http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/ News about general from Summer Impact en-us Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:43:25 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4371/Did-20-Weeks-Just-Fly-By http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4371/Did-20-Weeks-Just-Fly-By First off, I’m back in town! My flight went well, I arrived in Indy on time, and managed to have only one hiccup: I was 17 pounds over-packed when I weighed in at the San José airport. I added some books to my carry on and left some of the heavier, more replaceable items on the counter (when the employee asked what I wanted him to do with them, I said that he could have them… what else could I have said? Did what I say really have an effect on what he did with them?). I’ve been home for nearly five days, and think I’m adjusting nicely. The first day was euphoric and relaxing. I went on a date with my boyfriend, caught up on this season’s episodes of The Office and relaxed. The second day, I woke up with a painful sore throat. Ever since, I’ve been battling a cold and taking it easy… which isn’t hard to do with my mom taking care of me. It seems like a dream – my entire semester in Costa Rica. I was there less than a week ago, but it seems much, much longer ago than that. I do miss the warmth and the schedule that I was on in Costa Rica, but I plan to go back someday. I think it would be a great place to go when I have kids – there are volcanoes, beaches, and rainforests, all within a reasonable couple hour drive. A verb in Spanish, escarmentar, means to learn by experiences. I think it sums up my time in Costa Rica well. I’ve learned what it feels like to be foreign (and to be treated as less because of it – not fun); I sought some thrills (like zip lining through the forest) and I have a new sense of empowerment (I can get around okay in Spanish, which feels great). It has been a blast learning abroad, and I strongly encourage traveling and learning (or developing) language skills abroad.   Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4360/Preparing-for-Indiana http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4360/Preparing-for-Indiana As the semester wraps up, I’m looking forward to coming home. I’ve missed things like the luxury of hot baths, the freedom that my car holds and the smiles of my loved ones. Tomorrow morning, my study abroad advisors are coordinating a meeting about reverse culture shock (a phenomenon that travelers may be subject to upon re-immersion into the home culture). Everyone in my program was instructed to prepare certain questions to get us thinking about home. Mine include: What am I looking forward to with the most anticipation? What am I least looking forward to? How would I like my family and friends to treat me when I arrive home? I’m looking forward to a lot from the good old U.S.: a hot bowl of Kraft Mac and Cheese (I suppose this makes me a typical college student), spending time with my boyfriend, my family, and my friends, the general punctuality of people from the States, my dogs, the gym (I’ve taken a five month break), iced venti nonfat light iced chais, the comfortable at-home-ness of IUPUI, the reliability of the syllabi in my classes and the friends I have made on campus. I feel like this section wouldn’t be complete without a nod to what I will miss in Costa Rica, as there is a lot to love in both countries. I will miss most the relationships I’ve foraged here. My host family was a blessing – I couldn’t have asked for a better fit. I’ve made some lifelong friends with whom I’ve shared adventurous experiences, and hope we can be travel buddies in the future. The nature here is unbelievable: I will miss the volcanoes, the mountains, the beaches, the animals and the flowers. I will miss the delicious meal of arroz con pollo and the dessert tres leches, as well as the variety of fresh fruit juices available at virtually every restaurant. As much as I prefer my car to the bus system, I will miss the cheap nature of going to and fro, paying only in coins (which, I tell myself, don’t count as money – anything bought with these is free! I also do this in the States. The blizzard from Dairy Queen bought with quarters? It’s almost as if I didn’t buy it. Coins are leftovers; they don’t count in the monthly budget… After typing this, I’m realizing that this might also be the answer to the question “where did all my money go?”). What I am looking forward to the least? Paying for gas (and pumping it in the cold), traffic jams and my using my cell phone again. I don’t miss my cell phone, except when I really need to contact someone. However, it seems as though there are fewer urgent messages to send down here. I’m not sure if my internal sense of urgency has declined, or if the culture is, in general, less urgent. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is a mix of both. The me that lived in the United States before felt more urgent and anxious than the me in Costa Rica. It will certainly be interesting to see how I fit back into my old life: will that urgent sense of anxiety return or will I be able to hold on to this newfound relaxed self? And, the final question: how do I hope my family and friends treat me when I come home? Well, I absolutely hope they are as excited to see me as I am them, and that would be enough. Over all, Costa Rica is a beautiful, beautiful country… and I can’t wait to return to Indiana to spend time with everyone back home.   Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4353/The-Weekend-of-Three-Islands-and-Nearing-the-End http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4353/The-Weekend-of-Three-Islands-and-Nearing-the-End This past weekend, I went on an excursion with my study abroad program to Isla Venado, Isla Tortuga and Isla San Lucas. They are islands located on the pacific side of Costa Rica in the Nicoya Gulf. Isla Venado is property of Costa Rica, but 850 people are living on it now. A few generations ago, three families moved there from the mainland and they are still going. There is a legal battle over the rights of the land, and the economy is not very active. We stayed in a cabin with bunk beds to help support the economy. Since it was on the coast, the weather was pretty hot there. On Saturday, we traveled to Isla Tortuga. It’s a slightly more touristy island, with a rocky and shell-filled beach. The water was a bit nippy, but refreshing. After soaking up the sun and repeatedly applying Coppertone SPF 50, we jumped into the small lanchas, or small boats to go to Isla San Lucas. Isla San Lucas has a dark history and I am convinced that I felt eerie vibes. It used to be a prison, and a pretty rough one at that. It was a prison for 118 year, until 1991, and is now exclusively used for tours. It was my last weekend trip of the semester (I come home in 12 days – it’s hard to believe it’s been a semester!), and a solid one. I got to see a new part of Costa Rica. I’m finishing up my finals in my classes, and am relieved at the end of each final paper/project/exam (some classes have all of these). I am really looking forward to my IUPUI classes next semester. I miss the syllabi, the office hours, and the punctuality of the professors. At the same time, I know I will miss certain aspects of Costa Rica, such as the different flowers and animals. Most of my trips have had at least one moment that made me feel as though I were four years old again, discovering the world for the first time – seeing monkeys in the wild and up close, noticing colorful birds that are only in zoos back home, being shocked by the seemingly hundred different kinds of flowers blooming on the roadside.   Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/images/60_sq_img_964800.jpg http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/images/200_img_964800.jpg http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4347/Volcan-Arenal http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4347/Volcan-Arenal Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing a volcano. It is an active volcano (fortunately or not – you choose), but I didn’t see any lava the one night I was in town. I stayed in a hotel room with three friends. I did, however, get to spend some quality in the hot springs at the base of the volcano. The hot spring park that we visited, Baldí, had 16 hot springs. They were varying temperatures, and the water, geothermalically heated by the magma from the active nearby active volcano. One was scorching hot, another very cold, but most were an average hot tub temperature. For being something so natural, it was awfully commercialized: there were waterslides and jets, depending on the hot spring. There were swim up bars. We bought a pass from a tour company that included a dinner buffet, so we stuck with the free food and dessert there. If the volcano had been oozing lava that night, we would have been able to see it from the hot springs. So cool! The least pleasurable part of the trip was the bus ride. It was definitely cramped, with people standing in the aisles when the seats ran out. The ride lasted about four and half hours each way, with frequent stops. On the way home, I had a window seat and got to experience the serene quiet and unremarkable freshness of the mountaintops. Since I live in the central valley, visits to the other parts of Costa Rica require a drive up and over the mountains. I don’t know that I’ve ever breathed air that fresh before – with all of the trees and open farm land, it seemed like there was virtually no pollution. This trip was my second favorite, following Manuel Antonio. This weekend, I’m visiting a few islands; we’ll see how those match up!   Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/images/60_sq_volcanarenalmeghan.jpg http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/images/200_volcanarenalmeghan.jpg http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4339/Costa-Rican-Pride http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4339/Costa-Rican-Pride I’ve been thinking about what it means to have national pride nowadays. I am in a class titled ‘Culture and Globalization,’ which discusses the effects of globalization on the world, and specifically in Costa Rica. Globalization encourages an identity different than the identity found naturally in a country. While a lot of kids walk around sporting their Hollister t-shirts, many people seem to have a Costa Rican pride, though and through. There are certain aspects of the culture here that are distinctly Central American. Before coming to Costa Rica, I assumed it would be similar to Mexico. They do, after all, share the same language. But, as a visiting professor in my Advanced Spanish class pointed out, there is a big misconception that Latin American can be grouped together as one, when really there are so many distinct cultures. For example, spicy food isn’t a big deal in Costa Rica, while it’s famous in Mexico (a quick note on Mexico: I learned while I was here that the official name of Mexico is the United Mexican States. Who knew?). Many people, when I meet them for the first time, will ask if I like Costa Rica. After answering that yes, it is absolutely beautiful, I ask how they like it. I’ll usually hear a story about how they have been here since they were born and love it. Similar to the individual states in the U.S., Costa Ricans have preferences for provinces within Costa Rica. I had a host mom in Guanacaste for a week at the beginning of the semester, and she marveled at how anyone could live in the Central Valle: it’s so cold, she told me. Once I reached Heredia, a comfortable 75 year round, my host family shared with me that they couldn’t live in Guanacaste: it was so hot. I had to agree with them: I sweated just sitting in Guanacaste. There’s a pride of province, and a larger pride of country that can be identified in bars and living rooms across the country on the nights of a soccer game. When the U.S. beat Costa Rica in a soccer game (soccer is called futbol here; football here is known as futbol americano), there was a general sadness the next day. There are a lot of things that Costa Ricans have to be proud of: they conserve about 27% of the landmass that is Costa Rica (Let’s Go Costa Rica: On a Budget), they know how to cook, and they have tons of biodiversity. They are hugged by the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean and have more than 60 volcanoes. How cool! Some Costa Ricans use a verb form that is an alternative for the informal ‘tú,’ called the voseo. A few other countries (including Guatemala, Paraguay and Honduras) use this as well, but a classmate told me that she uses ‘vos’ instead of ‘tú’ because she is Costa Rican. It makes them different, and they like that.   Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4326/Taxistas-Taxi-Drivers http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4326/Taxistas-Taxi-Drivers I usually take the bus to get to and from my house to the center of town, but sometimes take a taxi. It is advised to take taxis after it gets dark (around 5:30p.m.). I also take them if I need to get somewhere in more than 25 minutes, if I’m running late, or if it’s raining pretty hard and I don’t want to stand at the bus stop for five or ten minutes. Incidentally, I found out last week that my umbrella isn’t exactly waterproof. I waited for a taxi at the university’s taxi stop. After ten minutes, the repellency of the umbrella must have given up. I kept it up anyway, if only for looks. The official taxis are red with a yellow triangle on the side (unless they’re at the airport, where they are bright orange). I’ve seen three women taxi drivers in passing, but all the drivers I have had have been men. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they blare their music, sometimes they do daredevil moves in passing, and sometimes they take phone calls. I had a taxi driver, or taxista, who was sharing with me his frustrations that advertisements on the Internet on websites in Spanish were in English, and that prices for houses were listed in dollars, instead of the local colones. I became uncomfortable when he kept asking me how I felt about this. I agreed that it was frustrating, and was glad my taxi rides are usually less than five minutes. Another, who was speaking in English to show me what he knew, said generic things that a taxi driver might say: numbers for prices, “you’re welcome,” and “where to?” I thought I might teach him something new, and asked him if he knew what “what’s up” meant. He responded in a different voice by saying, “eh, what’s up, doc?” and making the signature crunching carrot noise that Bugs Bunny does. I laughed. A taxi driver somewhere between the ages of 60 and 85, told me about his experience of being a taxista in San José, the capital of Costa Rica. One night, a man came in the taxi, and demanded the taxista’s money. At a stoplight, he showed me his forearms, which had knife scars. He motioned to his chest and said gun, but I’m not sure if he was shot or was threatened. He drives in Heredia now, and he loves the city. He was probably the happiest taxi driver I’ve met. Taxi rides are cheap, in comparison to those in the U.S. I’ve never ridden in a taxi at home, but my friend Sarah, who goes to school in Washington D.C., has assured me that they are significantly more costly. Here, the base price is ¢455, or about $0.78, and increases by ¢10 every ten seconds or so. My average fare is ¢1,800. The taxis are much more expensive than buses (my route is ¢140 a ride), so many of the Costa Ricans consider the taxis expensive. I think the higher cost of the taxis vale la pena (a phrase meaning ‘to be worth it’ in English). I believe that’s about it as far as my experiences with taxis go. And, no, Costa Rica does not celebrate Halloween. I’m planning to go to a volcano for the weekend, and figure that a lava-spurting mountain is excitement enough for me.   Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4323/Water-in-La-Suiza-my-neighborhood-in-Costa-Rica-and-Guatemala http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4323/Water-in-La-Suiza-my-neighborhood-in-Costa-Rica-and-Guatemala Being abroad, I am more aware of what is going on in other parts of the world. For example, the fall in Indiana is the rainy season for Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, there are two seasons: the rainy season and the dry season. It should be raining every day here, but lately it hasn’t been. The lack of water is affecting us here in Costa Rica. Since it isn’t raining as much, the natural response is to conserve water—something Costa Ricans are good at anyway. They take shorter showers and wash their dishes by hand, first with the soap and then run the dish under water. Another way of conserving water is shutting off the residential water lines for a few hours each day. This isn’t happening in all parts of Costa Rica; in fact, it isn’t even happening in all parts of my city, Heredia. My particular neighborhood, however, hasn’t been receiving water from about 10:45a.m. until 1:30p.m. for about a week and a half now. This affects me, as I fill my orange Nalgene bottle with water from the faucet every few hours. There have been two instances where I have jumped into the shower (which is kind of a process, as I take my toiletries in and out each time, since I share the shower with my three Costa Rican siblings), turned on the faucet, and then… nothing. Maybe a drop or two. At the beginning of the waterless faucet debacle, I thought “this would never happen in Fishers,” as Indiana seems to have an endless supply of water. We are definitely lucky back home to have water on command. But I have changed my attitude about the lack of water. I wasn’t aware of until one of my professors informed me (and was shocked that I hadn’t heard) that there is currently a drought in Guatemala—the biggest one there has been in 30 years. Many people live off the land and haven’t been able to harvest their crops, which has affected 2.5 million people in Guatemala (Reuters). All of this is on top of the existing poverty and malnutrition in Guatemala. These people have to deal with a lack of water on a much larger scale than myself, and I am so thankful that I have the access to the water that I do, 21 hours of the day. I purchased four water bottles for safe keeping in my snack drawer, in case I need to brush my teeth or happen to be particularly parched when the water flow is taking a break. I am lucky to have water, such a basic necessity.   Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4313/The-Quintessential-Costa-Rica http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4313/The-Quintessential-Costa-Rica   Last weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting Manuel Antonio, a town in southern Costa Rica. The town was named after the National Park that it houses, Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio was a poet in Spain in the beginning of the twentieth century. I had a long weekend, due to the Columbus Day holiday, and my friends and I decided to take the four-hour bus to visit the white sandy beaches and infamous white-faced monkeys that inhabit the pristine beaches. We arrived in the late afternoon and had an early dinner in a restaurant that overlooked the ocean. We found the hostel that our guidebooks had recommended and crashed for the night. This is only the second hostel that I’ve stayed at (the other being Rocking J’s in Puerto Viejo). It was really nice. My two friends and I each paid $13 a night for a private, air-conditioned room. Also, breakfast was provided. I woke up each morning to go sit on one of the hammocks on the covered porch with a view that overlooked the ocean from afar. The first full day in Manuel Antonio was a beach day. The entrance fee for the National Park is $10. It was worth every cent. A fifteen minute walk through the forest (I saw two sloths or ‘perezosos’), we made our way to one of the five beaches. I had never been to a postcard beach with white sand and clear water. We were the only people there for about an hour. Unbelievable! I fell asleep and managed to get a nice lobster tan on my back. Around noon, the white-faced monkeys came for a visit. They were about ten feet away, and ready to steal our lunches. I was hoping to see the monkeys, but once I did, I was scared. They have mean “old-man faces,” as my friend Sarah says. We packed up and moved down the beach. We saw many different types of iguanas (or perhaps they were lizards?), many of them long and meaty. One type ran around on its hind legs and opened its mouth in hopes of scaring us off. Another great part about the beaches in Manuel Antonio is that they don’t have any ‘hilos de mar,’ or little invisible jellyfish. When I was in the ocean in Guanacaste, I was stung and scared out of the ocean by those suckers. They don’t cause any real harm, but they hurt like a pinch. The next day, we wandered around town, after a quick stint at the public beach (not as clean or picturesque and much busier than the nearby National Park beach). Lunch was in a corner café, we found a café with delicious drinks, and I bought a few souvenirs in the open outdoor market. My only complaint about the entire weekend was the humidity, but even that wasn’t bad—we had air conditioning at night and the beach breeze during the day. I hope I have time to go back before I return to the States.   Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/images/60_sq_img_9384.jpg http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/images/200_img_9384.jpg http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4309/The-Golden-Heart-of-San-Jose http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4309/The-Golden-Heart-of-San-Jose On Wednesdays I don’t have classes. I usually take the day to do homework and recover from the intensity of my classes, but this Wednesday, I decided to take a solo trip to San José in order to explore a couple of the museums. I’ve been to San José a handful of other times, and have never known my way around. It’s a huge city, and I’m usually concentrating on holding tightly to my purse—every time I even think about going to San José, a Tico (Costa Rican) reads my mind and warns me to be very careful—which makes it hard to appreciate, or remember, the surroundings. I wrote the street directions of my two destinations on my hand, so I wouldn’t look touristy with a piece of paper, guidebook, or map: C 5 for Avenida Central, Calle 5 (where the Museo de Oro, or Museum of Gold was located) and 7 9/1 for Avenida 7, Calle 9/1 (Museo de Jade, or Museum of Jade). I had no idea what Calle 9/1 could possibly be; it seems like streets 9 and 1 would be on opposite sides of town. So I started with the seemingly easier one, the Museo de Oro. After walking up and down Avenida Central (Central Avenue) for fifteen minutes, I found out where Calle 5 (Street 5) was. And then I walked in circles. I didn’t see any building that said anything about a museum. I saw a McDonald’s. I saw the Teatro Nacional (National Theatre). And a really big plaza full of pigeons. I saw a map like the ones they have in malls, with a huge YOU ARE HERE sticker, and I saw a dot for the Museo de Oro. I looked where it should have been, and saw the large plaza with pigeons and the people feeding them. I turned to ask a security guard (who surely saw me walking around, looking at the map and then looking at the empty space where a museum should have been) for directions, and he informed me that it was underground, under the plaza with the pigeons. Of course. The Museo de Oro is housed in a building with a collection of museums (could this be called a museum of museums?), which include: a Costa Rican currency museum, a temporary exhibition museum, and the pre-Columbian gold museum. I bought a pass for all three museums. The way the museum is set up: the visitor begins on the entrance floor (one level underground), and works his or her way down to the second and third basements… to the golden heart of San José. The first stop was the currency museum. I read about the different symbols that have been used on Costa Rican currency, and what they represent. There were encased examples of ancient coins up to the currency of today. My favorite ancient coin was one that had an elephant on the front. Do they even have elephants in Costa Rica? The next floor down was the temporary exhibit. It was an exhibit on the history of the postal service in Costa Rica. This was an absolutely wonderful surprise—I love mail. I saw the stamps, but what I really loved was the display of envelopes. Some of them, from forever ago, were addressed with a typewriter (guess what is going on my Christmas list?), while others adorned beautiful calligraphy. They were addressed from Costa Rica to all parts of the world, and had the stamps and other postal markings to prove it. I took great delight in reading the destinations: Belgium! Paris! Kalamazoo, Michigan! Some even had a red wax seal with a personalized engraving (already on my Christmas list). The third basement held the pre-Columbian gold. There were tons of little golden frogs, a fair amount of golden jewelry, a video exhibit and an explanation of how the gold was melted and molded. I was alone in the third basement (with three guards), so for the time I was there, it almost felt like my own collection of pre-Columbian gold. After that, I lunched at a restaurant I discovered when I was looking for Calle 5. I had arroz con pollo (rice and chicken, a traditional and delicious dish in Costa Rica) with some freshly squeezed pineapple juice. I asked the waiter where I might find the Museo de Jade, mysteriously located on both Calles 9 and 1. He fetched me a map, and I was on my way with a contented stomach. It must be noted that Wednesday was a great day for walking around, lost or not, due to the lack of rain and perfect warmth. I found the Museo de Jade with considerably less effort. I was the only visitor in the Museo de Jade. It was a simple, three room exhibit of jade in its jewelry, statue, tool, and doo-dad form. My favorite jade pieces were the little men. This collection of jade is the largest in the world, which is quite impressive. The front of the museum (which is housed within the Costa Rican social security building) had a quote by Isaac Felipe Azofeifa: “De veras, hijo, ya todas las estrellas han partido. Pero nunca se pone más oscuro que cuando va a amanecer,” which can be translated more or less as “True, child, the stars have already left. But it is never darker than the moment before dawn.”   Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/images/60_sq_meghan_sanjose.jpg http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/images/200_meghan_sanjose.jpg http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4294/Emphasizing-My-Foreignness http://www.iupui.edu/summerimpact/blogs/4294/Emphasizing-My-Foreignness In Costa Rica, the coin system is completely different. There are 500, 100, 50, 25, 20, 10 and 5 colón coins. To make matters a bit trickier, there are multiple versions of the 20, 10 and 5 colón coins. I read in last week’s newspaper (www.nacion.com) that the government is beginning to cut down on the chaotic coin purses by phasing out the silver versions of the 20, 10 and 5, leaving Costa Ricans with only gold-colored coins. The shift will happen after I leave. But on to the personal experience: I worked at a drive thru window back in the United States. Let’s say a customer’s total was $4.96. The customer would sometimes give me $5.01. Before I worked the drive thru window, I never really considered paying like that. I would have handed over the $5.00 without a second thought, and dealt with the pennies (my car has a designated compartment for each coin). But after I discovered that people gave a little bit of change in order to avoid getting too many pennies, I wanted to be a part of it. Fast forward to my semester in Costa Rica. I carry around tons of coins. I use them to pay for the bus fares, which is a nice way of cutting back on the weight of my purse… but sometimes I want to try the trick I learned in the drive thru window. I’ve tried it two times. The first time, I was at the post office (I make a weekly trip). A friendly older man was working. When he told me my total, I proudly handed him a bill and a coin, thinking that it would reduce the amount of change I received. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow, then proceeded to give me a handful of change. Sigh. The second time, I gave a coin in addition to my bill, realizing a second too late that either way, I would receive one coin as change. The barista smiled and looked kind of confused as he handed me a 50 colón coin. I think that trying these kinds of shenanigans only emphasizes my foreignness. Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400