Gratulera me 5769-års dagen!

45. søndag i advent

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Snart jul !
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Progress

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I had promised myself before I came here to start early with my work so that I would be sure to have enough time to finish it, and hopefully some weeks at the end of my stay to travel around a bit. Obviously, that's not what happened. I am the World Champion at putting-things-off (tomorrow is always the best day for anything!). But after almost two months, a lot of reading, sleeping and general relaxing I actually got started. This is what I've done so far:

Went with Marcos around la Laguna handing out questionnaires to some of the Nicaraguans he knows here. Discovered:

• Many Nicaraguans can't read.
• Some Nicaraguans get uneasy if you show up with a Costa Rican.
• Marcos and basically all other Costa Ricans I know will not let me go alone to talk to the Nicaraguans because they don't trust them and think it would be dangerous.

Wrote to my supervisor and was told:

• If they can't read the questionnaire you have to read it for them and if you have to read it for them you cannot do so in front of other people.
• Children born in Costa Rica or who have spent most of their life here cannot be included in this study.

Went back into "the field". Discovered:

• The children in the Nicaraguan families I have visited are mostly born in Costa Rica or have come here as infants.
• Interviewing Nicaraguans who can't read without being observed by Costa Ricans can be complicated when you are not allowed to go near Nicaraguans alone.
• Interviewing Nicaraguans who can't read without being observed by Costa Ricans can be complicated when you find people at work in groups, and perhaps even more so when you find them at home in their one-room house.
• It is apparently easy to skip a question, mark the wrong line, leave out some personal information or otherwise not complete the questionnaire, leading to the questionnaire being useless.
• There are very few Nicaraguans in Costa Rica who are more than 50 years old.

Redefined the age categories and finished almost all of the questionnaires I need. Wrote to my supervisor with some questions. Was told:

• New age-categories: OK
• People who have been in Costa Rica for ten years or more cannot be included in this study.

Discarded about half of the valid questionnaires because the person had been in Costa Rica more than ten years. Realized there is no way to get all the answers I need in Zarcero due to this being a purely agricultural district and therefore the Nicaraguans who come here to work are mainly men between 15 and 30.

Talked to Marcos, to Diego at the Red Cross and to Karina in la Fortuna. Planning to go to Zarcero tomorrow to talk to two young girls Diego knows, to Naranjo on Saturday to see if I can find people in the park, to San José on Sunday to another park and back to la Fortuna on Monday.

Have read a very interesting book about the role of Nicaraguans as "others" in the construction of Costa Rican national identity.

Have written an email to author of this book, the Director of the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Costa Rica, telling him I have read his book and would be very interested in speaking to him. Very grateful that I have a friend like Karina who basically wrote the email for me, because it was really scary (she suggested I call him... my telephonophobia may have got a bit better over the last few years, but not quite there yet). Have absolutely no idea what I would say to him if he has the time to see me...

Have read a book about social psychology. Have realized it might not be exactly what I was looking for. Sociology next.

Have read the linguistics thesis of the girl whose questionnaire mine is based on. Did understand some parts. Have realized I may have to learn some statistics. Not too happy about the idea.

In addition to all this (actually does seem a lot more than it really is when listed like this...) I have come to realize a thing or two about education. I have tried hard to make the questionnaire I am using simple, easy to understand and fill out. Still, many of the people I have talked to have problems understanding how to use it and generally what I want from them, even if it is in their mother tongue. I didn't really think about it before, but I have come to understand better how education not only fills our heads with more or less useful facts, but actually teaches us to think in a different way. And also how handicapped many of these people are for not having learnt that.

Perhaps not the most interesting post ever this one, but at least it was useful for me to get an overview and nobody forced you to read it anyway.

No such number, no such zone...

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When my supervisor gave me the directions for the house I am staying in here in la Laguna I did consider them just that: directions for how to get there. Which is why I have been saying (for two month now) every time someone asks me for the address of the house I’m staying in that I don’t have it. I did have some experience with Costa Rican addresses from last time I was here, but I honestly believed that those were special cases (one was, after all, a family living basically in the middle of nowhere up in the mountains in a coffee-growing distirct). Turns out that unless you live in the capital (or perhaps one of the bigger cities) all Costa Rican addresses go something like this:
The blue house, 200 m. from of the dairy which used to be called X, right before the turn opposite the big acacia tree, 4 km west from the town square of Y.
I must admit I am a littlebit sceptical, but I try to compare it to home and the fact that even if my parents’ house now has a streetname and number and postal code, it would probably be enough to simply write my name and Gaupne. Seeing as everybody knows everybody and the postman knows everyone, it would eventually end up in the right mailbox. So any mail to me here should be addressed to the neighbour, Marcos, who has lived here for a long time and seems to know and be known by a lot of people. He apparently gets his mail even with an address which to me sounds more or less improvised (he actually gave me several options for an address, but I am going to go with the one that more or less coincides with the directions I was given before coming here).
So here it goes, if anyone should feel like sending me anything, this is my current address:

co/ Marcos Enrique Zuñiga Araya
150 m. al norte de la fábrica Agrisol (antigua Dole)
Casa color vino
Laguna (Zarcero)
Alfaro Ruiz
Alajuela
Costa Rica

PS: Quite a few people should let me know their addresses, just in case I actually get around to sending any of the about 50 postcards I’ve bought so far…

Notes from a hammock

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So I finally went to Nicaragua and spent just over a week visiting Rakel who is doing her field work for the MA in Leon. The trip was prolonged a bit beacuse of the inconvenience of travelling long distances on a bus (particularly a Nicaraguan bus) when one is on antibiotics and generally feeling like crap. The antibiotics and the heat did not ruin a very nice trip however. After a few days in Leon, a charming university town close to the coast in the northern half of Nicaragua we went on to Granada, liberal Leons conservative rival further south. Did some sightseeing in the small and sleepy towns in the hills and took a boat trip on the shallow waters of the Lago de Nicaragua to see some of the human and animal life on its 360 small islands, las isletas.

Partly because of the heat and the antibiotics (and partly because of the atmosphere and the hammocks) we spent quite a lot of time at the hostel. The place that houses the Bearded Monkey is one of those typical colonial structures with rooms arranged around an internal patio, trees and flowers and sometimes birds or a cat (the hostel is home to one of the fattest and most relaxed cats I have ever seen), surrounded by hammocks to lounge in with a book and a lemonade through the warmest hours of the day. I completely fell in love with their hammocks, and seeing as it had been my plan since before I came to Latin America to buy one this time, I decided to do so while I was there (Nicaragua is also known to be cheaper than Costa Rica, a good excuse to do soem shopping). At the market in Masaya I finally found a hammock that I am hoping I somehow will find a place to put up sometime i the future. It won't be the same without the courtyard and the heat, but hopefully I can find some use for it. I have considered whether it would be possible to replace my bed with the hammock, but I am not so sure my back would be to happy with that as a long-term soution. Could be good for a guest bed though... I am still considering whether I also have to buy a hanging chair (don't know what else to call it), which is not quite as comfortable as the hammock, but has the advantage of taking up less space, as well as needing only one hook in the ceiling in stead of two in the walls. But then there is the issue of how much I can manage to bring with me on the plane home or how much it would cost to send something in the mail, and wether it is actually practically possible to bring something like a hanging chair. Oh, the lifealtering decisions one has to make...