"Don't thank me, the Guest is God"

Fausto, a good friend and native Varanasian left me with a few parting words of advice. “Amanda, be sure to get lost in the Old City and have apple pie for dinner, visit the monkey temple, and oh yes, go to the University of Varanasi, it is the biggest University in all of Asia!” 

Naturally drawn to superlatives, I decided that surely apple pies and monkey temples could wait; I wanted to roam a campus again, and why not make it the biggest one of all of Asia? So I hired a rickshaw driver for 40 Rupees (less than a dollar), and off I went. He dropped me off at the University and I began my wandering. The buildings were dilapidated and decaying, the people looked at me strangely until finally the broken buildings turned into a slum and I was face to face with the back of the Varanasi train station. I thought Fausto must have been gone for far too long if he regarded this as a beautiful place to visit. While deciding my next move, two men approached me and my female travel instincts kicked in immediately. I pulled the shawl closer around my shoulders, hugged my bag just a little tighter, and instantaneously moved a ring to my engagement finger. They read my body language easily and said, “Mam, you should no be here, very dangerous, let us help you, where you are wishing to go?"

Without removing the starkness from my face, I said, “Is this not Varanasi University?”

They laughed at me whole heartedly. “Mam, this is abandoned portion of Sanskrit University” Dude B. showed me his ID he was a Phd student. He pleaded again, “This not good place, come this way I get an auto for you."

“How far to the University?” I asked. 

“12 km mam."

I melted, 12 K was an eternity in India speak and it had already been a big enough ordeal to get here. He led me through the rest of the slum, quickly to the main road. No autos came. He asked if I wanted some chai while I waited, and I declined. Still on my guard as this helpful human offereed me tea while waiting with me for no reason, I realized just how jaded all of my Indian mishaps had made me and got lost in thought.  

20 minutes passed and still no rickshaws in sight.  

“Mam, let me take you to the train station, I have a vehicle.” I looked him up and down, His clothes were clean, he had all his teeth, a legit looking student ID, could he also have a rickshaw hiding somewhere? I glanced across the train tracks and alleys and could see the main station in the distance. Exhausted, I gave up and trusted him as he motioned me back through the slum. 

And there it was. Indian death on two wheels, his vehicle was as I had feared... a motorcycle. 

For two months I had marveled and cringed in transit. Millions of motorcycles, zero helmets, all moving at a breakneck pace through India’s lawless lanes. Most carry three to four people riding with charcoal eyed infants sandwiched in the middle on young mothers' laps. The danger looks romantic for a second in the country ranked #1 for auto-related deaths. Their vibrant sari's trail behind them in shades of red and gold, and they seem flawless even at 90 miles an hour.

The World Health Organization recently stated, “1.3 million die every year in India due to a refusal to wear helmets combined with horrendous infrastructure and reckless driving.” (Note I found this stat AFTER said motorcycle ride). But looking at the sleek black bike, and the man I had met 24 minutes prior something came over me and the only thought I could muster was, I can’t leave India without riding a motorcycle… besides, what could happen on a five minute ride? 

5 minutes later we were gracefully weaving between rickshaws and buses. The train station grew larger and all at once began shrinking as we rode right past it. 

“We go to train station??” I yelled over the honking horns surrounding us. 

“No. Guest is God; I take you to the university."

I had heard this phrase once before, from my friend Bijal as I thanked her again for showing me around Mumbai. "Guest is God, Amanda don’t thank me, in India the guestis God," said casually. 

I looked at the open stretch of highway, before us, painted with yellow rickshaws, the blues and greens and glitters of thousands of sari’s moving about on motorcycles, and brown buses spreading them all by force. My own hair had come undone as we picked up speed.  I held on a little tighter and put my faith in the universe as we swerved to avoid a naked beggar and jolted through a life size pothole. 

20 minutes later, I was barely holding on. Traversing the roads, swerving and jolting, seemed more natural than walking. But then the sky began to darken and the monsoon was upon us. We pulled over and though we hadn’t spoken more than a few phrases of broken Hindi and English on the ride (I still wanted all of his focus on avoiding death by bus), I felt completely bonded to this stranger. And so, soaking wet, we shared a road side chai and a piece of chocolate until the rain slowed. 

Another few minutes and we were flying beneath the beautiful tree lined lanes of the real Varanasi University. Veshran drove me all the way to the center temple and we parted ways. He refused money, did not ask me for my face book or phone number. He said, only, “Amanda, guest is God, please remember that and enjoy my country.”

MUMBOA

My last real memory of Ramgarh village, the place that for 6 weeks defined life in India for me, was Ricardo Situmeang.  (Coincidentally, he is also the grad student who forced me to apply for a research position in India in the first place). He stood up in the middle of lunch, and clanged his fork against a metal cup. “Everybody, could I have your attention for one second? There is a rumor, that in the next village over, a vendor has a refrigerator, which means there MIGHT be beer. I propose that since Amanda, Claire Vicrant and Archy are leaving tomorrow, we should walk to there and everyone can have a drink”. 

You did not need to ask us twice, a group of 20 something young interns and researchers, whom hadn’t seen alcohol in nearly two months. If there was a village in a 20 mile radius that MIGHT have a cold beverage, let alone a cold beverage WITH alcohol content, we were damned well gonna find it. And so we set off on a two hour walking white people pilgrimage to find a few fabled bottles of Kingfisher (which in the end DID exist and tasted like sweet sweet village victory). 

That life seems years away now, as I close out yet another chapter, which I shall hence forth refer to as Mumb-oa. India, Chapter 2. Two weeks in Southern (ish) India split between Mumbai and Goa, never more than 12 feet from a beach and a beer. 

Emma picked me up from the Mumbai airport after my epic trip there finally came to an end (re: three cancelled flights, one 12 hour bus, and a Delhi train break down). Having made so many friends in Ramgarh, I underestimated just how much I still needed to see a friendly face from a former life (pre-India life) and Emma was the perfect medicine. A wonderful friend and fellow tree hugger from my grad program at American, Emma is also doing her field work in India this summer studying the auto-rickshaw industry,  Unfortunately she resides on the opposite side of the sub-continent but that didn’t stop me from hopping a sketchy domestic flight to get a glimpse of the place that has defined life for HER in India... Mumbai.  

In what can only be defined as culture shock, round 17 for this year, Mumbai was just about as different as you can possibly get from Ramgarh. Paved streets and bright lights, Mumbai is a truly beautiful city that hugs the curves of the Arabian Coast. The Colaba district screams its history through old British buildings of gothic perfection and a type of ancient wealth that dances through hilltop bars and the taj hotel. Tucked in the North is Borivali National Park, a tree home away from home, yet the Juhu Bandra suburbs are crowded and bustling enough to remind you that you are still in fact in India. 

I spent the week indulging. Hopping from cafe to cafe while working on my research, drinking chai at the taj, going for early morning runs on the beach (until the  ass grabbers and morning poopers - literally, got too much for me to handle), sipping wine at the Dome ( a famous rooftop hotel bar that wreaked of wealth and royalty), sharing super human dosas for lunch, and giving my best shot at the Mumbai train systems (which I dominated thanks to Emma’s fabulous train lessons). 

                                      

  

    

Before long it was Friday, and part two of South India unfolded with new friends and new hostels on the beaches of Goa. I immediately remembered how much I love being a backpacker. Carrying my life on my shoulders, meeting strangers, and sharing mopeds, getting to know people over King’s Cup, and frolicking around Old Goa in an attempt to be cultured. And at least once a day I thanked the universe for making it monsoon season because Goa, usually the Jersey Shore of India, was at 20 percent capacity, a beautiful wet tropical paradise, where the deserted streets made it seem like this city was meant to be my private playground. 

My best friends were the five other people that occupied the city, all of which resided in Astrix hostel, the only available lodging. They hailed from Egypt, the UK, Australia and India, and sometimes the highlight of the day was watching Darshan solve the rubix cube...but that was OK... because in Goa you can cruise the coast via motorcycle or never leave your balcony beanbag chair. You can drink 1 dollar Kingfishers, or splurge on 2 dollar mojitos. You can stay true to your local and eat Vegetable masala or just as easily nom on a hickory burger and fries.  But if at the end of the day if you are not relaxed, well rested, completely content and or buzzed, you’ve done something terribly terribly wrong. 

"But Mands, I don't even know what an Indian Pulpería looks like!"

When an exasperated Aeriel Emig exclaimed, "Ugh, I don't even KNOW what an Indian Pulpería looks like!", what she meant was, she needed a life visual on the details that don't usually make mass emails or blogs... to answer questions like.... WHERE do you buy groceries? And so, in dedication to Ms. Emig and Momma Wheat ("Can you even buy fruit where you are???), here is a photo blog...the who's who of Indian vendors, an informal economy at its best. 

Need to add minutes to your cell? These guys gotcha covered. 100 rupees (2 dollars) gets you about 87 minutes of talk time (if like my you bought your sim card anywhere OTHER than Mumbai)

Banana Man. I have spent about half of my time in India on the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Apples, and Toast) to battle the amoebas and stomach maladies that are inherent with traveling this country. Thus, the Banana Man wherever I am, is inevitably my BFF. This guy's name is Vicrant, and if I smile big enough/ look sickly enough, he gives me an extra two bananas fo FREE. 

I haven't touched meet since arriving in India..but I suppose if I did get the urge, this guy sells it pretty fresh. Live chickens.... just a few steps away from my Banana Hookup. 

Tomatoes from ground level baskets... If your vendor sells more than one kind of vegetable, he's a floozy.... the man with JUST tomatoes KNOWs a good tomato when he sees it. 

Heading to a temple, wedding, or other Indian festivity? Need flowers to offer to Krishna? The stall to the right of the fish market is the place to get your fresh scent on. Perhaps it smells so good because you just walked through the fish market, but either way it's heaven to the nostrils after a few minutes outside in an Indian city. 

Chai Walla (the bringer of chai), because no day would be complete without a baby cup of spicy sugary heaven, five Ruppees ( about 25 cents) gets your fix, and this lady brews it best. 

Last but not least, the grains, the spices, the nitty gritty, usually look a bit like this if you're buying from a fresh market. And luckily for my BRAT diet, this guy also sells saltine-esq crackers and apples. 

India... everything you need on one street. Tremendous. 

When Life Gives You Lemons.... Make a homemade gatorade and recover some of the electrolytes that India has robbed you of.

Inevitabilities depend on where you travel, how you travel and with whom you travel. Indian inevitabilities, traveling on a shoe string, as a female, with other females, look a little something like this. You’re going to get sick, very sick, your going to get your ass and boobs grabbed, frequently, very frequently, and if you’re lucky enough, you may find yourself amidst a very angry group of men demanding money in order to remove the blockade they have created to keep your car from passing through their village. That last story will have to wait until I’m back on American soil, but suffice to say, my first adventure into the Himalayas was a beautiful disaster, tainted by Indian inevitabilities. 

We (Prometa my fabulous translator, Frenchy Clair and Canadian Celia) left Ramgarh village at 4 in the morning via Vicrum (the overgrown fisherprice vehicles most commonly used to transport people in this country). Naturally the bus to Sankri was supposed to depart at 5 am and arrive 7 hours later. It left at 7  am and arrived 13 hours later. The woman behind me sat vomiting out the window for the first five hours and the man next to Celia decided she might like to wake from her bus nap to both of his hands massaging her breasts. She promptly slapped him repeatedly until he moved and then berated him about how to properly treat women. English might not have been his first language but the message was unmistakeable. I was stunned at how kind the man next to me was and felt guilty at how harshly my fellow female travelers were being treated by the men next to them. Mine offered me bananas, and saved my seat when I got out for the bathroom, and even gave me a cool rag to put on my neck to fight the heat. Thank you universe. 

Sankri itself was from another world. The only think I can compare it to is some kind of Indian middle Earth. It was a village built around terrace farming where the small stone homes were built for small Himalayan Indians, an intricate cobblestone network connecting one family to the next, where low hanging beams were unforgiving to anyone above 5 feet tall.  Every morning the women left with baskets on their head to collect apricots and grain, and the men left with machetes to cut bamboo from the nearby forest. We ate every meal on the floor of the kitchen, usually in the dark as there was no electricity, and helped in the fields, digging divots for the coming rice planting, all the while reveling in a temperature that was breathable and a mountain range that was more breathtaking than anything India has shown me thus far. 

I began my research and simultaneous my end in mountain paradise. Having run out of water, three hours away from the nearest clean water source, there was little choice other than to accept the water from the apple farm. Fail. One amoeba later, I was shipped directly back to the sauna where I got drugged up to the max in Dehradun’s hospital. Many antibiotics later I still can’t eat, but have successfully learned how to make a homemade gatorade with lemons and sugar and salt to replace my lost electrolytes. There’s no moral to this blog other to say that India kicked my ass this week, I have a new found appreciation for saltines and gatorade (neither of which exist in India) and a new life lesson, beware the apple man, his crooken smile is matched by a crooked water purifier which rests beneath the basement next to his cows. 


                                  

Sun, Seeds, and Chai

Because India is not all hospitals and poverty, and because worried roomies like the one and only Miss. Kathryn Beck among others have launched into "Manda what the hell are you doing" mother mode, I thought it time for “a day in the life.” Just about two weeks into my three month stint, this is what the days in Ramgarh village tend to look like... sun, seeds, and Chai. 

Sun up, Manda up: Around 5:30 the sun comes up, the crows begin squawking (their piercing screeches actually make me miss roosters), and the farmers take to the fields while singing in their eerily beautiful Indian tones. I wake up, push away my mosquito net,  and head to the Forest for a morning run. 

By 7:00 the sun has begun exerting a fraction of its daily force, and the the air grows slightly heavy at about 80 degrees, more than a enough to make a cold bucket bath a welcome part of the morning ritual. 

8:00 the breakfast bell chimes, and the farmers, interns, researchers stumble in for chai tea and a banana, or couscous, or sometimes if we are especially lucky, an indian pancake but always, chai...milky, sugary, delectable chai. 

9:00 I head to the library to do more background research on climate change in the Himalayas, format my interviews and surveys and revamp my questions so that they translate better into Hindi, and of course I shamelessly Skype and gchat if the internet is steady for more than an hour.

The rest of morning is usually marked by me doing whatever activities the farmers and cooks are doing so that I can stealthily make them indulge my research. Whether that is sorting seeds, peeling mangos, riding a rickshaw plow, or simply helping the office write an English announcement for their website, I lure my translator to whatever activity I think will lead me to good interviews, and together we fumble through climate change questions with people who have never heard of this thing called, "climate change”.

 

1:00 Lunch Bell

This is an all vegetarian, very nearly vegan establishment (they don’t allow any eggs but they love milk??? so confusing) so lunch is nearly always chapati ( a whole wheat tortilla type thing), rice and beans, and some kind of spicy vegetable.

By this point the sun has reached its full heinous potential... it is inevitably between 115 and 120 degrees ( I wish I was exaggerating) and the power has likely failed so there is no respite other than to hide in a shady place with nothing but boiling hot water to drink. I’ve tried the bucket bath at this point, but the water is hot, and there’s no point. Most of us just try to go unconscious until the worst is over, but sleep is usually impossible laying in our own pools if sweat with not even a breeze to blow some of the suffocatingly heavy air. 

By 3:00 we’re usually safe from the worst of the sun, and I go back into the field with my translator to get some more data. The work day culminates in the ritual cow milking with this guy... I think his name is Tayluck but I call him milkman and he laughs so I’m stickin to it. We bring the milk back to the kitchen and they make the afternoon chai to hold us over until the 8:00 dinner.







Shortly thereafter, I am spent, some journal writing and reading is all that is left before I’m passed out by 10 pm and tucked under my mosquito net content and ready to do it all over again.

                                      

Sobering Up With the Darker Side of India

Invincibility. That feeling you get when your plane takes off from your own country and carries you away to someone else’s. You might still be shaking out some nerves but no solo journey abroad is complete without that instant rush of invincibility. It’s just you, your destination, your project or plan, and the feeling of independence and adrenalin mixes to create a perfect cloak of confidence that carries you the rest of the ride there. Whether many realize it or not, this feeling of command over life and our choices usually stays present on and off throughout the journey and it is one of the main reasons we travel, to see exactly what we’re capable of outside of the comfy place we call home. But, for me,  an overnight stint in an Indian hospital sobered my invincibility high and left me in complete awe of not only my own vulnerability, but the vulnerability of India. The saddest part is that it was not even me who was sick. 

When my roommate Claire spiked an alarming fever, turned yellow, and passed out we (Team Navdanya) took her to the hospital without question. She came in and out of consciousness just long enough for us to learn that she had not been vaccinated for anything before coming to India, not even hepatitis. At first, I was in awe of how quickly she received medical attention, but soon I was horrified at just what type of care defined that attention. One after another nurses prodded her microscopic veins with needles whose packages I never saw, and when an infection inflamed its way up her arm, I wondered exactly where those needles came from. There was no soap, there were no antiseptics, the sheets were stained with blood, and the air wreaked of human waste from the street corners below. Finally, under the haze of some antibiotic anti anxiety IV cocktail, Claire fell asleep just as the mosquitos descended through the broken window of her room. I stayed up with the night biters, praying to the Gods that I never followed to keep me out of a hospital for the rest of my stay in India. It was the first time in a long travel time, that I felt completely vulnerable. And I did NOT care for the emotion. 

The world outside of Clair’s “posh” private room, was a different kind of horror all together. The moans of India’s ailing were everywhere, some sprawled out on mats on the floor looked closer to death than the dogs on the street, who’s bone skinny bodies panting and covered in flies did not stand a chance to the harshness of Dehradun’s street life. And the only thing worse than the patients moaning for help in the hospital, and the dead dogs in the gutter, were the disfigured children on the street-corners. One armed, or one eyed, it didn’t matter, not a single one was healthy or looked as if they would survive the year. I forgot about my own vulnerability instantly at the site of them but couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps this is why India moves at such a breakneck pace. If the vickrums weave in and out quickly enough, and the buses honk their horns loudly enough, perhaps they, and their passengers can avoid those who are clinging to life below... 

Filling the Gap

My blog has a gap. A gap called Costa Rica. I tried to write from the lovely comfortable Central American safe haven, but felt that while I was happy and surrounded by completely amazing people, my life in Ciudad Colon somehow did not inspire me or make me think about culture and life in the way a blog entry requires. Travel snob, I know, but I am happy to say, that India thus far has challenged that dormant part of my travel mind on every possible level, from the markets, to the spices, to the expectations and disappointments, a bout with Dehradun’s hospital, my first vicrum ride, and above all, being a tall blonde ALONE in India. It has been four days and I already feel that I’ve experienced more than I did in the past 5 months in Costa Rica. 

Life.

Yes, it has only been four days but somehow in this village where the day starts at 5 am and ends at 10 pm with nothing to mark the hour but the call to prayer from neighboring villages or the double Chai bell from the kitchen,  I feel like I’ve been here three months. I can’t really describe my day to day yet, as I haven’t figured out what that might look like, but I can say that the people are wonderful, life is incredibly slow, and I have somehow landed my self on a farm called Nevdanya, in a village called Ramgarh in East Bumblefuck, India. We have electricity and running water for about 2 hours a day and internet comes in and out with the power. Showers are but bucket baths, toilets are little more than a hole in the floor, and food is glorified rice and beans (the spicy version) three times daily... but I could not be happier. 


                                      

The most memorable recent experience other than surviving the trip to this village, was certainly yesterday’s trip to the Dehradun hospital. My roommate Clair who arrived from France the same night that I arrived from New York, fell terribly sick within 48 hours. She couldn’t hold any liquid or food, fainted every few hours, was running a fever of 103 and her skin had turned a sickly yellow color. By all signs, it looked like she had hepatitis. (Unfortunately in France they tell you, you only need a yellow fever vaccination to come to India as opposed to the states where I got shot up  for yellow fever, Hep A, Hep B, polio, meningitis, tetanus, typhoid, and malaria). So without hesitation, my new little Navdanya family and I piled into a four person vikrum and made the hour trek to Dehradun, the closest city. 

Having not set foot outside the Delhi airport during my layover upon arriving in India, Dehradun was my first real run-in with an Indian city. Suffice to say, India is.... intense. I couldn’t help but think as we rambled between cars, motorcycles, and pedestrians that India on first glance seems to me a land of contradiction. Dehradun, for instance was a city of complete rubble and gray dirt pierced by the blazing red and yellow sari’s of Indian woman, a city where impatient vikrum drivers nearly run each other over every four seconds but stop to give an apple to the one armed street child on the corner, a city where the hospital seemed little more than a ward for India’s dead, dying, and deceased but offered Clair immediate attention and treatment that far surpassed many American hospitals I’ve been to where patients wait hours in the ER. 

Steve pointed out how funny it was that I felt close enough after 48 hours to bring someone to the hospital. And it is funny, to think that these people, fellow interns and researchers, were complete strangers just days ago, and that within 48 hours we were bonded strongly enough to make a four-person trip to the hospital together. I believe it to be a type of survival mechanism particularly among women traveling alone to connect quickly. It’s as if you know instantly that you are very very very far from home, in a land that its not necessarily hospitable or safe, and it is a bit crucial, as Clair quickly learned, to  surround yourself with strong friends as soon as humanly possible. 

Clair: The French Firecracker (before the hospital).

So far I’ve got Frenchy Clair, the firecracker from France, Momma Sevitri, the 52 year old American Phd student, Latina Maru, the yoga loving Uruguayan chic (who is currently doing sun salutations as I write), Herua, the Japanese plant whisperer, Celia the adorable Kanuk, Pemitra our resident Indian, who being from non-Hindi speaking Bangalore feels just as alien here as we do, and Fredriko, our Italian Stallion who gets more existential about the world and our purpose here than Aer and I combined in our worst hours or confusion. 

So, here’s to a new subcontinent, new research, new spices, new stories, and a new family. 

The Osa Conundrum

Nearly seven years to the day since I first set foot outside of the US, I returned the place that started it all, the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. Only this time I wasn’t a 19-year-old, more concerned with getting a tan than learning the people. I was a grad student, studying conservation policy, in one of Latin America’s most well preserved natural territories. The following is a blog I wrote for the Natural Resources Defense Council... a small portrait of the state of the Osa.. a territory in limbo, caught between conservation and development. 

The Osa Peninsula is perhaps one of the best examples of the original Costa Rica. It lies in the southwest corner of the country as a remote and relatively untouched territory. Its coasts are marked by unfettered jungle which stretches out to the white sand beaches, or in some areas the region is dotted with small-scale eco-lodges. When looking at the rest of Costa Rica’s coastal regions, like that of Guanacaste, which is now home to several major resorts and inundated with millions of tourists annually, it is hard not to ask the question, how did the Osa Peninsula remain so untouched?

The answer is a complex combination of conservation initiatives of the 1970’s, development models which emphasize small-scale tourism, and of course the natural infrastructure barriers which make much of the Osa Peninsula difficult to access. Furthermore, the creation of Corcovado Park in 1975 assured that the majority of the Peninsula would be off-limits to large-scale tourist development. Though this conservation move by the Costa Rican government was not without repercussions (i.e. the riots of 1985 amongst gold miners who demanded compensation for the land which had been taken from them when Corcovado was created), it did ultimately ensure that 425 kilometers were protected by national decree.

But what will become of the Osa if the pending plans for an international airport in the region are carried out in the coming years? A brief week of fieldwork on the Peninsula shed light on how these historical conservation policies are currently affecting the region as a whole both for better and for worse, and what a new airport might mean for the region’s development. 

Costa Rica has become a poster child for environmental policy and sustainable development. The international airport in the nation’s capital reads, “Welcome to to the world’s happiest country.” But it is on the Osa where this sentiment seems to remain true to its roots. Where development has been kept to a smaller scale, eco-lodges and sustainable tourism have been able to flourish. The Osa Conservation group, an NGO founded in 2003, is one concrete example of this success. Here, reforestation projects are combined with sea turtle monitoring initiatives, student internship and volunteer opportunities and future work with carbon sequestration models to offset university emissions in the US are underway. 

Thus far Osa Conservation has been able to restore 100 acres of abandoned teak and pachote plantations of the privately owned Cerro Osa property planting more than 19,000 native tree species. Pictured here, Maxwell Villalabas, a forest engineer for Osa Conservation, points to a nursery of 12,000 new trees of various species which will be planted before the year is out. The nursery was funded two years ago by NRDC as part of an initiative to strengthen the Corcovado-Matapalo biological corridor. “This area is incredibly important because it is part of the biological corridor between Corcovado National Park  and the Cabo Matapalo territory, which is a crucial corridor for several keystone species,” says Villalabas. “NRDC provided the funds for this project and now we have at least ten years worth of work until the project is complete.” 

But even experts like Villalabas find it hard to predict how a mega-project like the international airport will effect the Osa. The construction plans are vague and in the land of “mañana” it is unclear whether the project will arrive in the foreseeable future. But it is hard to ignore how accessibility has shaped the development of coastal regions to the Osa’s North. Jacó, a popular beach spot is more comparable to the Jersey Shore of the US than a tropical paradise of Central America. Water once available to local communities is used up by immaculate golf courses and prostitution is as common as gallo pinto. One can only hope that developers look at this type of development as a warning sign for the Osa rather than an example to be emulated for economic growth. 

Beware the Lack of Culture Shock-Shock

Culture Shock is defined as the anxiety, feelings of frustration, alienation and anger that may occur when a person is placed in a new culture. Wise Wikipedia goes on to describe four states of culture shock: honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment, and master. But my darling Wiki, whom I rely on for all things truth (sorry I'm not sorry), you have failed me, because what I experienced when moving to Costa Rica was a jarring, frustrating, nauseating LACK of culture shock-shock. 

Nearly two months since I arrived in Costa Rica and THIS is my first blog? Telling indeed, for it has been a very very... very strange adjustment period. The first two weeks were marked by Mal Pais, a bus full of hippies, and getting to know old friends a bit better. I thought the strange feeling of uneasiness was brought on by being in Mal Pais without Aer or the original characters that had made that place so memorable the first time around and decided my mistake had been going to the same place twice. A slowly unraveling pit in my stomach reminded me that I had chosen to come to Costa Rica for a third round and dreaded that I would spend the year feeling the same uneasiness I had in Mal Pais. Decidedly, I needed a change of scenery STAT. 

So I found myself a mini adventure with the Dutch Hippies of Bennie Bus. A life-loving couple with big dreams and small purses, they decided to make their travel fantasies possible by gutting out a Craig’s list bought bus and mobile hosteled their way down the coasts of Latin America. One hammock at a time, I took comfort in new people, new places, the slow passing of time and the journal musings which gradually proved that 6 months in the states hadn’t left me completely brain dead. But then I arrived in Colon and it was weeks of confusion that rolled over me in waves as I impatiently waited to feel exhilarated, to feel shock, to feel the awe of a new country. Weeks of unending emotions which never let me put my finger on them. I would pin down how I felt only to do a complete 180 two hours later. I would revel to Steve when I managed to have the same emotion for more four hours at a time, only to launch into a tirade minutes later about how dissatisfied I was.

For this shock, I brought in the big guns, not one, not two, but three, wise knowledge meese who advised me accordingly. 

Steve: "You have to be patient, and you also have to stop comparing this to your last travel experience."(Ten moose points). 

Em: "You're not stringing hammocks in the jungle because you're down there to be a grad student, you have to be in civilization for that honey" (Double Accurate).

Bech: “You don’t feel culture shock because whether you want to admit it or not... this is our home. We’re just more comfortable in this part of the world.” (Sigh. Triple Truth). 

I am not hopping borders every two weeks, I am not frolicking through ancient indigenous ruins, or taking in the glaciers of patagonia. I’m not bathing out of buckets or battling 104 fevers while riding 17 hour night buses. I live here. I learn here. I play here. I have a routine, and friends, and a family. I have a soccer team, a cafe, and a spanish tutor. In reality, I have a life. And this idea of permanency in a place with so few challenges has been my greatest shock... it is the lack of culture shock-shock, and it has taken me two months to acclimate. 

But in changing my expectations... tweaking I should say, I am slowly but surely starting to appreciate the intricate details that comprise this life: a school of international students dripping with life experience that make mine look like the ultimate silver spoon; endless amounts of opportunity to balance work and play via salsa lessons, volleyball tournaments, and middle eastern weddings; my family, Momma J, Uncle Mario, and the parade of cousins and niñetas that find their way to my door wanting nothing more than un ratito para hablar y mirar. And despite my contempt for technology this life is defined by connection. I am connected at all times to those I miss the most, and it seems that in some ways I am redefining my own advice to myself. “The only way to balance life with travel is by tattooing a compass on your wrist.” Truth. But for now I am learning that sometimes balancing life with travel means redefining your idea of life and your definition of travel in the first place. 

So here’s to a year of defining, redefining, and “settling down,” a year of embracing the intricacies of non-nomadism and being epically grateful that my longest stint in one place is in a country who’s name just happens to mean "The Rich Coast."  

Special Thanks: Stephen Vincent Valenta for putting up with my crazy on a daily basis with the most love and support a girl could hope for, Aeriel Kaylee Emig, for patiently working through three very stressful days with me and putting things in perspective 24-7 with journals and crayons, and Emily Intermonte Dally my oldest and longest love, sometimes I skype walk/talk through your apt makes everything better.  Love you all epically...8/2/33 days! <3