Vagabonds That Board Our Buses

A veces (sometimes) I get lucky enough to get on a bus in which a paramour American Idol boards hoping to make a few extra colones. A ride of this past week was one of these unforgettable moments.

Before his friend, the bus driver, picked him up on the side of the road without demanding bus fare, my ride was pretty boring: listening to the men obsessively talking about last night’s futbol game, monitoring the balancing techniques of a young mom with two kids and ten bags stacked on her lap, observing the bus driver’s stellar ability to maneuver the bus’ massive manual stick while spotting and saluting his friends out the window, and watching traffic waiting for the serpentine moves of a showboating caballo on his moto to end in disaster. But all of that was about to change when I saw that ebullient, bright-eyed vagrant hop aboard and take center stage on my public bus. And there he was, facing his lucky new fan club of eight (including myself, ears perched, paper and pen in hand, ready for his signature upon performance completion, of course), with the composure of a star.

He began.

It took five seconds before I wished I was Simon Cowell so I could shake my head, hold up my hand, and tell him that his dreadful cacophonous singing needed to end right then and there. But I didn’t work for FOX, nor was he a contestant. I was stuck on a bus with a mendicant who unfortunately thought louder tones and higher notes would earn him more money.

After five minutes passed and my ears went numb, he came around to collect what he viewed as condign tips, and I had a decision to make: to tip or not to tip? Pity him or encourage his poor choice of money-making entertainment? (Some of the beggars just try to sell candy - maybe that's an option for him?) I decided to find a happy balance by donating under ₡200 (about $0.40). When I ferreted out my little change purse, I found a few old receipts, a credit card, a license, and some big bills. I had nothing to give him. I opted for the Simon Cowell route, in my own Costa Rica bus passenger style: put on my head phones, look out the window, and use my taciturn body language to hint to him to never put anyone through that again.

I Live in the Happiest Place?

I just wrote a blog for work called "Voted the Happiest Place" based on a study just completed in Britain. Check it out. It describes how our students react to being here, and it links to you the CNN article as well as the official study. It's pretty interesting - NOT because Costa Rica ranked well, but because it raises the discussion of what makes people happy/content. The study, titled Happy Planet Index, ranked these nations on such things as life expectancy, environment, life satisfaction, and civil conflicts.

Stuck at Bally's Total Fitness

You know those crazy Bally's commercials where everyone looks like they stopped by the gym to spray themselves with water before heading to a modeling shoot? While no Bally's Total Fitness exists down here, I unknowingly joined its Costa Rican equivalent.

This morning at MultiSpa in a "Fuerza" class, I noticed 1) everyone's tight, muscle-expressive athletic outfits, 2) their obsession with looking at themselves in the mirror, 3) their skin glistened like a super model on the beach, 4) the grand total body fat in the room (of everyone but me) was enough for one forearm skin graft, 5) an unnecessary excitement in the form of "whoo hoo" shouts, and 6) my sopping wet KC Royals' t-shirt and cut-off pants did not belong here. This then led me to the conclusion that the 10% Adidas discount card they gave me when I signed up for MultiSpa was not a promotion - it was a suggestion.

I'm surprised it's been four months, and they haven't approached me to "reconsider" my look at the gym. Although, I'm starting to think they use a more passive-aggressive approach: the interesting glare the desk worker gives me in the morning, my class instructor's constant comments about my t-shirts, the up-and-down glance I get by the trainers, and the Adidas discount cards they tape to my locker while I'm working out. Okay, that last one's a little exaggerated, but you get the idea.

Too bad I'm stubborn. I'm not going to succumb to becoming a gym model. And that's that.

Fun Translations

Almost every day I hear new phrases in Spanish that I hear from a Tico, the newspaper, or the people on TV. But only once or twice a week do I hear words or phrases that make me laugh thinking about their literal translation. My favorite one this week? Drum roll please...

English phrase:
surrogate mother

Spanish phrase:
madre de alquiler

Literal English translation:
mother of rent

Now that's getting right to the point.

Finding the Source

3:15am: Scratching the tops of my feet.
3:42am: Scratching my left ankle.
3:58am: Scratching the back of my left calf.
4:10am: Only 35 minutes left to fall back to sleep.
4:43am: Still scratching, on different spots on both legs.
4:45am: Alarm is ringing.

For some reason, bites and rashes itch most when I'm trying to get some sleep.

As I remove my covers, I scratch my legs a few more times to ensure they're completely raw. Looking down at the red, heated spots on my ankles, feet, knees, calves, and thighs leads me to wonder: from where did these come THIS time?

Needless to say, I spend a lot of time washing my bedding and sweeping out my room. Each time I perform any one of these tasks, it's likely that I have left at least 43 bugs widowed or orphaned.

But it's not always related to the cities of bugs nesting somewhere in my house. I have learned not to sit on the beach too long people- and surfer- watching. Sand fleas. I also learned NOT to go without pants on a zip-lining canopy tour. Those gnats passed up 7 students, 3 chaperons, and 4 zip-lining guides to get to my exposed, sweet skin.

Recently, however, some mysterious poison ivy/oak has been attacking me at different places on my leg. I have yet to find the source, although I'm thinking the overgrowth on the sidewalk near the gym is one of the top-runners.

Cheers to a life where I never have to use a nail file! I have my rough, itchy skin to thank for that one.

Tree Day?

June 15th is Dia del Arbol. It's a day to encourage people to plant trees. However, in La Nacion this morning, there was a full page ad that looked like this:


I'm not sure if this would fly in the States. Someone would sue someone for an increase in teen pregnancies in mid-March next year.

On the Driver's Schedule

June 14, 2009

A snack. A cat nap. A drink of Coke. A chat with the local Soda owner. A quick skim of La Nacion’s latest news. Staring at the clouds. These are all completely justifiable reasons for not allowing the line of passengers into the bus to get to the airport, work, hospital, or some other time-sensitive destination.

Where I live in Costa Rica – the mountainside rainforest of the San Jose suburbs – two bus lines end in our remote location. On break, these two buses park outside our local mechanic and Soda (for snacks). Here you’ll always find a fraternity of Ticos passing the time talking, eating, drinking, and making fun of the local villagers who spend hours standing patiently for the driver to restart the bus.

And the fun doesn't stop there: they sometimes take this mini-breaks while EN ROUTE. I was on a bus last week that pulled over to a market to get loaves of bread while his bus was full of passengers.

You can’t blame the Tico (Costa Rican) bus driver trying to relish in a break at the end (or in the middle) of the bus line. It makes complete sense for them to wait until the last second – and in some cases, a few minutes late – to turn on the bus again. You would, too, if you drove around on narrow, bumpy roads crowded with traffic, right?

All of those hours slaving away to:

1. Count change (yes, they manually count and make change) for EVERY passenger
2. Turn that two-foot-diameter steering wheel
3. Shift the stick on a manual bus (up and down mountains)

can be exhausting.

So, if you’re standing at the bus stop in the pouring rain, sinking in mud, running late for catching that only connecting bus to Puerto Viejo for the weekend, staring hatefully at that driver taking an extra few minutes to clean the dirt from his nails, you may want to take a deep breath, realize you’re in Tico-land, and give ‘im a break. Literally.