Tonya's Adventures: 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