Hella Stealing From Our Roommate's Ghost

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Getting off the plane Alisa and I couldn’t have been more relieved; we had 5 months of language learning to look forward to in the lush green land of the Ticos: Costa Rica. As bleary as our eyes were after Traveling Day, we were still able to flash grateful smiles to my friend Jeff, an American living in Costa Rica, who had agreed to pick us up at the airport and house us that first night. The humidity met as at the threshold as we left San Jose International Airport, walking through the double doors to a crescendo of cab drivers vying for attention. Ignoring them I found Jeff and gave the little man a big hug, our first in many years.

“What’s up dawwwwggggg?” I said in my usual high-pitched crescendo.

“Man, it’s good to see you Matty! Long time.”

Jeff gave my wife a hug and kiss on the cheek, and we were introduced to his new wife’s sister, who had come along for the ride.

Jeff had warned us online that his house was in the ghetto, but we weren’t worried because he said it was “a nice ghetto.” We found that to be true.

Upon arrival, his new wife of three months, Margie, was already preparing carne asada, arroz, and a side salad for a noontime lunch. Margie is a tall, dark-skinned jewel of the country whose heart and genuine kindness I hope to find more of during our travels. I soon found out we had something in common.

Alisa and I are taking a year off from nursing and teaching, respectively, to live abroad and learn Spanish. We will spend the first three months in Costa Rica studying Spanish five days a week at three different sites. Then we'll travel around to the neighboring Nicaragua and Panama, before flying to Peru in February. In Peru Alisa plans on doing some volunteer nursing for a large part of the three months we plan on spending there before heading home in June. Alisa knows a good amount of Spanish. I know nothing.

During lunch Jeff revealed they planned on moving to live in the United States, and Margie was enrolled in English classes to prepare herself. Her shy smile at first made me think she must be brand new to English. She didn’t say much during lunch, and Jeff and I spent the half hour catching up in fast English.

Jeff had to go off to work, so Alisa and I decided to take a nap after the flight which even then seemed like it had been a bad dream (even though neither of us got any sleep). When we awoke, we were greeted by Margie, in quiet English at first. But as we began to sit and talk and get ready to go to dinner, it turned out Margie was quite advanced. In fact, she was better at English than Alisa was at Spanish, and Alisa is pretty darn good.

We went to a seafood restaurant without a name. It just said “Bienvenidos” in neon lights. It seems like every restaurant is called “Bienvenidos” in Costa Rica. None of them have names, they just have a neon light that proclaims that one glorious word. That is one of the few words I now know the meaning of. Thank you repetition.

Margie’s sister had once again joined us for dinner, and the four of us drank Daiquiris and Margaritas in what turned out to be a very linguistic conversation. It turns out Margie’s sister is also studying English, so as we queried them about the menu, and the meaning of “pulpo”, they gleefully asked us questions about English. We learned that Costa Ricans respond to greetings with “Pura Vida,” and use the more formal “Usted” instead of the familiar “Tu.” I nodded and pretended like I knew what they were talking about. I’m getting very good at that.

Feeling we needed to prepare Margie for her upcoming big move to Northern California, Alisa and I decided to let her in on a regional secret.

“You see all this seafood on my plate, Margie?” The girls had forced me to order my Paella in Spanish to the waiter, and it had arrived in a mound almost as tall as the Arenal Volcano. “In the Bay Area, you would say this is ‘hella seafood.’”

“Helle?” She responded.

“Hella,” Alisa said. “Like ‘hell’ with an ‘a.’”

“Hella.”

“That’s it,” I encouraged her. “Just use that for everything and you’ll be fine. You can say, I’m hella hot, I’m hella tired, it just means there’s a lot of it. Mucho.”

“Hella, okay.”

Just then, Jeff sent Margie a text from work (yes, they text here like crazy), asking her how things were going. We collaborated on a return text that said “Eveything is hella good.”

Jeff’s next text said, “Hahahahahahahaha.” He had moved to the Bay Area from Costa Rica when he was ten. He’s only been back in Hatillo for a couple years.

We couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome in such a warm country. We stayed the night in our own room and awoke to another home-cooked traditional breakfast of eggs, gallo pinto, and cheese that almost made me vomit. Margie’s cooking had nothing to do with it, I just have issues with cheeses and cream in Central America. They seem to either be moldy or curdled. I’ve never tasted the appeal.

Alisa and I were picked up at noon by a teacher from our language school who took us to our new three bedroom apartment in Zapote, a comfortable ten minutes from Jeff and Margie. It is a block from the school, which oddly enough is built to look like a boombox. Seriously. They built it to look like a boombox. And it does look just like a boombox.

Once inside our apartment, Alisa and I examined the pleasant, all-tile interior indicative of Central America (I assume for coolness and lack of mildew). We unlocked our cozy room in Number 2. Barely able to hide our excitement, we unpacked our overtly large travel-packs (hers weighs twice as much as mine, which obviously means we switch when it comes time to carry them).

“Damit, we don’t have hangers,” I noticed.

“Yeah, but those would have been awkward to pack, and more weight to carry around.” Alisa responded. I held back from saying “You mean more weight for me to carry around.” How could you be snide to your wife on a day like this?

We then went to check out the roommate situation.

Because Alisa and I are a couple, our language program had told us over the phone that our roommates would be singles, no doubt for purposes of overcrowding and drama. One door was wide open, and we could see a white towel laid out on the bed much like ours had had.

“No one there, I guess,” Alisa said.

The other, closer room was closed. A noise was coming from the inside. We knocked lightly to no avail. After examining what was supposed to be a laundry room, but was empty of everything but the white tile, we found we could see inside our neighbor’s room through a window. The shades were not drawn. We could see from our respectful distance, cheeks and noses smooshed up against the glass, that the noise was coming from the television. Each room has a tv. The weird thing was that there was a folded white towel on the foot of the bed also, and nothing else in the room indicated someone lived in there. Just the bare desk, made bed, and closed closet doors.

“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Alisa wondered aloud.

“El ghost?” I asked, laughingly. I like to guess at how words are said in Spanish, but usually I just end up adding “el” or “la” to it.

“Fantasma,” Alisa corrected.

“Tuanis,” I said, showing off the Costa Rican word for “cool.”

We walked around Zapote and had a nice dinner of tacos in a Soda down the street. Not knowing if you are supposed to tip, we handed the waiter 600 Colones on our way out. Judging by his surprised but polite laughter, we figured we probably weren’t supposed to tip. He had laughed as if thinking in his head, “Ah, you must be Americans.” He still took the money though.

After arriving back at our new apartamento, our rain jackets wet from their first good bombardment (the thunder here is LOUD), I decided to examine the open room for hangers. On the desk were a few papers and folders, as if someone had forgotten them. But then I turned around to find a picture of a man framed on the end table by the head of the bed.

“Hey babe,” I yelled. “I think some guy might live here.”

“Oh yeah?” Alisa entered the room.

“Look, his picture’s on the bedstand.”

“Well, lets look.” She then opened the closet to reveal shelves of makeup, sunglasses, shampoos, scarves and bracelets. The next door revealed rows of women’s clothing hung up by color.

“Oh shit,” we both said. “Lets get out of here.” And we left what was obviously someone’s room, laughing at how stupid we were to think a guy would have a picture of himself on his own bedstand.

“Its his girlfriend, obviously.” Alisa observed. “And she has a picture of him.”

But as night fell at six o’clock, and the rain continued to intermittently fall in fat drops, the roommate with the open door didn’t show, and the television continued to scream rather loudly from the room with the fantasma.

“God, that’s getting on my nerves,” Alisa finally said. “Do you think we could tell them about it tomorrow and have someone come and turn it off? I bet you the maid was just watching it while cleaning up and forgot to turn it off. No one’s in there.”

“Do you want me to break in and do it?” I asked politely.

“Can you?”

“Sure,” I shrugged. “I grew up in Hayward.”

And with that, I took Alisa’s new laminated school ID for class which would start the next day and worked it in-between the door and the frame, and with a pop the dark room opened. I turned the television off, then proceeded to examine the desk drawer, which was empty.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s here!” I called to Alisa, who was reading in the living room. “Everything’s empty but—HEY!”

“What is it?”

“Hangers!” I called out. And it was true. The only thing left behind by the previous tenant, or the ghost, were three hangers suspended in silence in the last closet door. I locked the door behind me and emerged with my treasure. “Sweet, check it out.”

“Good job, baby.”

And so here we are. We start school tomorrow. We’re in Costa Rica. Finally. We sit around and imagine the different scenarios as to why our non-existent roommate would leave her door wide open and unlocked. Alisa thinks she must have gone somewhere for the weekend and will arrive in the middle of the night. I think she is the mistress of the director at our language school who puts her up for free because the apartment is always empty.

We’ve been in Costa Rica for two days. School starts tomorrow. Alisa's ready for Spanish Literature, and I'm ready to start pronouncing my name right. And we're pretty much settled in, even though we're scared to go into the wide open door of our roommate, but have broken into the haunted room and ransacked it for hangers. We hope someone materializes soon so we can practice more Spanish, whether they be real or fantasma.

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Photos

The Boombox
This is our language school in Zapote, San Jose, Costa Rica. It is built to look like a boombox. I do not know why this is so.