Kali, please make fun of me for my love of documentaries

• After my weekend in Monteverde came a fairly tranquil week; Monday we had a debate about the pros and cons of a welfare state in my Poverty & Human Development in Latin America class, then Spanish class in the afternoon where the 3 separate levels of Spanish watched a movie together. It was called "Voces Inocentes", Innocent Voices, a heartbreaking film of the civil war in El Salvador, based on one boy's true experience. As sad as it was, it was a beautiful movie and should be watched (just like any other documentary or true-life-experience film about hardship), to both give the audience a glimpse of life in developing countries and a greater appreciation of what we have. It sounds cliché, but it really makes my problems seem small; that same day I got my Spanish exam back and I was disappointed with the 85 I made. But at least I'm not living in a war zone, dreading my 12th birthday because I know I'll be drafted to fight for a cause I don't believe in. That being said, some activist/documentary films I like, recommend, or want people to view are: Invisible Children (child soldiers in Uganda), Voces Inocentes (Salvadoran civil war), Bordertown (killing women in Juares, Mexico), Maria Full of Grace (drug trade), Recycled Life (living at the Guatemala City dump), Painting Without Permission (Chiapas, Mexico Periclean Scholars' involvement), A Place Called Chiapas (intro to the  The Future of Food, Who Killed the Electric Car?, 
  
• I don't remember anything happening on Tuesday. I sat beside Miguelito in class. And went to a bar in Barrio California which has quickly become everyone's favorite: a girl apologized to me in the bathroom for snorting coke, and a guy who asked me for a cigarette told me he thought I was Costa Rican until I started talking. 
• Wednesday brought with it Zarina's class, which continues to get more and more unbearable. Her 3 hour lectures are basically things we all learned in some Biology class taken over the years (and because we're all in the environmental program and obviously interested in environmental issues, we have all taken at least one Biology class in our short lives).
• Matito and I gave our presentation on the Salvadoran civil war in Spanish class (the US was involved, and not in a good way. You should educate yourself about it.) Basically the US funded the El Salvadoran government and military that were killing the guerilla fighters and innocent bystanders, and the US then-president Jimmy Carter did not respond to the Salvadoran president's plea for the fighting to end. 
• After that class, Kate, Matito, Marcus and I headed northwest of San José to Alajuela's stadium: JUANES CONCERT!!! The 1 hour bus ride and short walk downtown were un-painful, the lines were long, but we made it inside the stadium fairly quickly. We had tickets for the cheapest seats, which ended up being in the middle of the fútbol field covered in cardboard. A local band, Escat played first, a Costa Rican band fronted by a singer with immense lung-capacity. If you are unfamiliar with Juanes, you must definitely check him out, especially if you like Spanish-speaking sex gods.  You can hear some of his songs on his official website (link above), or his myspace as well as drool-worthy pictures. The concert was wonderful: it started raining on us about 1/4 of the way through, just a slight mist but by the end of the night we were absolutely soaked. Juanes played a few songs, then left, causing the audience to chant "Otra, Otra!" (another, another! similar to encore), and he finally reappeared to appease us, which was GREAT because he hadn't played my favorite song yet and I was disappointed. It ended up being the very last song he played, Nada Valgo Sin Tu Amor, and I must admit that I squealed like a small child when I heard the first few notes. Made our ways home from Alajuela, then bed para tener sueños dulces de mi amor y cantante favorito :) 
• Friday 10/3 I woke up bright and early to catch the bus to Tortugero, but there was yet another miscommunication among our group and I ended up waiting where the others were not. So I went back home to sleep some more (only running on 2 hours at this point) but ended up making alternative weekend plans instead. The silver lining of getting left behind was that today was Chicitico's 5th birthday, so M.N. invited me to the fiesta :) It was at her mom's house, which is very nearby, and Spiderman-themed (not el hombre de las arañas like I would expect!) I met M.N.'s sisters, their kids and their grandkids, all adorable I might add: there were mostly women there, but neither of Chicitico's parents showed. Perhaps they were working and would celebrate later. We ate pizza, a yummy bread-pudding-esque dish that M.N. made, croissants, cake and ice cream cones. We sang "Cumpleaños Feliz", Chicitico blew out the candles; then we let them again, and he smashed his face into the corner of the cake, coming up to breathe with a huge blue-icing grin. I guess it's a funny cultural tradition! 
• Saturday morning I was up early again to catch the bus to Volcán Irazú, about an hour south/SE of San José. The bus left at 9:00 from downtown, where our taxista dropped us off: I wanted to tell him where I'm from because I eavesdropped on his phone conversation with his cousin, who was apparently in Tennessee, but he stayed on the phone until after we left. We drove through Cartago, a city that has some cool ruins, and eventually started climbing the volcano's steep sides. The views were beautiful, green pastures of pillow-grass (looks soft and fluffy like a pillow, that's the name I gave it), and fields of crops. It must have been the perfect day for harvesting onions because they were all lying on top of the soil, roused from their cool little beds to dry in the sun, still in perfect little rows--a scene my camera just couldn't capture. All the green and the fields and pastures, with crops and cows really reminded me of home :) We arrived at Irazú and first thing  saw a coati playing on the ranger station roof. Coatis are part of the raccoon family, and I just learned that they are also called hog-nosed coons, Brazilian Aardvarks, and--my favorite--snookum bears. Haha!!
• We began hiking around the Crater Principal, which had a tiny lake in it that was labeled "Regeneration Area." I like that. The other crater had a bigger, sulfuric lake in it (let's swim!!) that was bright green; we could see the layers of sediment in the crater walls and so many different colors of rock. And some people think rocks are boring! It was surprisingly chillier than we expected (and we expected chilly due to the altitude), so we continued hiking to stay warm. The surrounding area was covered with these plants called "sombrillas de pobre" or poor man's umbrellas, because of their potential diameter. I finally got the photo I wanted. Kate and Nicole opted to stay at the ranger station to rest,  but I wanted to get my money's worth of hiking so I traipsed to the highest point. The road was in terrible condition, much like most Costa Rican roads, but this one actually had a sign advertising the fact. The vegetation grew on both sides, but dropped off on the left so--if it had been sunny and clear, which it was not--you could have seen for miles, I mean kilometers. I was very out of breath, but I like to attribute that to my being at 11,260 feet above sea level rather than to my being out-of-shape. The hike was "strenuous" enough that I could remove my jacket after a while, but put it back on at the top, where the clouds blew away and I could see both craters, the regeneration pond and the lagoon inside the crater, perfectly clearly: my camera promptly picked a perfect time to lose all battery power. If you'd like to see a photo, maybe I can draw you the one from my memory :) 
• After catching my breath, enjoying the view, watching the clouds come back over the volcanoes, and practicing all the French I know, I headed back down from the summit. Wearing my red rain jacket, I met a little hummingbird friend who hovered around a tree, then zoomed towards me and my jugular, soared past me, returned and hovered by my right elbow, not frightened by my shriek or attempt to cover my face. I think he thought I was a big juicy red flower and wanted to pollinate me or sip my nectar (as dirty as both of those sound). I continued walking down the road only to be the target of another bird "attack", this time by a sooty robin that flew really close to my head, then plopped down on  a branch. 
• When we got back to San José, Kate and I debated the possibility of returning to Pavas for the fiesta celebration we were invited to, but ultimately decided against it because we didn't know any of the details. And the slum areas of San José are probably not the best places for two American teenage girls after dark, if you catch my drift. So we continued walking through the streets of downtown, heading nowhere in particular, which is the way I like to walk. Then we saw two police trucks and a big crowd (definitely a throng) thronging around an empty precaución taped spot: we found a viewing area and realized it was a body, a man had just died of a heart attack in the middle of the street. I'd seen dead bodies before, of animals and people whose open-casket visitations I...visited?, but never someone who had just finished dying. It reminded me of my past fear of dead bodies: even though I'm not afraid of them anymore, my heart still jumped (which is ironic because mine was doing what his couldn't). 
• Just like God, Sunday was a day of rest (not that I'm comparing myself to the Big Guy, don't get that idea) from my relatively-tame-but-still-tiring weekend.