything other than keeping my torso dry. I don't think even an umbrella would have worked.
6. Using the words "exited" and "hot" to express emotion or your
current temperature is not a good idea unless you're looking for a
Costa Rican fling.
-This one is funny. You don't want to use the exact translation of excited to explain how happy you are about something new. If you say excitado, you are saying you're horny. Remember this one folks.
7. Lane lines are merely an indication of the minimum number of cars
that can fit next to each other on the road.
-We're so used to the way people drive here, that when we leave the country we are shocked with how crazy the roads are in other places. Costa Ricans are crazy drivers as well. However, you say fewer wrecks there than you'd imagine. I wouldn't recommend driving there, unless you are super aggressive. I still think the worst drivers, or craziest I've ever seen were in Rome.
8. " Vaya derecho" and "vaya derecha" are not simply masculine and
feminine forms of "go right" (derecho means "straight")
-All words are either masculine or feminine. Some that you'd think are masculine actually turn out to be feminine, and vice versa. Why can't a word just be a word???
9. Stealing's not a crime (no really...the most they'll do is shake
their finger at you)
-Any kid under 17 doesn't get in any trouble. If it's bad enough, they send them off to a special school for a while, but they don't really get in any big trouble. I never had anything stolen from me, but I did have a guy come up and tell me a big story about how all his stuff got stolen and he needed the bus fare to get back to his hotel. Perfect English and all. After he walked off with the $5 bucks or so our group gave him, we started seeing the holes in his story. Oh well, it wasn't too much money. The best part of this story, is that when my Dad and Charlie got down there, we were going to have dinner at the mall. We were waiting to cross this street, and a guy comes up and tells me the exact same story. I was trying to ignore him, but he was really laying it on thick. So I turned around and recognized him to be the same guy that had told me the same story 3 weekends before. I told him, "man, that's a sad story. I met you 3 weeks ago, and you told me the exact same thing". He said, naaaa, it wasn't me, I told him, yes it was. He just said sorry, and walked off. A city of over 1,000,000 people, and we were in the opposite side of town, and the exact same guy came up and asked me for money again. What are the chances of that!?!
10. All roads are one way until oncoming traffic says otherwise.
-Pretty self explanatory. Most drivers will reach for the horn before they reach for the brake...
11. Whatever's biggest has the right of way.
-Yup
12. A hot shower's worth risking your life for-literally. Showers are
heated by electrical heat-coil units mounted right on top of your
showerhead- affectionately known as "suicide showers."
-I was lucky enough to have a hot water heater in my house. The others did not. The hotels we stayed in had these suicide showers. I have a picture of the suicide shower in one of the photo albums listed below...
13. If a child is over 5, "Would you like to buy a __________?" (fill
in with chocolate, candy, chicle, fruit, etc) actually means "May I
steal your wallet?"
-Kids sometimes will go up to people and ask for a dollar or something like that. When the person would take their wallet out of their pocket, or purse, the kid would grab the wallet and take off. Leaving the person standing there usually with just the dollar they were going to give the kid. Never happened to me, but a student that was there the month before I got there had around 200 dollars and his wallet taken.
I'll think of more someday. Good stuff though I thought....
posted by Sancho at 12:05 PM
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