"Sola"

According to Google translate: 

Solo(a) (spanish) = single, alone, one, lonely, sole, mere, all alone, lone, lonesome, singular, neat

I think it's interesting that in Spanish they use the same word for lonely and alone, because after my last week here, I may have to tell Spanish that I disagree. 

So I finished with my official program a little over a week ago and after many days of tearful goodbyes and "last ___'s " my program friends left to go home. A while back, I had decided that I wanted to stay and travel for a little after the program ended, and I knew this was going to mean that I would be on my own for a while, but I didn’t realize that leaving my program friends would be so hard.

For those of you who have lived overseas or studied abroad, you understand, these people are your life, your family, for however long you’re there. For those of you who don’t know what it’s like, just think of the most emotionally difficult thing you’ve ever done, something that involved constant self-reflection and questioning, a growing experience of some sort, and think about the people you experienced that with, then you’ve got an idea. I spent every single day with these 17 people, in class, at lunch, coffee, on trips, at bars. We helped each other with translations and homework questions, navigating problems with host families or friends or boys, cultural differences, homesickness, relationship questions, and all made a few bad decisions on the way to defining ourselves. It’s the kind of relationship where you have to get really honest with the people around you very fast, because you have to depend on them. As long as I live, these people will have a special place in my heart, I may not keep in great touch with all of them, but we shared Costa Rica, and you can’t take that away, which means our friendship will always pick up where we left off.

That being said, I was very sad for a few days. I couldn’t just call up a friend and ask them to meet me for coffee in half an hour, or ask if they wanted to go to a movie, or tell them some strange thing I saw that is normal for Ticos, but still out of the ordinary for us. But then something amazing happened…I found out I wasn’t alone after all…Sure my best friends were gone, but there was a whole new untapped community of love waiting to surround me.

I spent more time with my Tico family, eating father’s day lunch together, combing through old family photos, playing with my 3 year old host cousin. I spent time at the school where I teach English, and had my students run to greet me with hugs and yells of “Meri!!!!”. They wrote me letters to take home with me, and the teacher I have worked with all semester invited me over to have dinner at her house.  I found a bigger community of Tico friends than I knew I had, all of who wanted to spend time with me before I leave.  I took a trip on my own to one of my favorite beaches, and met a handful of people in the same situation and we formed weekend-long friendships, ate dinner, sat on the beach, went out dancing, watched movies, climbed waterfalls, and talked about life.

I found that even though my best friends were gone, I was not alone, not even a little bit. And that’s when I knew that I really had found yet another home in this place. Yes, I’ve had lots of fun, traveled a bunch, and taken some classes, but the most important thing is that I became part of a new community, one very different from the ones I’m used to, but filled with the same love.

And even though I’m leaving here in a week and a half, I know I’ll always have a home here to come back to, and that’s a pretty amazing feeling. 


So thank you, to all of you who have been a part of that community, those in Austin, DC, and other parts of the world who kept me connected to my other homes and families, the IFSA crew who lived this with me and knows me better than just about anyone, the Tico friends and family who invited me in to be a part of their world, and those people I met in passing who showed me I wasn't the only one on this journey. It's been fun being a part of your communities, and I'm so excited to continue these relationships and see where they'll go. 


¡Te quiero mucho! (I love you so much!)

What I learned from telenovelas...

As some of you may know, the telenovela "Soy tu Dueña" ("I'm your boss", also translated as "Woman of Steel" for the US version) has become one of the staples of my time here in Costa Rica. In my first week here, my host mom invited me to watch with her, since she watches it every night at 9. I figured it would be another good way to practice my Spanish, would give me an opportunity to bond with my host mom, and would be something fun to look back on...but then I got involved. It's become kind of a running joke in the house that they know it's 9 o'clock when I sit down expectantly in front of the TV. Now don't worry, I'm not obsessed, and I know full well just how ridiculous this show is, but as today is the finale, I felt I owed it a tribute here on my blog.

To give a brief overview, the show is about Valentina, a smart, headstrong woman who in the very first episode gets left at the altar by Alonso (not a good guy). Heartbroken, Valentina leaves Mexico City where she's been living to move back to her family-owned cattle ranch with her aunt and cousin (the evil Ivana!). She takes over as the "dueña" or owner of the ranch, and basically manages it on her own, turning it into a successful business. She also wears lots of cowgirl outfits and spends a lot of time riding horses. Next door lives the handsome Jose Miguel, also a rancher, and the two of them fall madly in love. This of course is not enough to make a telenovela, a romantic comedy maybe, but it would be too simple of a story line if it ended here. Instead of ending up happy together right away, the couple's marriage plans are ruined when Alonso shows back up declaring his love for Valentina and Ivana (the cousin) declares that she's in love with Jose Miguel. Then there's Rosendo, the classic bad guy. He's in love with Valentina as well, and ends up doing a lot of terrible things (kidnappings, killings, burning things, etc.). Between all of the drama surrounding Valentina and her various love triangles (since pretty much every main character in the show has some sort of romantic history) and a few side stories with secondary characters, the show gets pretty dramatic, but is fun to watch and has captured the attention of not just Costa Rica, but also Mexico, the US and many more countries.

But between the bad acting, cheesy (and predictable) plot lines, and the slightly absurd modern-day cowboy theme, the novela had some good points and life lessons which I'd like to share with you:

1. It is perfectly natural for a man to take his shirt off for no apparent reason.

2. Bad guys are always bad, but they will pay for their actions and get what they deserve in the end.

3. Sleeping around is a bad idea. (There's always one or two women villains in telenovelas who are a bit promiscuous, and always pay for their actions. In this one, Ivana ends up suicidal and crazy, convinced that she's pregnant with an imaginary baby.)

4. Family is important, but a dysfunctional one can cause serious problems (that make for some very entertaining story-lines).

5. Men, even the good ones, have their flaws and are going to mess up...but then again, so do the good women. In the end, a strong couple can work it out.

6. Love is strong and can survive some pretty tough things. (It can also make people CRAZY, and I mean actually medically crazy with hallucinations and suicide attempts)

7.  A strong woman with self-confidence can achieve anything she puts her mind to. (She also may end up with half a small Mexican town in love with her, causing quite a bit of trouble, but she ends up with the right guy in the end).

So that's my plug for telenovelas...yes, they're absurd, but I must say that this has been one cultural experience I will remember fondly.