Friday, September 10, 2010

6 Months... Really?!

It's rather challenging to give insight as to what our lives really look like here, and so I have pulled some phrases/blurbs from our journal and created a couple of photo collages in an effort to sum up our experiences over the last six months. That's right, six months. Time has flown by, even though at times days seem to consist of a lot more than 24 hours. It's safe to say that we are settled into our community, are starting to do “projects” and are looking forward to whatever the next 21 months will bring!


March 2

“Finally, it's here – WE'RE HERE!”


March 5

“OK, so last nights 'earthquake' was really just a tremor.”


March 10

“In CR they like to be helpful – even if that means giving wrong directions.”


March 11

“Our bus ride home took us to the last stop – Linda Vista – that place we were told not to go after dark – AFTER DARK!”


March 21

“We were able to sit in the shade of coconut trees and also go play in the bath-like Pacific.”


March 28

“At one point I saw the shorter man look around him, start singing again, raise his arms, take a quick glance over his shoulder, and then 'faint.' After confirming that an usher was behind him to catch him if he fell, he decided to 'express how the spirit overwhelmed him.'”


“It is known for ensalada de frutas – which is not fruit salad as the name implies. We had one with bananas due to my allergies, but the rest of the 'ensalada' consists of two scoops of vanilla ice cream, two scoops of strawberry ice cream, and a huge scoop of red Jell-O. It tasted amazing, but later it turned out that that was our lunch.”


April 4

“At the same time, a group of adults were encouraging (and helping) the dogs burrow under a tress in search of squirrels.”


April 12

“Of course, we left class at 10ish because my jaw popped out of joint. We bought queque de queso during descanso and when I tried to take a bite my jaw locked. What an experience.”


May 21

“We're Volunteers! Yay!”


May 22

“From the moment we walked in the door here, it felt like home.”


“We saw more fruits tonight than we've seen in the past 3 months – and we were told to eat whatever we like, so delicious!”


May 25

“I went to the left today, through the farms, and it was beautiful. Cows, horses, rivers and rolling hills.”


“After second grade we found ourselves in the middle of a swarm of Tico children – just staring.”


May 27

“I must say that the hardest part of the day for me is when the kids have recreos. They're so curious that they come up and stare, but mostly aren't sure what to say to us. Of course, we don't really know what to say either, so for ten awkward minutes we kind of talk, kind of stare, and I let out a sigh of relief when the bell rings. This will get better though, right?”


May 29

“We're not really sure, but we saw the eyes and know it was something of respectable size that is scaly.”


May 30

“It was a great afternoon, flying down hills, splashing through puddles, we couldn't help but smile.”


June 3

“Of course, all of this happened with the warning to watch out for crocodiles since it is mating/nesting season.”


June 4

“We were invited to eat lunch with the teachers, but then we were kind of uninvited since we don't eat chicken.”


June 13

“They bought Welch's grape juice for us and call it our wine. So, we had it with dinner last night and tonight. I'm not sure if they think it's alcoholic, but Rafa refers to it as vino or vinito, so we'll refrain from drinking it for breakfast for now.”


June 19

“He rode the loop through Progresso which, with its lack of road in some parts, was quite muddy. At least that's what I gathered from the state of his bike when he returned. He was also covered head to toe. He said that he sunk up to the bike's pedals a couple of times.”


June 20

“Today I was hit by a drunk driver. We were both on bicycles.”


June 29

“Our phone is on vibrate and at first Chris thought it was a cow mooing.”


July 1

“Then people were on stage leading dance moves and exercises and eventually we fell into a game of limbo. What at night.”


July 4

“They had never imagined eggplant fried before – in a world where everything seems to be fried this strikes me as funny.”


July 7

“I'd say another success has been that kids have taken to waiting in front of our house for us, and today Anderson asked Rafa, “donde estan los muchachos que hablan ingles (where are the guys that speak English)?”


July 16

“Next thing you know, we've got a caballero frantically trying to tame a toro – or at least get it into its designated pasture. Needless to say, we turned around quickly, telling the kids that we can ride tomorrow.”


July 23

“We went to Civics class today, which was about traffic lights. It's crazy that most of the kids don't know what they are and have never seen one. They also talked about the proper way to cross the street in the city. We're really in a different world.”


August 2

“Along the way Yuli pointed out a plant that bites...it only causes a reaction if you touch it while breathing – hold your breathe and you're good to go (Yuli bravely demonstrated this.)”


“The only discernible paths I saw were those from the cutter ants.”


“Climbing proved to be a noble effort on Batazaars part: he was wielding the machete in one hand and holding Yuli's hand with the other, simultaneously clearing trail and helping her climb.”


August 3

“She loves butterflies so much that she pulled the legs off of the one she caught, pulled its tongue out and then folded it into a piece of paper and put it into her pocket for safe keeping.”


August 10

“Steven and a couple of guys came by the house this morning with a baby sloth.”


August 15

“We started the day watching Rafa kill some chickens. Then we ate pizza and cake for breakfast. Kind of an odd way to spend the morning, such is life.”


August 16

“We did laundry this morning, but in the whole process of setting up the washing machine forgot the one little step of hooking up the drainage hose to the tube to the backyard. This meant that when the washer started to drain water came rushing into the kitchen.... It took about 30 minutes, but eventually this was mopped up and we were able to go about our day.”


August 21

“Considering the out and back to Los Arbolitos is close to 30K we thought we'd see what this 25K loop would be. For starters it was more like a 40-45K.”


August 25

“We settled in with PB&J and some milk and called it good.”


September 1

“Happy six months in country, go us!”


*If you happen to be curious about any of these blurbs, feel free to ask, we'll be happy to share!



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