Dec 23-30: Holiday Week in Costa Rica

This was probably one of my least productive weeks as a Peace Corps volunteer given that the whole country was focused on the holidays. Since there wasn’t any major holiday to start the week, Monday was my most typical workday. I caught up on writing my community report and prepared some blogs for the future.

Tuesday was Christmas Eve, also known as La Nochebuena in Latin America. I worked in the morning before enjoying Christmas Eve festivities later in the day. I don’t normally go to church, but by nature of growing up in Southwest Missouri, I feel at least “culturally Christian” and wanted to experience the religious side of Christmas in Costa Rica. So, I attended Christmas Eve mass with my host mom. It lasted about 2 hours and was a very nice ceremony including Christmas songs and an impressive Nativity scene, called a portal in Spanish. After mass, we went to a home around 30 minutes away for Christmas Eve dinner with a friend of my host mom’s. We had pork leg, rice, and salad, which are all pretty typical for a Costa Rican Christmas. Immediately after dinner, the family began opening presents, which is also a common Christmas Eve practice in Costa Rica. Although no one at the celebration knew me other than my host mom, the family was nice enough to gift me a box of chocolates so that I felt included too. We didn’t get home until almost Midnight, which is the practice for most Ticos on Christmas Eve.

Because Christmas Eve is the big night of celebration, Christmas Day, or Navidad, is much more chill here than it is in the States. My host mom didn’t really have any plans besides cooking for a party she was hosting the next day, so my Christmas was wide open. A friend from Peace Corps who lives in a community about 90 minutes south in coffee country generously invited me to spend Christmas Day with her family. I’ve been wanting to go there for a while, so I decided to make the trip down since it was a good day to do so. In a rarity for Costa Rica, there wasn’t any traffic on Christmas, so the trip through the mountains on bus was really quick and quite smooth. Her community is lush, hilly, and brisk, making it the perfect holiday respite from the Valle Central and the hustle and bustle of the city. After getting in a nice run, we toured her city, ate lunch with her host family, and were invited to a cafecito with another family in the town. Costa Rica is a small country: after sharing with them my Peace Corps site, this family immediately recognized who my host mom was despite being around 90 minutes away. After a nice day spent in my community, I hopped back on the bus and made the easy trip home. Day trips like this are a huge perk of living near San Jose and something I don’t take for granted.

After a big travel day on Christmas, the next day I stayed in my community. Boxing Day isn’t really a thing in Costa Rica, so things felt pretty typical. Nothing particularly exciting happened in the morning, but my host mom put on a large event for friends and family in our house that evening. Over 60 people came by to celebrate El Rezo del Niño, or the prayer of the child, which is a common tradition in Latin America. There was lots of praying and singing. I’ll be honest, as a non-Catholic gringo, I was pretty lost at times. After the religious parts of the celebration, patrons were served a large dinner my host mom had prepared. I was tasked to deliver food to them which was honestly an easy way to be involved in the event and to meet more people in my community.

On Friday, we had to clean the house, because as you can imagine, a 60-person event can do quite a bit of damage. Friday was also a workday for me before settling in and watching some sports of both the Tico and Gringo variety. Arkansas played in the Liberty Bowl while the Costa Rican Gran Final between Alajuelense and Herediano took place. Although the Razorbacks won, unfortunately “Liga” lost the Costa Rican final, and the game was largely marred by post-game fights.

On Saturday, I received a much-needed package of Christmas goodies from my parents. In the afternoon, I went to Costa Rica’s Jade Museum for the first time before later going out to a nice dinner at a restaurant called Silvestre, also a present from my parents. The following day, I used my out of community days for December to travel to Manuel Antonio National Park. Manuel Antonio is only about a three- or four-hour trip from San Jose. It was raining when I got there, so I didn’t do much that first day, although it was great to be on the coast again.