cultural exchange

One of the missions of the Fulbright Program is to foster cultural exchange, in addition to scholarly exchange. There definitely is no lack of American culture here, so I am doing my best to provide some Indian culture. There is a slight exotification of the culture, especially given the beautiful people and plotlines in the telenova “India, una historia de amor,” but I can't complain too much about that. There are also some stereotypes/preconceived notions (which I love breaking down), and those can be frustrating at times. I made some contacts with a dance studio and the university’s folklorico group to arrange free workshops about Indian dance. A few weeks ago I taught a two hour Indian dance workshop (Bollywood, folk) at a small dance studio; there were only 4 girls, and two of them were my friends, and 1 of them the owner of the studio. We had an awesome time and I taught in Spanish! The next workshop is in December and I’ll be making up a routine to Desi Girl to teach. I have been obsessed with that song and haven’t had an opportunity to perform to it or choreograph for it.

I’m also giving a workshop on Indian Folk dance on campus, probably a 1 hour presentation and 1 hour dance class/demonstration. I even bought a few pairs of dandias to teach some Raas (which I found at a local Home Depot type of store). I’ll talk about the differences between folk and classical dance, play some music so they can hear the differences between types of music (ie Bhangra vs. garba), and teach some basic moves. Should be fun!

oops

Wow, I’m really behind on my blogging! November just flew by and I got superbusy with visitors and fun trips and even teaching a dance class! It has already been 4 months exactly since I arrived here, crazy.

Matt’s visit – Bocas del Toro and La Paz Waterfall Gardens
Matt came to visit at the end of October and we went to Bocas del Toro, Panama for Halloween weekend. We had to take a bus to the CR – Panama border (city of Sixaola on CR side), go through immigration, walk across a bridge, go through immigration again (city of Gaubito on Panam side), take a bus to a small pier on a canal that leads to the Caribbean, then water taxi to Bocas del Toro; left my apartment at 5 am CR time and got to our hotel at about 3 pm Panama time (Panama is EST, 1 hr ahead of CR time). The province is an archipelago, with the city of Bocas del Toro being the main part with hotels and restaurants. There are tons of water activities to do, but we just went to two beaches, Bocas del Drago/Starfish Beach & Red Frog Beach. Red Frog beach is amazing, not crowded, and beautiful, warm, turquoise-blue water with great waves (not great for boogie boarding and probably too big for small kids), and a small bar with relatively cheap drinks and snacks. We spent a good 5 hours there I think. Matt wanted to go snorkeling but I was thoroughly congested with a sinus cold, so we skipped that. There is a very yummy Indian restaurant (Om Café I think it’s called), where we had Papaya Lassi and a great spicy dinner. We stayed at Lula’s B&B, which was really nice, comfortable, peaceful and affordable.

The next big outing we did while Matt was here was to visit La Paz Waterfall Gardens, which is a private reserve/park near Poas Volcano outside of San Jose, Costa Rica. We did a day trip ($65 pp, including transportation from/to San Pedro, admission, English speaking guide, lunch), it’s a beautiful park up in the rainforest with lots of animals that you would not see in the wild unless you camped out for days and were silent. There is also an amazing hotel (Peace Lodge) right inside the park. The waterfalls were OK I thought (just a bunch of water gushing down), my favorite part was probably the hummingbird garden and seeing the jaguars, pumas and toucans.

The nice thing about having visitors is that your friends and family can see where you have been living this whole time and where you have set up a life from scratch in a foreign country; often its hard to describe the vibe, community, challenges and beauty of a place, the closest I get is saying that CR is like India, but in some ways it's the total opposite of India.

Sachin & Family – Playa Hermosa

Later in November, my cousin Netie (Tai), her husband Charu (Jeej) and their 4 yr old son Sachin visited. They stayed in San Pedro for a few nights, then went on a road trip (rented a car) to Arenal, Monteverde and Playa Hermosa. I met up with them at Playa Hermosa where we stayed for two nights. It’s a small beach town in Guanacaste, north of Playas Tamarindo and Coco, both of which are known to be surfer, party type towns. But Playa Hermosa has a different vibe, calm water, and tons of development in the hills (ie high end condos, gated neighborhoods). On the beach there was a mix of Americans and Tico families hanging out. I got Sachin over his fear of beach water, but I think he’s more scared of big waves and especially the loud noise they make rather than the actual water (b/c he loves swimming pools). The sand at this beach is very fine, and under the top layer is this beautiful, sparkly black sand. The change in tide was crazy, it receded a lot while we were out there, which was cool to see, especially as the moon was moving farther away in the same direction.

The major city close to Playa Hermosa is Liberia, which has its own international airport! So technically you could just fly to Liberia and get to the beach in half an hour. Stephanie and I had to take two buses (San Jose to Liberia, Liberia to Playa Hermosa), totaling about 7 hours of travel and about $8.

The weather has been a bit strange, it’s supposed to be transitioning to the dry season, but there’s still plenty of rain to enjoy. Of course the rainforest is always rainy, and the beaches that I’ve been to have been relatively dry and sunny, although there was some warm rain at Playa Hermosa in the afternoons.

Next up, Nina is coming into town tomorrow, and we’re taking a trip to Montezuma, my first time visiting the Nicoya Peninsula! And I’m excited to have her cook for me.