Friday 11/7/08

This morning I didn’t have to be at the school until 8:40, but since my brothers and I were up already we decided to go on an adventure. The boys showed me all the property their uncle owns just beyond our street. We walked throughout the whole property looking at cows, listening to the toucans and making a visit to the baby pigs. Then Andres, my middle brother, asked if I wanted to go down to the river because their uncle’s property extended all the way to the river itself. I didn’t realize how close we are to the Sarapiqui River. After wandering barefoot (due to wet slippery flip-flops that wouldn’t stay on) through what I’m pretty sure was cow crap, we finally made it to the river. We put our feet in the cold water and wandered around for a few minutes, but I had to end our adventure early because I needed to get back to the house to get dressed and in teacher mode by 8:30. We headed back, cleaned off our dirty feet and I made my way to school. Even though I help teach literally hundreds of students it feels good to see familiar faces and luckily I have a very good memory for names so I know a lot of the kids by name. The strangest names parents have picked up from English include Wander, Dairy, Darling and Jock. There are tons of other names that are equally as interesting in which it is obvious parents learned them from TV or some other English source. After a tiring day of school (TGIF!) I headed to the internet café to catch up on life outside of La Virgen. I came home to my afternoon snack of pancakes and we spent the rest of the early evening singing karaoke. It was funny because singing karaoke is a usual event on Friday nights at my house in San Jose (and so doing it here was in some strange way comforting). After a nice dinner together we finished the evening with the news and Funniest Animal Videos (which was a perfect show for my youngest brother (11) who loves animals). During the show Maria brought in a bucket of hot water and told me to stick my feet in. She told me on Friday nights she likes to wash her feet as a way to relax and distress from the busy work week. As the water eventually cooled down, she told me it was time for my pedicure. Those who know me well, know my feet. After being hesitant towards Maria’s offer and explaining EB, Maria still insisted that she lotion and massage my feet. I gave in and was humbled at how much this woman has bent over backwards to take care of me and make me feel at home. Looking at how comfortable I’ve become to my life in La Virgen it’s strange to think I just arrived less than one week ago.