Friday, November 30, 2007

Hahahah

A friend I met surfing at Escuela Del Mundo sent me this:

Food

Its all I think about. Sloppy joes, baked beans, potato salad, potato chips, curly fries, cheeseburgers, steak, mashed potatoes, hot dogs. Stuff I didn't even eat much of when I was home, I want really bad. I want venison jerky more than I have ever craved anything in my life. I think I'm going insane.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Pura Vida, Oh Well.

We had all of our backs packed and we were ready to hit the road for Nicaragua. Then we found out that the car needed a special permit to cross the boarder, which we didnt have. So now we have to figure out how to get the permit and we are going to try and go next weekend.

Plans ALWAYS change here. If we plan on something, we can pretty much trust that its not going to happen that way. When I first got here that kind of bothered me. I thought I was a late person, everything is like hours behind schedule here. I had to get used to it. Now I just turn to the phrase "Pura Vida" when I have no clue what the heck is going on.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Romeo and I talking on Skype


We were having a really intense conversation, obviously.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Cerca de Regresando

My time in Costa Rica is coming to an end very soon. I wonder how I am going to handle this whole saying goodbye thing. I imagine its going to be extremely bittersweet.

I am unbelievably excited to see my dog (and all of the human beings I love) of course. But as cheesy as it sounds, a part of me will forever remain in Costa Rica. As I drove home from Poás yesterday, I looked out of the window at the rolling hills and misty mountains in the distance, and the endless rows of coffee plants. Even though the roads in Costa Rica are like a roller coaster from HELL and I almost threw up again, I still realized something really beautiful. As we were winding and winding through the hills, I thought to myself, "I wont be leaving this place with my whole heart, some of it is staying here." Not only with the people and relationships I have made here, but with the place itself. The children's faces from the community I worked in will remain in my mind. When I left the beach after the first month I was here, I looked back at the sunset one last time and I knew that I was leaving a piece of myself there and I wont be able to leave completely whole.

I guess that's how experience is. God has taught me so much while I have been here, of course its going to be very special to me. Back in time a little bit: I have been a Christian for about 2 1/2 years now, and I have had huge seasons of growth and failure since then. I was lost, then saved, had the "new Christian spiritual high" (as I like to call it), then had a season of failure and immense stumbling (which is all of the time but this one was really bad), then had a short season of growth again. Then I got comfortable. I was having a hard time seeking God. I have always had a desire inside of me to live in a different country and specifically to learn a new language, ever since I was a child. I went to France for a week, I realized that if I wanted to, it was possible for me to walk on a plane, and leave to a different country. I got to thinking, what am I waiting for? After one message Noel gave at Riverview, It pushed me over the edge. I told Devon later that night at the Price's, "I'm going to Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, somewhere, I don't care and I'm not sure yet, but I'm going!" I planned my trip and got in contact with Carlos Gomez (The GCLA pastor in San José whose family I live with) within a week. My dad flew me down here, then a week later, he left. In Costa Rica I took my first real steps in living out my own faith, I learned what it was like to totally depend on God instead of on myself or other people. I saw God from a whole new angle. I realized that I NEEDED to seek him, not just that it was good for me to do. I came here not knowing a single person. Every face that I saw each day was brand new. It was just me, God, my Bible, and Costa Rica. It changed me so much. I really learned to walk on my own here, of course its going to be extremely special to me. It kicked my butt.

Usually this would be the time of year for me when I would feel like I am going to die of hypothermia every time I would walk outside into the grey sky, dead, cold Michigan winter. Here I walk outside to sun shinning on my face. I look out of the window of the bus to green rolling hills, palm trees, and gorgeous mountains. Now that I speak Spanish everyday, I don't know what it will be like to live in a place where I don't speak Spanish at all throughout my day. I had to adjust so much when I came here, I had to throw myself into a new culture and I couldn't look back because I would have freaked out. That was so drastic, I feel like its going to be really hard for me to adjust back. I do feel warm when I think about going to get coffee with a good friend at Beaner's. And it will be nice to drive past the places where I spent my childhood, or a place that reminds me of when me and all of the guys road our bikes up to Wilcox last summer just to swing on the swing set at midnight. Older memories than four months. But then I think about the park where we take Carlitos to play soccer here, and the place where we always went surfing in Jacó. Those places and what happened there is really special too.

This is the way life goes. And I need to get used to it, because I am beginning to realize something about myself. While I love home, really the only thing I love about it is the people, and the church. I don't think I will be living in Michigan for my whole life, or "si Dios quiere" if God desires, for very much longer. I am constantly thinking about the new country I want to spend time at or the new language I want to learn. I thought that these four months in Costa Rica and learning Spanish would satisfy the desire inside me to experience something totally different and far away, but I am beginning to fear it has only gotten me started. Maybe God made me this way for a reason. Or maybe I will sink my roots in a stop acting like a gypsy. We will see what has in store for me.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Poás and Grecia Viaje

I went to Poás Volcano today, It was a really cool day. God's creation blows my mind. It is one of the few active volcanoes in the world where you can actually walk up to the edge of the crater. It is considered to be the biggest crater in the world. It smelled like cold fart because of the lake of molten sulfur and an altitude of 8,884 feet. It was a really breathtaking view. I also went to a cute little village in the Volcanic mountain range. I ate lunch with a Mexican couple and had a cool conversation. Well, pretty much any conversation I have in Spanish is cool to me because I am so happy and proud of myself that I even had a conversation. Guess what we ate? Beans and rice. AHHH.

Volcan Poás from far away. Doesn't look like there is too much going on over there. The stuff in front is a coffee plantation.
The crater.
All of that steam smells like cold farts. And it was blowing right in my face.
My attempt to prove that I was there, but the cold fart steam took over and you cant even see the crater.
This church was brought to Grecia, Costa Rica in pieces over the course of two years. It was a gift from Belgium, they made it metal to protect from the volcanic ash.
Inside the church. It is called Iglesia de la Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes.
On the way home. Mi linda Costa Rica.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

My Thanksgiving in Costa Rica

They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here in Costa Rica, but my family here thought it would be a great reason to throw a party and invite people into their home. So we had close to 40 people over. We had an awesome feast with all of the traditional thanksgiving food and then we all danced until 1 AM. Salsa is so much fun, I've got a long way to go but I'm not bad for a gringa. Stef and Val's friends are like professionals because they have been doing it their whole lives. They are really fun to watch. It was an awesome time. I think I am going to suggest Salsa dancing at all of my future thanksgivings, we will see how that works with my Dutch family.

Here are some pictures:






Thursday, November 22, 2007

¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!

I woke up this morning and told (big)Carlos "Happy Thanksgiving!" He goes "Hey! Happy Thanksgiving!" Then there was a pause and he goes, "Is that what you guys say?"

Tomorrow we are having a thanksgiving dinner with 35 people! I have to make sweet potatoes!

I am so going here in February

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Three Weeks Until I'm home



Might be a little culture shock for me...

Monday, November 19, 2007

Lost my lunch on a Costa Rican highway...

So I went to Arenal for the weekend. Some parts were amazing, some parts were not so amazing.

We got there on Friday afternoon, our hotel was awesome. I just relaxed in the hot tub the whole day and watched TV in ENGLISH at our hotel room. It was weird, the place was so touristy it didn't really feel like I was in Costa Rica. The Costa Rica that I am used to is the slums of Los Guidos, it was very relaxing but I sort of felt weird being there.

There was a crystal clear river right next to our hotel and I sat on a rock in the middle of it and read for like three hours each day. It was so nice to have some alone time. There was a stupid cloud over the top of the volcano the whole time so we didn't really get to see anything. We went on a hike and and took a tour of the national park which was awesome, we saw lots of animals, including monkeys! I have like the worst luck with seeing animals so this was a big deal. Then we went to Tabacón hot springs. Probably the coolest place I have EVER been. They built this resort around a river that is heated by the magma from Volcan Arenal. There were all of these waterfalls with pools and the water was all like a hot tub. When the volcano erupted you could feel it rumble and the water instantly got hotter. It was so awesome. We just laid in the river for like 2 hours and then ate at the most beautiful buffet I have ever seen.

Then on Sunday we checked out of our room at 1 and ate lunch while we waited for our bus to come pick us up from the hotel. About two hours into the ride (its a four hour ride) I started to feel really sick. I have not gotten car sick since I was in like 5th grade, so I thought I would be fine. These roads were like riding a merry go round at 60 MPH, on the edge of a cliff. All of a sudden, without warning, I needed to throw up. I lunged for the window, stuck my head out, and threw up for like seriously 2 minutes straight. Needless to say, it was not my finest hour. Here is my facebook graffiti depiction of what happened:



It was pretty freaking funny after the fact, and I felt fine after I was out of a moving vehicle. Whew, although like I said, it was not my finest hour.

Here are some more pleasant pictures of my weekend:










Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Este Vida Me Cansa, y Volcan Arenal

These days are feeling longer and longer. I fell asleep on the bus ride home today and almost missed my stop, which would have been pretty bad. It was such a fight to keep my eyes open for the last stretch of the ride. I hate that feeling too.

I wake up at 5:30, and I am walking to the bus stop at 6. I ride a bus to downtown and then walk for 15 minutes to another stop. I get on another bus for another hour and arrive at about 8:00. I meet the other missionary at the office and we walk to another bus stop. (It isn't safe to go into Los Guidos alone so we go together.) We ride a bus for another hour into the poor community where we teach our art class. The distance that we go is really short. It would probably take 15-20 minutes but because of traffic and stops, I ride a bus for 3 hours every morning. We teach one class, have lunch, then teach another class. Its pretty exhausting because the kids don't have a great understanding of obedience and structure. I am constantly chasing little boys around and telling them to get back to class por favor. Just when I get them back another one takes off, or a mom comes and drops of her 1 year old for us to watch... even though we have a class to teach. I am constantly helping kids glue glitter on to their craft with one arm and a screaming baby in the other arm. After class, it then takes me about 2 1/2 hours to get home on bus because I only have to change buses once downtown on the way home. I cant listen to my ipod because if they see the ear phones they might rob me. Its creepy, sometimes I catch the person behind me touching my hair. Most of the time its a nice old lady that just likes the color because its rare there, but 2 times out of 10 its a greasy Latin man. Aye nooo. I get home around 5:30 or 6 each day.

All of these interactions are in my 2nd language, which makes my brain feel totally toasted by about 8 at night. I cant even speak English by that time. Then I am saying "No I didn't went" and "no I hasn't saw that." Aye no.

Its difficult because the other missionary I work with is Korean, and the only language we really have in common is Spanish. She speaks Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and a little tiny bit of English. Its hard to communicate especially because we have to talk kind of in depth about the kids and the lesson plans and what not. So between her tiny bit of English and both of our mediocre Spanish, we somehow make it work. She is an amazing girl. She is actually one of six Koreans to win a super competitive contest. The Korean government is paying for a year of all expenses for them to do a peace corps type thing, she chose Costa Rica, and she chose to work with Food For the Hungry because she is a Christian. We have had some interesting talks about what its like to grow up a Christian in Korea and Japan, both predominantly Buddhist and Shinto countries. In Korean high school, they go to school from 7:30 AM until 10 PM. Holy crap. Aye no.

We are going to Volcan Arenal together this weekend for three days. It should be cool to relax in some hot springs!! Pray that we see the Volcano erupt, I have heard that its spectacular, but the problem is that there has to be no clouds for us to see it. Which isn't likely because its really high up. But seriously pray that God would show us his beauty this weekend! Also pray that things go smoothly because traveling in Costa Rica is a little shaky at times. Here are some pictures off the Internet of where we will be:



Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Travel Travel...

I have so many small trips coming up, I turned down an opportunity to go to the Carribean Coast last weekend because I just felt like I needed some chill time. I'm already far from my real home, and then to do so much traveling on top of that, it really wears me out. Blah. There are so many little trips coming up.

Nov 16th, 17th, 18th- Going with a friend Lucia (Korean Missionary that I work with at the Foundation) to Volcano Arenal and hot springs for three days. 4 hour bus ride.

Nov 24th- Going with Lucia and some other friends to Volcano Poas for the whole day. 2 1/2 hour bus ride.

Dec 1st, 2nd- Going with the family to the beach for a few days as a goodbye thing. 2 hours away.

Dec 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th- Going with Val and Steph (my sisters here) to Nicaragua to translate for a mission team from Ohio. 8 hour bus ride.

Dec 12th- Flying home to the United States of America where I will speak English, eat chicken fajita roll ups from Applebees, and have a cell phone once again.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

On a happier note...

We had a fiesta today for Graciela's birthday (another missionary here). It was a blast! Here are a few pictures from the evening:


Can anyone find the machita?





With my little amor Carlos.

I already told some of you this story...

Last week I saw a fight in the street downtown while I was walking to my bus stop. I was crossing the street and these two guys had road rage or something. There was a guy on the motorcycle (late 20s and fit) and a guy in a taxi (40s and unfit). They both exited their vehicles and were swearing at each other. Then they started fighting and the motorcycle guy seriously cracked the other guys skull open on the pavement. He had his head, and was banging it against the ground. There was blood everywhere. All over his face. I was just screaming "Help him help him" because I didn't know what to do... I thought he was going to kill him. There was just a crowd gawking and finally two huge guys came and pulled them apart. The older man's face was ruined, all I could compare it to is when Edward Norton ruins the blond kid's face in Fight Club. I wanted to throw up, cry or something. I had a lot of emotion and adrenaline. I hate seeing human being treating other human beings this way, especially over road rage. I can feel God frowning at how stupid we are.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

I wanted something from The States...

So I walked to Taco Bell and got a chalupa. Now I feel like I'm going to throw up.

Aye no.