Alright, seeing as I've been volunteering at the Fauzi Azar Inn for pretty much two weeks now (excluding the days I was in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv), I can finally, with total confidence, give you the gist of the place and my duties as Volunteer Supreme.
About the Fauzi
I know earlier I provided some background information concerning the Inn that I took directly from its website. However, now that I've actually seen and experience the place, I can tell you about its history and characteristics with a few more details.
How the Fauzi Came to Be
The Fauzi Azar Inn was originally an extremely gorgeous mansion belonging to a wealthy Arab family, the Azars. However, when the War of 1948 occurred and the state of Israel was created, the majority of the citizens of Nazareth fled to nearby countries- mainly Lebanon. Fauzi Azar (the head of the Azar family and the owner of the house) was the only one in his family, as well as one of the only Arabs in town, who chose to remain in Nazareth- he couldn't bear to give up his magnificent house.
After successfully living alone for some time, one day disaster struck for Azar- fire! In the process of saving the carpets of the mansion, Azar suffered intense burns that sent him to the hospital and eventually caused his death. The magnificent house sat empty for many years, as the rest of the family didn't want to live there, but couldn't bear to part with it.
The Inn may very well have remained empty until it crumbled to the ground from lack of use, had a young Israeli backpacker named Maoz not happened upon it. Maoz was a visionary who believed that not only would the house provide the perfect location for a hostel, but the city of Nazareth would be the ideal spot to begin a hiking trail he was developing with an American friend- what would later become known as the Jesus Trail. But convincing the surviving family of Azar that opening a B&B in their old, prized home was a laborious process, so I'm told. Maoz got in contact with the granddaughter of Azar, Suraida, and while she was not convinced by his proposal, she agreed to pass on his contact information to her mother for further discussion. I'm not quite sure how long the issue was debated, or who finally gave in, but eventually an agreement was reached that allowed Maoz to open his hostel, with Suraida as co-owner and her grandfather's named immortalized in the name.
The hostel opened in 2005, and since then has accrued an amazing reputation. [Sorry if the next part sounds like a preachy ad- I'm just not sure how else to convey its awesomeness....] The Fauzi consistently receives highly rated reviews on travel sites, is top pick in Lonely Planet guides, was awarded an Environmental Tourism Award in 2011, and has received TripAdvisor's "Travelers' Choice" Award for the years 2012 and 2013. Plus, the Jesus Trail is constantly getting more and more press for being an impressive hiking trail that roughly follows Jesus's path as he performed his miracles. Though of course non-Christian pilgrims walk it for the scenery as well. [Oh, and Tony Blair visited the Fauzi a few years ago. How about we start a petition for Obama to come by next month....?]
What Makes the Fauzi Special?
I'd like to think after five months of staying in a wide variety of hostels, I've a pretty good idea of what a hostel is- and what makes one good or not. Hostels span a wide spectrum, from the crazy party ones on one side to the super chill, laid-back ones on the other. I've discovered my personal favorites tend to lie closer to the party side, but with a good dose of relaxation thrown in as well.
The Fauzi embodies all that a decent hostel should. And then it goes a bit beyond. Features that all hostels tend to have include:
-cheaper accommodations than hotels
-both dorms and private rooms
-shared bathrooms
-an available kitchen for guest use (some are even affiliated with a bar/cafe)
-free coffee all day and some sort of free breakfast
-a common area meant to foster meeting people
-routine activities, whether it's trivia night, Sunday afternoon BBQs, open mic night, or a pub crawl
-help in setting up tours
-a book exchange
Fauzi is special (in my opinion), thanks to:
-the unique free old city tour (purposefully leaves out the main tourist attractions, and instead focuses on the local community)
-the amazing complimentary smorgasbord breakfast (delicious, contains a wide variety of traditional Arab and Israeli foods and is cooked by staff with actually culinary skills)
-the history you can feel radiating out from the aged, muraled walls
-the most in-depth (and longest) reception shpeil I've ever witnessed [I have to learn it by heart- a daunting task]
-and finally, one thing that I personally am most impressed by, is Fauzi's ties/commitments to the local community. Before the Fauzi, Nazareth literally had 0% gains from tourism. The city used to just be a tour bus stop where religious tourists would get out to ogle the churches and then pile back on to hit the next site. This day-trip tourism for solely the holy places didn't contribute at all to the local economy in Nazareth, and that may still have been the trend today had the Fauzi not opened and begun to market Nazareth as a place to stay for at least a few nights. Some absurdly large (maybe 80) percentage of businesses in the old city are recent developments that appeared only after the Fauzi began attracting tourists who came to see all of Nazareth, not just the Basilica of Annunciation (the largest church in the Middle East). The Inn promotes local restaurants, souvenir shops, market vendors, etc. to its guests, and in gratitude most Nazareth-based businesses give discounts to guests of the Fauzi Azar as a way to say thanks for sending patrons to frequent their establishments.
Enough yapping about the Fauzi, Cleome (we can tell you're infatuated), what do you actually do?
Right, my oh-so-difficult volunteering duties.... I bake cakes. I help with reception and answering the phone/guests' questions. Sometimes I choose which music to play. I take out the trash. I do dishes and make sure there's always hot water available for tea or coffee. I tidy up the kitchen and the lobby. I restock the free fruit bowl. I do whatever the staff (two bosses, four managers, a Mr. Fix-It and a handful of cookers/cleaners) ask me to. I get to talk with guests. I meet really interesting, varied types of people. I play chess with the other staff/volunteers. If nothing's really going on I'll read or write. Or check Facebook. Or plan my next trips out of Nazareth.
Pretty chill "work."
Now don't get me wrong- what we do as volunteers aids the Fauzi considerably. We accomplish the menial tasks required of running a hostel day to day. And like I said, it's not hard work, but I've had shifts where it felt like I spent the entire six or so hours rotating between washing dishes and bringing out tea trays for newly arrived guests. Just depends on the day.
Overall I'm a huge fan of this set-up. I work roughly six hours, five days a week. The shifts are either 7:30am-2pm, 1-7pm, or 6-11pm, so it gives you time to do stuff either earlier and/or later in the day. Plus in your two (generally consecutive) days off, you can get a bit further out of Nazareth than just a day trip. There's usually at least one other volunteer free to hang with, though longer trips are generally embarked upon solo. And during your shift you tend to get free time for about half of it, so it honestly doesn't even feel like work.
Plus, the travelers that pass through the Fauzi are incredibly varied. In the few weeks I've been here I've met families on vacation, religious tourists, school study-abroad groups, pro-Palestinian activists/documentarians/journalists, travel bloggers, avid hikers, and plain old curious backpackers that have heard of the Fauzi's amazing rep. I've gotten to meet and talk with incredibly interesting people who've taught me a lot. Or just had amazing conversations with the coolest people.
I'm feeling incredibly lucky right now.
Plus, I think I've convinced Moaz to get the Inn a guitar! Life is pretty damn good right now.
xoxo, Cleome
Showing posts with label Introduction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Introduction. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Saturday, February 9, 2013
The Big Intro to Israel Post
Hello there! It's been a little while since I last posted, and I've finally gotten a good chunk of time to sit down and write, so I thought I'd take advantage of it.
I left for Israel a week from today (though technically I've only physically been in Israel for five and a half days, thanks to an amazingly long 19.5 hours of travel time between home and here...) and have experienced a lot of newness in these past seven days. But let's start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start....
Flights and Firsts
So, like I said, it took me 19.5 hours (three different flights) from taking off in Minneapolis to touch down in Israel. I left MN late morning on my first flight and arrived in Newark, NY mid-afternoon. After waiting a few hours in the airport, I boarded the airplane that would jet me away from the US, over the Pacific, and allow me to step foot for the first time ever on another continent. <- That flight was the longest one I've ever been on- seven hours. I flew on SAS, a Scandinavian airline, and was quite impressed by their level of service. Not only did they show recently released movies [I got to watch Argo, what what], but they actually served MEALS on the plane. Free of charge. And they came in the most adorable little portion-sized containers. I was so awed I took a picture, haha.
Although that second flight was great in many ways, it wasn't my favorite simply because
1) It was a "red eye" flight, but I couldn't sleep.
2) There was a freaky amount of turbulence as we were exactly in the middle of our trip aka over the ocean. I won't deny that images of a watery grave briefly flitted past my eyes before I shut them out and mentally chanted think positively over and over again.
3) We changed what felt like a million time zones in those seven hours, and so by the time we arrived in Copenhagen it was 7am in Denmark, while my body still thought it was 1am. After zooming through the cute and sleepy Copenhagen airport [they have hardwood floors, open lounge areas, inviting colors, and a little mermaid statue- how much more adorable can it get?] to find the gate for my third and final flight, I shlumped over and blearily stared at passersby through half-closed lids. Yeah, I felt pretty gross at that point compared to all the sharp-looking European travelers. And
4) I was located in the back of this huge airplane, in the middle row of three seats, and I just had to be put with this older guy who (even with the empty seat between us) had stinky farts. Not very conducive for trying to sleep....
My last flight was about four hours and landed me in Tel Aviv around 2:30pm Israel time on Sunday. Luckily the passport control guys didn't give me too much grief and I was riding in a shared taxi to Jerusalem half an hour later. I arrived at the Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem- recommended to me by the GoEco project- a bit before 5pm and immediately took a shower and tried to sleep. Key word: tried. I was physically exhausted, having at that point slept only about four hours of the past 36, but mentally I couldn't quiet down. I think I fell into a restless sleep around 9pm that night, but certainly woke up the next morning still feeling tired.
Orientation in the Old City
Monday was a jam-packed day.
It began with a two hour meeting in the hostel with GoEco (the volunteer agency) representatives. They gave myself and two other soon-to-be-volunteers [we were all leaving for different projects, however] an explanation of our volunteering projects and some basic information about Israel. Then one of them, Yan, acted as our tour guide for the rest of the day.
First, we explored and had lunch in the major Jerusalem marketplace [he managed to get us millions of free samples of cultural dishes by explaining in Hebrew to the vendors that we were foreigners and had no idea what any of the dishes were] before heading out to Jaffa Gate to take part in a free tour of the Old City. [The term Old City in any area refers to the location where buildings, monuments and historical places built hundreds of years ago remain intact and are still used/inhabited by people today. However, the Old City in Jerusalem is one of the most well-known as it contains many incredibly important religious sites.]
I was extremely awed on our walk through the Old City. We hit all four quarters (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Armenian) and our guide was quite knowledgeable about the history of each quarter and their development. It was amazing to think that we were walking through streets and archways that had been there and seen by people for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And to just actually be in this place I'd heard about for so long felt incredibly unreal. I mean, it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that I was literally standing 100 feet away from the Western Wall. Wow.
Since the free tour was a general overview of the Old City but didn't actually take us into buildings, once it was over Yan guided our volunteer group back to a couple of impressive sites. We watched the sun set while standing on the top of the Austrian Hospice, taking in the scenic view of the entire Old City; we walked through the [amazingly unpopulated] Church of the Holy Sepulchre once darkness had fallen, and then window-shopped in the new mall outside the Old City on our way to dinner. After dinner (my first authentic Israeli hummus experience!) we explored a few more buildings that had nice views (including one incredibly swanky hotel that impressed me almost as much as the Old City had, haha) and then headed back to the hostel to sleep.
Tuesday was the day I needed to catch my bus to Nazareth to actually begin volunteering, but that wasn't until 4pm, so I had a bit more time to wander around Jerusalem. I went out with Antonia, the girl volunteer I'd hung with the day before, and we saw the Western Wall up close (I did indeed put a piece of paper with a wish on it into an unused crack in the wall). We also walked up to the Dome of the Rock (an extremely holy Islamic site) and marveled at the detail and gorgeousness of the mosque. Finally the time to head to the bus station rolled around, and after a bit of messing around with a temperamental ticket machine, I was on my way.
Finding Fauzi Azar
I sat next to a very... talkative... guy on the bus who also happened to be going to the Fauzi Azar Inn. He came in handy, though, when asking for directions [we arrived at night and the Inn is tucked away in a part of the Old City that takes some maneuvering to get to] and in making me feel a bit more secure when hiking past groups of smoking guys in black leather jackets. But finally we found it, and I had arrived to the place I'm going to be calling home for the next two months!
[I'll be posting specifically about the Fauzi and my duties in another entry very soon!]
I met the other three volunteers that I'll be working with for the next few weeks at least (since two are leaving in a few weeks and new people may be showing up):
Pat- extremely sociable Australian guy working here for his summer break.
Jess- another girl taking a gap year! She's from London and will spending eight months (until August) in Israel doing a variety of activities. Once she's done volunteering at the Fauzi she's heading to a kibbutz for five months. You can bet I'm going to be visiting her.
Mike- Canadian, eh? ...Sorry, he's taking some time off from studying software engineering to travel and has a bunch of short-term volunteer gigs lined up in various parts of Israel.
(Oh, and there's also a long-term volunteer lady, Linda, who gives all the guided tours. But she's pretty much a permanent fixture as she's been here for four years.)
Pat and Jess have both been here for roughly a month and only have a few weeks left, while Mike will be leaving only two weeks before I am. I really like them all, and the vibe is great because there's enough of us that we won't get sick of each other too soon, but not too many that it's hard to get to know everyone. Though I do hope that when Pat and Jess leave, other volunteers show up. I like you Mike, but some new blood potential friends would also be nice.
The night I arrived was a first-ever movie night, so I dropped my backpack off at the volunteer apartment (about 20 feet up the street) and went back to watch Life of Pi. After the movie I went out for a late-night snack with Pat, Mike, two German guests, and a local named Fadi. The food was good, but I was pretty much falling asleep at the table, so it was relieving to just head back to the apartment and go to bed finally at 2am.
Navigating Nazareth
Wednesday began with free breakfast at the Fauzi and then a guided tour of the Old City. It was a great, alternative tour that ignored the holy places (since you can do that on your own) and instead focused on getting to know the locals and the back roads of Nazareth. It was a great introduction to this city I'm going to be based in for the next while. I then grabbed lunch with Mike, hung out and explored the city some more with Jess, and had the most touching hospitality experience I've felt in a while.
A local Christian Arabic family that Mike and Pat had met earlier had invited them to dinner, and since I was free, both I and a Fauzi guest Jackie were invited along. However, when we got to the family's house after running through the winding alleyways in the pouring rain, we discovered that the electricity in their area was completely out. No lights, no heat, no nothing. Certainly no cooking, we surmised [<- like my word choice, Pat&Mike?]. But the family surprised us, and after an hour of sitting in the candle-lit living roomexchanging broken English and Arabic talking with the daughters Ruth and Jessica, we were informed dinner was ready and we were ushered into the kitchen.
An amazing spread of traditional Arabic food lay on the table before us. The four of us sat down with Ruth and the dad, Adell, and had a wonderful meal highlighted by lamb, rice with a special yogurt sauce, and Italian champagne. The food was very tasty (and they managed to magically heat it somehow- candles?), but there were about a million dishes and each was heaped onto our plates in such great quantities that I couldn't even finish half of it. After dinner the electricity came back on (of course) and we moved back to the living room to join the rest of the family (mom, brother, Jessica and fiance) in smoking hookah (first time for me!) and listening to music. And when we finally excused ourselves after lavishing thanks upon the family, the brother insisted I take the sweatshirt of his I'd been wearing for warmth as a parting gift. To be honest, I'm a little wary that somehow I've bound myself to a romantic obligation... but I'll admit its oversizedness had come in handy as a makeshift tent-like changing room, as there is no real privacy in our tiny volunteer apartment. Alla in all, I was incredibly touched by their generosity in feeding four guests (two of which had been perfect strangers before that meal) in the middle of a power outage. And we have plans to go back soon and learn how to make authentic felafel, so yay! Free food and good company is always something to look forward to.
Experiencing Everyday Events enjoying the alliteration of the section titles?
Thursday I was shadowing Jess on the afternoon shift, but beforehand we walked up a scenic hill named Mount Precipice and on the way to the Inn stopped by a small cafe for Qatayaf (a traditional Ramadan sweet- essentially a small pancake filled with either soft cheese or walnuts, fried, and then drizzled in syrup. As delicious as they sound). We were kept at the Inn for a while after our shift had technically ended, so just came back to the apartment and slept after.
Friday I attempted to find the Jesus Trail (a hiking trail that starts at the Fauzi- more on that in the next blog post!) and failed dismally- got a good run in anyway, though. Then half slept half read in the sun, and was on evening shift with Mike. Bed.
Today I hiked the Jesus Trail with Pat and Mike and five Fauzi guests. Luckily we didn't get lost, as Pat is an expert Jesus Trail navigator. The first leg takes roughly four hours to walk, and really is pretty gorgeous once you get past the highway. We hitched back to Nazareth (a somewhat depressing only 15 minutes away by car) and grabbed a late lunch before coming back home to chill.
I can't believe I just used the word "home" so naturally. I must really feel pretty comfortable here.
Tonight we're heading out to a local restaurant to see some sort of music. Maybe dancing will be involved? Whatever it is, should be interesting.
Off to find Mike and ask him about that stir fry he's supposedly making....
xoxo, Cleome
I left for Israel a week from today (though technically I've only physically been in Israel for five and a half days, thanks to an amazingly long 19.5 hours of travel time between home and here...) and have experienced a lot of newness in these past seven days. But let's start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start....
Flights and Firsts
So, like I said, it took me 19.5 hours (three different flights) from taking off in Minneapolis to touch down in Israel. I left MN late morning on my first flight and arrived in Newark, NY mid-afternoon. After waiting a few hours in the airport, I boarded the airplane that would jet me away from the US, over the Pacific, and allow me to step foot for the first time ever on another continent. <- That flight was the longest one I've ever been on- seven hours. I flew on SAS, a Scandinavian airline, and was quite impressed by their level of service. Not only did they show recently released movies [I got to watch Argo, what what], but they actually served MEALS on the plane. Free of charge. And they came in the most adorable little portion-sized containers. I was so awed I took a picture, haha.
Although that second flight was great in many ways, it wasn't my favorite simply because
1) It was a "red eye" flight, but I couldn't sleep.
2) There was a freaky amount of turbulence as we were exactly in the middle of our trip aka over the ocean. I won't deny that images of a watery grave briefly flitted past my eyes before I shut them out and mentally chanted think positively over and over again.
3) We changed what felt like a million time zones in those seven hours, and so by the time we arrived in Copenhagen it was 7am in Denmark, while my body still thought it was 1am. After zooming through the cute and sleepy Copenhagen airport [they have hardwood floors, open lounge areas, inviting colors, and a little mermaid statue- how much more adorable can it get?] to find the gate for my third and final flight, I shlumped over and blearily stared at passersby through half-closed lids. Yeah, I felt pretty gross at that point compared to all the sharp-looking European travelers. And
4) I was located in the back of this huge airplane, in the middle row of three seats, and I just had to be put with this older guy who (even with the empty seat between us) had stinky farts. Not very conducive for trying to sleep....
My last flight was about four hours and landed me in Tel Aviv around 2:30pm Israel time on Sunday. Luckily the passport control guys didn't give me too much grief and I was riding in a shared taxi to Jerusalem half an hour later. I arrived at the Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem- recommended to me by the GoEco project- a bit before 5pm and immediately took a shower and tried to sleep. Key word: tried. I was physically exhausted, having at that point slept only about four hours of the past 36, but mentally I couldn't quiet down. I think I fell into a restless sleep around 9pm that night, but certainly woke up the next morning still feeling tired.
Orientation in the Old City
Monday was a jam-packed day.
It began with a two hour meeting in the hostel with GoEco (the volunteer agency) representatives. They gave myself and two other soon-to-be-volunteers [we were all leaving for different projects, however] an explanation of our volunteering projects and some basic information about Israel. Then one of them, Yan, acted as our tour guide for the rest of the day.
First, we explored and had lunch in the major Jerusalem marketplace [he managed to get us millions of free samples of cultural dishes by explaining in Hebrew to the vendors that we were foreigners and had no idea what any of the dishes were] before heading out to Jaffa Gate to take part in a free tour of the Old City. [The term Old City in any area refers to the location where buildings, monuments and historical places built hundreds of years ago remain intact and are still used/inhabited by people today. However, the Old City in Jerusalem is one of the most well-known as it contains many incredibly important religious sites.]
I was extremely awed on our walk through the Old City. We hit all four quarters (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Armenian) and our guide was quite knowledgeable about the history of each quarter and their development. It was amazing to think that we were walking through streets and archways that had been there and seen by people for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And to just actually be in this place I'd heard about for so long felt incredibly unreal. I mean, it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that I was literally standing 100 feet away from the Western Wall. Wow.
Since the free tour was a general overview of the Old City but didn't actually take us into buildings, once it was over Yan guided our volunteer group back to a couple of impressive sites. We watched the sun set while standing on the top of the Austrian Hospice, taking in the scenic view of the entire Old City; we walked through the [amazingly unpopulated] Church of the Holy Sepulchre once darkness had fallen, and then window-shopped in the new mall outside the Old City on our way to dinner. After dinner (my first authentic Israeli hummus experience!) we explored a few more buildings that had nice views (including one incredibly swanky hotel that impressed me almost as much as the Old City had, haha) and then headed back to the hostel to sleep.
Tuesday was the day I needed to catch my bus to Nazareth to actually begin volunteering, but that wasn't until 4pm, so I had a bit more time to wander around Jerusalem. I went out with Antonia, the girl volunteer I'd hung with the day before, and we saw the Western Wall up close (I did indeed put a piece of paper with a wish on it into an unused crack in the wall). We also walked up to the Dome of the Rock (an extremely holy Islamic site) and marveled at the detail and gorgeousness of the mosque. Finally the time to head to the bus station rolled around, and after a bit of messing around with a temperamental ticket machine, I was on my way.
Finding Fauzi Azar
I sat next to a very... talkative... guy on the bus who also happened to be going to the Fauzi Azar Inn. He came in handy, though, when asking for directions [we arrived at night and the Inn is tucked away in a part of the Old City that takes some maneuvering to get to] and in making me feel a bit more secure when hiking past groups of smoking guys in black leather jackets. But finally we found it, and I had arrived to the place I'm going to be calling home for the next two months!
[I'll be posting specifically about the Fauzi and my duties in another entry very soon!]
I met the other three volunteers that I'll be working with for the next few weeks at least (since two are leaving in a few weeks and new people may be showing up):
Pat- extremely sociable Australian guy working here for his summer break.
Jess- another girl taking a gap year! She's from London and will spending eight months (until August) in Israel doing a variety of activities. Once she's done volunteering at the Fauzi she's heading to a kibbutz for five months. You can bet I'm going to be visiting her.
Mike- Canadian, eh? ...Sorry, he's taking some time off from studying software engineering to travel and has a bunch of short-term volunteer gigs lined up in various parts of Israel.
(Oh, and there's also a long-term volunteer lady, Linda, who gives all the guided tours. But she's pretty much a permanent fixture as she's been here for four years.)
Pat and Jess have both been here for roughly a month and only have a few weeks left, while Mike will be leaving only two weeks before I am. I really like them all, and the vibe is great because there's enough of us that we won't get sick of each other too soon, but not too many that it's hard to get to know everyone. Though I do hope that when Pat and Jess leave, other volunteers show up. I like you Mike, but some new
The night I arrived was a first-ever movie night, so I dropped my backpack off at the volunteer apartment (about 20 feet up the street) and went back to watch Life of Pi. After the movie I went out for a late-night snack with Pat, Mike, two German guests, and a local named Fadi. The food was good, but I was pretty much falling asleep at the table, so it was relieving to just head back to the apartment and go to bed finally at 2am.
Navigating Nazareth
Wednesday began with free breakfast at the Fauzi and then a guided tour of the Old City. It was a great, alternative tour that ignored the holy places (since you can do that on your own) and instead focused on getting to know the locals and the back roads of Nazareth. It was a great introduction to this city I'm going to be based in for the next while. I then grabbed lunch with Mike, hung out and explored the city some more with Jess, and had the most touching hospitality experience I've felt in a while.
A local Christian Arabic family that Mike and Pat had met earlier had invited them to dinner, and since I was free, both I and a Fauzi guest Jackie were invited along. However, when we got to the family's house after running through the winding alleyways in the pouring rain, we discovered that the electricity in their area was completely out. No lights, no heat, no nothing. Certainly no cooking, we surmised [<- like my word choice, Pat&Mike?]. But the family surprised us, and after an hour of sitting in the candle-lit living room
An amazing spread of traditional Arabic food lay on the table before us. The four of us sat down with Ruth and the dad, Adell, and had a wonderful meal highlighted by lamb, rice with a special yogurt sauce, and Italian champagne. The food was very tasty (and they managed to magically heat it somehow- candles?), but there were about a million dishes and each was heaped onto our plates in such great quantities that I couldn't even finish half of it. After dinner the electricity came back on (of course) and we moved back to the living room to join the rest of the family (mom, brother, Jessica and fiance) in smoking hookah (first time for me!) and listening to music. And when we finally excused ourselves after lavishing thanks upon the family, the brother insisted I take the sweatshirt of his I'd been wearing for warmth as a parting gift. To be honest, I'm a little wary that somehow I've bound myself to a romantic obligation... but I'll admit its oversizedness had come in handy as a makeshift tent-like changing room, as there is no real privacy in our tiny volunteer apartment. Alla in all, I was incredibly touched by their generosity in feeding four guests (two of which had been perfect strangers before that meal) in the middle of a power outage. And we have plans to go back soon and learn how to make authentic felafel, so yay! Free food and good company is always something to look forward to.
Experiencing Everyday Events enjoying the alliteration of the section titles?
Thursday I was shadowing Jess on the afternoon shift, but beforehand we walked up a scenic hill named Mount Precipice and on the way to the Inn stopped by a small cafe for Qatayaf (a traditional Ramadan sweet- essentially a small pancake filled with either soft cheese or walnuts, fried, and then drizzled in syrup. As delicious as they sound). We were kept at the Inn for a while after our shift had technically ended, so just came back to the apartment and slept after.
Friday I attempted to find the Jesus Trail (a hiking trail that starts at the Fauzi- more on that in the next blog post!) and failed dismally- got a good run in anyway, though. Then half slept half read in the sun, and was on evening shift with Mike. Bed.
Today I hiked the Jesus Trail with Pat and Mike and five Fauzi guests. Luckily we didn't get lost, as Pat is an expert Jesus Trail navigator. The first leg takes roughly four hours to walk, and really is pretty gorgeous once you get past the highway. We hitched back to Nazareth (a somewhat depressing only 15 minutes away by car) and grabbed a late lunch before coming back home to chill.
I can't believe I just used the word "home" so naturally. I must really feel pretty comfortable here.
Tonight we're heading out to a local restaurant to see some sort of music. Maybe dancing will be involved? Whatever it is, should be interesting.
Off to find Mike and ask him about that stir fry he's supposedly making....
xoxo, Cleome
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Atenas- Intro and General Life
I guess it´s about time I posted about the second part of my time {of service} in Costa Rica- I have been here for two weeks (since October 5th) now....
Atenas
So alrighty, I´m now stationed in the small, mountain community of Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica. The town is one hour west of the capital (San Jose), meaning it´s located nicely in the very center of the country. The town itself is pretty sleepy and uneventful- there´s exactly one {unpopular} sports bar, one church, one "mercado," and one bus station. Although if you were looking for shoe stores or dental clinics, Atenas is the place to be. But I didn´t realize exactly how small it was until I set out my first day here to explore the place, and ended up walking down every street in town in less than two hours. Definitely a change from the Twin Cities.
While the lack of activity and excitement at first made me hesitant about whether or not I was going to like it here, I´ve decided that the comfort of a small town is a much better place for a home base than some large, crazy city. Especially after a fun-filled weekend of traveling (<-- more on this later), having a safe, quiet town to return to {and recover in} is quite welcome. And it´s nice to be able to walk around at night (though, yes, usually with at least one other person), and not feel like I´m going to be molested by every guy I see. {However, while the guys´ manners here are better than on the beach, or in San Jose, walking around is still always accompanied by whistling/hissing/honking- men in Atenas just don´t feel the need to enter your personal space as much.}
Familia Nueva
So what exactly is my home base like? Well, I live with Arelis Rodriguez (my "mom" while I´m here) and her two boys, Alejandro (17) and Fernando (almost 16). They´re a middle-class family who have a house only five minutes from the center of town. I´ve also gotten acquainted with the grandparents, aunts, cousins, etc., since staying connected with {extended} family is a big thing here. And interestingly enough, no one in the family really speaks English. They´ve been having {primarily American} volunteers living with them for at least five years now, but from what it sounds like, there´s always been some communication issues, since most of the volunteers haven´t spoken much Spanish. They were happily surprised that I could hold at least basic conversations.* And my Spanish has definitely improved since being here. I just need to work on verb conjugations and some vocab, and I´m golden.
*Funny story: the first night at dinner, I was sitting at the table alone (having been served first). The younger brother grabbed his plate and sat down awkwardly next to me, and then looked up and asked in Spanish if anyone else was going to come sit at the table. When his mom asked why, he replied "So I won´t have to eat alone." I looked at him pointedly, and said in {halting} Spanish, "You are not alone. I´m here." It caught him so off-guard, and everyone started laughing. He mumbled a sorry to me while looking down at his plate, cheeks red. He confided to me later that he had no idea I could understand what they were saying.
From speaking with other volunteers about their families- and specifically their host moms- I´ve realized there are two general types: those where the host mom babies the volunteer, and those where the host mom doesn´t. I´m experiencing the latter; it´s a good thing. I´ve just come from 18 years of having a mom {I swear, nothing negative is implied here, Mom}, and it´s a nice change (plus what I´m sort of looking for in my year off) to be an essentially independent being. Arelis is nice and I like her a lot (and she´s a good mom to her boys), but besides cooking and changing my sheets, she lets me take care of my own shit, sola. Which is just how I want it. I mean, I´ll soon be traveling entirely alone in Europe, and it´d be a lot harder to visualize taking care of myself if I´d been under motherly care up until that point. {I think the reason she´s not a babier is because she´s pretty young (about to turn 33), and still has kids at home, so I in no way represent a chance to have a child living at home again- she´s currently got two.}
I have my own room upstairs to sleep in, but when I´m at home I generally spend time downstairs in the living room- reading, talking, using the computer, or watching dubbed American movies/over-the-top dramatic Spanish soaps on the TV {which is almost always on}. Besides the first few days, I haven´t spent too much time at the house. Generally I´m out volunteering, at the community center through which the volunteer program is run, taking dance/exercise classes, running, or hanging out with the two other volunteers currently living here.
Arrival
Right now, I´ve completely settled into a good routine here, and am really happy with how everything is going- but it wasn´t always like this. The first three days I was in Atenas, I was miserable. I felt homesick, awkward, unhappy, uncomfortable, bored, etc. It was just not a good point in my trip- but I´ve found that´s pretty common of {my} transition periods.
I think I was feeling so down because I´d just come from the turtle project, where I´d gotten familiar with the routine, I had met some great people, and I was having a lot of fun. Instead, I found myself in a small, boring town {with no beach} where I didn´t know anyone, was living in a home full of strangers who spoke only a foreign language, and {since my time at the orphanage didn´t start until Tuesday, and I arrived Friday afternoon} I had essentially nothing to do all day. I found myself doubting my decision to stay in one place for a whole two months- a lifetime, considering I´d only done a little over two weeks at the turtle place. Plus, I could finally make contact with my family (and friends) through email, facebook, and Skype, and I suddenly felt an overwhelming need to speak with my family, and hear their voices.
But luckily, literally the day after I Skyped with the fam for my first time ever {a horrendous ordeal... long story short, bad internet connection + confusion about whether or not to press the microphone button on the headset when speaking = major frustration/possible tears}, it all changed for the better. I had my orientation with the volunteer coordinator, was given a mini tour of the town, met both Lindsay and Dean {which was an amazing experience, considering just learning of their existence filled me with joy, aha}, had my first Spanish class, and went out that night to the sports bar where I ordered my first "legal" beer. A life-changing day, let me tell you. And from then on, I´ve been in an extremely positive state of mind. It´s amazing the difference one day can make {<-- a thought I´ll be storing for later use in Europe}.
{Week}Day in the Life {of an Orphanage Volunteer Living in Atenas, Costa Rica}
This is my general schedule Monday-Friday morning:
5:30am- wake up {usually naturally- it gets light/loud outside early}
6:00- run
7:00- shower, eat breakfast, fill up my water and grab a snack for later
7:45- meet Lindsay {more on her later} and walk to the bus station
8:00- get on the bus to Palmares {where the kids´ home is located}
9:20- arrive at the childrens´ place after a 20 min. walk from the bus stop
9:30-11:40- play with kids!
12:15pm- catch the bus back to Atenas, eat aforementioned snack
1:20- arrive home for lunch, write emails/blog posts, read
2:30- head to the community center Su Espacio with Lindsay for Spanish classes (the first week)/ independent-study (now)
4:30- Spanish studying ends, leave either for home or to the town center {if I need to buy something}
After 4:30- dinner happens sometime between 6 and 7, and some nights I´ll go out to dance/spinning classes, to the sports bar, or out to hang with Lindsay and/or Dean, Otherwise it´s more writing/reading/relaxing.
8:00-10:00pm- bedtime occurs within this window, on average around 9:00 or 9:30, but last night it was 7:30, and the night before it wasn´t until 11:00 {since I was watching the Costa Rica vs Guyana "futbol" game- veerrryyyy important; luckily they won}
Repeat
The weekends are when the schedule goes out the window, and craziness ensues. I´ll have to go over those in a different post, haha.
Other {Important} People
Not sure how surprising this is, but I may actually interact more with the two other volunteers stationed here right now than my host family.
Lindsay and Dean are the two other volunteers in Atenas right now, and with whom I´ve been spending lots of time with (especially {as Dean likes to point out, in a total show of FOMO, aka fear of missing out} Lindsay). They´re both American, in their early 20´s, and pretty cool. Lindsay is not only volunteering for almost the exact same period of time as me (she´ll be leaving only one week earlier), but she´s also working at the childrens´ home- we´re together a lot. Dean is teaching English in the community center, and actually only has about 1 1/2 weeks left here in Atenas. But Lindsay and I traveled with him last weekend, and I´m pretty sure we´ll be doing so again this coming one, so I´ve definitely gotten to know him. It´s fun having the three of us together- we´ve got a good dynamic going: Dean meets people, who then invite Lindsay and I to go do stuff, and we bring him along. It´s also become a thing to make fun of him, so Lindsay and I are a little worried about how we´re going to pass the time once he´s gone....
I´m so glad there are those two to hang out with here, because like I learned at the turtle project, it´s the people who really help make an experience.
So yeah, that´s my situation for the past few weeks now. I´ve officially been in Costa Rica/away from home for more than a month, and I honestly couldn´t tell you whether it feels like I´ve been away for shorter or longer. My perception of time has gotten so screwed up here. But however long it´s been, I´m not ready for it to end anytime soon.
Off to a spin class with Lindsay {Dean, feel the FOMO}.
xoxo, Cleome
Atenas
So alrighty, I´m now stationed in the small, mountain community of Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica. The town is one hour west of the capital (San Jose), meaning it´s located nicely in the very center of the country. The town itself is pretty sleepy and uneventful- there´s exactly one {unpopular} sports bar, one church, one "mercado," and one bus station. Although if you were looking for shoe stores or dental clinics, Atenas is the place to be. But I didn´t realize exactly how small it was until I set out my first day here to explore the place, and ended up walking down every street in town in less than two hours. Definitely a change from the Twin Cities.
While the lack of activity and excitement at first made me hesitant about whether or not I was going to like it here, I´ve decided that the comfort of a small town is a much better place for a home base than some large, crazy city. Especially after a fun-filled weekend of traveling (<-- more on this later), having a safe, quiet town to return to {and recover in} is quite welcome. And it´s nice to be able to walk around at night (though, yes, usually with at least one other person), and not feel like I´m going to be molested by every guy I see. {However, while the guys´ manners here are better than on the beach, or in San Jose, walking around is still always accompanied by whistling/hissing/honking- men in Atenas just don´t feel the need to enter your personal space as much.}
Familia Nueva
So what exactly is my home base like? Well, I live with Arelis Rodriguez (my "mom" while I´m here) and her two boys, Alejandro (17) and Fernando (almost 16). They´re a middle-class family who have a house only five minutes from the center of town. I´ve also gotten acquainted with the grandparents, aunts, cousins, etc., since staying connected with {extended} family is a big thing here. And interestingly enough, no one in the family really speaks English. They´ve been having {primarily American} volunteers living with them for at least five years now, but from what it sounds like, there´s always been some communication issues, since most of the volunteers haven´t spoken much Spanish. They were happily surprised that I could hold at least basic conversations.* And my Spanish has definitely improved since being here. I just need to work on verb conjugations and some vocab, and I´m golden.
*Funny story: the first night at dinner, I was sitting at the table alone (having been served first). The younger brother grabbed his plate and sat down awkwardly next to me, and then looked up and asked in Spanish if anyone else was going to come sit at the table. When his mom asked why, he replied "So I won´t have to eat alone." I looked at him pointedly, and said in {halting} Spanish, "You are not alone. I´m here." It caught him so off-guard, and everyone started laughing. He mumbled a sorry to me while looking down at his plate, cheeks red. He confided to me later that he had no idea I could understand what they were saying.
From speaking with other volunteers about their families- and specifically their host moms- I´ve realized there are two general types: those where the host mom babies the volunteer, and those where the host mom doesn´t. I´m experiencing the latter; it´s a good thing. I´ve just come from 18 years of having a mom {I swear, nothing negative is implied here, Mom}, and it´s a nice change (plus what I´m sort of looking for in my year off) to be an essentially independent being. Arelis is nice and I like her a lot (and she´s a good mom to her boys), but besides cooking and changing my sheets, she lets me take care of my own shit, sola. Which is just how I want it. I mean, I´ll soon be traveling entirely alone in Europe, and it´d be a lot harder to visualize taking care of myself if I´d been under motherly care up until that point. {I think the reason she´s not a babier is because she´s pretty young (about to turn 33), and still has kids at home, so I in no way represent a chance to have a child living at home again- she´s currently got two.}
I have my own room upstairs to sleep in, but when I´m at home I generally spend time downstairs in the living room- reading, talking, using the computer, or watching dubbed American movies/over-the-top dramatic Spanish soaps on the TV {which is almost always on}. Besides the first few days, I haven´t spent too much time at the house. Generally I´m out volunteering, at the community center through which the volunteer program is run, taking dance/exercise classes, running, or hanging out with the two other volunteers currently living here.
Arrival
Right now, I´ve completely settled into a good routine here, and am really happy with how everything is going- but it wasn´t always like this. The first three days I was in Atenas, I was miserable. I felt homesick, awkward, unhappy, uncomfortable, bored, etc. It was just not a good point in my trip- but I´ve found that´s pretty common of {my} transition periods.
I think I was feeling so down because I´d just come from the turtle project, where I´d gotten familiar with the routine, I had met some great people, and I was having a lot of fun. Instead, I found myself in a small, boring town {with no beach} where I didn´t know anyone, was living in a home full of strangers who spoke only a foreign language, and {since my time at the orphanage didn´t start until Tuesday, and I arrived Friday afternoon} I had essentially nothing to do all day. I found myself doubting my decision to stay in one place for a whole two months- a lifetime, considering I´d only done a little over two weeks at the turtle place. Plus, I could finally make contact with my family (and friends) through email, facebook, and Skype, and I suddenly felt an overwhelming need to speak with my family, and hear their voices.
But luckily, literally the day after I Skyped with the fam for my first time ever {a horrendous ordeal... long story short, bad internet connection + confusion about whether or not to press the microphone button on the headset when speaking = major frustration/possible tears}, it all changed for the better. I had my orientation with the volunteer coordinator, was given a mini tour of the town, met both Lindsay and Dean {which was an amazing experience, considering just learning of their existence filled me with joy, aha}, had my first Spanish class, and went out that night to the sports bar where I ordered my first "legal" beer. A life-changing day, let me tell you. And from then on, I´ve been in an extremely positive state of mind. It´s amazing the difference one day can make {<-- a thought I´ll be storing for later use in Europe}.
{Week}Day in the Life {of an Orphanage Volunteer Living in Atenas, Costa Rica}
This is my general schedule Monday-Friday morning:
5:30am- wake up {usually naturally- it gets light/loud outside early}
6:00- run
7:00- shower, eat breakfast, fill up my water and grab a snack for later
7:45- meet Lindsay {more on her later} and walk to the bus station
8:00- get on the bus to Palmares {where the kids´ home is located}
9:20- arrive at the childrens´ place after a 20 min. walk from the bus stop
9:30-11:40- play with kids!
12:15pm- catch the bus back to Atenas, eat aforementioned snack
1:20- arrive home for lunch, write emails/blog posts, read
2:30- head to the community center Su Espacio with Lindsay for Spanish classes (the first week)/ independent-study (now)
4:30- Spanish studying ends, leave either for home or to the town center {if I need to buy something}
After 4:30- dinner happens sometime between 6 and 7, and some nights I´ll go out to dance/spinning classes, to the sports bar, or out to hang with Lindsay and/or Dean, Otherwise it´s more writing/reading/relaxing.
8:00-10:00pm- bedtime occurs within this window, on average around 9:00 or 9:30, but last night it was 7:30, and the night before it wasn´t until 11:00 {since I was watching the Costa Rica vs Guyana "futbol" game- veerrryyyy important; luckily they won}
Repeat
The weekends are when the schedule goes out the window, and craziness ensues. I´ll have to go over those in a different post, haha.
Other {Important} People
Not sure how surprising this is, but I may actually interact more with the two other volunteers stationed here right now than my host family.
Lindsay and Dean are the two other volunteers in Atenas right now, and with whom I´ve been spending lots of time with (especially {as Dean likes to point out, in a total show of FOMO, aka fear of missing out} Lindsay). They´re both American, in their early 20´s, and pretty cool. Lindsay is not only volunteering for almost the exact same period of time as me (she´ll be leaving only one week earlier), but she´s also working at the childrens´ home- we´re together a lot. Dean is teaching English in the community center, and actually only has about 1 1/2 weeks left here in Atenas. But Lindsay and I traveled with him last weekend, and I´m pretty sure we´ll be doing so again this coming one, so I´ve definitely gotten to know him. It´s fun having the three of us together- we´ve got a good dynamic going: Dean meets people, who then invite Lindsay and I to go do stuff, and we bring him along. It´s also become a thing to make fun of him, so Lindsay and I are a little worried about how we´re going to pass the time once he´s gone....
I´m so glad there are those two to hang out with here, because like I learned at the turtle project, it´s the people who really help make an experience.
So yeah, that´s my situation for the past few weeks now. I´ve officially been in Costa Rica/away from home for more than a month, and I honestly couldn´t tell you whether it feels like I´ve been away for shorter or longer. My perception of time has gotten so screwed up here. But however long it´s been, I´m not ready for it to end anytime soon.
Off to a spin class with Lindsay {Dean, feel the FOMO}.
xoxo, Cleome
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Here We Go...
Well, this is it.
I've talked for some time about creating a blog to document my adventures this upcoming school year (2012-2013), and I've finally done it. Welcome to She Walks About!
Everyone who swore you'd read my blog better do so, because I'm writing this in part for you guys. So you know I'm still alive. (Just kidding! Sort of....)
As of now, I'm imagining this blog will be an eclectic collection of travel stories, whereabouts updates, explanations/how-tos for gap year stuff, and just random things I decide to post about. But who knows what it will actually turn into. All I can be certain of right now is that you're going to want to read it.
Because who wouldn't want to live vicariously through me?
(And yes, I'm almost this sassy in real life.)
xoxo, Cleome
I've talked for some time about creating a blog to document my adventures this upcoming school year (2012-2013), and I've finally done it. Welcome to She Walks About!
Everyone who swore you'd read my blog better do so, because I'm writing this in part for you guys. So you know I'm still alive. (Just kidding! Sort of....)
As of now, I'm imagining this blog will be an eclectic collection of travel stories, whereabouts updates, explanations/how-tos for gap year stuff, and just random things I decide to post about. But who knows what it will actually turn into. All I can be certain of right now is that you're going to want to read it.
Because who wouldn't want to live vicariously through me?
 |
| Ready for an adventure! |
(And yes, I'm almost this sassy in real life.)
xoxo, Cleome
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