Global Worker

Many of you know that I’ve spent my last two summers living the dream working in Costa Rica. I work for an organization called Global Works, facilitating community service and adventure travel for American high school students. I think the people at Global Works are awesome, apparently they think I’m pretty cool too:

http://www.notesfromtheglobe.com/2008/12/jake-stein-greenberg-program-director/

The Fresh Meal

Amigos,

Here is the wrap up for my Summer 2008 travels:

I am home. Nearly 2 months and 424lbs of rice and beans later, I am in Washington, DC again. The final 10 days of my voyage were amazing, challenging, and inspiring.

Although I retraced several steps I had taken with my first group, I joined these kids and co-leaders mid trip while they were becoming acclimated to the simple small town Costa Rican life in their homestays. I eat well in Costa Rica, but nothing prepared me for the cooking of Ana Cerdas Rodriguez. The thirty-five year old mother of three spends days jotting down recipes in a handwritten cookbook, some of which she learns from the occasional cooking show on one of the three channels the family gets in Guadalupe de Rivas. Most of the food I get in these homes is terrific, but they all lack the presentation that Anaisa labors to achieve. She outdoes even the nicest Tico restaurant I’ve been to, framing her gallo pinto (beans and rice for breakfast) in a glass to achieve that perfect shape. Her maduros (slowly sauteed green bananas) are delicate and sweet, but never burned.

More after the jump:

The Slow Boat to Tortuguero

It´s August 11th. At this point my original itinerary had me waiting to change plans in the steamy Atlanta airport on my way home. But I´m still in San Jose. With my own bed in the front of my mind I returned last night to prepare for the journey home, only to be met by Crisley, my in-country director with big news. Another Global Works group´s leader faced a family emergency and was on his way home. Turns out my time in Costa Rica isn´t done yet. I will join the new group already in progress in their homestay, and help the other two leaders guide them through more service, and then on to the beach. New gameplan, I´ll be back in the states on August 21st. My bed will have to wait.

More after the jump:

Karaoke Tico Style

Buenas Noches,

The departure yesterday of the kids back to the US was surprisingly tougher than I imagined. Not as much because I enjoy the stresses that living with 17 teenage girls gives me daily, but mostly because it was quiet. Too quiet. Going from living with the same people 24 hours a day for 3 weeks straight to being completely alone is a very odd experience. I’m in Puerto Viejo now, a beach town on the East coast of Costa Rica with a fun Afro – Carribean vibe. Pictures of Bob Marley abound.

More after the jump:

Greetings from Santa Cruz!

First off, I want to thank all of you who have taken time to respond to my sometimes rambling bloglike emails, I truly appreciate the contact and I apologize to all of you whom I´ve not been able to respond to. Email here is sometimes hard to come by, and sometimes no faster than dialup. (the horror)!

I´ve spent the last seven days in the small coffee growing town of Santa Cruz. Sitting high in the hills near La Lucha, the town is much more industrialized and organized than most agricultural towns in Costa Rica. Boasting a high turnout of coffee and avocados, the farmers have created a cooperative that has allowed for incredible output and a neighborhood organization that has boosted some local tourism to the area (including groups like ours).

Santa Cruz is not unlike Lake Wobegon of Prairie Home Companion. Everyone knows everyone, and more accurately, everyone is related to everyone. Of the 12 families that are hosting kids in our program, 9 have the last name of Gamboa, Leiva, or Venegas…in most cases its more than one…not to mention two families called Gamboa Gamboa. The marrying of third, second and even first cousins hasn´t produced any visible effects to speak of, although rumor has it that there is a extremely high rate of stomach cancer in this region.

More after the jump:

Hammocks

After two days of whitewater rafting, we headed to the Monteverde rainforest for 3 days of service work. Having to hike in, living with no hot water and only electricity for three hours a day can be grueling, it can also produce some truly memorable experiences, it truly forces one to focus on the present moment and observe one´s surroundings.

To backtrack — Four years ago in Spain I had one of those truly amazing and unforgettable times when upon arriving at a hostel in the beach town of Cadiz, we found no beds, but only hammocks on the roof. Under the stars my buddy and I swung on the breeze to the warm April sounds of the trumpets of Semana Santa. We slept soundly and arose to find we had been guarded all night by the sprawling leaves of a cannabis plant. It was that night I truly discovered my affinity for hammocks.

Fast forward — Three nights ago in Monteverde. We arrived to our bunkhouse and although there were four hammocks strung from the wooden rafters, I attached my carrabiners and hopped into my new travel bed, courtesy of some dear friends at Sheridan. As I lay comfortably swaying, listening to the crickets, bats, and other creatures of the night, I could clearly see the fierce red glow of lava flowing quite rapidly down the Arenal Volcano in the distance. The moon reflected off the clouds and the volcanic lake below, and that alone would have been perfect, but the sweet sounds of one of our participants singing her bunk mates to bed with John Prine´s Angel From Montgomery set it over the top. There´s something about hammocks.

JakeSG Fights a Frog

Costa Rica offers beautiful scenery, volumes of birds, and billions of insects. More often than not those animals share the same quarters as humans, after all, they were here first. I suppose the lack of screens in many windows does contribute, but it still doesn´t explain the mystery of last Friday night.

I was at the beach, scouting the cabins where my group will spend the final days of our trip, surfing and relaxing after our service work is completed. Known as Cabinas Hegalva, it´s one of the nicer places we stay, with occasional hot water and even screens in the windows. I spent the day nearly alone on a beach, observing a perfectly circular rainbow around the sun, bright red crabs by the hundreds nestling in the sand, and getting as sunburn as humanly possible as to demonstrate to my incoming kids the importance of sunscreen in a tropical climate.

That night, after a nice dinner and running into an American acquaintance in a small bar (there are 3 in the entire town that boasts less than 200 people)…everything is small here, I headed back to the cabinas. I entered my room and disrobed to shower before bed. I promptly heard a ¨plop¨ followed by a singular ¨gat goon¨. The unmistakable sound that I was not alone. But how had my new found frog friend entered? Perhaps he had simply followed me home from the bar. Senor Frog was no smaller than my foot, and was just as startled by me as I was by him I suppose…but nonetheless, he wouldn´t leave. After asking kindly, and pleading, I decided we´d have a quick photo shoot and he´d be on his way. He had other ideas.

Proceeding to make use of the Velcro like balls at the end of each toe, he scaled the door, where he clung perched for a couple minutes. I think a fear of jumping the 6 feet down to the cement floor prevented his immediate escape. Enough coaxing I thought, I decided it was time for action. Banging on the door and nudging him with my shoe and hand proved not enough to move this guy. Finally, I gave him a good push and he lept into the night, landing with a solid splat on my front porch. He gathered his bearings and hopped away. I can only imagine the amusement of the few Ticos watching a bright red American in his towel trying to remove a frog from his room.

I´ll mark this one in the win column, but with certain knowledge that I´ll be sharing my bedroom with many more of Costa Rica´s animal natives. Hasta pronto, Sr. Frog.