5:45am Wake-Up Call

We've been waking up pretty early here, somewhere around 6:00 or 6:30. In part, this is because the culture here is definitely on the early side and in part because when the jungle wakes up around you, it sort of wakes you up, this morning in particular. At 5:45am we were awoken by people having a dance party on our roof. It turned out to be an entire troop of monkeys hurrying along, shoving bugs and leaves in their mouths for breakfast as they went. It was so cool! There were at least 50 monkeys who came racing through the trees, paused to stare at us through the windows, and then skipped along the roof and away. Our bedroom is on the second floor, so we certainly feel as if we're up in the trees and the monkeys did pause on the branches outside to check us out :-)

Now, for my thoughts on community. I have never been part of such a strong village community. My community at TBS was strong in certain ways, but that was a workplace, not an entire living experience. Similarly, I've had communities in Bryn Mawr, Cape Town, and New York, but the entire town never felt like a cohesive community. I think that my parents have found a pretty strong, cohesive community in Galena, IL, but Monteverde is certainly my first, first- hand experience of this. And, at the risk of angering everyone and their loyalty to their communities, I would venture to say that Monteverde's sense of community is especially strong. Granted, I think in large part it is because this is a tiny town; naturally, the larger a community grows, the less cohesive it can be.

The map that the school gave us of town does not have any street or road names, rather it has the houses of everyone marked on it. Seriously. Also, addresses here are "50 meters south of the Cheese Factory" or, our address, "the end of the Bajo del Tigre." Everywhere we go, literally everywhere, people introduce themselves and engage us in conversation. No one is in too much of a hurry to have a real conversation. One of our neighbors invited us over for coffee three days after we arrived, and another was not at all unnerved when we knocked on her door, introduced ourselves, and asked to borrow her phone because we'd locked ourselves out. We've been invited to join soccer clubs, music ensembles, and potlucks. Yes, a cynic may say that this tiny town is just happy to have new blood to mix it up a bit; I do think that's part of it, there's an eagerness to have new experiences and ideas when new people come to town, but it's also the atmosphere here, one of true welcoming.

There is a fluidity here- gringo families come and go after a year or two and students stay in tico homes for their semester abroads. However, there are many people who spend their lives here and everyone seems to have a sense of "community archeology," who lived where, when, for how long, where they went, etc. And, of course, I'm sure there are downsides to everyone being somewhat intimately involved; I've only been here two weeks and can imagine that everyone knowing your business can sometimes get dreary.... But it was very helpful to have people tell us the history of the cat that has, for better or for worse, become our outdoor pet. What I love most is that no one can be dismissive here (not that anyone wants to be), your cab driver or garbage man or local restaurant owner or yoga teacher, is likely to be the parent of one of your students, or a neighbor; everyone is connected and everyone treats everyone else with respect. I really feel like this is a place where everyone is "seen."