(Costa Rica Day 109)
Unfortunately, going to climb Mt. Chirripo did not pan out, the people I was suppose to go with ended up having conflicting engagements...and well maybe its for the best, since the chest congestion form the cold I currently have would have probably made it pretty hard for me to hike up a mountain.
So instead, Cinzia and I decided to head to San Jose to catch the Festival of Lights and also allow me to do some Christmas shopping etc, before I went back to Canada.
Over lunch Cinzia was telling me how she was always tired when she went into the city, having grown up in a small town in Switzerland, because there was so much going on at once. It reminded me of a song I learned as a kid about a busy city (I think London in the original song) . So being sick and with nothing better to do I decided to describe my time at the festival yesterday by adapting the words to the song, which I included bellow.
Fan mail can be posted as comments to this post. =)
Hark! To the street cries in the noisy city...
Louder and louder they fall upon the ear...
Right this way, sir, I’ve a taxi
Stools, popcorn, sweets and lights.
Here’s a stick of chicken, the street BBQ kind.
Bring out your cameras!
Here’s your ice cream!
Thief! Thief! Thief!
La Nacion, we advertise
8 o’clock in...
Hats.
Police! Police! Police! Police!
Will the parade start?!
Tickets! Tickets!
Umbrellas.
Can you tell me, sir, when the 6 o’clock parade starts?
Senor Cruz your kids,
I dropped my purse
Hurry up!
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Tica time...and meetings...
So after sitting through one painful meeting learning a new definition for human rights, showing up for another meeeting that no one else showed up to despite reassuring me that it was still occuring, two months, repeated and rejected offers to prepare materials if the ‘team’ was busy, hours of research after work on the internet, and a day with nothing more to at my placement than make Oragami; the ‘Human Rights’ full day workshop was shortened into an hour an a half session planned at 4:30 pm the night before, done in front of 7 MUSADE staff and only 2 actual community women and content wise went into less detail than the general overview given at the support group the women first enter at MUSADE.
No....I’m not bitter at all. (...sense the sarcasm)
No....I’m not bitter at all. (...sense the sarcasm)
December 6
(Costa Rica Day 102)
3 birthdays, 1 wedding anniversary, and 22 years of MUSADE.
So I made it through the surprisingly short family birthday party they had Pavlo on Friday. I say it that way only because I was quite anxious before hand of going to a party that other than me (Mari was in San Jose) would be only family, 30 family members to be exact. Family parties at my house consist of four people, when we were younger maybe 8 or 9.
Everyone was nice of course, and I ended up speaking most of the time with one of the female cousins who was in the process of going through medical school, and helpingAlex and his sister play this game that basically lets your shoot and blow up your computer screen with Enid’s laptop.
After the cake was cut, people seemed to disperse rather quickly, I guess with a family as large as that living in the same city, there are a lot of oppurtunities to see each other.
The next day started fairly early, as I went to MUSADE to help set up for the day of festivites, celebrating 22 years that MUSADE has existed within the community. Was amazed and a little worried at how quickly I was put in control of the ‘technology’ in addition to photography. (It’s amazing how knowing the difference between an input slot and an output slot impresses people...although to be fair I did also figure out that the cordless microphone wasn’t working because it needed new batteries...yay 6 years of post-secondary education!)
The day progressed from there, with ice breakers, breakfast, then poems and people talking about their time at MUSADE, and by lunch the main room was packed, there must have been over 50 people present. I was impressed with the turn out.
Many people shed tears as they spoke about either what MUSADE meant to them or how the organization had helped them, but I think the speech that actually moved me and the one I can most believe was actually genuine, was the one given by the old doctor who first considered MUSADE a viable enough option to invest some of the hospital resources into the community venture. I’d met the doctor before when he had come by Enid’s place for lunch one time, but hadn’t had a chance to really get his story then. It was great how you could still here the passion in his voice when he talked about importance of community based work.
What followed was a long line of recognitions and plaques, everyone who in anyway volunteered or worked at MUSADE got one. It took a while. But finally we got to the concert that Mari and her group were going to perform and one of the reasons why I did not want to be the technical specialist. The microphone did not have a stand so someone had to practically stand in front of the guitarist holding it, and even then it did not really pick up the sound. They ended up deciding against the microphone in the end.
The concert was well received and people especially enjoyed the Christmas song at the end. But finally it was time to cut the cake.
After everyone had eaten a slice, Enid declared that the main part of the party was over, but that they had karaoke and that of course the party was not really over until the last person left. I decided that this was my cue to relinquish my technical and photographical duties and head downstairs to check my e-mail.
After 30 minutes, hearing most of the party guests head out I figured it was probably safe enough to go upstairs and help clean up. About half way up I heard it, it was a raspy, too loud at times strained singing. I thoguht to myself that the doctor (who is 98 by the way) had decided to get in on the karaoke, and that was pretty cool. I was wrong, the individual singing was one of the middle aged women who was a member of the Board of Directors at MUSADE, and she was belting out what had originally been a soft romantic ballad by a Chilean artist.
Diena, bless her, chose that moment to come up to me and tell me that I had been there long enough and that they didn’t need my help cleaning up. I thanked her, grabbed my things and rant out of there, the opening strings of Livin’ La Vida Loca chasing after me.
3 birthdays, 1 wedding anniversary, and 22 years of MUSADE.
So I made it through the surprisingly short family birthday party they had Pavlo on Friday. I say it that way only because I was quite anxious before hand of going to a party that other than me (Mari was in San Jose) would be only family, 30 family members to be exact. Family parties at my house consist of four people, when we were younger maybe 8 or 9.
Everyone was nice of course, and I ended up speaking most of the time with one of the female cousins who was in the process of going through medical school, and helpingAlex and his sister play this game that basically lets your shoot and blow up your computer screen with Enid’s laptop.
After the cake was cut, people seemed to disperse rather quickly, I guess with a family as large as that living in the same city, there are a lot of oppurtunities to see each other.
The next day started fairly early, as I went to MUSADE to help set up for the day of festivites, celebrating 22 years that MUSADE has existed within the community. Was amazed and a little worried at how quickly I was put in control of the ‘technology’ in addition to photography. (It’s amazing how knowing the difference between an input slot and an output slot impresses people...although to be fair I did also figure out that the cordless microphone wasn’t working because it needed new batteries...yay 6 years of post-secondary education!)
The day progressed from there, with ice breakers, breakfast, then poems and people talking about their time at MUSADE, and by lunch the main room was packed, there must have been over 50 people present. I was impressed with the turn out.
Many people shed tears as they spoke about either what MUSADE meant to them or how the organization had helped them, but I think the speech that actually moved me and the one I can most believe was actually genuine, was the one given by the old doctor who first considered MUSADE a viable enough option to invest some of the hospital resources into the community venture. I’d met the doctor before when he had come by Enid’s place for lunch one time, but hadn’t had a chance to really get his story then. It was great how you could still here the passion in his voice when he talked about importance of community based work.
What followed was a long line of recognitions and plaques, everyone who in anyway volunteered or worked at MUSADE got one. It took a while. But finally we got to the concert that Mari and her group were going to perform and one of the reasons why I did not want to be the technical specialist. The microphone did not have a stand so someone had to practically stand in front of the guitarist holding it, and even then it did not really pick up the sound. They ended up deciding against the microphone in the end.
The concert was well received and people especially enjoyed the Christmas song at the end. But finally it was time to cut the cake.
After everyone had eaten a slice, Enid declared that the main part of the party was over, but that they had karaoke and that of course the party was not really over until the last person left. I decided that this was my cue to relinquish my technical and photographical duties and head downstairs to check my e-mail.
After 30 minutes, hearing most of the party guests head out I figured it was probably safe enough to go upstairs and help clean up. About half way up I heard it, it was a raspy, too loud at times strained singing. I thoguht to myself that the doctor (who is 98 by the way) had decided to get in on the karaoke, and that was pretty cool. I was wrong, the individual singing was one of the middle aged women who was a member of the Board of Directors at MUSADE, and she was belting out what had originally been a soft romantic ballad by a Chilean artist.
Diena, bless her, chose that moment to come up to me and tell me that I had been there long enough and that they didn’t need my help cleaning up. I thanked her, grabbed my things and rant out of there, the opening strings of Livin’ La Vida Loca chasing after me.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Stealing...
Stealing in realife seems to be more of a fluid concept that story book morals would leave one to believe. Let me know what you think of the following examples, I have encountered recently. I will say that these cases are not necessarily about me, but they are all true.
Case example number 1, would you consider it stealing or a culture of sharing when you buy a tub of Hagen Das ice cream, put your name on it to have on a special occasion, put it in the freezer and come back in a couple days only to find out it had been completely eaten and have the culprit thank-you for it. To complicate the matters you happen to have been paying room and board in this person’s house for nearly 2 years and as such eating their food.
Case example number 2, you are living amoung a family, have a bag of cookies that were given to you by a friend, unopened in your bedroom, which you leave the door locked, a week later you find that bag of cookies open. In addition, you and another housemate find sweaters missing, not the first time, but this time the housekeeper and you find them in the room of the daughter of the house, including a sweater you had ‘lost’ so long ago you had nearly forgotten about it. Family members share belongings, and you would have certainly lent them had you been asked....so it this simply a case of borowing, the way an annoying younger sibling would?
Case example number 3, you are traveling in Nicaragua with your volunteer organization and onyour first day there, eating in a restaurant, you bag, containing your passport, credit cards, money, debit card, camera and ipod is stolen by someone you only catch a glimpse of as he runs off the terrace. Based on size and shape you figure it was a teenage boy, who had been wearing very old and worn clothing. Stealing? ... or doing what is necessary to survive when you have few other options?
Case example number 4, you are an international volunteer working in Costa Rica, your desk is on the upstairs floor along with two other international volunteers, you three are the regulars in that work space, although other coworkers within the organization to occasionally use the computer in the same area. One by one each of you, the three international volunteers, have lost atleast 10, 000 colones ($20), at some point in the last month at work, you specifically have 30, 000, no one else seems to have been hit, and the area is not one where outsiders of the organization would visit. The thefts had occured over five seperate occasions. Is this stealing, or is this balancing the economic inbalance that exists between Costa Rica and other richer nations?
Case example number 1, would you consider it stealing or a culture of sharing when you buy a tub of Hagen Das ice cream, put your name on it to have on a special occasion, put it in the freezer and come back in a couple days only to find out it had been completely eaten and have the culprit thank-you for it. To complicate the matters you happen to have been paying room and board in this person’s house for nearly 2 years and as such eating their food.
Case example number 2, you are living amoung a family, have a bag of cookies that were given to you by a friend, unopened in your bedroom, which you leave the door locked, a week later you find that bag of cookies open. In addition, you and another housemate find sweaters missing, not the first time, but this time the housekeeper and you find them in the room of the daughter of the house, including a sweater you had ‘lost’ so long ago you had nearly forgotten about it. Family members share belongings, and you would have certainly lent them had you been asked....so it this simply a case of borowing, the way an annoying younger sibling would?
Case example number 3, you are traveling in Nicaragua with your volunteer organization and onyour first day there, eating in a restaurant, you bag, containing your passport, credit cards, money, debit card, camera and ipod is stolen by someone you only catch a glimpse of as he runs off the terrace. Based on size and shape you figure it was a teenage boy, who had been wearing very old and worn clothing. Stealing? ... or doing what is necessary to survive when you have few other options?
Case example number 4, you are an international volunteer working in Costa Rica, your desk is on the upstairs floor along with two other international volunteers, you three are the regulars in that work space, although other coworkers within the organization to occasionally use the computer in the same area. One by one each of you, the three international volunteers, have lost atleast 10, 000 colones ($20), at some point in the last month at work, you specifically have 30, 000, no one else seems to have been hit, and the area is not one where outsiders of the organization would visit. The thefts had occured over five seperate occasions. Is this stealing, or is this balancing the economic inbalance that exists between Costa Rica and other richer nations?
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