Día Dos

Hola familia y amigos...

There's so much I can talk about.. ahh...

I got to Costa Rica Tuesday night and my group was taken by 2 smallish busses to a retreat center where we were going to go to sleep. We unloaded the luggage bus 'fireman style' and headed to our rooms. Shortly after the bus left, I realized that one of my carry on bags (with some of my clothes, tooth brush, and stuff was left on the bus)... it's Thursday and I still haven't gotten the suitcase.. luckily a finger is a sufficient toothbrush alternative.

On Wednesday we woke up and had some orientation things before meeting our 'families'. We had an opportunity to raise a bunch of questions about the family interactions (What do we call them? What's appropriate/inapporpriate? etc.) and we were told, after asking the questions, that they aren't going to give us any of the answers. Partially because there are 30~ families and each one will be different and partially because they have a motto here about failure being an inevitable, good thing. Whatever... Toilet paper goes in the little trash can by the way guys...

My "family" is a mother and her 3 boys. The guys are 23, 25, and 28 years old- they are friendly but I don't see much of them. Alba is my tica madre (Costa Ricans are called ticos/ticas) and she is great. When we first met it was pretty uncomfortable for me but after being around each other and getting more used to her accent, we have been able to communicate pretty well. On Wednesday, after we met our families, we went to their homes for the rest of the day. When Alba and I got home, she invited me to run some errands. We stopped by a small pharmacy, a bakery, and then hung out at her mother's house (all within a block or so). Her mother is a small, very friendly gray haired lady with tons of energy. And by the way, ticos aren't all really short like other Latin American countries- Alba's sons are all around 6 feet tall and one might be taller than me. After time at my tica abuelas's house we went back home. Alba invited me to something that I couldn't quite understand at the time involving her family and Catholicism. When we got to her extended families house, there was a pretty good sized gathering sitting around- I was immediately given a seat and sat by someone that straight up reminded me of Joseph Gordon-Levitt but just with slightly darker skin! I talked with this Joseph esque guy for a little while since he was sitting next to me and he explained the Catholic tradition of praying to Mary in order for her to intercede on your behalf. They spent about 30 minutes standing up and then sitting down going through liturgical prayers to Mary with a few hymns thrown in.. I didn't understand much but I sat and stood as they did. Afterwards there was a mini smorgasbord and we went home... I went to bed shortly after.

One thing that I found awesome about the family gathering was that it was a group of extended family getting together to pray and, essentially, take part in each other's spiritual lives. This is something that doesn't seem very common in the states.. and despite me not converting to Catholicism, I have a very huge amount of respect for a family that will come together to pray and sing to God together, outside of church.

Here is a picture of me and Alba that I took a few minutes ago

This morning the students took busses with their family to the center of San Jose and did a sort of scavenger hunt. Also, we had individual language interviews that will place us into our different Spanish classes. It was all pretty relaxed and a good way to get us more familiar with public transportation. Before leaving San Jose, my small group was just chilling in the public park area where a couple small vendors on the side were selling little bags of corn. The corn was being sold to feed the hundreds of pigeons flying around everywhere... it was really interesting to me that the children and even adults don't seem to see pigeons as dirty pests but instead, children were chasing them around and feeding them, and some Jesus-looking guy, barefoot with a gray beard and robe, had a huge bag full of bird food and I even saw him grab one of the pigeons, unravel something off of its leg, and then rub it against his face before he kissed it and let it back down to keep eating. Weird. I realized that I probably looked a little dumb flinching every time a pigeon flew over my head.. but in my defense, I really did not feel like getting pooped on.

Our mothers picked us up at San Jose and we rode busses back to our homes.

I'm sure there is more I could write about but honestly, I may already have gone a little too detail-heavy...

Tomorrow we are going to the place where we will have class- it's about a 5 minute walk from my house.

peace