I came home from Costa Rica last week, just long enough to celebrate Mother’s Day, take the AP chemistry test, and of course go to the prom Friday night. The reverse culture shock I had expected was a let-down - more like a culture pinch. Friends were the same, my dog still rolled over for me to pet her, and everything in my room was exactly as I had left it. I spent the week in blind happiness, feeling like I could have just fallen asleep into my old life again, forgetting I had ever lived in Costa Rica. But a week later my eyes snapped open again as soon as I stepped off the plane in San Jose.
If there’s anything that had bothered me about my first three months here, it was the slow pace of life. About 30% of the plans I’d make would never happen, mostly due to people deciding they’d rather just relax at home. The week I got back, however, life began to get a lot more interesting.
The rainy season has started – every day at almost exactly 1:30, the skies turn from blue to dark grey, and rain pounds the tin roofs of the school so hard the teachers can’t be heard. People brace themselves against their desks, waiting for the cannon-fire of thunder. But since the weather is so predictable, the Costa Ricans merely work around it, the school year continuing in full swing.
However, what’s really made life interesting is basketball. I’ve been on the basketball team for a while here, but up until this week we’d only had practices. Of all the things in Costa Rica that I feel hopelessly outmatched in (soccer, Spanish, consumption of rice and beans), basketball isn’t one of them. Don’t get me wrong – I’m by no means a fantastic basketball player. Throughout my childhood I’d always panicked when having the ball, never quite sure what to do with it. After an unsuccessful year of freshman basketball, I got cut from the JV team as a sophomore. But on the varsity basketball team here, I feel like Michael Jordan.
Used to the disciplined competiveness of basketball in the States, the dynamic of the team continues to surprise me. We barely have enough players to make up one team, so we draw players from all ages, some as young as 14. Our coach is an energetic, clean cut man, always rushing into practice late (he’s told us he works five jobs). But as lively as he is, his enthusiasm hasn’t rubbed off on the players. During our bi-weekly practices, kids wander in at all hours, lazily joining in on the drills, running off to the sidelines to check their phones for new text messages. One time Coach huddled us together, spittle and Spanish flying from his mouth as he yelled the importance of showing up to practice. Suddenly he singled out a player and asked “Why weren’t you at practice last week?” The boy shuffled his feet and said, “I don’t know… I was really hungry.”
The team itself is like a sequel to Bad News Bears. It’s not to say we don’t have athletes – it’s just that they’re soccer players. Basketball in Costa Rica probably ranks about as important as does, say, croquet, in the States. Kids wiggle down the court, trying to dribble the ball and stay upright at the same time. Any basket made farther out than a lay-up is cause for applause and backslapping. I once achieved a semi-godlike status after hitting two 3-point shots in a row.
We had our first game last Tuesday, versus a local private school. As I stepped into the circle to take the jump ball, I looked up at the tallest Costa Rican I´d ever seen. I somehow won the jump, but unfortunately that turned out to be the highpoint of the game. The other team, made up of all seniors, sailed over our young players, practically walking to the basket as our team tried to organize our defence. At one point someone angrily yelled from the sidelines, “Use your body!”, resulting in yet another foul as one of our more aggressive players flopped himself onto the other teams´ point guard. Our coach frantically stormed up and down the sideline, waving his arms and yelling Spanish profanities. In contrast, the other coach sat with his players, laughing and smiling. I half expected him to pour himself a margarita.
Finally the buzzer sounded; I was drenched in sweat and covered in bruises from trying to play defence against three of their players at once. The scoreboard read 19-50, our loss. (I found out later that the other team had actually scored 87, but the referees were embarrassed for us so they stopped adding more points on the board.) “Don’t worry about it,” coach told us. “You’ll have another chance in two days.”
Our next game began on Thursday, and I looked around in wonder as I ran down the court. Something had changed – our players we hitting lay-ups, passing well, even hitting the occasional outside shot. It showed on the scoreboard too – we were keeping ourselves in the game, even taking the lead at some points. The best part was, (from all viewpoints other than my own) it wasn’t because of me. Last game I had scored over half of our points – this game I could barely hold onto the ball, missing shot after shot, and getting called for fouls at every turn (It probably doesn’t help that the back of my uniform reads “GRINGO”.) But even with myself virtually out of the game, our team continued to battle on, the clock ticking down towards the end of the fourth quarter.
Suddenly the whistle blew for a time-out, 13 seconds still hanging on the clock – our possession. The coach drew out the play he wanted on his whiteboard; a simple screen-play in order to get us the lay-up we needed to make the score 43-43. He looked up at me and in broken English said, “Evan – you do this basket?” All my childhood memories of sitting on the bench came flooding back, listening to coaches picking “the good kid” to hit the game-winning shot, their gaze never even passing over me. The eyes of my teammates stared at me, hopeful. “Si,” I said, feeling strangely at peace. I stepped onto the court, and as the whistle blew, I slid around another player, my defender getting tangled in his arms. Suddenly I was alone on the court, screaming for the ball with outstretched hands as I sprinted towards the basket.
That pass never made it to me. Somewhere it was tipped, knocked away, ending clutched against the purple jersey of the other team until the buzzer sounded. My teammates sank to the ground, devastated, and slowly drifted off towards the locker room.
But I heard something after that game, just a sliver of conversation from the showers – never had the school team scored more than 26 points, much less come close to winning a game. We lost a chance at making school history that day, but I’m not worried – we’ve got another game next week.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Beach Race - Article Eight
If you’ve read my previous articles, you might notice that this is the second one I’ve written about the experiences I’ve had while running here in Costa Rica. Yet chances are you probably haven’t, so this one should sound fresh. (Don’t feel bad – I have doubts my mom consistently reads my column.) Plus, this is Hopkinton – hard to find a place that likes running more than we do. And in light of the bright white start-line in front of the town common that makes our town more than just a dot on a map, it only seems fair that I write about how I was lucky to have the experience of a lifetime, running the “Boston Marathon” of Costa Rica.
Being a foreigner, people like to invite me places, without regard to how well they know me. Friends, parents of friends, even my school-bus driver. There seems to be no, “Do I know this person well enough to be with them all day?” rule that prevails in the States. So following that pattern, as I struggled to keep my eyes open during a civics class on Costa Rican government, the girl in front of me, Kari, turned around and whispered in Spanish, “Can you run?”
I was a bit baffled, and tried to use my limited knowledge of street-Spanish to decide if this was some type of innuendo. Luckily she continued, telling me that if I thought I could do it, her family was running the “Sol y Arena (Sun and Sand)” beach race, and she wanted me to come along. I’d seen posters for this race, plastered on the wall at the local gym – 10km, the entire course along the edge of the ocean. But 10km (that’s about 6.5 miles) I’d never run that far in my life. Doing some quick math in the margin of my civics book, I figured I could run it in about an hour. What the hell, I thought, if I can make it through this civics class a race that long should be a piece of cake.
Kari and her mom picked me up early the next morning, driving a small bus. My questions about the vehicle choice were quickly answered as we made stop after stop, picking up what seemed to be every relative that Kari has. It was like we were creating a Costa Rican “clown-car.” I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the Spanish and laughter flying by my head, until someone handed me a hotdog with ketchup – just what I needed to feel at home. I talked with Kari as I watched the green mountains in the distance, feeling the air get more humid with every mile that brought us closer to the coast.
When we finally arrived, we walked along the beach and dipped our feet in the warm ocean for a while. Kari and her family wandered over to the starting line, blending in among the throng of racers stretching, talking and checking their watches. Kari’s uncle bought a bag of strange-looking fruit from a passing street vendor and handed one to me as he told what they were called. It was an indecipherable combination of vowels that I now assume translate to “vacuum fruit of death” -- just one bite sucked all of the liquid out of my mouth, leaving me gasping for water. Needless to say I didn’t end up finishing that one.
As it drew closer to the 4 p.m. start time, the still-growing crowd of what seemed like thousands pushed towards the start, trapping me among them. Everyone around me was drenched in sweat from the humidity and close-quarters, cheering and waving as camera-helicopters flew over us, broadcasting the race. I waited for a gunshot or some type of loud start signal. It never came. Suddenly it just felt like someone stepped on the gas, and I was carried along with the crowd pouring out onto the beach, only keeping my balance by pressing my hands against the runner in front of me, wondering what death by trampling would feel like.
Yet as I hit the beach, I could suddenly breathe again. Runners of all shapes and sizes drifted by me, footsteps muffled by sand being the only sound. The backs of everyone’s legs quickly became covered with the spray of wet sand, turning their bright white running shoes to grey. As I ran along I started to notice things in the sand which on closer inspection turned out to be beached sea creatures. I stepped over deflated pufferfish, small eels, and even the occasional jellyfish, like little pink blobs of jello dotting the beach.
Every two kilometers, a rest station would appear with volunteers frantically handing out water and the occasional Gatorade. The water came in small tube-shaped plastic bags, letting you bite off a corner and suck the liquid out as you ran. Once they finished, the runners just dropped their deflated water bags along the way, leaving the beach looking like the scene of a massive impromtu college sleepover.
As I got further into the race, I noticed the crowd that had cheered on the runners at the start had long since dwindled, leaving just small huddles of families, waiting on the dunes, hoping to catch a glimpse of their loved ones. On the beach side, small children lay in the surf, watching the never-ending stream of people flow by. I glimpsed a strange looking child lying in the surf in the distance, either with some type of deformation of just morbidly obese. As I ran closer I couldn’t believe my eyes – it was a huge beached sea turtle, waves slowly lapping over its shell. If it wasn’t obvious already, I certainly proved myself an American then, stopping and staring in wonder at this majestic-looking creature, slowly beginning to run again as it became apparent it was dead.
Living in a running-fanatic town like Hopkinton, I’ve heard people talk about “runner’s high,” the feeling like you could run forever. I never quite knew what they meant, but I think I felt it for just a moment during that race, palm trees to my right, endless ocean to my left. I suddenly realized there was only one thing missing. I bent down, took off my running shoes, and ran barefoot in the surf towards the setting sun.
Being a foreigner, people like to invite me places, without regard to how well they know me. Friends, parents of friends, even my school-bus driver. There seems to be no, “Do I know this person well enough to be with them all day?” rule that prevails in the States. So following that pattern, as I struggled to keep my eyes open during a civics class on Costa Rican government, the girl in front of me, Kari, turned around and whispered in Spanish, “Can you run?”
I was a bit baffled, and tried to use my limited knowledge of street-Spanish to decide if this was some type of innuendo. Luckily she continued, telling me that if I thought I could do it, her family was running the “Sol y Arena (Sun and Sand)” beach race, and she wanted me to come along. I’d seen posters for this race, plastered on the wall at the local gym – 10km, the entire course along the edge of the ocean. But 10km (that’s about 6.5 miles) I’d never run that far in my life. Doing some quick math in the margin of my civics book, I figured I could run it in about an hour. What the hell, I thought, if I can make it through this civics class a race that long should be a piece of cake.
Kari and her mom picked me up early the next morning, driving a small bus. My questions about the vehicle choice were quickly answered as we made stop after stop, picking up what seemed to be every relative that Kari has. It was like we were creating a Costa Rican “clown-car.” I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the Spanish and laughter flying by my head, until someone handed me a hotdog with ketchup – just what I needed to feel at home. I talked with Kari as I watched the green mountains in the distance, feeling the air get more humid with every mile that brought us closer to the coast.
When we finally arrived, we walked along the beach and dipped our feet in the warm ocean for a while. Kari and her family wandered over to the starting line, blending in among the throng of racers stretching, talking and checking their watches. Kari’s uncle bought a bag of strange-looking fruit from a passing street vendor and handed one to me as he told what they were called. It was an indecipherable combination of vowels that I now assume translate to “vacuum fruit of death” -- just one bite sucked all of the liquid out of my mouth, leaving me gasping for water. Needless to say I didn’t end up finishing that one.
As it drew closer to the 4 p.m. start time, the still-growing crowd of what seemed like thousands pushed towards the start, trapping me among them. Everyone around me was drenched in sweat from the humidity and close-quarters, cheering and waving as camera-helicopters flew over us, broadcasting the race. I waited for a gunshot or some type of loud start signal. It never came. Suddenly it just felt like someone stepped on the gas, and I was carried along with the crowd pouring out onto the beach, only keeping my balance by pressing my hands against the runner in front of me, wondering what death by trampling would feel like.
Yet as I hit the beach, I could suddenly breathe again. Runners of all shapes and sizes drifted by me, footsteps muffled by sand being the only sound. The backs of everyone’s legs quickly became covered with the spray of wet sand, turning their bright white running shoes to grey. As I ran along I started to notice things in the sand which on closer inspection turned out to be beached sea creatures. I stepped over deflated pufferfish, small eels, and even the occasional jellyfish, like little pink blobs of jello dotting the beach.
Every two kilometers, a rest station would appear with volunteers frantically handing out water and the occasional Gatorade. The water came in small tube-shaped plastic bags, letting you bite off a corner and suck the liquid out as you ran. Once they finished, the runners just dropped their deflated water bags along the way, leaving the beach looking like the scene of a massive impromtu college sleepover.
As I got further into the race, I noticed the crowd that had cheered on the runners at the start had long since dwindled, leaving just small huddles of families, waiting on the dunes, hoping to catch a glimpse of their loved ones. On the beach side, small children lay in the surf, watching the never-ending stream of people flow by. I glimpsed a strange looking child lying in the surf in the distance, either with some type of deformation of just morbidly obese. As I ran closer I couldn’t believe my eyes – it was a huge beached sea turtle, waves slowly lapping over its shell. If it wasn’t obvious already, I certainly proved myself an American then, stopping and staring in wonder at this majestic-looking creature, slowly beginning to run again as it became apparent it was dead.
Living in a running-fanatic town like Hopkinton, I’ve heard people talk about “runner’s high,” the feeling like you could run forever. I never quite knew what they meant, but I think I felt it for just a moment during that race, palm trees to my right, endless ocean to my left. I suddenly realized there was only one thing missing. I bent down, took off my running shoes, and ran barefoot in the surf towards the setting sun.
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