August 29th. Syllabus Day.

Boatswain’s log. August 29^th.

 

I attended my first day of school today….Well more or less school. It was like the first day of class in college where you get all your syllabi and have to sit and listen to boring talks for a long time. It was like that except way scarier. I’ll get there.

 

I started out the day with breakfast at home (gallopinto (beans and rice), eggs, fried cheese, and pineapple). Then my brothers walked me to school. Really really close to home. About 10 minutes max.

 

Buildings in Costa Rica come with a surefire security system of walls, barbed windows, and razor wire. Sometimes with a security guard. School was no different. It’s a nice building filled with nice people, which is something you may not have guessed from the outside.

 

Our entire program rode a bus into the boondocks of San Jose in order to do a bonding exercise of some kind. We dialogued about culture in an empty field and played this game where half the people in the group were in one culture and the other half were in another. My culture was patriarchical and so we obeyed the patriarch and let him win card games and talked a lot about males in our family. It was funny. We ran out of things to say eventually and by the end I was saying things like “my son is made out of steel.” It was fun. The other culture was based on trading and it was kind lame. Ours was more fun. We also did some sort of skit thing where we told the other group our “essence”. My group pretended to be different parts of Costa Rica and I was the tour guide (with the voice of Steve Erwin). It was funny, or so I’m told.

 

The culture exercise made me think. What are we to do as followers of Christ when we encounter something culturally that isn’t Christ-like? Not to say we jump the gun right away or don’t try to take time to understand it, but is it something that we sit by and allow our foreign brothers in Christ to do? Or do we say something? I haven’t seen anything like this here, but I wonder. Does the bible say one thing? Or does it say many things. I think that the author and God had a point in writing it. How is it that we have so many confusing doctrines based on the same text? People can justify anything using the bible if they take it in the wrong context, so where do we draw the line? How do we let the holy spirit tell US as believers what God is saying? Or rather when do we start trying? It seems like we mostly let just a few people figure things out and then we accept them. Well balls. I want to read the bible, not be told how to read the bible. I’ll have to sort that out.

 

On with the day. We ate lunch (courtesy of my host mother) it was really good. I think lots of people are jealous because of the quality of food I receive. It’s good. After this we were jawed at for awhile by the people about things we needed to do. We were told lots and lots of things all at once. We were told about the syllabus, our Spanish assignments, our research paper topics, the progressive no-english-challenge, and the fun things we can do via Andres (who by the way is the youngest City councilman elected in the history of costa Rica. This guy is smooth. He’s what my professor Javier calls a “Galan” which is like a coqueto (flirt) but in a way smoother way.) Andres is all about us experiencing Costa Rica. I think he’s going to help us start a 5 man soccer team. There are people interested. I’m totally going to call keeper ahead of time. Super cool.

I got to pick my research topic. I took “Christians and Violence: Reflections on Oscar Romero.” I’ve thought about this before, but it was the only one that reminded me of liberation theology at all and that was what I really wanted to study. I’m happy with my topic, though it’s likely to make me into more of a pacifist. Not a bad thing.

Needless to say, all this information stressed the heck out of me. I like doing things and when we’re forced to sit and wait while things pile up…It irks me.

 

We did this survey that asked our opinions on lots of things relating to latin America. I was negative about things…If our class is full of neoliberalists, I am going to be pissing people off left and right. Neoliberalism is this idea that the only way to make countries “modern” is by making them into a laissez faire economy without regulation in which all their economic interests are privatized. Completely absurd economic theory.

 

Soon afterwards though we got to hear about our concentration. Latin American Studies is the bomb. First of all we have Natalie. Natalie is this awesome Costa Rican woman who makes great jokes and refuses to take any shit off whiny American students. It’s incredible. She shuts people down like it’s her job…and it kind of is. Plus, she’s funny.

 

Secondly we have Javier. Javier is a judge in Costa Rica and the man is really really funny. He is very easy to get along with and is serious about us learning things. He told us that when we separate off into our concentrations we (the LAS folks) go to different parts of Costa Rica for about 3 weeks. We get to do some project in the middle of a community…by ourselves. No other Americans. We’re rollin’ solo. We have options like working in the fields with campesinos, or working at an orphanage, or really whatever we can think of that they can organize. There’s a country full of choices. All I’ve got to do is say what I’d like, but I really want what Jesus wants. I’m going to ask Him. You could do that too…

 

After class I went to my family’s church. It’s huge. They’ve got internet radio and internet TV programs. I was a quick guest on my brother’s program. My first time on TV. There was a Tico guy there who was a professional breakdancer that they interviewed, everyone was really nice. Afterwards we stopped by the pastor’s house so my brother Alonso could hang out with his friends that were there. The pastor’s daughter is this sassy girl named Jamie. She was making French toast, but I didn’t think that it looked good.

 

I experienced my first “tico time” moment. We told my host mom that we’d be back at 7 for dinner. We were really back at 730ish. If I did that at home my mom would be very feisty. Liliana seemed to know that we meant that. I could get used to this sort of time table.

 

Tomorrow my brothers and I are going to a church festival in Escaszu. Which is way up in the mountains. I was told that I should take photos. Get ready for some good ones…if they actually upload. I haven’t tried it yet. I was also told that they killed a pig for the occasion. Sounds good to me.