Stop, Still and Listen: Reflections on Time

Time passes much more slowly here, the sounds of raindrops and the calls of birds fill the empty spaces.  A howler monkey growls in the far distance signaling the dawn.  The neighborhood stray dogs bark at the farmer and his dog as they pass by our house on his way out to his farm breaking the morning calm.  This morning we woke up and heard the ocean from our room even though we are probably about a half kilometer from the beach.  All of the daily sounds take on more significance in the “silence”, the bed creaks, our host mother clears her throat in the room next to us, a squeaky gate is closed in the house across the street, and the rhythmic sound of footsteps on the unpaved road appear slowly and then gently fade into the distance.

Here we have no TV, we don’t listen to radio, and our town has no movie theater or other type of diversion which are common in the States.  We don’t have internet in our house, although there are two internet cafés in town, one of which we visit about once a week.   Occasionally we’ll watch a movie which we’ve downloaded to a portable hard drive to entertain ourselves, producing a gentle nostalgia of the lives that we left before we came to Costa Rica.  And in between our daily actions as time passes with the slow movement of a cloud, we listen: a rooster crows, wind tenderly kisses a curtain, a cricket hums, the sound of thunder rumbles in the distance, a pan clatters against the kitchen sink.

In the sounds of the day we hear joy and we hear sadness and all that falls in-between, as people go along in their daily lives.  Time passes, life moves on.  And in the world, all of these sounds amass to create a grand symphony, ever-changing.  Someone is born, another dies.  A car passes a church on the highway as a congregation sings a hymn.  Right now someone is starving; another is listening to the sounds of jet engines on his way on vacation.  Wars rage in distant lands as firecrackers are lit to celebrate someone’s birthday.  A child kisses her mother, a baby coos, a grandfather laughs, a cat purrs.

And, here I sit in my room on my bed, a small speck of sediment making its way from the swift river to the big wide ocean.  How and where and what will be my destination, where will I settle when the waters deposit me on the shores of time.  I am trying to follow this course without fighting it, allowing the river to take me where it wants to, and listening to the sounds to give me guidance.

  Who needs a hammock?

Live Like a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica!

Had to re-post this link which we received from the Costa Rica office.  It is a funny, but also describes some of the daily challenges and cultural differences we have as volunteers here in Costa Rica.  Have fun playing "Live Like a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica!"

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2YDS7Pm6kwEMjkyYThmOGYtMWEyMS00MzkzLWIyYjgtNTNkZWE1Njg2OWRj&hl=en_US&pli=1

If you want to see what is is like to be a Peace Corps volunteer in other countries, check this link out.

http://www.livelikeapcv.org/

Managing Solid Waste - Something Which We All Take For Granted

One of the direst environmental issues here is the crisis that Costa Rica has with dealing with solid waste (as well as many other developing nations).  They don't refer to what we throw away in our garbage cans as garbage, but "residúos solidos" because the majority of the things we throw in the trash are actually not trash, but can be recycled or reused.  In fact, only 7% of what would traditionally be called "trash" is actually trash.  On top of that approximately 58% of that "trash" is actually biodegradable and is taking up space in trash cans (or "basureros"), attracts all kinds of animals and "bichos", brings with it diseases in addition to it literally just doesn't smell good.

 
Before coming to Costa Rica, I didn't really think too much about trash and how it is managed in our country.  We separate our recyclables (and at my former job our compostables) and put our waste in plastic bags and off it goes every so often with guys that come by in the garbage truck early in the morning and wake us all up with the sounds they make.  But where does all of this go?  Where is the closest landfill to where we live?  And how much of that trash is really garbage and how long does it take for specific types of materials to decompose?

In Costa Rica they have a decentralized system for treating solid waste which is handled at the municipality level.  Therefore, if there are 82 municipalities in Costa Rica you have 82 different ways of managing the solid waste that accumulates at an alarming rate day by day.  Supposedly, although I have not read it and couldn't find it online by a simple search, there is a law that orders municipalities in Costa Rica to take care of solid waste within their regions in an orderly, regular and healthy manner.  However, in my experience here in Costa Rica, it is obvious that this is not happening and that there is no accountability to require that this occurs or to punish those municipalities which are not making it a priority to deal with this issue (nor is there sufficient money given to the municipalities to tackle this mounting issue).

In many rural communities here the municipalities do not have a method for picking up trash.  In fact, only 75% of the country is covered by some method of collecting trash.  The other 25% of the communities have two options: throw the trash in vacant lots or burn it, both with obvious terrible effects for the environment.  Out of the countries municipalities only 34% have sanitary landfills to deposit trash and out of those only 5 of them operate legally and out of those only 1 is operated by a municipality.

In Talamanca, we do have trash collection at the municipality level and the trash is transported over an hour north to a landfill in Limón.  However, the issue with the garbage collection is that the service is not regular leaving garbage to sit out on the banks of the streets and allowing stray dogs to break open the bags, scattering trash everywhere in search of food.  And despite the fact there is trash pick-up many people still burn their garbage.

Littering here is also a cultural habit that is passed down from parents to their children.  I was told one time that in the past here everyone used to litter, but that was when the majority of what was thrown on the ground was organic and decomposed.  As the years passed and the people here began buying their food in plastic containers, it didn’t register that the plastic that they were throwing on the side of the road would not decompose for at least 500 years.  Another issue here that I wouldn’t have thought about previously is that the trash that collects on the side of roads and in people’s yards accumulates water which then become nesting grounds for mosquitoes which carry and spread dengue of which there has been a recent outbreak in this area.  It also has a devastating effect on the animals that happen to consume this garbage as they think it is food; oftentimes dying of hunger because their stomachs are filled with plastic and they cannot each anything.    

Additionally, Costa Rica has lacked education about the effects of this ever-accumulating trash and lacks the institutional and financial means to tackle this issue which, before coming to Costa Rica, I took for granted in the United States.  For instance, what is plastic made from (answer: petroleum – another reason to not use plastic as it helps to encourage wars in oil-producing nations).  Were you aware of the big floating garbage “soup” in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that is said to be twice the size the state of Texas?  See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch.  If we don’t act soon (meaning NOW), we’re really going to be doing some irreversible damage, if it hasn’t been done already.  

My municipality, although it lacks the coordination for regular trash pick-up does have a nascent system for recycling among mainly large and small businesses in the area and is an example to many other communities and municipalities in Costa Rica.  In fact, they are able to recycle many things which in the States I would throw away and which is considered (as far as I know) non-recyclable like the chips wrappers and what they call “tetrabrik” or “tetrapak” which are the milk and juice cartons which are composed of cardboard, aluminum and plastic.  However, they still lack a system for domestic recycling which is one of my project goals here for the next two weeks.

So, when I go to the local supermarket, Palí, to buy a soda or buy some chips, I am much more likely to refuse those that contain plastic and am especially careful of such wasteful items such as Styrofoam.  I encourage all of you who are not already doing so to reuse and recycle.  And for those of you who are already doing that I encourage you to think about the cycle of waste and to think about reducing or rejecting (the cornerstones of the 4 R’s: Rethink/Reject, Reduce, Reuse & Recycle).

As for me, when I return to the States I’m going to question more the consumption which leads to what I would call a disease, because in the end, it is making us all sick.

Directions “a la Tica” or How I Got Lost Before I Found Myself in Costa Rica

If you’ve ever been to Costa Rica and tried to get around San Jose as a foreigner you were probably surprised to discover the lack of street signs and the confusing manner in which “Ticos” (as Costa Ricans call themselves) give directions.  For instance, if I want to go from the Parque Central (Central Park) to the Mercado Central (Central Market) the directions might be: From the northwest corner of the park, walk 200 meters (100 meters = one block) west and 100 meters north and you will find the entrance on your left-hand side.

If you don’t happen to know that 100 meters roughly equals a block, independent of how long the block is, nor have an internal compass or don’t know certain points of reference, then you are going to find it very difficult to get around Costa Rica.  Although the streets do have names, hardly anyone knows them with the exception of perhaps Paseo Colón / Avenida Central.  Nor do the majority of the streets have street signs to give you any point of reference.  To top it off, people who live in San Jose are generally lousy at giving directions.  Ticos also happen to make references to places that no longer exist.  For instance, you might hear one say “…and make a left at the old Coca Cola bottling factory” which hasn’t existed for a long time or that you’ve “…gone too far if you reach the old tree that no longer exists because it fell down last year during a major storm.”

Houses, at least in rural towns in Costa Rica, do not have address numbers and are differentiated by their color, the color of their gate, a particular plant or tree that might be planted in their yard, the number of floors or the style of roof that it may have.  For instance if you want to get to your friend’s house, you might hear the following directions: Walk up the hill 800 meters until you find the house with the white and blue gate and the palm tree which was struck by lightning last year.

This cultural difference in defining points of reference and giving directions highlights the difference in development between Costa Rica and the United States.  Although Costa Rica is a well-developed country in many manners, and certainly superior to the United States in many social and political aspects (for instance, Costa Rica has no standing army and has not had a war since a short Civil War in 1948) this is one striking example of infrastructural development that we take for granted in the United States. 

I believe that this lack of a simple system for orientation is a result of rapid development without proper planning which oftentimes occurs in the need to catch up with the countries and economies of more industrialized, developed nations.  It also is an example of one of many inefficiencies which can make certain supposedly simple pieces of business much more difficult here (another example of development that we also take for granted is an organized and efficient system for collection of garbage and recycling which I will touch on in another blog post).

During my first four months here, I’ve learned to take and give directions “a la Tica” and come to know and appreciate a lot which we take for granted back home.  I’ve also realized that development takes patience, and is a never-ending but potentially rewarding process.   Furthermore we cannot cast a critical eye on the development of other nations without also looking critically of the development that needs to happen in our own country.  In fact, in relation to the widening gap between rich and poor, homelessness, racism and immigration, our national debt and the increasingly hostile divisions within our government, we have a lot of work to be done at home.  With hope, when I return from the Peace Corps in two years, the lessons I’ve learned in development can be used and applied in the United States, in my own backyard where we, too, have so many problems and inefficiencies which are waiting to be attended to.