My Costa Rican life as of lately..

The white board is the only way to know anything around here. It is the center of communication. If you want to know what time you have to be up tomorrow, what you'll be doing, or where you'll be going, look at the whiteboard. There's a 50% chance that the plans will be up there. If not, there is no hope. You just go with the flow. Hannah wrote this message the other day :) The fine print says, "Subject to change, along with every other plan :)" SO true. Nothing is concrete here.

It's been pretty slow (as far as groups go) around here lately. Our next group comes this Thursday, and and our last one left last Thursday. We have had a few families come stay at the Villa in the past week who are going to be coming in the fall to be full time missionaries here. We actually got to drive with one of them to kid's club on Saturday. We couldn't all fit in the van, so one of the American dad's had to drive that, while Jose drove his family in his car. Apparently women don't get their driver's licenses here, or at least they don't drive. So the only other option was to have a gringo drive. The man that drove us hadn't driven a stick-shift car since college (and he was probably in his mid 30's). At one point, I'm pretty sure every car on the road around us was honking at us. Driving here is not easy. I give him props for trying. And we survived :) So I guess he succeeded.

I've walked to MasXMenos (grocery store) every day for the past 4 days. A few days ago, Hannah and I went with Dama (we also picked up Andrea along the way) and walked down the street to the shoe repair shop so Dama could get her nephew's shoes fixed. The store ended up being closed, so on the way back we went to MasXMenos and bought chocolate :) I got to talk to Andrea in Spanish the whole time, which I love because she speaks very clearly so I can understand pretty much everything she says. And she's just an awesome person :) I took this picture of Dama and Andrea as we were walking there (the height difference made me laugh).


Sunday: Jose preached at church, and I understood the whole sermon! That was definitely exciting. Later on Sunday, Victor came over and him, Amie, Hannah, and I walked to Pops together to get ice cream! I know how to order my favorite now: "un cono regular con brownie dinamita, por favor." and it was delicious :)

Monday: The interns all went to Coronado to clean until around 2. We cleaned the bathrooms, washed out refrigerators, cleaned the windows, and other various jobs. Oh, and of course, we cleaned the floors by pouring buckets of water and bleach down and sweeping it around with a broom. I will never understand this technique. But I guess it's just how they do things here.

Today: This morning, we took all the tables out of the dining room and washed them down outside, and then we washed, dried, waxed on, and waxed off every metal chair in the dining room (I think there are about 50 of them). It took us until lunchtime. I napped after lunch, and then the Prado's came over because today is the twins' birthday. I'm starting to really enjoy birthdays around here. We get to eat cake every time! And I've got the birthday song down now :) We hung out with the girls for the rest of the evening, chatted, and played catchphrase. Around 7:30, Jeremiah, Hannah, and I walked to MasXMenos to get some groceries. It was a little scary because I've never been out past dark before with only gringos, but we made it there, got what we needed, and took a taxi back. I'm pretty sure the taxi guy ripped us off, but I didn't really want to start an argument cause he looked kind of mean.

Well, there's my update. Enjoy!

Alajuelita- Poor Village

The other day, we went to Alajuelita, which is a very poor village located just outside of the city of San Jose. We picked up Pastor Efrain (at the door in the picture above) of La Mision San Felipe church located in Alajuelita and he explained to us about Costa Rican Catholicism and how engrained it is in the people. He gave us some advice on how to share with them the good news of Christ in a way that they will understand it best. The first thing we did when we got there was hand out bags of food to some members of his church in need. It was awesome to get to go into these people's homes and pray with them and share the love of Christ with them in such a tangible way. Then, we split up into four groups and went door-to-door sharing the gospel with the people of the village. We got to talk to a number of woman, and it was surprising to me how they took time out of their lives to really listen to us, and they seemed to put thought into what we had to say. It was sad to hear that a lot of them were very unsure as to where they what would happen to them after they died. But it was cool to be able to share with them about the assurance that they could have in Christ. It was definitely an exciting day, and I can't wait to go back to Alajuelita.

El Día de los Padres y Más

El Día de los Padres
Sunday was Father's Day, so Saturday at kid's club, we told all the kids to invite their papitos/abuelitos/tios/hermanos to church on Sunday for a special service. Before the service, a little girl names Genesis came up to me and handed me a picture that she drew and a Hello Kitty stuffed animal and said "Para ti." She gave me a kiss on the cheek and ran off. So precious :) The older kids sang a song called Yo quiero ser como tú and did a little skit along with it. You may have heard the English version called Just Like You by Phillips, Craig, and Dean. The younger kids sang a song called Los zapatotes de mi papá (My Dad's Big Shoes), and dressed up like their dads (picture below). Manolo preached about being a good father and disciplining/teaching your children. After the service, we had arroz con pollo (rice and chicken) at the church with everyone.


Lunes
This morning, we went to Coronado with the Oklahoma group and did yardwork/painted areas of the church that needed painting.
After eating lunch back at the Villa, we went to an orphanage to play with the kids. I met a girl named Pamela and blew bubbles with her for awhile and we chatted about random stuff. Somehow we started doing math problems, and we sat and quizzed each other for a good 20 minutes. I would give her five addition problems in English, and she would answer in Spanish. And then she would do the same for me in Spanish. Then, we took a walk and she showed me the building she lived in, and we talked about her favorite school subjects. She told me her favorite was Science, and then she started telling me all the organs in the body in English! She knew the heart, kidneys, liver, spinal cord... I was impressed. Then, she started naming off diseases in English. Measles, mumps, influenza, dengue.. and when she got to chicken pox, and said, "Como se dice chicken pox en Espanol? Pollo pox?" And she laughed really hard. :) I made a joke in Spanish! My life is complete.



Tonight, we went to go feed the homeless in the Zona Roja (Red Zone) of downtown San Jose. I've done this before, so I knew what to expect, but it amazes me every time how fast 100 bags of food is gone. We were outside of the bus for less than 3 minutes and we had given away all the food we brought. And there were still people reaching for more when we closed the bus doors and drove away. It's rather overwhelming, but it feels good to do something, even if the problems are so much bigger than we can handle.

Puerto Viejo and Kid's Club

On Thursday we left for the beach! We went to Puerto Viejo in Limon. I could write for days on our trip, but I'll try to sum it up with a few words. I'm liking lists lately, because they are quick and easy. So here's a list.

1. Puerto Viejo was a mixture of Jamaica's food, dredlocks, Bob Marley culture and Yellow Springs' hippie, peace, love, happiness culture (for those of you that go to Cedarville). The majority of the population there is Jamaicans, and the American tourists we saw were mostly college students.

2. Jose told us we'd be staying in a "resort." Never trust a Tico when it comes to vacation plans. We ended up staying at this camp-like place in the rainforest. Granted, we were close to the beach, which was awesome. But sleeping was another story. The "resort" didn't have a gate (like almost EVERY house/store/building in San Jose has, so we were a little worried right off the bat about safety. Then an alarm went off Thursday night, and none of us knew what triggered it. We found out later that a wild horse triggered the alarm because it was roaming around the property, but we didn't know that at the time. We could hear lizards clicking in our room all night, and the bugs were insane. We also heard some crazy noise that we had never heard before and we think it might have been a sloth, because there are tons of them in that area. I probably slept about 3 hours in all.

3. Troy, Ashley, Jeremiah and I got up at 4:30 to walk to the beach and see the sunrise! It was pretty awesome.

4. We were told it would be a 2-3 hour drive to Puerto Viejo from the Villa. It ended up taking us 5 hours. But we did get to drive through the mountains and the rainforest. And the air gradually got hotter and hotter as we left the valley and got closer to the coast.

5. The water in the Caribbean is so warm! I wish New Jersey was closer to the Equator.

This morning, we had kid's club at Coronado. There is a church group here from Oklahoma that came and helped. We sang songs, broke up into classes and had lessons, and then played Simon Dice (Simon Says) and Pato, Pato, Ganso (Duck, Duck, Goose). It's fun to get to know the kids better that come back each week. They're SO much fun!

Playing Simon Dice

These two brothers took such good care of their little sister

Amigos, amigos, amigos

Sorry the photo is a little blurry. But the people in it are still pretty cool :) We had a movie night a few nights ago! We walked to the convenience store down the street and got some popcorn, candy, and soda and then came back and watched Pride and Prejudice. It was a fun night!

Even though we haven't had groups at all this week, it's been really awesome having a chance to get to know the people that work at the Villa better, and also the interns and the missionaries. Los amigos son fantasticos :)

Today is Adolfo's birthday! We're going to have cake later to celebrate :) I can't wait. And yesterday was Jose and Gaby's Anniversary so we get two cake days in a row!

Tomorrow morning, we leave for the beach! Manolo and his wife and baby are coming with us, as well as a few more of his relatives I believe. It will be nice to relax before the next group gets here Friday. After this week, we'll have at least one group a week until I head back home.

This morning, Bethany, Jeremiah, Hannah, and I took a bus to Coronado and walked around town to some kids' houses that haven't been to kids club in awhile to invite them to come back. We ended up visiting Joanna, a woman from church and talked with her for an hour or so. She told us about her grandfather and health problems that he was having and how it was affecting the family. She's pregnant with her fourth child and she's only 26 years old. So, it's hard for her to care for her grandfather, her mother, and also take care of her own kids. We prayed with her before leaving to head back to Coronado. We came back to the Villa for lunch, had an intern meeting, and now we're all waiting for Dama to wake up so we can eat cake for Adolfo's birthday :)

Gringos con pupitres

"Why call a moving van when you've got interns?" -Hannah



This morning, Marisol came to the Villa and told us we have to move 35 desks from Room 8 at the Villa to Andy's house a block down the street. Oh boy. Three gringos walking down the street carrying desks is not a very common sight in San Jose. The whole thing probably took us about an hour, not bad at all. Of course, we had some help from Marisol, Adolfo, Ashley, and Dama. It was actually kind of fun :) When we got back, we washed the Coaster (one of the small buses that Score owns). The girls did the inside and Jeremiah washed the outside. Now it looks all shiny and new.

Dama had to go home to Limon this weekend for a doctor's appointment but she was back this morning! I didn't realize how much I missed her until I saw her sitting in the kitchen when I came out for breakfast, with a flower in her hair and a smile on her face. It's definitely good to have her back :)

I got to talk with Andrea for awhile today. She asked me where I learned Spanish (a lot of people here have asked me that), and they're always surprised when I tell them I learned it in school. I guess they don't think that schools in the states are very good at teaching Spanish. She also said she can tell my Spanish is improving from when I first came here (yayy!) and then she tried to convince me to stay for a year so I can become fluent. I told her I have one more year of school and then I'll think about it :)

Today's word of the day is: aspiradora = vacuum cleaner
..Because I had to use one to clean out the Coaster.

Kids Club and Brownies

This morning, we had kids club at Coronado at from 10 to 12ish. We started off singing songs, then broke the kids up into three groups by age for a Bible lesson. I was with the oldest group and Gaby (Jose's wife) led the group. We talked about forgiveness, and it was really cool to see how much they got into the discussion and really tried to understand everything we were talking about. After the lesson, we played "Que hora es, Senor Lobo?" (What time is it, Mr. Wolf?) with all the kids, and then some of them stayed late to practice a traditional Costa Rican dance that Marisol is teaching them for their trip to the States. There are 8 kids that will be traveling to the States this summer to help raise money for Score International Coronado, and so they are learning a dance to perform for the people.
This evening, it was just the interns at the Villa because Adolfo has Saturdays off. We decided to make brownies. The one problem we had was that we didn't know how to light the oven. We found Noel walking around and asked him to help us. He lit the oven for us, but it must have blown out when we closed it, because we waited for the next hour or so for the brownies to cook and nothing was happening. Finally, Adolfo came back and we asked him to help us out. He lit the oven again and the brownies starting baking! Yayy! We still ended up pretty much eating brownie batter, but at least it was warm :) We all chatted with Adolfo and played with Peyton (the dog) for awhile. And then I got to skype with Sarah Ryker for a bit. While I was skyping with her, I heard what I thought were gunshots and the guard dogs started going crazy, but it ended up just being fireworks :) haha. Silly me. Night all.

Caribbean, Here I Come :)

We just had our meeting with Jose, and he started off by saying, "Guys, I have something to tell you that you're really not gonna like. I was wondering, since next week we don't have any groups, if you would like to go to the beach." AHHHHH! Jose has a friend who owns a hotel on the Caribbean and he can get a good deal for us to stay one night at the hotel next week! So all of us interns (Me, Hannah, Jeremiah, Ashley, and Troy) will be going to the beach next week! I just had to update to let everyone in on the good news! Also, there's a lizard in the living room. That is all.

Ciao, grupos

The sports group left this morning, so we won't have another group til next Friday! I'm sure we'll still be pretty busy though. They'll find something for us to get done.

I changed my blog title to Pura Vida because it seemed to fit, and "I'm in Costa Rica" is rather unoriginal. Pura Vida is a phrase that people use here for many different things. It literally means "Pure Life," but people use it as a greeting, as a farewell, or as an answer when someone asks you how you are. For instance yesterday I asked Raymond how he was, and he responded by saying, "Estoy muy bien, pura vida." It's similar to "all is well" or "life is good."

Yesterday, I took my first taxi. Hevelin, Hannah, and I met Guillermo (bus driver) in San Francisco so that we could drive to Los Guidos to meet the basketball group. After Los Guidos, we went to Lighthouse International School where the football coach and some guys put on a football clinic for the kindergarten and 1st grade classes. It was fun to watch them get so into it, and they all spoke English, so it was easier to communicate with them! Following the clinic, we went to the souvenir market in downtown San Jose and walked around for awhile. Amie (another intern) and I crossed the street to go to the ATM because she needed to take out money. She put her card in and got to the end of the transaction and then the machine said that it had retained her card. She started pressing buttons, and then the screen went black. We freaked out for a good 5 minutes, and all of the sudden, it turned back on and out popped her card. We decided to never use Costa Rican ATMs again. We headed back to the Villa after the market and relaxed for the night because the group decided to go out to eat. That means no food and no dishes! Yayy :)


Today, we were supposed to go to Coronado to clean, but plans changed and we are now waiting to meet with Jose for an intern meeting. So for now we're just lounging around :)

Accomplishments today

1. I killed a huge spider with a broom.
2. Hannah and I went out into the city on our own and we came back in one piece :) (even though we didn't exactly find the place we were looking for)
3. I took a 3 hour nap.
4. I delivered a meal to a bus driver named Guillermo.
5. Swept floors, mopped floors, and made tons of beds. Typical.
6. I used the word of the day multiple times. It's "permiso" or "con permiso." It means "with permission" or "excuse me."
7. I didn't completely freak out when a big roach crawled onto my foot in the kitchen.
8. I crossed multiple streets and I'm still alive!

Good day.

Domingo, Lunes, y Martes

Sunday was such a wonderful, restful day. We went to church at Coronado in the morning. Church was a lot different than I'm used to, but an awesome experience. We sang hymns, like "Nothing But the Blood," and a few others in Spanish and then the pastor of a group that came from North Carolina preached and Jose (the director of Score) translated into Spanish. Hannah and I grabbed lunch at Coronado after the service and the Prado's drove us back to the Villa. I got to skype with friends for the rest of the day on Sunday, which was wonderful. It was nice to catch up with people I haven't had a chance to talk to in awhile. Sunday night, we played catchphrase with the Louisiana team. It was so much fun! I'm gonna miss that team when they leave.


Monday morning, Dama, Hannah, and I got up at 5 to walk. We walked down the street to the University and walked around there for awhile. There are tons of people who walk there in the mornings. Hannah and I stayed at the Villa in the morning to clean some more. We made some beds, swept and mopped floors, and then served lunch. A big group came on Monday from Florida. There's about 30 of them and they're doing sports ministry because they're all on the basketball team or soccer team. Hannah and I went with them in the afternoon to a high school in Coronado where they played against Costa Rican high school teams. It was fun to watch, but the Americans beat them pretty bad. I think the girls' game score was 58-16. Monday night, we served dinner, cleaned up, and then Hannah, Jeremiah, Dama, and I made around 80 sandwiches for the Florida group's lunches on Tuesday, because they would be out doing clinics all day. Dama decided that every day, we're going to have a Spanish word of the day to learn and use. And then every week, she's going to give us a Bible verse in Spanish to learn as well. Dama said that whoever loses has to buy the others something, like chocolate :) I won't lose.

Today, Hannah and I woke up at 5 again to walk with Dama. We put breakfast out and Dama said that she'd bring in the guard dogs and then meet us in the Villa. We waited until 5:30 and then figured she was still asleep so we went back to bed. It turns out she woke up before 5 and went walking with Amy because she thought we slept through our alarms. So.. we'll try again tomorrow :) Today, I took my first public transportation bus. Hannah and I rode the bus to Coronado with Raymond and Marisol and met Manolo in town. He made us memorize different landmarks along the bus route so we'd know how to get around on our own. When we got to Coronado, we had a prayer meeting with Bethany, Rebecca, and Manolo, and then cleaned because the high school group just left this morning. Afterwards, we took the bus to downtown San Jose and met the Louisiana team there to join them for sightseeing in Cartago. We went to a beautiful lookout place with an amazing view of the mountains- the drive up was pretty scary, but once we got up there, it was awesome! Then we went to the first Catholic church in the old capital city of Cartago, and then visited another old Catholic church in the town. We got back around 6 and ate dinner (arroz con pollo). It was so good, as always! Played catchphrase one last time with the Louisiana team and a few people from the Florida team, and then said goodbye to them because they leave tomorrow morning :( Tomorrow will most likely be a day of cleaning out their rooms and tidying up the Villa. And of course, walking with Dama in the morning! 5 am. Time for bed.

Beds, movies, and laughter

Today started off with some back-breaking bed-making. Hannah and I made 21 beds, I remade 6 of those because we put the top blanket on backwards (I had this idea in my head that the tag always goes at the feet, but apparently that doesn't matter), and then we cleaned windows, mopped and swept floors, and cleaned furniture. Andrea (one of the maids) taught me how to make fancy flowers out of towels. Sometimes, I feel like I'm in maid school. Lunch was delicious as always. Props to Dama. We had sandwiches, fresh fruit, and gallo pinto. As we were cleaning we listened to Dama sing along to music that sounded like Frank Sinatra. It put a smile on my face. Jeremiah, Hannah, and I had an hour or so to kill before the movie at Coronado so we watched the only English channel we get, Fox News. Victor (our bus driver) drove us to Coronado around 6 because we were having a free movie night for families in the community. There were probably around 20 people from the community that showed up, lots of kids too! Two little girls sat next to me and played "piedra, papel, tijera" (rock, paper, scissors) until the movie started. They were so precious! We watched Alvin and the Chipmunks in Spanish, and then Raymond (one of the Score missionaries from Costa Rica) shared the gospel. We rode back from Coronado in a van with the Louisiana team. They are probably some of the funniest people I've ever met. They all have deep southern accents and are constantly chatting and telling jokes. I haven't laughed that hard in awhile. When we got back to the Villa, we ate dinner and then played Taboo with some people from the Louisiana team. My team won :) Tomorrow we're going to church and then I have a pretty free day, which never happens! So I'm looking forward to a relaxing day!

Third day's a charm :)

Today, there was a beautiful sunset. That in itself made it a wonderful day. But there are so many other things that made today so full of life. I got to go door to door in Coronado handing out tracts and inviting people to a movie night we're having at the Score center there. One little boy on his bike followed us around and declared to everyone that the gringos had arrived. After lunch, Hannah and I made beds at back at the Villa for a few hours, and then switched rooms! We are now staying in the main building at the villa, right next to the kitchen. Convenient for late night snacks :) Another intern, Jeremiah, came last night so it's been fun having 3 of us around! And Ashley and Troy just came tonight! Tomorrow there will be five interns at the Villa. One of the greatest joys of today was getting to hang out with the Louisiana team. They're a group of about 10 from a church in Louisiana and they all have the thickest southern accents I have ever heard. And some of the best sense of humors :) Tonight, we took a bus downtown to the ghetto to pass out sandwiches to the homeless. It's a really dangerous area so we all got off the bus and the guys kind of surrounded the girls as we passed them all out. We made 100 sandwiches and it literally took us 3 minutes to pass them all out. We were bombarded by people. One man without an arm came up to me and as I handed him a sandwich, he asked me if we spoke English. I said yes, we do, and he proceeded to say "You are all angels to everyone here." He repeated it about five times and thanked us, and then walked away. I definitely want to go back to the ghetto.

Ten Things I Learned About Costa Rica Today

1. Bugs just love it here. They think they own the country. The showers, the floors, the bunks. You name it, they own it. I’m gonna have to learn how to live peacefully with roaches.

2. There are only two shower temperatures: scalding hot and ice cold. It’s a constant struggle to get it to that perfect in-between temperature for 3 seconds while trying to rinse all the shampoo out of my hair.

3. Costa Ricans love cleaning with bleach. They call it “cloro.” We pretty much bleached everything in sight at a church today.

4. A good way to get killed in Costa Rica is to cross the street.

5. Costa Ricans use “usted” when talking to everyone, including kids. Goes against everything I’ve ever learned in Spanish class.

6. Dama is the best cook ever. And I get to eat her food every day. SCORE! (no pun intended)

7. Costa Rican kids are unbearably cute. I just wanna take one home with me!

8. I met a 20-year-old school principal today. Yeah. She was awesome. And stylish.

9. It rains here every night. Without fail. Two for two so far.

10. Not all homeschoolers are awkward. (shoutout to Hannah!)

Beginnings.

So, I made it to Costa Rica! When my plane landed, I was super nervous that when I left the airport, no one would be waiting outside for me. And of course, I stepped outside and about 10 Spanish men bombarded me asking me if I needed a taxi. One of them was nice and realized that I was super lost. So he asked me who I was looking for and brought me to the Score missionaries waiting for me down the sidewalk. I don't know what I was expecting, but two men and a girl about my age came to pick me up, and they were all Costa Rican and spoke Spanish the whole way back. I tried to keep up with what they were saying, but my brain couldn't handle it. When we finally got to the Score Villa, I met one of the other interns and we immediately became the best of friends. I bombarded her with questions because she's done this before, and she filled me in on pretty much everything I need to know. I probably slept a total of 3 hours last night, because I had tons on my mind and I kept having crazy dreams! This morning, Hannah and I both woke up at 5:30 (I know, right? What's wrong with me.), ate breakfast (I had the Costa Rican offbrand version of Lucky Charms! mmm.), and took a few pictures around the Villa. It's gorgeous here! There's all these crazy tall plants, palm trees, and mountain views in the distance. We checked the white board schedule, and it looks like Hannah's going with a church group today, and I'm going with a High School group from North Carolina. We're going to work at some place, have lunch and dinner at the Coronado, and then feed the homeless. Just jumpin right in! I guess that's the best way to do it..