Costa Rican Craziness

Dear Sis. Johnson the Greatest,

Well, since we didn’t get a big email from you last week, all I have to go on from you is the few lines that you wrote me about how you will keep buggering on and how you love your new area and companion. At least, that’s what I think it said. I’m writing this to you on the plane from Houston (I was there again!) to Salt Lake, so I don’t have internet.

I’m glad that you’re liking Beaumont. What’s with all the French names? I don’t like French. Too many letters to express one vowel sound. Suriously. Hopefully, it’s better than the name.

Since I don’t know what to write to you, having no idea of your needs due to the lack of communication, I’ll just tell you about my week.

Well, I was in Costa Rica all week. Monday through Thursday we worked with our NGO, Friday we went to a research facility called CATIE, Saturday we went to this amazingly beautiful beach, and today we went to church and now we’re coming home. (Side note: the lady in the seat beside me is totally singing along to her iPod. Little weird, but whatever….) I can’t tell you exhaustively what we did, but here are some highlights.

So, the NGO we’re working with is called AED (this stands for something in Spanish, but I’m not sure what.) They are THE name in Costa Rica for corporate social responsibility, or CSR. That’s when companies recognize that they don’t operate in a bubble, and that they have to be mindful of the external effects that they have on the environment, economy, and community.

So, they basically teach companies how to be more socially responsible and do those things. They have member companies who they give trainings and tools to to measure sustainability. It’s super cool, and they do some amazing things. All week we talked with AED, met with their member companies, attended some of their trainings, and visited some of their more independent projects.

One of their projects is this amazingly complicated bridge between the ministry of education, the teachers’ unions, individual schools, and some private businesses to create this amazing information system that is changing the way public education is run in Costa Rica. It’s called PIAD, and it’s rung by this guy named Luis who is a lawyer and has a PhD in development economics, so we got to talk to him for an hour, and he’s kind of my non-profit, social development hero. If I explain more the technical details, you’ll get bored, and I’ll sound really nerdy, but suffice it to say that he’s cool.

We also visited a food bank that they helped start with Wal-Mart, and attended several of their training workshops. My Spanish is such that these were mostly non-comprehensible, and hence kind of boring, but I tried to not doze off.

One time we were trying to make it to this cement company to get to one of AED’s workshops, and the directions we got told us that it was close to the disco place called La Rumba, so we got out of the taxi there, but then the actual place was like 2 kilometers away, so me and my teammates ended up walking down the side of the road in our professional clothes, and asking everyone we met where this place was. Jess and I got a cool pic where we look like sister missionaries walking down this random road in our skirts and backpacks. Made me think of you. We saw some cows, and it was actually quite pretty, but we were about an hour late. Honestly, nothing we could have really done about it, though.

So, we basically went to trainings and meetings all day, and let me tell you it was quite a different perspective on international development. Most of the other teams were working in slum neighborhoods or with school kids, but we were going to fancy business meetings that always featured 30 minute long coffee breaks with little sandwiches, and the most amazing guanavana juice. (Seriously, you should totes try some.) Kylan, Jess, and I were just like, “Yep, this is development work. We’re eating quiches and sitting in air conditioning.” It felt more like a high-end business trip.

AED was super nice and gracious to us though, setting up all sorts of meetings and going way out of their way to help us not get lost; unfortunately, not so successful on that last point sometimes. There are amazing people doing quality work who really want to help others all over the world. I’ve met them everywhere I go. Like, Luis with the school program, could probably be making a lot more money doing something else, but he’s dedicated to what he does and feels like he’s making a real difference, which he is. That’s inspiring. It’s cool people like that. They give me hope.

We tried to get into the national football (soccer) stadium to see part of the under-17 FIFA women’s world cup, but we got there too late. We did strike up a lovely conversation with one of the ticket hawkers, before we realized tha the game had started at 2:00, instead of 3:00, and that there was only 20 minutes left. He was a rather attractive young guy with a great smile and awesome tan. We were joking with him as Jess (who speaks great Spanish) and Prof. Turley (who speaks 10% Spanish) haggled over ticket prices. When we went to leave, I went to shake his hand, but he refused and said that in Costa Rica women don’t shake hands they kiss. He then pointed to his mouth or cheek, and cheekily said, “You choose.” I got all giggly and embarrassed and said that I couldn’t, because you know, boyfriend and stuff, but then everyone was like, “you should have done it!” Missed opportunity I guess.

The workweek accumulated with us staying up until 12:30 on Wednesday to try and come up with some topic ideas to pitch to AED to next day that we could work on. People were getting a little tipsy, and I got to know my classmates and Professor Turley better than I ever thought I would. Can’t say I didn’t kind of enjoy it, though.

Friday we finally left San Jose to visit this research institute where one of Professor Turley’s friends work. The institute is also a botanical garden where they do all this amazing research on best agricultural practices. We got a tour of the garden, and I’ve never been so amazed by plants. I feel like everyone he pointed out did something super cool. Plants that were natural mosquito repellants, plants that ate bugs, a leaf that was a natural sandpaper (which Jess later discovered was great for rubbing calluses off the bottoms of your feet), seeds that could change bitter to sweet in your mouth, every kind of flour and fruit imaginable, not to mention the drugs. That’s right, they had all sorts of crazy hallucinogens that I’ve never even heard of, but some of the ones that we did see were cocaine (boil three leaves for five minutes and drink for five hours of crazy energy!), morning glory (the most hallucinogenic crazy drug of them all), and this “natural viagra” called the black something….

That’s right. Plants do all sorts of crazy things. Whoda thunk.

That afternoon we listened to Prof. Turley’s friend and her colleague present their research. I’ve been thinking more about research and doctoral work, and it seems really cool. Who knows….

Saturday we got up at 5:00(!) to drive to this national park that had a jungle beach, meaning that the jungle went right up to the beach. It was amazingly beautiful (pics included), and we had a great time doing playing on the beach stuff. A raccoon stole my Dorritos out of my bag, the little bugger.

Sunday we went to church in San Jose again, which was great. They have an amazing little ward there. Made me wish I could understand more what was actually being said. I love the church.

Well, your quote this comes from me because I have no internet to look up some Dr. Who wisdom for you. It’s from said late-night brainstorming-what-the-crap-are-we-going-to-tell-AED-tomorrow-they’re-so-amazing session. I come out of the bedroom frustrated that I didn’t even have time to talk to Daniel that night on Skype:

Tonya: I’m so frustrated that this is taking forever and you (Prof Turley) just got here and we have nothing, and I don’t even have time to talk to my boyfriend! Grrrr.

Everyone else: *stares at Tonya

Prof Turley laying splayed out on the couch: Uh, sorry.

Tonya: *acca-awkward*: Oops. Well, let’s think of something….

We then proceeded to complete in 20 minutes with Prof Turley what we’d been brainstorming about for 5 hours over the past two days. Sometimes, you just need an expert.

I love you,

Tonya 

We saw some crocs just hanging under a bridge.

Jess and I would have been great companions.

We got lost and saw some cows. 

The school that we visited with PIAD.

The beach was pretty. 

Costa Rica and Stuff

Dear Sis Johnson the Coolest,

Heya, sis. Sorry for the crappy emails for the past few weeks. I'm going to write you a quality one now because I'm in for the night and it's only 9:30. Oh, and I love you. 

Where did you end up getting transferred to? How close was I to you when I was in the Houston airport? I liked that airport. They had a Jamba Juice, and there was a group of precocious, violin-playing teenagers from Boulder who were on our flight to Costa Rica. They played their violins in the terminal, and everyone thought it was cool, but I thought it was kind of weird. 

Anyway, I hope that you weren't too heart broken about leaving Lake Chuck. I figured you were probably out of there because you'd been there for like 6 months, and most of the time you don't stay in an area for longer than that. 

So, how's your new place? How's your new companion? Are you senior companion? Training? Just being awesome? You have been out for more than 10 months. That's a long time, but you still have miles to go until you rest, so as Churchill says in that one Dr Who episode KBO, "Keep buggering on."  

So, I'm writing to you now from our hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica. But before that let me tell you about my crazy week!

So, Monday and Tuesday I was in DC. I went to the conference on Monday and learned some cool stuff, then came home and wrote a paper. Then Tuesday I had my interview with GAO in the morning. It was a panel interview with three women, and they were all super nice. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but the next morning I got an email with a job offer. 

WHAT?! I know, right?! The next morning! I've never heard back that quickly from any interview, and it's the federal government. So, now the problem was that I had two amazing offers and only one summer to do them in. My life is so hard, right? 

So, I wanted to job share and do half the summer at Sandia and half in DC, but Sandia said no because of the long process behind getting a security clearance and getting trained and everything wouldn't make it worth it, so after much consideration, I went with GAO, so I'm going to be in DC for the whole summer, which is going to be AWESOME!! 

So, that happened. Change of plans. 

Then, I did a whole bunch of school work to get ready  for coming to Costa Rica this weekend. On Friday, I tore up the town. I went to Daniel's concert, which was amazing! Then we went and ate tacos with his friend Marley, and then we went rock climbing.

Then we drove to the airport Saturday morning at 3:30 in the morning, which was ridiculous, but worth it because we got here at like 2:00 in the afternoon, and that was when I was in the Houston airport. Fun fact, Costa Rica is in the same time zone as Utah and Colorado, just a bit farther south. 

After we found our way to our hotel, we went down town where we ate dinner and wandered around, taking in the sights and sounds. San Jose is like every other large city in the developing world: noisy, crowded, stinky, dirty, and with people every five feet  all yelling trying to sell you stuff. In this case, socks, ripped DVDs and mini snickers bars out of a shoe box. No idea, how she came up with that one.... 

Then today we went to church in the morning. We found the building kind of OK, Prof. Turley was concerned because we were all in different taxis, and he didn't want us to get split up, but then it turns out that it was an old, unused building, and there was definitely not anyone having church there, s on the cab driver's suggestion, we drove around for another 30 minutes until we finally found a iglesia de los Mormones. 

Church was great. I got about 30% of sacrament meeting, 5% of Sunday school, and 60% of relief society. It depended on who was talking. All the members were super nice, and they were celebrating the birthday of the relief society, so everything was about how awesome the relief society is. 

After church, we drove up into the mountains, which was a beautiful drive, and then went to a volcano that was so beautiful we couldn't even see it. No kidding, though, there was too much sulfuric steam to really see anything but a white wall. But there was a cool lake at a crater where the volcano used to be before it got all hipster and decided that the cool kids were about a half mile away on the other side of the mountain. 

So, we saw that, and then we went to this place called La Paz. It had waterfalls and a wildlife refugee. There's pictures below that will do a much better job of explaining than me. It was beautiful, and exactly what I pictured when I thought of coming to Costa Rica. 

Then, we stopped for some yummy food on the way home. Costa Rican food is mainly beans, meat, and rice, so... my favorite things! 

Tomorrow we start to work for real, and meet with the non-profit that we're consulting with. Here's hoping it all goes well! 

Your quote this week is from Dr Who, the best show, again. It's from the one when the Doctor's supposed to die, but then they get caught in an alternate space-time thingy where all of history is happening at once. Dr. Who's trying to set Rory up with Amy in this alternate reality,

"The Doctor: The loyal soldier, waiting to be noticed, always the pattern: why is that?

Rory: Sorry, sir?

The Doctor: Your boss, you should just ask her out. She likes you. She said so.

Rory: [Dryly] Really, sir? What did she say?

The Doctor: Ah, she just sort of generally indicated —

Rory: [Turns and looks him straight in the eye] What exactly did she say?

The Doctor: [Stuttering] Well, she said you were a Mr. Hottie-ness... and that she would like to go out with you for texting and scones. [Smiles hopefully]

Rory: [Stares at him] You really haven't done this before, have you?

The Doctor: No, I haven't.

I love you!!

Tonya

Craters

Dear Sis. Johnson the Greatest,

I'm so glad to hear that you're working so hard and having such great success. It sounds like you've hit your stride as a missionary, and you know what that means! Soon, the Lord is going to throw you a massive curve ball.

It sounds like setting all those goals and doing all that planning really paid off. Keep up the good work and keep annoying your companions with your cool laser pen. It's totes true, though, that the Lord is in control of your timing and puts you not just where you need to be, but sometimes infinitely more important, when you need to be there.

Things that are happening here: well, last week was fun. Daniel and I went to swimming in the hot-spring created crater in Midway on Thursday. He got a groupon from his sister for Christmas. It was fun. The water was the perfect temperature, and there were lots of people doing their scuba certification stuff there. I can take pictures underwater with my new phone case. That was probably the funnest part.

On Friday, we had a full night. We went to see "The Importance of Being Earnest," which was good, but not as good as the movie with Reese Witherspoon, Collin Firth and them all, but still hilarious and a riotous good farce. I love that play. Then, we went and ate delicious tacos, went climbing and hung out. Quite a good evening.

Saturday Daniel was working, so I went to a Jerusalem Center reunion with Brooke and then did some shopping because I'm going to be in DC this month for a conference, which should be neat! There's an American Society for Public Administrators, and they have an annual conference, which is in DC this month. I applied to be a fellow, and got accepted, so I get to go for FREE!! 

I can't believe how fast time is flying. The semester is more than half over, and I'm going to be out of town most of March. Oh yeah, I'm going to Costa Rica with my economics of international development class March 22-30. We're going to be consulting some NGOs down there on best ways ti implement their policy objectives based on research that we've done. Cool, eh?!

The trip came as a total surprise when our econ professor was explaining our last project for the semester was to work with NGOs in the field. He said we had two options: one was to stay here and work with this local NGO and the other was to work with one of five NGOs in Costa Rica. We all freaked out  pretty hard core as he went on to explain that the Ballard Center was subsidizing our trip, and that we only have to pay $300 for the whole week.

WHAT?! So, I'll tell you all about Costa Rica. I'm working on my Spanish now, too, but it's pretty rusty/non-existent.

Sunday was a great fast Sunday and stuff, and the rest of the week was pretty much me running around madly trying to do everything that I need to for school.

Your quote this week is from the "Importance of Being Earnest" when Algy is explaining "Bunburying" to Jack in the first act, "The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!"

I love you!

Tonya

P.S.The first pic is a pic of a solar flare taken with different types of cameras.

The second is me and Daniel underwater

Going U-Kray-kray

So, I am by no means  an expert on the situation in the Ukraine, but I did find some interesting tidbits that I thought would be neat to share.

The Economist had some suggestions for what the West  can do to help the Ukraine retain its independence and avoid becoming a Russian satellite state again:

"A military response to Russian aggression or the threat of fast-track NATO membership for Ukraine are unthinkable. So the West will fall back on lesser, diplomatic measures in an attempt to isolate Russia within the international community. First, all seven of the other G8 members could say they are not going to Sochi unless Mr Putin backs off. Secondly, the US Congress could substantially widen the application of the so-called Magnitsky Law to include Mr Putin and his Kremlin cronies. Thirdly, trade sanctions could be applied including work to begin freezing Russian banks out of the international financial settlement system. Fourth, a UN Security Council resolution could be prepared condemning Russia for aggression against an independent country that might attract the support of China (always first to denounce intervention in the affairs of a sovereign state) even though Russia would, of course, veto it. Last, the West needs to show ordinary Ukrainians that it will back the new government and that it, not Russia, can offer a path to prosperity." The Economist 3/2/13

Also,  I love Stephen Colbert's take on the situation. Although a few days old, I just like seeing Putin in a dress.