After I left the Tico home I stayed at for my first week, I moved in to the empty house of my friend who owns a pharmacy. He and his wife are back in Florida getting all their things in order to move here. I wrote the following after a night of sleeping on my yoga mat on a wood floor. I did that because there was no bed yet, in the house. It was a rough night. My thoughts the next day reflected that.
What am I doing here? Last week I was in school and in someone’s home. It was all arranged. I was where I was supposed to be. Such a busy week. Breakfast, lunch and dinner all made for me, my laundry done and someone to worry about me. Someone who told me that she did not understand how I could be alone here in this new place. She told me that without her family around her she virtually would not exist!
And here I am in an empty apartment, alone...... What am I doing here in someone else’s empty house? Do I really think I can drive around Costa Rica and support myself by painting? Do I even like Costa Rica? Everywhere you go people are suspicious of others and warning me to be careful. Everywhere the houses and stores are fortified with bars on the windows and doors and then another set across the front yard. I can’t go out to Salsa dance because I am told it is too dangerous for me to go out at night alone.
And now I have spent $6000.00 on a car. And I can’t get my ATM card to work. I’ll run out of money if that problem is not solved.
I feel lost and lonely. I am so out of my world of familiarity.
I really liked my Tico family, but I left their house a day early and slept on the floor because I just could not stand one more night of continuous noise. Besides the televisions playing on the other side of two of my bedroom walls, there was Carol’s snoring like a freight train.
Now in this empty place where I thought I would find quiet, there are creatures running around in the ceiling - big noisy creatures!
Well, I suppose it does not really matter asking questions like that. I am here. I can screw around and spend all my money and then go home or I can do what I came to do. I am in this house because I can stay here for free. I got a good car and now I need to have the security trunk built, get some art supplies and get to work. I have people interested in my work. I have a start. I have only been here a week and I have gone to school, lived and communicated with people who’s language I hardly know, found and bought a car and found a free place to live while I plan my next steps. And it has only been a week!
Ok, so I am going to stop feeling sorry for myself, give myself a break and some encouragement, and keep on going. This would be a good time to tell you about adjustments and culture shock. I was warned about this. In fact I have been warned about so many things since I got here that if I took them all to heart, I would hide under a table until the taxi driver got me and put me on a plane back to the States. I try to be smart and prudent and I leave the rest to my guardian angels. as far as shock and adjustment is concerned, you think “Ok, Sure, I’ll do just fine.”
Things are different here in Costa Rica. I believe every place emits various kinds of energy. In Costa Rica the energy is one of peace, tranquility and Murphy’s Law! I swear, if there is a place in the world where anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, it is here! And trying to solve or fix it can involve three more problems and six times as long to solve them all. I am not kidding! Just doing something normal like going to the bank to transfer funds usually takes 45 minutes, and that is if all goes well. Twice the ATM has eaten my card.
So I’ll try not to be tedious here, in telling you my experiences. The day I bought my cute little Sidekick, the engine caught fire on the highway at night in a dangerous area. Fortunately I was with two friends, one of whom had a cell phone. First the fire department came and disabled the battery. They said it was an electrical problem. “Stay in the car,” they said, “it is too dangerous to wait for the tow truck outside.” As they were leaving us on the side of this busy highway I realized that we had no lights. I flew out of the car and stopped them, yelling in my poor, broken, Spanish that there was no way we were going to sit on the shoulder of the road in that car with no lights and wait for some car to ram into us! Then they got the idea to push the car on to the grass. An hour and a half later the tow truck showed up. That was the night I slept at the pharmacy where my friends worked because we got back there at 1 a.m. and there was no bed in my house yet any way. (We were on the way to buy one when the car broke down.)
That one is probably the most entertaining of my mishaps. The others are just long and boring. You can’t get a cell phone unless you are a Tico. And to get a line you must wait in line for hours. I lost my friend’s garage remote control ; dealt with at three mechanics and the salesman, regarding car issues; used a laundry that messed up my clothes; searched for and bought tires, groceries, and many misc. other things; went out to dance clubs twice and took dance lessons - all the time dealing with only Spanish speaking people! Often I felt like I was pushing myself beyond my limits and all I could do was say, “I can do this!” Oh, and did I mention the rain?
When I leave San Jose I have the idea that I am also leaving behind the continuous rain, problems, rain, paperwork, rain and general chaos. Think I am deluding myself? We’ll see....