Score: 30/30

My brother was assigned an alternative project in place of the traditional "book report" that so many of us had to do in junior high English class. Instead, he was to create a 60 second long movie trailer advertising the book he read as an upcoming cinematic experience. I decided to help a little by letting him use my movie-making software, and what he came up with is pure genius. He came up with all the concepts, I just inputted it all into the software.

Watch and be amazed:

Love and Racism

Some more Costa Rica updates: Brittney, Marco, and I spent the past weekend in Manuel Antonio. I hadn't been there before but it was one of the places in Costa Rica that was mentioned in my 1,001 Places To Go book so I figured I should probably check it out. It was nice. Not my favorite place ever, but it was a nice beach town. Smaller than I thought. But nice. The first day we arrived at about 9:30 am (yes, that's correct, our bus left at an ungodly hour that morning) and we found some cabinas to stay at. We opted for the A/C rooms, only shelling out an extra $5 per night which brought the grand total to... $15 per person per night. Gotta love it. We stayed on the public beach (didn't enter the Park) and rented a couple of umbrellas to hide from the sun. We read, we slept, we jumped, we swam. A pretty relaxed day.

On Saturday we wanted to head into the National Park but there was a storm that I can not compare with any other in my life. It lasted for a good six hours with lightning and thunder threatening to rip off the roof of our cabina and suck us up into the sky. Our beloved electricity went out a couple times which not only left us in the dark, but also sticky without the A/C. Finally at about 10 am we emerged from our room only to find a sunny, yet extremely wet, Manuel Antonio. We left for the park and unfortunately had to cross a larger-than-normal river bed in order to enter. I think the only reason that they haven't built a bridge or something is so that the guy who owns the boat can earn a couple bucks shuttling the not-so-brave tourists across about 10 feet of water. We took our chances and crossed by foot. It wasn't too bad except for the polluted water that I'm pretty sure burned my skin with all its contamination. Guácala. Marco unfortunately took a spill and cut his arm and even more unfortunately dipped my camera bag into the water which he was carrying for me. No damage, thank goodness, to my camera; just some cloudy photos until it dried completely.

The park was... nice. We did get in for free: thank goodness for lunch breaks and siestas. We hiked for a while to see the vistas which happened to be all closed off probably due to the rain. I took a nice tumble on our way back down and ended up defacing my Purdue shorts (sorry Mommy). Nothing that a little sea water couldn't wash up. Seeing the beach was extremely comforting after trudging through a jungle that was only too reminiscent of my frightening time in Panama (shudder). We stayed only for a little while, hoping to beat the rain home. I think the thing I was most disappointed about was the fact that I saw no wildlife. Everyone usually sees little monkeys and can get close enough to interact with them. Due to the heavy rain, I just saw the usual collection of hermit crabs. Boring. The trip overall was very fun, catching up with Brittney, getting some color (no, no sunburn this time), and not caring if I was sweating profusely because hey, it's Costa Rica baby.

Unfortunately Brittney's trip was cut short and she left two days early to tend to some family affairs back in the States. I was left alone with little to do in Marco's house, and decided to make friends with his television. Lame, I know. I did go see my host mother, Nela, and spent a couple hours catching up with her and meeting the student that is currently living in the house. The house has changed quite a lot. No more big screen TV, the bathrooms had all been redone (beautifully, if I might add), and Nela had even planted fruit trees in the backyard. Nela hadn't changed much except for cutting her hair. And her opinion counts the most in my mind, so I was ecstatic when she said that I was looking much thinner. Overall, I'm really glad I went back to see her, even after some roughness with my host brother (but even that seemed to be patched over).

Now, to the title of this post. Love and Racism. Heavy, right? Let me explain. First, the racism. I went with Marco to one of his classes the first week I was here. He and his classmates had to travel to a part of San José in order to survey a property where they would be designing a church to be built. I tagged along in order to meet his classmates (cough cough, Margarita tú sabes) and just to understand better what it means to be an architecture student. Not that he hasn't told me exactly what he does for every second of every day, but oh well, this was an opportunity to witness it first-hand. His professor was also there, and this is where the racism comes in. When Marco introduced us, I have never felt so much hatred from one person. He refused to talk to me and wouldn't even acknowledge that I was there. It hurt. I understand the stereotype that most Latin Americans have against us "gringos" but I have never been treated that poorly. I tried explaining it to Marco, but he seemed to only want to defend his profe. He said he was an artist and he didn't mean it, but even intelligent, smart, forward-thinking artists can be assholes sometimes. He agreed with that reasoning. But it still felt awful that I was being discriminated against in such an aggressive way. I have never felt so insignificant in my life. (Needless to say, when Marco invited me to sit in on his class today, I opted out.)

Then there's love. And not the regular kind, but the kind that is shared within a family. Last night, Marco took me to meet some of his aunts, uncles, and cousins and I have never felt so welcome and loved as I was when I was talking with his family. Everyone I met made me feel like I was already part of the family, making fun of how tall I was and that I needed to make Marco start wearing high heels, or how they all wanted visas to come to the United States for our wedding. They were of course joking, and made sure that I knew it, but it felt like they were my family just joking around with me. I knew that I only met a fraction of the family (Marco's mom is one of 11 I believe, so I believe I only met 1/10 of the family... which is to say that it's a big family!!), but I was overwhelmed by how much fun they had together and how connected they all are to each other. They all still live where Marco's grandmother lived when she was alive, and only a couple have left the family compound like Marco's mother did. That kind of family can only be seen in Latin America. It's a beautiful thing, especially when they take you in as an adopted daughter/cousin/family friend.

Tomorrow I return home, just in time to clean clothes, pack them all up again, and head off to my next adventure in Minnesota. Things seem to be moving a lot quicker now in my life. But trust me, I couldn't be happier about that fact.

Peace.

Costa Rica OH NINE

Wow. I'm back. I feel like I was just here.

Arrived on Friday to a downpour in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. After going through customs and filling out an extra form to make sure they know I don't have swine flu I made it to the bag claim. Heart pounding, hands sweating, knowing that I was soon going to step outside, breath in Tico air, and see el novio. Walked outside... no Marco. Oh well, it was raining and I remember how that can slow down everything. So I popped a squat on the ground and opened my book to wait. About 20 minutes later... "Holaaaaaaaaa" :) Marco came with his dad (who I had never met) to pick me up and supposedly they were waiting somewhere else to stay out of the rain. Oh well. Better late than never.

We went to Birri to the Monte Campana hotel in the mountains of Heredia. It was so beautiful - you could see all of San Jose, Heredia, all of the lights in the valley below. The air was so fresh and pollution-free it was an honor to respire. Our room was infested by huge ants that seemed to be coming from no where but we quickly learned that if we didn't bother them they didn't bother us.

We went to the main area on Saturday morning which was empty so we just hung out at the pool for 3 hours or so. There was a water slide made out of rocks that Marco of course had to try. It was a really small place but really pretty. And they had this extremely random fuselage of an old airplane in one of the trees, as decoration or something. I was disappointed that you still couldn't see the stars even being up higher than in Barva because it was pretty rainy the entire time, but the lightning was still gorgeous.

Sunday we ate some uber tasty gallo pinto, my favorite, and left at noon. We got back to Barva and decided that at night we would go to La Casona to see some old faces. It was weird. Maria almost tackled me with a big smile and a "Pero Elenaaaaa mira que boniiiiiita!" Johnny was there and gave me a very fatherly hug and told me that I looked a lot skinnier, which of course was nice to hear because I'm pretty sure it's not true. There were some of the cimarronistas from my host brother's band (he wasn't there though, thankfully) so I caught up with them. There were some other friendly faces, but since it was a Sunday it wasn't very busy. We went to La Calidad down the road and said hello to Federico. But all in all, my Casona homecoming was kind of disappointing.

Monday we went to the airport to pick up Brittney. We found her host mom at the airport waiting for her, too, so we all waited together. Her flight was late, but it was so good to be back in Costa Rica with Marco and Brittney. We're like the Three Musketeers. Ok maybe more like the Three Stooges. And of course for dinner we had Pepino's ginormous burgers. They were a little different, but I'm not complaining about that much food for $3.

Tuesday, today, Marco and I met Brittney in Heredia central and took Marco to the university while we continued to our favorite mall, Paseo de las Flores. We went to Drea, one of the cutest stores ever. But unfortunately a lot of the clothing changed to more logos and printed Ts instead of the kinds of things they had before. Oh well. We still found some fun things. I bought a shirt for Marco that had a head and then a bunch of stuff coming out of it, like a ruler, a paint brush, etc and then at the bottom said, "An Artist's Mind." He's always telling me how he's an artist and how he thinks differently than everyone else, etc etc so I thought it would fit him well. I got myself a shirt that had a sketch of a pig's face and says "Wanted Terrorist." Haha I don't think I'll be able to wear that to the airport. Tonight we're going to go to all of the old bars that were out favority hot-spots: Bulevar, Fofo, La Casona, and La Calidad. A little "bar-hopping" if you will. Can't wait.

And I'll close with a joke. Brittney told me this one...
You know, it's pretty amazing that we have a black president if you think about it. But I guess it makes sense because people said that we would have a black president when pigs could fly. And look now, 100 days into his term, swine flu. (Get it?? Swine Flu = Flew)

Peace.

ASB Overview Movie

Made by yours truly.

Maybe if my feet weren't so big

I cause natural disasters.

Before I went on my trip to Italy, my team was having some team bonding time and we each shared something interesting about ourselves. This was soon after the earthquake in Costa Rica, and so I decided to share my theory on how natural disasters follow me when I travel. Here are the data:

Nicaragua 2005 - Earthquake (6.6) while I was there

Guatemala 2007 - Sinkhole kills 2 people

Peru 2007 - Earthquake (7.9) kills 330

Costa Rica 2009 - Earthquake (6.1) kills 15

I swear, it was kind of a joke at first, with my teammates asking me what type of natural disaster I would cause in Italy. Maybe Pompeii Part II? But no. It was decided that since Italy is on a fault line it would be more likely that I would cause and earthquake. Well oh well. Something to add to the proof:

Italy 2009 - Earthquake (6.3) kills 207

This is just plain freaky. I've been called a "prophet" by Jessica's friend, but I'm pretty sure I'm just plain cursed. And it only seems to happen in places where I travel to alone, without my family. They seem to cancel out my bad mojo. But I've kind of been hesitant to go anywhere now because who knows what could happen next... And of course my friends find it hysterical: When I announced that earthquakes follow in my wake, someone's response was, "Well maybe if your feet weren't so big..." Oh yeah, thanks for boosting my ego a whole bunch.

Peace. (I hope)
Ti amo Italia

"Your eyes are like the ocean: I want to dive into them!" (ASB ITALY 09)

Oh Rome. What can I say? I have extremely mixed feelings about my trip to Rome because I was oh-so-sick the entire time and stressed out. But you know what?! I loved every second of it. Let's do a *brief* recap.

The Vatican: I'm Roman Catholic. Not practicing very much, but Catholic nonetheless. And to be in our equivalent of Mecca was quite the experience. I received communion in the Basilica di San Pietro, saw and heard the Pope address the crowds in eight different languages, and even witnessed the wonders of the Sistine Chapel. It was a moving feeling to be connected to a religion that isn't quite your own, yet you call your own. I have never felt more Catholic in my life. My only regret: I was too chicken to go to confession. I think I would have to had a penance of a thousand Holy Marys considering the first thing I would have to say would be, "Forgive Father, for I have sinned. I have not been to confession in ten years."

DAAAAAHH pope

The Coliseo (Colosseum): Man, this thing is beautiful and I still have no idea how to spell its name! Unlike the Sistine Chapel which was a bit disappointing, the Colosseum's grandeur lived up to its name. Michael kept saying that he could hear the crowds yelling, that's how amazing it was. And to hear the stories about the things that went on in there, it was hard not to be impressed. But to walk to the lower level and see the "locker rooms" and inner-workings proved to be the most impressive. The intricacy astounded me, especially considering the weight of the rocks used. Poor, poor slaves.

Park Scholars in the Coliseo

And the outside :O

My team: What an AMAZING group of KIDS. haha. But seriously, some of the greatest people that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I thoroughly enjoyed their presence and gained a lot of perspective from all of their different backgrounds. I firmly believe that we couldn't have picked a better group of scholars. Or a goofier group. I swear, these folks were playing with nipple cups, dick rings, and everything in between. Some thought trees were pineapples, others claimed that they were serving Holy Meat to the people at the soup kitchen. I think that most of the pain I was in actually came from the amount of laughter in my daily life hanging around these goofballs! And there were no problems, as far as I could tell, between members by the end of it which made my job a little, ok a lot, easier.

The group, with Trevi Fountain in the background

Caritas (the soup kitchen): Wow. I have never volunteered for a more organized and dedicated organization. Carlo, the coordinator/manager, is so dedicated to the work he performs everyday and the volunteers are truly inspiring as well. And of course the food was much better than what I was served in elementary school, so there's that, too. But it was the "clients" who made the biggest impression. I learned so much from them: the racism between Italians and Romanians and between Italians and Africans, the life of an immigrant, surviving the streets in Rome, politics, education, you name it, they knew it. And one individual that will always stand out in my mind was Rocco. Rocco, the man who came in with the same jacket and shirt, but also with the same wild hair and gigantic smile. "ELENA!!!" he would always shout in an extreme Italian accent, always made my day. Although we had trouble communicating (I think there might have been a slight handicap of some sort) we could just sit at a table while he ate his food and enjoy each other's company. I could not think of a more rewarding experience than to witness the people that came into this place day after day. I even have a soft spot for the women in the red jacket who cussed everyone out :)

Alma, Me, and Rocco

Agencies: Well, one could see this aspect of the trip as a huge failure for me, or as a great step forward. I do not want to work for any of the agencies that we visited with (US Missions to the UN Agencies, World Food Programme, and Food and Agriculture Organization). The first, well to be honest, I still have no idea what they do or why they are needed. The second, a great organization, wonderful work, but I just have no interest in emergency food aid. My concentration is on solving chronic hunger issues through development projects, and that's just not their cup of tea. And of course FAO. Such a disappointment. I thought that since the WFP worked on emergency aid problems, that FAO would do more developmental programs. Not so. Basically all the FAO does is gather information, about EVERYTHING that has to do with crops and food, compiles it all together, finds out what's wrong, and then writes about it. No action, just a big fat book of facts and data that makes it look like we're not doing anything in the hunger front. And we're not! We're just writing books! I was so sad. And I even said to the lady, "So, these facts are great, but do you actually take any action to change them?" And she said, "No. We just influence people's opinions." LAME-O. I quickly lost interest in working with them. Too bad, because that would have been easy, living in Rome and finding facts. Oh well. There are much too many more important things to be doing with my time. Like actually FEEDING THE HUNGRY. I'm bitter, I know.

In the FAO with all the flags

Well, there's a little recap on some of the parts of the trip that stood out to me. Of course, there's a lot more to talk about: Trevi Fountain, that gay bar that we happened into, my sicknesses (I try to forget), Angelo's trattoria, seeing Katie (Yay!!), Italian parallel parking, and a whole bunch of other side notes. So ask me, and I'll share. Oh yeah, and I chopped off eight inches of my hair!

European haircuts!!

Peace.