I have a couple things to share with you. One funny, another not very funny, but important. Another little window into life here:

A: So it turns out that "have a little experience under your belt" can easily be mistranslated as "have a little experience under the skirt". Not exactly the kind of translation mistake you should be making in front of 15 year-old boys. There was laughter, and distraction from the English lesson, but maybe they'll at least remember what it means. I hope. I'll admit it is pretty funny. I hope that people I work with in teaching English feel more comfortable making mistakes because they see me make them a lot. It's a learning process. A long one, and one that requires a little more attention to my words.

B: I spent Friday night dancing with a couple volunteer friends and a couple local friends in a "disco" a few towns away. It was a lot of fun getting out together, dancing and catching up. In addition to the fun we had, there was another important issue at play in our evening. Machismo.

I'm not crazy about (read: hate) all the male attention/cat calls/whistles/air kisses/degrading comments/etc. from the some of the men here, so Friday I wore high heels with the intention of being too tall to dance with. Seeing as they already call me "muy grande" or very big (to which I respond that I prefer "alta" or tall, it sounds nicer), I decided wearing heels would take it to another level and avoid some of the attention because they'd be too intimidated. Mission: Complete. I succeeded in being taller than all the females and 90% of the males. I find it fascinating how some men are so "brave" as to yell and talk at you in the street but would never have the guts to come and talk to you like a real person. I feel bad for women here, and anywhere, who have been taught that this is acceptable and that men are just do that. I feel terribly insulted when men do this to me on the street (read: every time I leave the house) and it's really frustrating that there is nothing I can do to stop it. Important note: it doesn't matter if I am looking disgusting and wearing terribly unflattering clothing, it still happens just because I'm female. It is so disrespectful and degrading. I am not just a figure to be checked out, I don't exist solely to be looked at, the comments are not complements they are degradation that reduces me from and intelligent, capable woman to an object and what is more...do you really think I would ever give a man who did things like that the time of day? Do some men think that women feel good because of the things they are yelling at them? Do they think they look more macho or more attractive because they are to scared of losing their feeling of superiority by actually talking to a woman and instead resort to cat calls/whistles/air kisses/degrading comments/etc.?

It is sad that women are taught that they have to put up with this kind of behavior and it's terribly frustrating that men are allowed to behave this way with no repercussions. There really is nothing I can do when I'm walking down the street. Sometimes when I walk by a man and he says something I say a strong "good day" and keep going, but that's not punishment. That won't teach him. What I do find interesting about that is that when I do say something, anything, in response the men are usually surprised that I responded at all and look a little embarrassed. They are not used to women "fighting back", be it in the smallest way. It is so hard to see this happen every day, to experience it, and to know that it's something that, be it bad enough on its own, is only a symptom of a much deeper problem.

Gender inequality is not a problem specific to here. A long fought battle continues in most of the world to correct the injustices done to women based on nothing more than the fact that they are female. In Costa Rica women have made inroads in many areas including the public labor force, education and politics (Heck, the president is a woman.); but despite this there is still a long road ahead to equality. Especially social equality. We can enact laws, impose quotas, pay them exactly the same, but until women are treated as equals in personal relationships, we're not there yet. I believe things are slowly changing, but I still see and feel the inequality that is the society here.

The majority of women where I live still stay at home caring for the family and the house. This is a completely legitimate job/lifestyle option for a person, but the operative word there is OPTION. In the majority of the cases it's not an option. Women don't have a choice of whether to go to work or stay home. It is expected of them to stay at home. If they have a child, they have to stay home and care for the child or figure out another arrangement. There is hardly ever a split of home or child-rearing responsibilities so women can do what they want to do. Men make their choices and women take care to the homes and have dinner on the table when the men get back. Even when women do have the opportunity to go to work the options are limited. There is the option to cook and clean for a family with more money than you, work in a store, work in a restaurant, be a teacher, be a secretary, be a seamstress, work in a bank. There are certainly other options, but if you catch my drift on this the situation isn't that parents tell their daughters "Honey, you can be whatever you want to be." Frankly, here they don't say that much. I met a woman the other day who told her daughter that at the technical high school her two options were studying to be a secretary or studying to work in a call center. The other options are mechanic, computer technician, accounting, tourism and general business. Are these not options for women? Apparently not. I asked this woman why those aren't options and she said that no one would ever hire a woman in any of the other jobs. I realize this is a pretty extreme case and that the reality isn't quite as harsh as this woman thinks, but as long as we have a majority of mothers living in rural communities in Costa Rica, or elsewhere, passing this message on to their daughters, we're in trouble. How can we expect women to gain power and move forward if they sit back and say, "well, that's just the way it is,"? This is the struggle. As much as we have to fight against men to gain rights for women we have to fight against women themselves, and the resignation that has overtaken so many of them from so many years of being mistreated and denied opportunities.

I know that through education I/we can do a lot, but time and lots of societal change on every level is necessary. It will take years, if not multiple generations, I know, but it's important to work toward as hard as it is to change. Until we get this fixed I guess you and I will have to keep at it (assuming you're with me in this).

Disclaimer: It must be know that the generalizations about men and women do not apply to all men and women, nor a specific people, nor only men or women of Costa Rica. These are general thoughts related to what I have seen here and in other places.

Photos are coming soon. That like doesn't have anything yet, but soon!

So school has started and I thought that meant that my work had also gotten going. Not so much. My first few days at the school were pretty productive, but after that things kinda stalled. The teachers aren't really sure what to do with me, and we don't have a principal. Oh... and we still have a vacant position in the English department. This "no-name" teacher has classes and since he/she isn't present the kids just don't have class. So, without getting into all the details, we are without a principal, missing a teacher and when I asked someone about using the computer lab they responded: "Why do you need to know?"Hmm, I don't know maybe because I'm trying to do my job. Turns out walking into a school and creating a position that has never existed before isn't terribly easy. We'll see how it goes as time goes on. I'm sure it'll get easier, but the beginning is proving to be a kind of a struggle.

Luckily to combat the hurdles of getting to work I have my volunteer friends and the fortune of living close to not only them, but really cool stuff to do. This last weekend I saw a bunch of volunteers, went to a party, sang karaoke, went on a nice bike ride, hung out by the river and watched the movie about the guy who cut his arm off because he got it stuck while hiking. I know, that last one sounds kinda like a downer, but it was pretty interesting. I think they did a really good job of communicating the fact that he got in a lot of trouble because he didn't tell anyone where he was going. Very important. Anyway, the rest of the weekend was really fun and relaxing.

I've found cooking to be an excellent time-filling/immediately gratifying hobby. I've taken to making breads. Here they call everything bread. Whether it's a cake, a cinnamon roll, pretzel, cookie or actually bread, here it's called bread. So I'm a bread-maker. Yesterday I whipped up some pretzels because my cousin who lived in the U.S. for a while said he was really craving pretzels. They didn't come out perfect, though they do taste good. Next time, (which, let's be real here, is probably today) they'll be a lot better.

On the same note about how they call everything bread, they also call lots of things I make and eat "cream of ______". Hummus is cream of garbanzo, tomato soup is cream of tomato, peanut butter is cream of peanut, mashed potatoes are cream of potato. I also use soy milk and almond milk, and eat lots of yogurt which is also a little confusing when you're not used to these things. When I think about it, the food is a little bit strange, especially the almond milk, but it didn't occur to me before that it appears that I'm on some sort of "cream diet". Don't worry. I'm not on a cream diet, it's more of a translation issue.

Also related to my recent cooking binge, I have decided to use cooking/cooking classes or something of the like as part of a Peace Corps project. I am going to be starting a women's group in my town and I think cooking is going to be one of the central parts of our activities. Cooking is something all the women here do, know about and can relate to, so if nothing else it'll be a good jump off point for putting a group together. I also think it would be good because we can all share. This will make women feel worthwhile. When a woman comes with a recipe she can share with everyone she will feel important, unique and valuable. Those are just a few thoughts on this project that is yet to come. Once again it's kind of a "we'll see..." situation still.

Wouldn't you know, when I FINALLY sat down last week to update everyone and do some things I had really been meaning to do, my computer died. Fortunately, there is nothing wrong with the actual computer. The charger broke and the computer battery died, so then it didn't work. The charger probably broke because of a surge of electricity, which is really common in our house. By really common I mean every time we turn on/off the shower, washer, blow-dryer, or pretty much any other appliance the power current changes. Anyway... my host dad is amazing and when I told him that I was ordering a new charger online he offered to look for one when he went to Ciudad Quesada (the big city in my region). He found one, and now I'm back in business.

So, to update you on what's going on here:

Things are picking up in terms of work. A lot of my work is in the local high school and since school started last week I've been at the school meeting with the English teachers, making plans for our work together. My first week of school was mostly day or half-day long meetings: a staff meeting, an regional principals meeting, and English department meeting, and now that those are over and classes are in session I'm observing in the English classes to get a feel for the teaching styles and how things work in the classroom.

In the next two weeks we hope to start an English club and a remedial group for struggling students. The teachers are assessing the levels of the students and we're going to work from there in putting the groups together.

I'm feeling pretty good about my work at the school. Of the 10 English teachers I'm working with the majority seem to be very open to cooperating with projects and have offered good ideas for ways we can all work together to improve English learning/teaching. Despite this the work there is not necessarily going to be easy, a few of the reasons being of scheduling, student attendance, lack of classrooms, lack of resources and administrative hang-ups. But... there is a lot of potential and I think we can do some good things.

Outside of the high school I'm working with the 5th graders at the elementary school giving some art lessons using a curriculum called Arte por la Paz. The idea is that the students learn about peace, non-violence and positive attitudes and actions though talks and art projects. I'm giving these lessons every Tuesday for a month.

So that's pretty much where my work stands. I'm sure you're all shocked to hear I'm actually working, seeing as I was spending my time "fishing" and working through a pile of novels. Since I ran out of novels and classes started, I decided to start working. (I might count the books I've read since being here. Just for fun. The number is guaranteed to be pretty high)

I've also been doing some fun stuff, including spending time riding my new bike! I bought a pretty nice mountain bike from the brother of a friend of mine and he and I have been going biking at least once a week. He knows this area really well so we go into the hills and the little towns around here. We find ourselves sometimes in the middle of groups of cows and we have to make sure the cows are not angry or startled before we ride by them. That's always funny, especially since I'm still scared they're going to chase me, and cows are way bigger than me, so that would not end well.

I had a chance to see a lot of my volunteer friends a couple weekends ago on Super Bowl weekend. I spent the weekend with them in San Jose where we had a flag football tournament, watched the Super Bowl, ate pizza and wings and had a good weekend doing all-American stuff. It was really nice to be with a group of volunteers to share things, talk and just relax. Coming back to my town where I'm alone was kind of hard, but it's ok. I'm happy where I'm at, and I'm not that far from other volunteers if I want to see them, but coming back from fun, long weekends is never that fun.

All in all, things are moving along. Today I'm baking cookies to take over to the houses of a couple of the teachers at the high school who just moved to town and live all alone. Apparently bringing someone welcome cookies isn't a common custom here and my family isn't entirely sure why I would go out of my way to do it, but I always figure I'd love it if someone brought me cookies when I was new in town. So, I made some oatmeal raisin cookies for them. I'm also going to go meet a couple of exchange students who are living in our town. They are high school students who might be involved in some of the stuff I'm doing at the high school, but more than that I'd really like to meet them and let them know that I'm around to talk or whatever. They're from Italy, Austria, China and somewhere else and hardly speak Spanish. I might be one of they only people in town they can communicate well with since they all speak fluent English.

I also wanted to mention that I spent all yesterday afternoon making fruit-flavored taffy that I'm selling in town to raise a little money for the Arte por la Paz project I'm doing. I wasn't really sure about my taffy-making abilities, but decided since it only requires sugar and a couple other things it's really cheap to make. Turns out I'm actually a pretty good taffy maker and some ladies from the school asked me to come over and teach them this weekend. Ha. Everyone keeps saying "qué artista" which means "what an artist" and encouraging me to give cooking classes. We'll see.