Blog #2: Mis Primeros Días en Costa Rica (1/11/22)

Hola todos –

To say the past few days have been a whirlwind would be an understatement. I write this blog during the first morning where I have some downtime.

I left California at 11:50PM last Friday night and managed to get 2 hours of sleep. My body ached as I raced around the Charlotte airport at 8AM, trying to find a morsel of food before I left Charlotte for Costa Rica. Once landing here, I eventually made it to my host family’s house, and I immediately was greeted with the warmest smiles that I could’ve asked for.

I feel so blessed for my familia tica (aka Costa Rican family). I live with my mama tica, her son Elías and his partner Adriana, and their son, Nicolas. Everyday, my mama tica, Elías, or Adriana switch off cooking breakfast and dinner for me. They not only cook these meals, but clean up as well.

I’ve offered to help several times, but I’m always meant with “tranquilo Clay” (aka “don’t worry”). Their hospitality and kindness never fail to amaze me, and I feel very lucky to have them in my life. I always thank them profusely and try to help them in other ways. For example, I went with my mama tica to the store and helped her shop for some food. She’s 82 years old, so she had some difficulty carrying all of the groceries. I helped her carry everything and was able to practice my Spanish with her at the supermarket.

And while I love my familia tica and am so excited about my new adventure, culture shock has been hitting me pretty hard. Living in a new country with a new language, a new family, a new school, and new friends has not been the easiest feat. I oscillate between feeling joy and happiness with overwhelm and anxiety. So far, I’ve been feeling like the latter easily sneaks up on me like a cat pouncing on its prey, while the former I’ve had to actively pursue.

Just two days ago, I had a whole debacle with my Spanish class/professor. It my first time visiting the university, my first day of the semester, and my first class ever in Costa Rica. I was nervous because I didn’t know what I was doing and I second-guessing my Spanish skills (as I was placed in Advanced Spanish II). As I quickly learned upon arrival, the school has a floor specifically for international students, with signs showing where each class was taking place. I saw my class (and the classroom number), so I found my way to the class and met up with a few other students in the class. We stood next to the classroom, anxiously awaiting for class to start.

After 10 minutes of waiting with no one showing up, we realized we may have been at the wrong class. After scrambling for a few minutes, I then realized I had access to the course online and could see the course syllabus. I looked online and saw that the syllabus said the class was taking place in a different classroom. We then proceeded to search around, frantically looking for that classroom. We couldn’t find it, and upon going to back to the international floor where one of my resident directors was, we realized that the classroom he put in the syllabus didn’t exist.

Long story short, my resident advisor had to call him via his cell phone to ask where the class was. As it turns out, the classroom he ultimately was in was different than what posted online AND what he wrote in his own syllabus. Upon arriving 30 minutes late to class, our seemingly-frustrated professor then proceeded to speak to us at such a fast rate, as if we were all native speakers. I would say that I was able to understand ~30% of what he was saying. My heart was beating out of  my chest the entire class period.

When I decided to talk with him afterwards about having a tough time understanding what was happening in class, he continued to (still) speak at the same rate and tell me that I wasn’t at a high enough level to be in his class. He also did not offer any remorse or compassion for the confusion of classrooms that occurred at the beginning of the class period.

That class officially got removed from my schedule yesterday morning.

I tell the story above because it’s most obvious example of culture-shock-related situations that have arisen so far. Having attended St. Olaf for 2.5 years, I could never have imagined this type of situation happening there. To clarify – I know that miscommunications and cultural differences like these will occur while in CR, and I value learning about these cultural differences. However, this understanding doesn’t take away the feelings of uneasiness of adjusting acclimating to CR culture.

On a more positive note, I’m super excited for this weekend. My program group and I are heading to Manuel Antonio – a popular national park in Costa Rica that sits on the coast of the western pacific. It will be a fun weekend of hiking, swimming, and relaxing on the beech – a much needed rest from the chaos of the past several days. I will likely write my next blog after this trip. So, until next time, ¡adios!