Saturday 11/22/08

This morning I woke up and finally learned how to make pinto. I’m sure you’ve read the word pinto several times now if you’ve been so kind to actually read my “chatty Kathy” blog. Anyways, pinto is a traditional breakfast plate that we eat all the time. It’s a simple plate in which you cook the rice and beans together rather than separate. I eat it almost daily. After learning how to make pinto and letting it digest, I hopped on the elliptical while my family watched Beauty and the Beast. There is a certain innocence of the people here in La Virgen (the campo, aka the country). I think the fact that three teenage boys still watch Disney movies (by choice) and the fact that my middle brother Andres who is 15 looks like he’s 10 best explains this innocence (although, it is still difficult to comprehend if you are not here). There life is simply different than what I’ve been exposed to and their experiences have left them with a sweetness and innocence that is indescribable. I headed to the internet café (as I could tell it was going to be a movie marathon day) and finally had the chance to talk to my parents via Skype rather than e-mail (I can tell I’m getting anxious to see them as it almost brought me to tears by simply hearing their voices). While at the internet café, I copied a basic sugar cookie recipe so that I could teach my family to make Christmas cookies (something they’ve wanted to do). We spent the afternoon making sugar cookies. I couldn’t find cookie cutters anywhere in town and so we had to use a cousins, Karen (aka la loca), play-do cutters, so our cookies were “mini-cookies” to say the least. Everyone enjoyed being creative and making their own shapes with simply a knife. After making homemade frosting (since there is no such thing as pre-made here) we all frosted cookies and licked our fingers like 5 year olds. We spent the rest of the day watching Rocky, eating dinner and working on a 500 piece puzzle. If you didn’t already know this about me, I’m somewhat obsessed with puzzles and so I didn’t go to sleep until we finished. The boys were shocked at how fast I worked (as I had my sections done 10x faster than they’d finished a small section). Andres, my middle brother, would continually look at me and then tell his brothers, “She’s just lucky”.

Friday 11/21/08

Happy Costa Rica’s Teacher Appreciation Day! Hey, that now includes me! We didn’t have school today in order to do exactly what the day entails, appreciating ourselves. I ran on the elliptical while my brothers watched some weird Eddie Murphy movie and we all ate pinto and banana pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast, it was off to getting our chores done. Luckily I convinced Maria to let me help with the household chores. I swept the house, washed the dishes, and cleaned the kitchen while listening to Maria belt out some amazing Mexican mariachi music. We had a nice lunch and afterward (due to the fact I could tell it was going to be a slow going day due to rain and my family’s TV and movie watching consumption) I decided to go for a walk around town and stop in quickly at the internet café and buy a bag (as I know I won’t be able to cram everything back in the way I packed it. Does anyone else have that problem of being able to pack for a journey and then never fit your stuff in on the way back?) I came home, ate my daily snack of pancakes and then I headed to Puerto Viejo with Licho, Maria, Andres and my grandma (Maria’s mom). We were going to visit a friend who has stomach cancer. We delivered fruits, breads, meals and ice cream and did what we Latinos do best, “platicar” (simply sit around and talk and talk and talk). We eventually headed back to La Virgen and ate dinner, watched part of Harry Potter (thanks to our new TNT) and headed off to bed.

Thursday 11/20/08

Typical school morning (elliptical, a pinto breakfast, and out the door by 6:40). Today I again worked with the 4th through 6th graders and led somewhat of a review session because their English final is next week. Around 10, my professors came from San Jose to visit and check in with me. They told me I look “very content”, which is of course very true. It is hard to think I will have to leave this life in just a few days. After a nice school day I headed home and hung out with Maria and Jessica (the other lunch lady). They are two of my favorite ladies and so we had a wonderful afternoon of laughter and silliness. Jessica had figured out to get TNT (a cable channel) on her cable-less TV and so she came over and showed us how to wire our TV likewise. It worked and Maria was jumping up and down she was so excited to add a new cable channel onto or 4 other non-cable options. My oldest brother went to mass (first time someone in my family has gone) because Nancy, his major crush was going to be there. We all made fun of him for the rest of the night. Before dinner I helped my brother, Andres, with his homework of translating the story of Sleeping Beauty he was given in English into Spanish. We had a nice late dinner while watching Lord of the Rings on our new favorite channel TNT. The boys and I got into a pillow fight and laughed the night away. Our silliness even continued as we all climbed in bed as we retold our many inside jokes from ceiling-less room to ceiling-less room until eventually quieting down and falling asleep around 10.

Wednesday 11/19/08

Today was yet again a day where there were not English classes. I came at an unfortunate time of the year where the English teachers are gone at a training every single Monday and Wednesday. I slept in (aka 7am) and worked out on the elliptical while watching Battle of the Sexes with my brother (basically today was exactly like Monday morning). After spending the morning making final touches on my three essays, Jose Manuel and I headed to the school around 11:30. After lunch since I didn’t have classes to teach, I offered to help Maria in the kitchen. I became the new dish washer and enjoyed my time with Maria and Jessica in the kitchen. Afterwards I headed to the internet café to send my 3 essays back to my school via e-mail (Technology these days!). When I came home I hung out with my brothers and Maria gave me my daily afternoon snack of pancakes (if my pancake consumption doesn’t show up in a daily entry it is simply because it has such a daily event that that I forget to add it in). Later in the afternoon I helped my middle brother, Andres, by teaching him to bake chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake. He and his classmates will sell them tomorrow as part of a school project. Other than a minor burn on my middle finger (which became the joke of the night due to its placement) my cookies were a huge hit and the family was addicted. Before dinner we all got out our school notebooks and compared handwriting (I won!). This eventually led to tons of doodling and drawing, which we did until dinner. As usual, dinner was accompanied by amazing conversation and plenty of laughter (especially about our first impressions of one another and laughing about how much more comfortable we are now in comparison to that first day together). We played checkers (which entails a few different rules here) and eventually headed off to bed.

Tuesday 11/18/08

The morning began with a workout on the elliptical while watching Wall-E. Unfortunately, it has been raining non-stop which makes it nearly impossible to go for a nice run in the mornings, so the elliptical will have to do. Today at school I worked with the 4th through 6th graders because my younger classes were taking final exams all morning. I had a small gap of time that I used to catch up with Wes and Becca via Skype. After the school day, I came home and watched Blade with my brothers. The afternoon was as the ticos would say “tranquilo”. Later in the evening my uncle Alvaro came over and talked our ears off about every conversation topic imaginable. Much of the time was spent listening to his perspective on the US. It was interesting to hear his perspective and the assumptions he was making about all the US based on his short trip to Florida. It was also a good opportunity to simply be quiet and listen to an opinion, rather than get defensive (our natural human response). We watched some of CSI: NY and Grey’s Anatomy and headed off to bed.

Monday 11/17/08

Today was somewhat like a day off because they weren’t any English classes and/or anything for me to do at the school. I woke up at the nice late hour of 7 and worked out on the elliptical while watching “La Guerra de los Sexos” (Battle of the Sexes) with my brother. I spent the morning doing homework. It was nice to have a huge chunk of time to dedicate to homework (since that is how I like to get my homework done). I wrote an entire paper, showered up and headed to the school for lunch (since Maria is the lunch lady). I spent a little bit of time at the school and eventually made my way to the internet café to update photos, blog posts and e-mails. When I came home I hung out with my brothers. Somehow we got into a conversation about music videos and so I showed them a Hives music video I starred in back in my younger years. We had a nice relaxing evening and the normal routine of dinner and news. After homemade plastic bag popsicles, we made our way to bed. For some odd reason I could not fall asleep and was tossing and turning until past midnight.

You know you've been living in Costa Rica when...