Landscape Beauty

Some of the crazy hikers climbing the cross. I decided against climbing, but I definitely enjoyed the view of the mountains and city.

Much of the path was steep and loose dirt... like this photo.

Practicing my still life photography. :)

And again.

The city and mountains in the distance.

and again :)

This photo reminds me of how foreign a country I live in. Ha, you would never see these in Illinois!

The enormous city seeming itsy bitsy from the mountain.

and again :)

and the lovely ladies of Sojourn. I can't live without them!

Tres Cruzes

I climbed a mountain today. We had heard of the Three Crosses at the top of a mountain that overlooks San Jose, and so a group of students from the Institute decided to climb it today. I now have these photos as evidence that I survived the steep hike and my camera is still intact. Que bueno.

An Assignment

Mimi, the secretary and go-to woman at Sojourn, let me borrow a new game today. She also gave me an assignment... to teach it to my tico family in Spanish. I am looking for any opportunities I can get to practice Spanish, so this was a good idea...

I got home, carrying the game (the box is rather large), and Judit took notice and asked what it was. I told her (half joking :)) that I had brought it home to teach her, and she said, "Bueno! Despues cena!" Sweet, that wasn't hard. So after dinner, we all sat down and I taught them Mimi's version of the game. I quickly realized that the directions in the game did not match up with what she had taught me during our "very important" meeting today, ha.

Tomorrow, I will teach the game to my students... this time in English.

Sojourn is collecting school supplies for another school in need in this area, and the 4th grade was assigned to collect 55 boxes of crayons. The class that collects their items first gets a pizza or ice cream party... Yesterday we had 37 boxes... and then Gaby brought in more than 30 more boxes this morning!! Needless to say, the whole class was jumping up and down, super excited about a party... but the 5th grade may have beat us because they took their supplies to the office 5 minutes before us. The 4th graders were a little depressed about this prospect today...

New Word Today: Migrana

Anybody know how to make the "~" symbol? "Migrana" has an "~" over the n... but I don't know how to make it.


A high school student's mom passed away from cancer this weekend, so in order to show support, all the secondary and specials teachers went to the funeral today. It's a big Latin America custom to show support when a student's parent dies. But elementary still had school, and without the specials teachers, there was no EFL, no MEP, no Spanish classes. That translates to mean I had my students from 7:30 to 1pm straight with no breaks. NO BREAKS. Kind of like mothering, I suppose. It was a good day though as we actually had sufficient time for reading groups. Aaah, the luxury, imagine that.


But by the time I made it home, I had a migraine. No fun. I got home at 3 and went straight to bed, woke up at 5, went to the kitchen and burst into tears when Blanca asked me if I was okay. All I could think to say was in English, the Spanish just wasn't working at all, so I just said "My head hurts!!" and Blanca thought I was crying because I was homesick or something. I was holding my head between my hands because it hurt so bad... I probably looked really high or something, ha. So then it turned into a big production... Judit went to the pharmacy to get medicine for me and Blanca was on the phone trying to get a hold of the family doctor and ManRi was sitting at the table getting really hungry for dinner. My head hurt so bad, and I was half laughing, half crying at all this commotion -- of course all in Spanish.


All in a day's work.

Birthday Parties and Spanish Lessons

Today we had a birthday party for one of my tica students. Birthday celebrations at schools in the States often consist of bringing in a treat for everyone... you know, like cupcakes or Twinkies. Costa Rica has a totally different definition of a birthday party. The parents today brought in balloons (you know, the ones that you can make into swords and weiner dogs), tattoos, yoyos, bouncy balls, and of course, chocolate cake. Woooooooo we were hyper there for the last 10 minutes of school. Controlled chaos, you could say. It was quite the adventure as we rocked the Spanglish, ha.


I had my second Spanish lesson today with a tutor, and I have lots of verbs to memorize for Thursday. Que bueno! This is so what I wanted last semester, and I am glad to have goals to work toward in Spanish... and the accountability of a teacher is that much more motivating. Buuuut... now I need to get to work!

Rainy Day

Strange but true. It's raining today, which is strange for January. Here's the view from my room. The mountains and clouds almost blend in.

And here I am :). Thought you might need a reminder of what I look like, ha!
I love weekends now living with ticos. Ha, I don't have any chores to do! No grocery shopping, no cleaning... it's almost like I'm in high school again in terms of responsibility on the weekends... but then it's back to work on Monday. Ha, oh yeah, I'm an adult, working full time now.

It's been a good weekend. Trish, Kim L, and I went to the pool yesterday (yes, it's warm enough to go to the pool in January!!) and then Kim V joined us to go see "Seven Pounds," the new Will Smith movie. Oof, that was a heavy movie... we were all half crying, half laughing as we left the theater, desperately needing some comic relief, but not really sure what to say or do. The title "Seven Pounds" translates to Spanish as "Siete Almas" which when translated back into English means "Seven Souls." I thought that was interesting with the message of the movie... but I won't give any more of the plot away :).

Today I hung out with the family all day. I'm learning Spanish! Ha, and constantly being humbled in my so-called English intelligence. Knowing one language well does make a difference in learning another language... but when it comes down to it, you're going to screw up so many times that you just want to quit. "Persevere!!" I keep telling myself. My tica sister Judit tells me "Paciencia, mi amiga!!" (Patience, my friend)

Ha, Trish had a funny thought that I want to share. So the showers here are quite different... Instead of a hot water heater that heats water for the whole house, the shower head itself is the actual heater of the water for showering. I'm pretty sure it's electric... which kind of freaks me out if I think about it too hard. It doesn't help that the shower heads are called "Widowmakers"... . not sure why they chose that as a logo. It's better not to think about it, I suppose. Ignorance is bliss, right?

Oh, and I saw my first enormous cockroach the other night... I got home around 10:30pm from a game night, and of course had a late night snack. I opened the dishwasher to put my plate in, and a cockroach skittered out from the handle. Needless to say, I was screaming silently, not wanting to wake my family but a pounding heart and gag reflex are hard to ignore. Ha, I survived. I still like Costa Rica :).

My tica sister Judit has friends in high places. I told her this and she laughed, but I really mean it. Remember the ballet we went to see in November? Well, one of Judit's friends is a ballerina that performed in that ballet. And then tonight, she introduced me to another friend whose parents own a really expensive clothing store here in Costa Rica... like a shirt from the store is $100 and pants are $160. What tico can afford that??? But anyway, I told Judit she has friends in important places, and she eventually agreed when I explained my thoughts and then she laughed at me again, saying "pero no estoy importante!!" (but I am not important!!)

My students will be ready for Monday... the question is, will I be ready also? Better go to bed soon :)

Sunday Afternoon Adventures

This is horrible! It's Thursday night and I'm just now posting about Sunday! Oh dear... well, at least I have photos to show this time :).

We went to some family friends' home in the mountains. This is the view of the village from the back deck of the house. The sky was beautiful!

Judit, my tica sister, and Sara (I guess she would be my tica aunt?) talking and laughing. Judit is such a great help with the Spanish... she's good at explaining the language without telling me in English :).

Blanca, my tica mom, is an amazing cook. Here she's sauteeing (sp?) peppers and eggplant with cheese and spices. Yum!

The yummy food all together!

Blanca again and ManRi, my tico dad, looking excited about this food.

Again, I'm sorry I haven't been posting regularly. I seriously feel so guilty about it... I'm trying to figure out life again and get used to lots of new routines. Me not posting has nothing to do with how much I think about you all!

LOVE