Tricks and Treats

So Liz and I were buying Liz some (gorgeous!) boots in downtown SJ today when a middle-aged man approached to us.

"Hi, I'm so embarrassed to have to be asking two girls this, but I just have no where else to turn." Perfect English. He looked at us, pleading. "I'm an American. Can you spare a minute?"

Sure, we said. What's going on?

"Well, I just got here last night, and the taxi guy drove me to this hotel, Casa del Rey, that's like a casino. I don't do that stuff. I was walking and I got mugged. I lost everything — my laptop, passport, money. I don't have money or a place to stay. Look, here's my plane ticket to prove what I'm saying. I'm from Florida. Anthony, that's my name. It's even tattooed on my arm. Look, I don't know what to do. The embassy and the police just drove me around. I can't pick up a wire transfer until I get a new passport. I need your help. I'll send you free hams every Christmas if you can just help me."

My BS radar and my bleeding-heart-liberal radar (and my free-food radar, of course) were simultaneously activated, fogging my judgement. Naturally I referred to my backup: Grupo de Kansas, specifically Zaida.

"One second," I said. "I'm going to call someone who would know what to do." I told the Zaida the story on the phone.

"What do you think? How can we help?" I said. I avoided the word 'scam' in case he could hear me.

"I don't know, Bailey..." Zaida said. "I know you want to be nice, but this is a pretty common thing. Even for Americans to do. I wouldn't give him anything. If you're feeling nice we could call the embassy for him, but even then, I just don't know..."

"Have you called the OIJ? The embassy? The police?" I asked him.

"Yeah, I just... they just drove me around. They can't do anything."

While I finished talking to Zaida, he went back in and told Liz about his messy divorce and why he had come to Costa Rica in the first place (he was avoiding his divorce settlement). Zaida, always wise, finished telling me her opinion. And then there's me, standing uncomfortably outside the shoe store, while the man returned and started staring at me expectantly. I didn't know what to say.

Just then, Liz strides out of the store, eyes wide, phone in hand.

"Bailey. We've got to go. Maggie just called. She's lost in San Pedro and can't find the bus stop, and she's really sick..."

"Oh my gosh," I said, caught off guard. Maggie wasn't feeling great earlier. "Yeah. We've got to go."

"Look, I'm so sorry, sir," Liz said. "Here's my phone number. I really hope everything works out." And we half-jogged back toward the bus stop.

--

As you might have divined, now, Maggie was just fine. But Liz almost convinced me in her moment of fake panic (even though the chances of Maggie wandering San Pedro lost are about zero. She's one of the most level-headed people I know.) And, if you were still nervous, she didn't give him her phone number.

Time to debrief. ALLRIGHT, Mr. Ineedyourmoney. Here's what you did well and did not do well, regardless of whether or not your story was true:

Good ideas

Bad ideas

Specific details, like dropping the name of a legitimate sketchy place I have seen before (Hotel del Rey) A detailed story about getting mugged, which caused me to sympathize personally, although he probably didn't realize it Showing a tattoo of his name that matches the name of the plane tickets he is using as proof to show that he is American Showing cuts on his arm as a result from his mugging (however, this is the most pitiful thing if this was all a scam and he did them to himself) Being consistently friendly and not aggressive, even when we were clearly not comfortable with what he was asking

Trying to legitimatize your need by expressing your embarrassent to be asking some "young girls" Appealing to our sense of "Americanism", neglecting that we might be self-aware enough to know this also makes us more wary of people taking advantage of us Saying the US Embassy "wasn't helpful" because, to my knowledge and based on everything I was told, the embassy would NOT tell you go to beg on the street after getting robbed. Telling Liz about flying to C.R. to avoid paying your wife and kids after a divorce. Makes you sound like an entitled American jerk, not like someone I want to give money to. Not explaining why you still had your plane ticket, even though everything else was robbed. Rejecting every non-giving-money idea (i.e. going back to the embassy, calling collect to the U.S., going to the OIJ) as not useful

In conclusion? I don't know. I hate to think that I might have missed an opportunity to really help someone, but I am just not sure I can make myself vulnerable again here by revealing I have things of value with me. Good think I have Liz, who knows better than me. And then we went to Pie after. It was a good day.


To hear much sassier, less wimpy Liz's version of the event (with extra details about Pie!), please go here and read about it!

You or you or you?

A little grammar discourse for Sunday!

If you've studied a language that's not English, you're probably familiar with the idea with social registers. For some reason English doesn't do it —or lost it in some stage of evolution — but languages like Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and so on have different ways to refer to someone depending on social status. Whether you say "Do you want to go?" to your best friend or to the president, the word you use for "you" will be very different, because of this difference in register.

Let's complicate this a bit. These distinctions are totally culturally constructed. For example, in some cultures, this division is very simple: virtually everyone gets the informal. What we learned in high school Spanish is that people older or with more authority, use formal register. This is the word Usted. Peer level or less, use informal. This is the word tú. It's simple and never really a big concern. However, in some oriental cultures this distinction can make or break a relationship, so I was careful to pay it attention in Costa Rica.

Let's muddle things a bit more. Here in CR, my family virtually always uses Usted (formal register). Jorgito the 2-year-old is Usted, the dogs on the street are Usted. However, outside of the family, when people want to be informal (read: in University interactions) the Ticos use a new word: vos. This is essentially the same meaning as tú, only with different conjugations and all that. And of course, it was totally unfamiliar. It's a Latin American thing and so not really taught in my KU classes. I mean, imagine learning a new word for "you" in English? It totally throws off your groove.

My strategy initially was to call everyone Usted and be done with it. Now a few months in, I feel like a total goof in a group while everyone's throwing around the vos and I'm still stuck in my formal Spanish register. I think I'm about ready to make the switch over to vos. Let today, October 30, mark this transition.

Wish me luck!

Hello, let me just share a poem I totally dig because everything else is going normal and well.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

The Rainy Season

I used to count myself really lucky that it only ever really rained hard between 1 and 4 p.m., when I was almost always in class. It was predictably sunny in the morning, dreary at noon, raining after lunchtime, then cool in the evening. This way, I avoided the worst of it. I even forgot my umbrella a few times without consequences.

October though. In the morning? Let's rain on me at 9 a.m., walking to aerobics. How about all night? That sounds great too. Don't get me started on evening rains, I don't think I've gotten home from ballet without being soaked these past few weeks. I wonder if it ever stops. If it does, it must be in the early hours of the morning, while I'm still sleeping. Everything I own is drying in different parts of the house. My shoes and umbrella are in the garage, assorted jackets in the laundry room, pants draped over furniture in my bedroom. 

Some things I just take for granted will not be dry again, whether from rain or the resulting humidity, like: my hair. My toothbrush. My backpack. My umbrella. Any of my tennis shoes.

Honestly, though, it doesn't bother me (except for on my way home from dance). For the most part, I've just gained a lot of respect for Ticos and my (fourth!) sombrilla, for the abundant greenery and for time I get to spend mercifully indoors. And I wash my hair more to keep it from mildewing too much. 

Los ticos

One element of the culture here that I'm not sure I will ever wrap my head around is how men act towards women in Costa Rica. I know I've already talked some about "piropos" and chances are if you've ever had a Spanish class you already know about those — the catcalls women receive in the streets, ranging from sweet (Que linda!) to super-vugar (#*&!@*$&?).

Anyway, there's a boy about our age who works at Casa del Pie that we've been trying to get to know. He's totally mysterious. After weeks of our detective work, we have a name: Javier. We can't get him to say much of anything to us, though, much less look pleased to chat. Finally we asked our friend who works there, Porque el muchacho nunca se sonrie? Why does that guy never smile? She told us it's because he's shy! Precious, right? This is really pretty much the norm around college-aged guys here. They're not necessarily timid, but they seem to not, as a rule, approach women.

Contrast it with this: after this encounter I went over to Mas por Menos to buy some more trail mix. An elderly stopped me while I was in line.

"You look sad," he said.

It totally caught me off guard — the English. I laughed and told him I was just thinking (I was thinking about Bioland organic hair products, but didn't share this part.)

"Be careful," he said. "That can be dangerous."

We chatted while making our purchases and he told me he's a retired marine from New Jersey. He told me he was making ribs and invited me for a beer. I politely declined.

See what I mean? I have no idea what to expect from men here. I was whistled at a couple times on my walk home, too, all by men who presumably are old enough to be my father. So it goes.

Hablando se entiende la gente

I took a break from thinking about living my life here.

I mean, obviously: I am still here. I am living my life. But none of the self-reflection that gives me funny, insightful, or culturally interesting things to blog about. Last night after ballet class and Casa del Pie, I went to see a monologue by Hernán Jiménez (the director/writer/lead actor of El Regreso, a beautifully made film that I think that captures the essence of Costa Rican life perfectly).

In Hablando se entiende la gente, Hernán presents a series of characters with different stories: a man waiting outside his girlfriend's front door trying to convince her to let him in and give him one more chance, an armed guard who works in the local MiniSuper and has just had his first son, a tico who has just been in a motorcycle accident. The most frequently-met character is a man who reveals little about himself but comments on the ridiculous music they play in Más por Menos, how men with guns don't need to yell: you will give them whatever you have, and a personal favorite, a commentary on the state of theater in Costa Rica. And how Shakespeare is hard to understand (a truth in any language).

"Mae, que bueno Shakespeare..." he says in that last one, how ticos react, which totally got me. Hilarious.

Overall, it let me see from a much more intimate perspective the totally vibrant culture Costa Rica has, even if it's not manifested in a super-unique cuisine or a dominant indigenous culture. It's in a little bit of everything, in how Costa Ricans talk, who owns the supermarkets, how Sabemas is a laughably cheap brand, how ticos always want to please everyone. I give this monologue a sobresaliente. It reminded me how much I love to live here.

Hacemos fiesta

This song should be playing in the background for this.

After a busy night in the Solano household, with a bunch of Jorge playtime and some family friends stopping, the parents left to take people home and left Sara and I unattended.

What else is there to do? Obvious — dance party. I pulled out the Ana Laura and we rocked the living room. Even threw some end-of-the-day cleaning in there. Ended with some epic couch jumps.

You can't even tell me life isn't good.