An Extra Foggy Day

So our program is officially over as of a few hours ago.  I don't want it to end.  I'm having a little trouble organizing my other thoughts seeing as it sounds like there's a dog fight going on right outside.  (That happens at all hours of the night here..)

I can't figure out how to describe saying bye to the kids at school.  It was sad, it was unfair, and it wasn't easy, but it was heartwarming, too, and, all the while, a little surreal.  It was a good day for goodbyes, if there is such a thing.  The kids' moms and siblings came near the end so that a photographer (i.e. a dad with a digital camera) could take pictures for Father's Day cards.  For my last hour there, the whole school community--parents, teachers, siblings, and students, was moving about the halls outside.  The ease I felt in walking around, able to recognize and talk to most all of them, made me feel like more than just a visitor at the school.

The kindergarteners were about half and half in their understanding of my leaving.  I got extra long hugs, sad faces, and promises of a visit from some of them, but there were others who I think realized it at one point only to be quickly distracted by other objects of concern (toy cars, candy, little siblings..).  The class gave me a surprise goodbye though, complete with a flower bouquet presented by Jorge with an adorable "gracias" speech, and a children's book that they wrote a note in with a different one's fingerprint on each page.  Nina gave me two pillowcases hand-stitched by her sister-in-law, and then we had a strawberry and vanilla ice cream party (at approximately 9:30 am).   

There were a couple specific goodbyes I want to remember.  I didn't cry--I think it was the surreal feeling that kept my sadness inside, but there were some moments, some interactions, that almost brought out the tears.  Like Avril, a kindergartener who has these big, brown, precious eyes.  She looked up at me and said, "Te quiero mucho Sophie, con todo mi corazon," and then kept reaching for my neck and rubbing my hair.  And with the last hug she added how she hopes God watches over me everywhere I go.  

Then there was Bernardita, the 6th grader who I've talked about before.  I knew from the start this one was going to be a crier.  We must have hugged goodbye (or "ciao") about ten times, and every time I looked at her I didn't know what to do.  I couldn't look away, but I couldn't keep looking either.  There's something about how she just stares at me, so intently, as if there's so much knowledge inside of me that I could just lay out on a table for her and she would soak up every last piece of it with all the contentment in the world.  She started crying the with the first hug and was still going by the last.  I gave her a flower out of my bouquet--she asked for one to remember me by, and she looked at me and made me promise that she wasn't someone I was going to forget.  It sounds so cheesy now, but somehow when words like that come out of a little kid, they seem so sincere.  The other kids joked with her, "Bernardita, no one is dying!" but her sadness didn't budge, and then she made it her goal to make it to Tennessee someday. 

Then there was Armando, the 5th grader who kept me company coloring the other day.  He was hanging around the kindergarten classroom all morning, until he retired into a little corner and emerged with a note for me, which he presented along with a pack of gum, and some strange, prickly orange fruit.  He had about 12 in his pockets, and he just kept whipping more out.  I honestly don't know how they all fit.  Then we did little math problems like "if I give you this many, now how many do I have?" before hugging goodbye.  His answers never failed, so I'm holding out hope that he succeeds in that career with math.. 

And Mario.  Oh Mario.  He's capable of such bold actions (love letters, shouts when his head pops into the window, discreetly telling staff members that I'm his girlfriend), but he's not so smooth with the face-to-face talk.  He gave me a paper flower this morning, but it took the whole class pushing him towards me for him to get up the nerve for a final hug.  And then they all  hooped and hollered, sending Mario ducking back into the crowd with his scrawny little self.  He'll be suave one day, I'm sure.   

I said bye to the 6th grade girls (other than Bernardita) in a one-by-one lineup of traditional "ciaos" with kisses and hugs.  One of them told me how much I look like her sister, who is 16 years old and actually lives in the US.  I couldn't get the logistics of how that happened, but I did get that they haven't seen each other for 10 years.  She told me that it's her dream to come visit her--she lives in Virginia, and I made her promise she'd come visit me, too, if she ever gets the chance.  

I even got sad saying bye to two of the boys' moms.  I've interacted with each of them a few times, but we don't know each other well by any means, and I wasn't sure that they knew today was my last.  They both gave me kisses and hugs, though, and wished me well in my travels, saying that they hope God watches over me on my flight.  The people here are so fascinated with flying.  When I tell them I'm going home, they never fail to bring up airplanes, usually with this mixed sense of amazement and fear.  So many of them dream of going on one--they ask if they're beautiful, if they're fun...so I'm going to try to fly like it's my first time tomorrow, in hopes that maybe next time I'll have a better answer for just how flying feels. 

The book and note from Nina, with the kindergarteners' thumb prints, left me not knowing what to do with my on-the-verge-of-crying-ness, too.  It says how she wants me to read these stories when I want to remember the time I've had, and the kids that I've met here.  And I have directions that point me to an address, a school, and a community where I'm always welcome to return.  

It was extra foggy today--the most foggy day, I think, and for sure the most foggy morning, that any of us have seen.  There was a cool, misty air blowing outside all morning, and the grayness was doing that thing I've watched several times now but just can't get over, visibly rolling into the hallways that create outdoor gathering areas at the school.  It was a refreshing cool, though, at least as American standards of temperature go, but all the kids were pointing at my bare arms and asking how I wasn't cold.  By Costa Rican standards, today meant bring out your winter sweater, bend your knees and cross your arms.  As I said my last goodbye to Nina at the front gate, she pointed to the sky (well, the sky was more of just an invisible idea behind the wet gray that was closing in around us) and said, "The sky is crying because you are leaving."  Again, so cheesy, but, spoken in the Spanish of such a loving woman, it came out with a sincerity that almost drew a tear.  

I'm obsessed with the community here, the people, the culture-- the way that you actually can, and do, say something like "I love you with all of my heart".  The people have yet to cease to astound me, so openly inviting visitors to share in their lives that are so simple, yet so content.  I swear every time I go to have a conversation with a different local--parent, stranger, student, it's like I'm taken on a 15, 10, maybe only 5-minute journey where I land at my destination having learned something new.  

This afternoon, I took a break from packing to go on a neighborhood walk.  I walked up a hill where you can see over the city, and then a few streets over to the nursing home block.  Walking along, alone on the street, I heard a woman say something to me, and looked over to see where she was standing outside a teaching supplies/jewlery/odds-and-ends store that she had set up in her garage.  She called me over to look inside, only because it was new and momentarily lacking customers, not because she thought she had anything I wanted to buy.  We ended up talking for half an hour, and, again, this woman's hospitality--this Puriscal-ian hospitality, maybe just this Costa Rican hospitality, hit me with such surprise.  We eventually got on the subject of volunteering, and she told me that, until about a year ago, she had housed a Peace Corps volunteer in an upstairs bedroom for almost two years.   We talked about the projects she had worked on, how much she had liked it, and, at some point, I told her that I had always been interested in learning more about the Peace Corps, although I was unsure if it's actually something I want to pursue.  Well, her face lit up with that little inkling of interest, as, just yesterday, she had talked to the director of the Peace Corps here.  They are looking for a new volunteer to send, and to live with her again in that same upstairs room.  "You would be perfect! Because you know me, you know my house, and you know the community," she told me.  And here I am thinking, I've just known you for 15 minutes, woman, and now you're prepared to open to me, for 2 years, your family, and your home?!  I had to decline because I have to finish school first, but I left that garage with a hug and a kiss, an address, a phone number, and the best wishes of a woman who I know was sincere.    "It's been a short friendship," she said, "but it was a pleasure".  When I got back to the house, we just had to sit and have a room-wide rant on how much we can't get over the openness of this town's community, the gratitude, the almost instantaneous bonds people have extended to us as volunteers.  Really though, that Peace Corps job...I would love to come back.  Or if anyone else is thinking about it and ready to go sooner: it's Lilliam Delgado Jiminez, and let me know if you want to know how to go about getting in contact :)

Thinking about it now, I had signs from the start that my time here would be filled with little moments, little friendships like that.  In the Miami airport, before I even got to this country, a Costa Rican man and his wife ended up befriending me, and I boarded the plane with the name, number, and address of a couple that I could call at any point--if I needed help, transportation, or just a friendly recommendation or face.  I didn't end up calling them (shockingly enough), but the message they sent me about the Costa Rican people has stuck with me since, and been about 10 times magnified.

I've never really been one who forms connections with others in our initial conversations; It takes me a while to get comfortable, and then I'll come around.  But I've learned here the value of single interactions--how much there is to be learned just from briefly and simply, yet wholeheartedly, opening up.  But, before I get into what I learned (or what I think I learned at this point..), I'm going to conclude this blog entry and go to bed.  I'll save the plane flight for more reflecting, and then I think I'll come back.

A couple funny things from today though, first...because I want to remember them, too--

It's going to be weird not living with Emily and Catherine, the two little girls of the house.  We asked Catherine today if she was going to miss us and this house, and she got this pensive look on her face that she always gets when she's trying to figure something out.  Then she said, "Yeahhh...you know, I haven't stayed in a place in a while that had flashlights.."  Really, Catherine?! You're going to miss those in-case-of-emergency, wall-hanging flashlights that we never, ever used more than you're going to miss us?  I'm going to miss this constant interaction with little kids.  

Also, somehow we managed to make it to the very last night without clogging the toilet to the point of no return.  The plumbing here is very sensitive (you have to put the toilet paper in the trashcan), so that was kind of a surprise.  I guess we should have known it was going to be a poop-filled day when this morning's breakfast conversation consisted of one of the older women (I could write a whole blog entry about the ridiculousness of these older women) telling us about her friends' individual struggles with constipation, and their bathroom schedules when they travel.  And now the day has come full circle--we've ended the night with an unfixable toilet clog, a bathroom that smells like airplane (apparently that's a mix of extreme sanitary spray smell with sewage seeping through), and a room of girls dreading a dark walk to another bathroom if any of us have to go (which we undoubtedly will) in the middle of the night.  And we just concluded our before-bed talk with a discussion of how port-a-potties smell like "nasty christmas"...how nice..

Ok that's all for now...but it's not really all! I just need to go to bed.

Goodnight all! Goodnight Costa Rica! Goodnight, please, to the dogs that just keep yapping and yapping and yapping outside..

:) :)

two smiles!