Heredia

An aged man with a sun beaten face hung halfway out of his battered, red Toyota

as he hissed at a younger woman. He flashed his yellow teeth and licked his chops like a

starving predator of the jungle, and greedily looked her up and down. Machismo at its

finest. The young lady uncomfortably adjusted her tight, red sundress as she continued to

speak rapidly in Spanish on her phone. She sashayed across the street when the high chirp

of the walk signal sounded, and passed other shapely women walking the opposite

direction wearing sharp business suits, tight dresses, or high heels. What is in the water

for these women to be so fit? It was a bright and sunny morning in the high 70s with

occasional breezes from the mountains nearby. People whizzed by in obnoxiously loud

motorbikes and cars were honking from all different directions.

Dark clouds began to cluster together and crowd the blue sky, casting a sudden

gloomy shadow over the city of Heredia. The change happened in a blink, with skies

going from baby blue to all shades of gray. Fat drops of rain began hitting the cobble

streets with ferocity, creating streams of running water. It seemed as if all the bustle and

flow of vehicles and workingmen and women immediately disappeared, replaced with the

repetitive noise of pattering. A restaurant owner looked out of the window with his arms

crossed and a blissful smile on his face. Across the street, an older woman with a jacket

draped over her messy black ponytail beckoned at a little boy to go inside of a house.

It left as soon as it came; the clouds broke apart and the sun shined through again

to dry the streets. Restaurants propped open their doors again to welcome the sunshine as

if nothing ever happened. The rev of motorbikes reverberated throughout the city and

cars continued to honk as people walked on the narrow sidewalks. It didn’t take me long
to realize that this strange spectacle happened like clockwork everyday in the afternoon. I

put my umbrella away and headed toward the red and yellow striped stadium. As I was

passing, I could hear the gleeful screams and shouts of kids playing soccer reverberating

inside the brick walls of the stadium. Behind me, I heard a couple speaking in low

Spanish as they jogged together. I moved over and they passed me with warm smiles on

their faces, saying “Pura vida” as they jogged ahead, and I smiled back, repeating it.

Pura vida. It means pure or simple life, referring to the way of life that Costa

Ricans live, and also used to say hello, goodbye, or everything’s great. My smile stayed

on my face as I thought of how the carefree culture of this city coincided with my

personality. “Tico time” was a big thing about Heredia that described how nonchalant the

Costa Rican natives (called Tico or Tica) were about punctuality. I sighed sadly as I

thought of the fast-paced, rushed American culture that contrasted greatly with both

Costa Ricans’ and my sense of time.

My American classmates in my study abroad courses even reminded me of the

things I disliked about my country. There was one girl from California that talked exactly

like a Valley girl and constantly repeated “like” after every word while giggling like a

stoned hippie. Another girl won the Miss Kentucky pageant competition and demanded

that someone take pictures of her every day. Of course there were a few girls that I

bonded with but none of them were from my state so I found it easier to keep my distance

because goodbyes are the worst. Everyday, I stuck to my school schedule: wake up at 6

am, eat my mama tica’s breakfast, walk a mile to school with my neighbor that shared

class with me, attend level one Spanish class, Spanish conversation class, and Spanish

dance class before walking back home alone. I always tried to leave quickly to avoid the
sun going down because my homestay mother warned me about the dangerous people at

night.

As I continued on my walk home from Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, the

sun was quickly going down and I started to realize that all the houses looked the same;

they all had flat rooftops with earthy colors of beige, brown, and deep red. Before I knew

it, I was lost and I couldn’t find my way back to my homestay mother’s house even

though it had been two weeks since I’d been in Heredia. I saw a taxi driver passing by

and I flagged him down. Shit. As soon as I got in, I remembered the study abroad advisor

from the first day of orientation telling me that addresses didn’t exist in Costa Rica. It

was so much paperwork about culture shock, what to expect at your homestay mother’s

house, converting US dollars, traditional food, customs, health insurance, and more, so I

forgot that land marks were the only way Costa Ricans got around.

The taxi driver looked at me intently with a kind smile and I stumbled on broken

Spanish, “Aven…Avenida ocho, calle….calle di-diece….dieceseis, por favor.” I silently

prayed he would understand the avenue and street that I was referring to. He stared at me

with a dumbfounded expression and began to laugh nervously, “Eh… I no understand.”

Panicked, I ruffled around in my backpack for the folder with my mama tica’s address. I

knew it was a landmark nearby, the little shop that sold tacos and quesadillas down the

street from my house. Pollo…Pollo something. The man nodded with a knowing smile

and started driving towards the place. I watched the pointless GPS on his dashboard

move through nameless streets and clutched my backpack, counting down the ten days in

my head until I would be back home with actual street names and numbers again.
 How did I end up here? It was my first time being out of the country on my own

and it happened on a random impulse. My advisor gave me a choice of taking a Spanish

class on campus for two semesters to fulfill my graduation requirements or to study

abroad and talk about my cultural experience in a journal. Seeing as how I’d taken a total

of four Spanish classes during high school and community college yet still remained at

beginner-level Spanish, I decided to take a leap of faith and take advantage of that “life-

changing opportunity” that everyone kept talking about when traveling outside of the

country. What a leap of faith it was.

When I saw the faded yellow walls of my mama tica’s house and the rustic gate

out front, I excitedly yelled, “Here! I mean… Aqui! Gracias!” I was so happy that I gave

him five colones when the tab was only three colones and jumped out of the car before I

remembered it wasn’t customary to tip taxi drivers. My excitement left as fast as it came

and I dragged my feet to the gate, feeling defeated and exhausted from the constant

overload of foreign information. Ana Lia, my sweet homestay mother that I call my

mama tica, saw my face and rushed over to me, putting both of her wrinkled hands on my

cheeks and asked what happened.

Although I was drained from the eventful day, I explained with as much beginner

Spanish vocabulary as I knew about what happened to my mama tica. Shoving forkfuls of

gallo pinto (rice and beans) in my mouth, I didn’t even realize there was a trail of ants

that traveled from the wall to the kitchen table into my plate. I almost threw it up in front

of Ana Lia but I suppressed the urge and smiled at her as she spoke to me in Spanish.

Although I didn’t know a word she was saying, I couldn’t hear her anyway over the

screaming thoughts in my head: THIS PLACE IS SWARMING WITH INSECTS! THE

MEN ARE PIGS, THERE’S NO ADDRESSES, THE STREETS ARE FILLED WITH

DEATH TRAPS AND MY CLASSMATES ARE STUCK UP! I looked up at Ana Lia

and finally noticed that she was staring at me intently, waiting for a reply. “Como?” I

asked, hoping she didn’t read my face as I was bombarded with negative thoughts. She

asked me how my food was and I pushed the plate away, telling her it was delicious but

that I was full from earlier. She took my plate away, not noticing the army of ants that

were having a banquet on my behalf.

This same instance happened often during my three-week stay, yet it was just as

unexpected every time. As part of the study abroad program, my class and I took a trip to

the mountains and stayed at a fancy hotel resort in the clouds. As I gazed around the

clean hotel room in awe, I noticed there were no bugs in sight, which was a surprising

observation considering how my room at my homestay mother’s house was crawling with

weird caterpillars, rainbow lizards, and various other creatures. I opened up my favorite

package of cookies and started munching on some as my classmate and I excitedly talked

about the next day’s events. The next morning, I packed up my things and took the

package of cookies down to the lobby to meet my class. I’m on my second to last cookie

and happened to glance down as a crumb landed on my shirt. Well, needless to say, that

crumb was gone as an army of ants carried it from my shirt to my leg and down to the

floor. Somehow, I suppressed a scream as I shook off the ants. I looked into the package

of cookies and let out a small shriek as I watched mounds of ants crawl on top of one

another, trying to get a bite of the cookies. On the bus ride back home, I wondered how

many ants were crawling around inside of me and gulped my water viciously.
 My mama tica was already asleep by the time I got home since she slept at 9 pm

on the dot every night. I walked to my room and flipped the light switch on. Lying down

on my bed, I stared at the white ceiling and recounted the days until I was back home. I

heard a rustle to my left and saw a black circle shoot across the room in my peripherals.

Struck with fear, I slowly turned my head to meet eyes with a roommate I had never

witnessed until this day. A beady-eyed cockroach momentarily paused while making the

most stomach-wrenching hiss and I froze, all the hairs on my body standing at attention.

It sounded like the hiss that I heard from the dirty old man in the Red Toyota that same

morning. Cucaracha, I heard my Spanish professor say in my head. He warned the class

of the wrath of the cockroach. Once you kill one, there will always be more. If you decide

to kill a pregnant cockroach, thousands of eggs would hatch and swarm from the dead

body. I flipped the light switch off and closed my eyes, slowly counting to ten in my

head. Ten more days.

Pura vida, my ass.