My Life in "Paradise"

I realized yesterday that I need a little bit of inspiration if I am going to make it through my last three months in Costa Rica. Blogging appears to be less expensive than therapy and less trouble than trying to get spiritual direction in Spanish. So here I am.

Before you get all "poor you, living in Costa Rica" on me, I'd better explain a few things.

1. I do not live at the beach, or anywhere close/convenient to a beach. I live in the central valley in a small town called Ciudad Colón (helpfully labeled "Cd. Colon" on the map link) which is about a 25 minute drive south west of the capital "city" of San José and 3.5 hours from the closest beach. Lest you Spanish Speakers be fooled, the locals here refer to the town as "villa colón" which may even be stretching it a bit. For a virtual tour of my town click here (and then click on "Virtual Tour" and "Visit Ciudad Colon"-- Hey, don't blame me for the # of clicks, consider this your introduction to Costa Rican efficiency). I assure you, the virtual tour does the town justice, it really IS that exciting. Much more will be written on The Ciudad in the future.

2. I work here. In a real, 5-day-a-week, salary-paying, 8AM-4:30PM job, at an English-speaking firm complete with a one year contract. If you're wondering why I don't just pick up and leave, the answer is that breaking contract=losing salary before starting grad school in the fall AND letting The Ciudad get the better of me. So that's just not going to happen.

3. I moved here as a leap of faith. Yes, I'm one of those spiritually oriented people, my particular brand is Catholicism. Before making the big move down to CR, I actually worked for the Catholic Church (more to come on being a woman and working for the Church). After much prayer and reflection, I knew that I was supposed to come down here. And I'm still convinced that it was the right choice. It was just a much more difficult choice than I originally thought it would be. Grr...spiritual growth.

Life in The Ciudad has been hard recently. In the past two weeks one of my students went crazy (literally. hospitalized-on-happy-pills-for-five-days crazy), I witnessed a mildly-violent robbery (same student...boy, she's got some bad luck), and I got juan santamaria's revenge (or whatever the Costa Rican equivalent of Montezuma's revenge is...)

Still there are some good things about The Ciudad. The view on my walk to the bus in the morning is breathtaking. Sunshine (it sunshines every day in the morning and then rains in the afternoon. ahh...variety! Oh, sorry...trying to be positive...right...good things...) surrounded by rolling green hills, it's quite beautiful. The view from my office window is of palm trees, tropical flowers and gardenias (which have just finished blooming) all part of the national preserve where my office is located.

Speaking of work...it's time to get back to work (read: go to lunch). And you know what lunch means...Rice and Beans! woo-hoo. Let's hear it for the costa rican staple foods. Hopefully we'll have something more inventive than fried chicken as an accompanyment...cross your fingers for me...