Last weekend I had my end of the stay orientation. We stayed the night in San Jose after doing things to prepare us for the changes we will experience at home, then they took us to a GORGEOUS hotel at a beach called Punta Leona. The hotel was more of a residency than anything. The rooms looked like apartments, and most people who stay there rent golf carts and 4-wheelers to get around. The beach was private, with warm water, a gorgeous view, and constant music playing from the bar right next to the beach. There were two pools, a disco, a mini golf course, and a soccer field all included in the hotel. Although, the best part..was the food. Unlimited delicious food and deserts with every meal! It is very safe to say that over half of the exchangers could barely walk after the meals. (I would say lots of us have been deprived of quality eating depending if your host family has money or not..and even then, everyone eats beans and rice at every meal everyday.. so it's good to get a break from that.) When I see hotels like this, and the tourists who go there, it just makes me glad that I am here on an exchange. People who stay in Punta Leona aren't seeing the same country that I see everyday. I believe that Costa Rica is absolutely gorgeous, but in a different way than what tourists would think. I see the struggles that my family goes through to buy a carton of milk, while rich tourists see the beautiful beaches while getting waited on hand and foot. For the past two days, I have experienced what it is really like to try and earn money if you aren't married to someone with a steady job.
Hay Muchas Nicas...Y Nosotros
(There are lots of Nicaraguans...and us.)
Tuesday morning two of my host sisters and I woke up at 5 in the morning to pick coffee in the coffee fields near by. We loaded up on bug spray, met up with neighbors, hiked up to the coffee fields, and my host sisters explained to me "the rules of coffee picking." The biggest rule is to not pick the green ones. When your basket is filled, empty it into a sack and keep picking. When everyone has finished their row of coffee, we begin to pick up the beans that fell off onto the ground.
So, I got started and shared a row with my sister since it was my first time. To say the least, I was the slowest out of everyone. Although by the end of the day, they said I picked a fair amount for my first time! After picking our first row, we crawled on the ground going over our tracks to pick up every single coffee bean that fell. For the record, the rows are extremely long! After we finished that, we made our way to a different part of the field and began to eat lunch. We ate with our filthy hands, sitting in the middle of the field. After about 20 minutes of eating and taking a break, we started picking once again. This time I was a bit faster and was able to finish my part of the row and begin to help others finish theirs, which got me more coffee! We stopped for a break to actually drink some coffe and eat some bread, then once again continued picking. After about 11 hours straight of picking, I earned myself 3000 colones (6 dollars). After that day, I was sore, tired, and had spider bites and splinters all in my hands..and had to go to bed early because yesterday we woke up at 4:30 to head out at 5 in the morning. Yesterday we went to a different part of the coffee fields and had the pleasure of them all being wet because of a little rain we had gotten in the middle of the night. Even though this made us all wet since you are constantly on the ground as to not miss a branch of coffee beans and always brushing up against the plants, it helped keep our hands just a little bit cleaner! We ate lunch after finishing our rows(I had my own this time) and then began to retrace our steps in the field to pick up the fallen coffee beans.(That is my least favorite part since you end up getting very close to insects and spiders where you're better off not knowing they exist. Anyways, we ended early that day and got to come home around 1 which was nice! So, in 9 hours of picking coffee, I earned myself 3 dollars. (I was feeling lazy yesterday and our rows unfortunately didn't have much coffee in them.)
The reason why my title to this part of the post is "Hay muchas nicas..y nosostros" is because that was what one of my sisters told me as we were walking up the first day. In this part of the year there are Nicaraguans everywhere in Naranjo because of the coffee. Nicaraguans often work for less money than Costa Ricans, and therefore take a lot of jobs from the Costa Ricans. For this reason, Costa Ricans generally don't like Nicaraguans and always make fun of their accent. Although in the coffee fields, we were working side by side with the Nicaraguans. And there were definitely a lot more of them in the fields than Costa Ricans.
Although my pointer fingers are still swollen from picking, I am really happy I went with my host sisters, cousins, and neighbors. I think it is a good experience to have and makes me appreciate the whole minimun wage thing that we have in the United States!
this earns you about 2 dollars!
coffee beans!
Loli, A family friend of ours who came with us!So, I am off to Panama later today. I will take lots of pictures and try to write a detailed blog post about it in a couple weeks! :)
Pura Vida.
Tieta
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