I got off to a rough start to realize there was no water. No, no water in the apartment, and no water in the city. Supposedly it had something to do with the horse parade yesterday, but who knows. Luckily everyone was affected, so I wasn't the only one who was feeling less-than-fresh this morning.
I unfortunately also awoke with the onset of a cold. It had been creeping up for a few days, but I hadn't really had time to take care of it (nor did I realize what it was becoming). Now I have to! I found out today that cold medicine in Costa Rica is expensive. All the more reason to stay healthy!
The first day of class was interesting. As I have mentioned, all students are taking the same foundation course. Today was basically an introduction to conflict and conflict issues. In our seminar, which follows the lecture so we can have a group discussion of about twenty students, we talked about definitions of peace and justice. It is amazing how much our definition of these concepts varies from where we are from. For example, students who come from war-torn countries seem more concerned with peace being the absence of war. There are students from Korea, who feel a constant threat from the north, and students who lived through Suharto's regime in Indonesia.
The professor also made a really interesting point about nonviolence. He related a story from last year, when the students had pretty much come to a consensus about nonviolence, when a girl raised her hand and shared that she had been sexually assaulted as a teenager, and had wished that she had reacted violently towards her attackers. He used this as an example of the importance of sharing our life stories and experiences in the classroom, and he definitely got the message across.
As I write this I am procrastinating and not doing my readings, which tonight are about models of conflict resolution and definitions. Back to the books!
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