Today marks the end of my fifth week in Costa Rica and also, the end of the first quarter of my trip. I get to do what I've done (with a few variations) three more times and then it's "Hasta luego, Costa Rica!" Now, oddly enough, I don't think I had had a moment of true, well-that's-different-and-strange-and-makes-me-kind-of-resent-being-here culture shock until this morning during breakfast. As a result, today, I have to confess to some homesickness that is a little worse than normal. And over such a silly, little thing too...
Morning routines are funny things. Not only to they vary across cultures, they vary within cultures too. What my family does on a lazy Saturday morning is, most likely, not what your family does on a lazy Saturday morning. For one thing, I'm pretty sure I didn't know what a lazy Saturday morning was until college (but I digress...). Knowing this, my first morning here (a Sunday), I found out what time breakfast was and made sure I had enough time to shower, get dressed and see what the usual weekend breakfast dresscode was before I tried stumbling out to the dining room in pjs with the impressions of my pillow still on my face. For all I knew, every Sunday morning there was a massive family get together with the better part of the numerous relations you liked and even more of those you barely spoke to, dressed in their Sunday best and getting ready to look sharp at 11:00 mass. It always pays to be aware you might have to be introduced to someone the minute you walk out of your room... Anyway, it turned out that everyone was dressed but it was a pretty casual affair. I stuck this in my mental file cabinet.
During the week, I always get up and get showered and dressed before I do anything else. At home, in Costa Rica, on the moon, it's just usually how I do things (yes, Dad, vacations are a whole different story...), so no worries there. The first few weekends I was here, my parents were out of town so I was alone for breakfast (don't worry, I was still well taken care of) and so it's not been until recently that I've been able to pick up the weekend routine. Last weekend, my mom came and knocked on my door and woke me up telling me breakfast was ready. Rather than offend someone by not showing up and because I had noticed that it was a pretty casual affair (I would have guessed my madre was wearing something akin to pjs, most days) I opted for crawling out of bed, taming my hair slightly, slipping on some flipflops (barefoot is kind of taboo) and going out to breakfast. In my pjs. I mentioned to my mother that I had just woken up, she expressed her concern, said she hadn't known and if I wanted to sleep through breakfast in the future, that was fine. Ate food. Chitchatted. Moved on with our respective days.
And then, there was this morning. I showed up to breakfast in pjs again. It's not really something I'm comfortable with doing here, but it is one way that I can slowly begin to feel like I'm more at home instead of staying in a nice B&B. Even while at home, I don't usually like to bum around as my scuzzy, unkempt, alter-ego, "Sarah the lazy college student," but every now and then, it's nice not to feel pressured to get going with your day. And one way that I know I'm at home, is that I can do that. Well, today, I found out that pajamas at the breakfast table are frowned upon, even on Saturdays. It was by no means a hard lesson. My mother simply mentioned it and as my pajammed-self sat there and sheepishly apologized she told me not to worry about it because they had never said anything to me. Pura vida. I guess she didn't mention it to me the week before because she attributed it to me feeling like I needed to get up quickly.
The thing is, while I'm sure my family is not going to hold a grudge (as long as I leave the pajamas in the bedroom where they belong, in the future), I now have to acclimatize to this new attitude. For me, with family and at home has always been a place where you could be you. Clean, scuzzy, sad, happy, exhausted, frustrated, spontaneous, dressed-up, dressed-down, anxious, emotional, whathaveyou. There were, and are, standards, of course. But, of all the places in the world, at home was where you could show the truest you. That goes for my family at home, in BG and for my "family" of friends that I've acquired throughout the years.
The funny thing is, I know that this...formality, if you will, is just that. Even though it feels like a big value difference, it's just that things are expressed differently and cultures develop in different directions (sidenote: it's amazing how much climate and environment affect lifestyle in ways you never think of). In spite of that, for some strange reason, it's a little hard not to feel suddenly in a much stranger place than I did twenty-four hours ago and it will take some time to start feeling "at home" again.
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