How I Met the President of Costa Rica

 This is the story of how I met Laura Chinchilla.

Every Friday I get together with Julia R, the closest PCV to me, and we have theme dinners.  We pick a country or another specific culinary category and make different recipes we've never tried before.  It's a fun excuse to get together and is always a test of our cooking abilities.  We've been having theme dinners for a while now, and our list of themes is dwindling fast.  This week was soup night.  This week I was also really strapped for cash (PC pays us around the 20th of every month, and right now I am running on about 6 dollars to get me to pay day).  All I had in my fridge were avocados from a neighbors farm and an onion and cucumber.  Avocado soup it is!  I was less than excited about dinner (mostly because I make myself avocado soup all the time and wanted to try a new recipe, but was too broke to buy all the ingredients, not because Avocado soup isn't delicious)  I decided that I would go into town a little early and spend a few of my remaining dollars at the internet cafe.  Right before I was to get on the bus, my friend Julia texted me saying that the President of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, was in Upala.  She was at a building caddy corner from Julia's apartment for the grand re-opening of a preschool.  It wasn't just the President either.  The VP, the Costa Rican equivalent of the surgeon general, the Costa Rican equivalent of my region's senator, and a few other big time government officials.  What??  I could not believe it.  The President has never been to Upala during her presidency, and didn't even campaign here.  Costa Rica is a small country, but I never imagined I'd get the chance to see the President in person.  She was scheduled to be in Upala for a mere 30 minutes, and lucky for me, my bus got me into Upala during that time frame.  A big part of her political platform is improving preschool care and child development in Costa Rica.  I met Julia R at the preschool and we hung out with the general mob of people surrounding the place.  We figured out that the building was open and that we could just walk right in.  Security was really loose.  Costa Rica is not a very violent country and not prone to acts of political violence, so Presidential security isn't even a tenth of the level it is in the states.   She had a few body guards, but they were just wearing polo shirts.  No bullet proof vests, sun glasses, secret microphones--just a few dudes to make sure no one bothered her.  It was easier to get into the same building as the President of Costa Rica than it is to get into a dance club in Raleigh.  I was wearing my backpack and everything, just walked on in in my street clothes.  We even got to get into the room where the Preschool committee was presenting their project to the President!  I took a bunch of paparazzi shots of her.  Both Julia R and I were really nervous about meeting her and we were talking to some of the event photographers about how we would love to shake her hand but were way to shy to actually go up to her.  As she was leaving the room, the photographer stopped the president and presented us and asked if we could get a picture with her.  She was incredibly obliging and nice.  She shook our hands and told us "mucho gusto" (nice to meet you) and then "hasta luego" (see you later).  I could have died.  Then, one of the doctors of Upala presented us to the Surgeon General and a camera crew was filming us as she told us how much she appreciated our work and how nice it was to meet us!!  At best I had hoped to get a glimpse of the president, I had NO CLUE that I was going to actually meet her and the Surgeon General.  Seriously the best theme night yet! 

Me and Julia so anxious just being in the same room as Laura Chinchilla

President Chichilla and VP Piva

And then we got to meet her and had a picture taken!

The Upala priest blessing the President before she left

Spanglish

Its no big secret that learning a second language takes a lot of work.  It requires an absurd amount of dedication and an even larger capacity for humility.  My ´primary assignment´ as a Peace Corps volunteer is to co-teach English in 2 elementary schools.  Yet I do way more learning than I do teaching on any given day.  I may have been living in a Latin American country for almost 2 years, but I still make rediculous mistakes in Spanish on a daily basis.  It´s easy and idealistic to think that total language immersion will miraculously result in language fluency.  It doesn´t.  I still have to study Spanish and while I´ve improved drastically since I´ve been here, I know that I have a lot more to learn.  I´m patient with my students who are learning English and they are patient with me as I learn Spanish.  The best coping mechinism for realizing my mistakes is humor.  I try and laugh it off, and its not that hard because my mistakes are generally hilarious. The following is a list of my recent blunders with the Spanish language:

(1) A few days ago I woke up early after a late night to travel back to my community. I had gotten only a few hours of sleep, was feeling pretty groggy, and took a taxi to the bus stop.  The taxi driver was cute and we were flirting a bit.  As I get out of the car to leave he tells me that he thinks I am beautiful, and I respond with "you, too, are a very beautiful woman."

(2) I like to get my students candies as prizes for class activities.  A few weeks ago I had planned a bingo activity as a review for the big test.  I wanted to get some lollipops for prizes.  Lollipop in Costa Rican Spanish is ´popi´ I asked the store owner (my host dad) if he wouldn´t mind selling me six ´pompis´ (a coloquial word for butts)

(3) I was running some errands with a friend, we needed to get 26 party bags for a school party.  As we were in the car I was counting the cookies we had got for the party bags and realized we only had 14.  I turned to my friend and told her in a concerned voice that we would have to go back to the store because we had only picked up ´diecicuatro´cookies.  Ugh.  Then she looked at me funny and I started cracking up. The Spanish word for 14 is catorce.  I had made a mistake that kids made in Spanish 101 the first week of class.

(4) **This one isn´t mine but my best PCV friend Kelsey´s, yet its a mistake I could have easily made**  She went to the store looking for ´jugo de pera´ (pear juice) and asks the cashier if they have any ´jugo de perra´(bitch juice)

(5) **Kels forgive me, but I have to share this one, too!** Kelsey goes into the store and starts chatting it up with the cute cashier.  She wanted to get some hand towells so she batts her eyes and flirtatiously asks him if he could help her pick out some `toallas` (sanitary napkins). 


And thats just a taste of the awkwardly funny things I get to say everyday.  What can I do but laugh at myself and keep on keeping on?