Orientation Days 1 & 2

See, this is what happens. A thousand things happen, which means you have a thousand things to tell but then you're exhausted from all the things happening and the thought of telling them all makes you more exhausted and then you don't tell anything at all. So what follows will be a few snapshot impressions, rather than an attempt to catalogue all of the last 2 days.

Yesterday was our first day of orientation. Because I’d somehow failed to reset my watch correctly, I left the house an hour earlier than I needed to in order to catch the bus. An hour earlier than 7:30am. After several times walking up and down the street where I thought the bus (and a bunch of other students) would be, I began to suspect my mistake. I asked the man sweeping the street what time it was- in perfectly good Spanish, by the way- and was somewhat disappointed when he felt it necessary to hold up 7 fingers, in addition to saying, ‘siete’ as if I might not know what ‘siete’ meant. The whole incident, however, serves as triumphant proof that I am a braver soul than I was at 15 when I once waited for a bus for three hours on the wrong side of the street because I was too shy to ask anyone why the bus wasn’t coming.

Speaking of shy, being delivered into a teeming mass of 185 strangers with no other task than to meet people is an excellent way to torture a shy person. I’ve been looking forward to meeting my classmates and learning all about where they are from and what they did before coming to UPEACE, but huge groups are really not my scene. It has to do with the approach. If I were stuck in an elevator, say, with one other person, I could successfully engage that person in conversation and be very charming. But show me a lawn full of people, all of whom seem to be already engaged in the most fascinating conversations of their lives with their new best friends, and I have problems. How do you cut in on that? So one at a time I sought out the other shy souls who seemed to be similarly at a loss. Now me, I love being rescued like this. Others are not talking to anyone because they just don’t want to talk to anyone right at that moment. By the end of the day I’d used up every once of my “faking extroversion” energy and gave myself permission to revert back to my natural state. We’re all going to be here for a while. There will be other opportunities in more Sara-friendly settings to get to know everyone.

Here’s the other intimidating thing about getting to know all these people. They are very impressive and accomplished individuals. And so are you, Sara, you’re all saying to yourselves because you’re my friends and you’re like that. And you know what, I even agree with you. However, I have never been arrested protesting for freedom of speech in Beijing. I do not speak four languages fluently. I have never bottle fed a baby elephant. My list of things to do just got longer.

The campus is so beautiful I can hardly believe it. As we sit in the Council Room- the back wall of which is all floor to ceiling windows and sliding glass doors- we can see mountains in the distance, green tropical foliage everywhere and huge birds of prey (hawks? eagles? rocs?) swooping not so very far away; it becomes pretty difficult to concentrate on the Power Point presentation about the Costa Rican health care system. The classroom buildings are built around courtyards so even walking down the hall there are gardens and fountains. And hammock chairs. Hammock chairs tucked away here and there wherever there’s a spare beam or substantial tree branch. I’ve found 6 so far plus a full fledged hammock out by the entrance.

We’ve been introduced to the staff and resident faculty. We’ve stepped through the Student Handbook. We’ve been warned about earthquakes, theft and skin fungus. We ended the day with sign ups for student activities. These are all pretty much in our own care with tons of support from the Student/Faculty/Staff Committee. And think about it- in a four year (or even 2 year) program, the seniors and juniors basically run things while the freshman and sophomores learn the ropes. But here, we’re all seniors and freshmen at the same time. So our groups and activities need to hit the ground running with people ready to be organizers, driving things forward. I’ve volunteered to organize the annual V-Day presentation of The Vagina Monologues to raise awareness of violence against women. Students and possibly some staff &/or professors? will be the performers. I won’t let myself get sequestered back or offstage though. My stopwatch stays in retirement.

Off to sleep soon now. Tomorrow we have an even earlier day heading into San José to get started on our student permits. For all the anxiety I had about getting my paperwork together, I see now how relatively easy I had it. Diane, who is from Uganda (north of Burundi and I know you all know where that is) had to travel all the way to South Africa to get her documents authenticated. There are about 20 more African students and 4 Asian students who haven’t even been able to get their entrance visas yet so we’re still awaiting their arrival. For me, just a few more bureaucratic hurdles to jump.