smells like danger

Today was an exhausting day. And I imagine that my jefas are even more tired than I am.

I learned the procedures of what to do in case a student goes missing...a 29-year-old student left his homestay last night and did not return, at all. This morning after he did not arrive to go to class I called his Familia Tica and...well, the situation blew up. Step one when a student goes missing:

1. Call the professor of the group or representative of the school.
2. Try and get in touch with the student.
3. Communicate with the family to determine where the student went.
4. Advise local police and province security.
5. Notify the consulate.
6. Consult locals to see if the student was seen, try to speak with witnesses. (I went to a local bar with Alexis, a school chofer, to try and re-trace the student's steps. The bar owner recognized his picture and recounted what time and where the students went after leaving the bar.)
7. Check with taxistas or other modes of transportation to see if the student was seen on bus, in taxi, or on foot.
8. Find a photo of the student and print it, post it.
9. Be in touch with the university, and with the consulate.

Thank goodness the student showed up to the school in the afternoon, still smelling like the bar and without shoes! His story is that he left his homestay and went to a nearby bar, where he only had four beers, and trued to return home in a taxi that ended up taking him to a hotel/casino in San Jose, that he walked all the way from San Jose to Heredia, and got a taxi to CPI. All with twenty thousand colones, or $40. NO WAY! The Provost made it mandatory for him to return to the USA, and he was removed from the program and sent home the following day. 24 hours in Costa Rica and he got lost...48 hours and he was already on his way home. I think it is in his and the group's best interest, really. He seemed likely to repeat this kind of incident, and the professor who came with the group was already a little leery about him coming at all...seems he is a special case. I am just glad he is alive and well. And better off in the USA. How stressful!

Today my group is off to Manuel Antonio, and I have the weekend free. Looks like I will be heading to Esparza at some point and visiting Elliott.
Yesterday evening I went to the mall and found some shoes for $6! And got some gelato. Yum! I took some students and they learned how take the public bus.

I like to think that I am kind of an expert at taking the public bus...it's not so bad! And its really cheap. That is something I LOVE about Costa Rica!

The other day I had dinner with a friend who asked me: what do I NOT like about Costa Rica? And I had trouble answering. Because I love it here. There are a few things that have occurred to me since our conversation:

-The roads are not much good...messy, twisty, sometimes unpaved.
-How many stray dogs and cats are living in the streets. It makes students upset, and it can be very sad to see.
-Tico time. It kills me! I am still sooooooo gringa in my emphasis on arriving on time and being punctual.
-Bureaucratic process. To do anything here it takes forever, legal processing is incredibly slow. Sometimes the laws aren't enforced, and when they are it's almost exaggerated. (A perfect example...two years ago the director of transportation said that a passage for pedestrians would be established on a man highway within the next two months...two years later, people are still crossing the highway on foot and risking their lives. The highway passes by Caldera, just for reference.)
-How things close on the weekends. Banks, stores, official buildings have NO weekend hours.
-Machismo.

That's all I have for now.

PURA VIDA, COSTA RICA