Thursday, October 4
Before I tell you about our day, I want to introduce you to our "Costa Rican Familia."
Samia is our host mother. Her children are Jimena (14) and José Pablo (12). Samia (pronounced "SAM-e-ah") is a great cook and loves to clean. The house is always clean when we get home from school and breakfast and dinner are always delicious. Jimena (prounounced "he-MEN-a") is very studious. She spends a lot of time doing homework when she is home. José Pablo has had two tests this week in school and he is a typical studen: he does not want to study and he is easily distracted by TV, games, Eddie, and especially Jaden. The whole family already loves Jaden!
Freddy could not attend church with us becuase he has to work from 2am to 6pm some Sundays. On Monday, he traveled a few hours a way for his job and he will be there all week. He will be home tomorrow, but here is a picture we got before he left. Samia is holding her neice, Ebony. Freddy speaks English pretty well, but he doesn't speak it very much (only when I really need him to). He is very good at helping us to understand what he says, too. He also loves Jaden very much!
Samia is our host mother. Her children are Jimena (14) and José Pablo (12). Samia (pronounced "SAM-e-ah") is a great cook and loves to clean. The house is always clean when we get home from school and breakfast and dinner are always delicious. Jimena (prounounced "he-MEN-a") is very studious. She spends a lot of time doing homework when she is home. José Pablo has had two tests this week in school and he is a typical studen: he does not want to study and he is easily distracted by TV, games, Eddie, and especially Jaden. The whole family already loves Jaden!
Freddy could not attend church with us becuase he has to work from 2am to 6pm some Sundays. On Monday, he traveled a few hours a way for his job and he will be there all week. He will be home tomorrow, but here is a picture we got before he left. Samia is holding her neice, Ebony. Freddy speaks English pretty well, but he doesn't speak it very much (only when I really need him to). He is very good at helping us to understand what he says, too. He also loves Jaden very much!
This is a picture of three of the teachers at the school. My teacher is Sonia, on the left. Eddie's teacher is Karen, in the middle. Ana is on the right, and she loves to play with Jaden.
This is Jaden waiting patiently to watch TV in his classroom. The TV wasn't even plugged in. He just decided to pull up a chair, press "power" and sit down and wait.This my classroom on the first day of Spanish Lessons.
Yesterday was another great day of class. My teacher worked with me on a family tree and then asked me questions in Spanish about my family and where they live and what they do. I am learning to understand and answer in Spanish, but I often feel unsure of my sentence structure and my limited vocabulary.
Today, she had me write sentences about 12 different
animals. I had to write three
sentences about each animal. The
sentences had to have the verbs “to need” or “to want” in them. I feel like all I did was write today. As she read my last section of
sentences she said (in Spanish, of course) that my sentences were very good and
perfect. She is very
encouraging. Obviously, they weren’t
perfect because she corrected my grammar on several of them, but I was encouraged
non-the less. I tried to write
relevant sentences and I tried to use a variety of sentence structure instead
of just writing, “I want a monkey. I need a dog. I want a cat, etc.”
We also played “Twenty Questions” with 30 animal flashcards. I picked a card and she asked me
questions until she could guess the animal, and vice versa. On one of my turns, I picked “horse” and
she had a hard time guessing it.
She was asking me something I could not understand. She looked it up in the dictionary, and
I still didn’t understand what she was asking me. The translation was “on the scent.” It took me a few minutes to realize that
she was asking me for a “hint.”
Back to yesterday; Jaden actually fell asleep at school
yesterday so we were able to eat our lunch without a temper-tantrum, and we
walked home with a much happier child.
When we got home, someone else needed a nap: Eddie. Jaden and I went exploring. We found lots to look at and I will try
to post a video soon of a plant that “dies” when you touch it… I don’t know
what it is called.
When Jaden and I returned from exploring, Gabby was at the
house with Samia. She is Samia’s
friend who teaches at a school for children of the indigenous people. Gabby rides her four-wheeler for an
hour everyday up into the mountains.
There is a small school where she teaches 4-5 year-olds and her friend
teaches 1st-6th grade all together. There are 31 children that attend the
school, and many of them walk 2-3 hours to get to school everyday. They have to cross a very big river and
there is no bridge. The older
children walk with the younger ones and their parents do not accompany them. Vos
Que Clama mission takes groups of people on mission trips to the indigenous
villages. It is a 5-hour walk and
you have to carry any supplies you may need. If they are going up to build a house for someone, the
people on mission have to carry the wood and other supplies up the
mountain.
Gabby was telling us all of this in Spanish and using her
cell phone to show us pictures. I
have to say that I am quite proud of us for the amount of Spanish we are able
to understand in just one week. It
helps when people speak slowly and use a lot of hand motions. Speaking, on the other hand, is much
harder for both of us. We are
learning little by little, though.
After our afternoon snack, we had homework to do. Each week, the students at the school
are required to participate in a culture class. We have to do a presentation in front of the other students
and teachers. It is supposed to be
memorized, but Francine (who has been here for 3 ½ months) still writes down
what she wants to say so she can read it.
“Ambitious Eddie” decided we should do a Power-Point presentation on
“The People of the South – In the state of North Carolina.” Several hours later, we had our speech written and translated and had photos to go with it. We are pretty proud of how it turned
out, but we already plan to make next week’s presentation a little simpler.
Our presentation included information about North Carolina
accents, college basketball teams, homes in North Carolina, and food in North
Carolina (including fried food at the fair). They were very interested in the crazy amounts of
fried-everything they serve at the fair: fried Oreos, fried pb&j, fried
pecan pie, fried coca-cola, fried Twinkies, fried candy bars, etc. We even told them about the Krispy
Kreme Burger you can get at the fair.
There are only two other students at CISA right now. Francine talked about the culture of
New Zealand (which I didn’t understand most of.) Jennea talked about the competition between Northern and
Southern California and the tattoos involved: No Cal vs. So Cal. She said that some people even tattoo
their telephone area code on their bodies with pride. You learn something new everyday, right?
After lunch today, we had our first cooking class (also in
Spanish). I am not good at Spanish
or cooking, so I was kind of dreading this class. It turns out, I enjoyed it and I am sad that we will only
have it for 4 weeks. Zeydi
(pronounced Sadie) was our teacher.
She cooks our lunch at school everyday and her food is great! Today she taught Eddie and I how to
make corn tortillas from scratch and then make empanadas with them. All it takes is corn flour, salt and
water. Once we had a tortilla
made, we put refried beans and cheese inside and folded them in half. You pinch the edges shut and cook it in
hot corn oil. They were delicious
(…and I thought I didn’t like corn tortillas).
This afternoon, Eddie and I ventured down to the river
again. We carefully climbed down
the bank and brought Jaden with us.
When Eddie tried to put Jaden’s toes in the water, he kinda freaked
out. He was nervous about the
river, so we just carried him.
We
walked for a few minutes and realized it was starting to rain. We had our camera with us, and we were
afraid it would downpour. Eddie
ran home with it, and I carried Jaden as quick as I could. Thankfully, we made it home without
getting wet. Then it was time for
a nap for Jaden. Samia stayed home
with him while Eddie and I went for a walk. We didn’t know where we were going, but we wanted to
explore. We walked up a stone road
that was pretty steep. It led us
to a cemetery so we looked around for a few minutes. The cemeteries here are above ground so it was very
different than what you would see in the US. It was nearing sundown so we headed home, and God gave us a
gorgeous display of his handiwork as the sun sank behind the mountains in front
of us. It was a beautiful reminder
of his love shining down on us.
On the way home, we stopped to meet our neighbors, Daniel and Bernice (Danny and Berney). Since there are only three houses on the road we live on, it was time for us to meet them. We walk past their house multiple times a day, and just waving isn’t going to help us learn Spanish. It turns out, they love to talk!!! They were very patient with us and talked very slow. They said, “You want to learn Spanish and we want to learn English!” I think it would be fun to teach them English, but I have no idea where to start. I am praying that God leads us to the areas he wants us to serve. So far, we know we will be involved with the youth group. Other than that, we don’t know. The directors of the mission, Daniel and Hector, are in California right now presenting the results of their most recent mission trip. They are also examining the needs of the indigenous people and making plans for the next trip. Please pray that our hearts be open to where God wants us to serve Him while we are in this beautiful country.
I am so proud of my baby sister and her husband... I know that God is using you in great ways.
ReplyDeleteMiss you! Alison
Hello my wonderful children, This is Moma Berrios. I didn't realize that I could comment on your blog. I am so enjoying following your adventures and feel I am being kept in the loop. So happy that Jaden is doing well with all the changes he has made in the last couple of weeks. I miss you all so much and almost cried when I saw my grandson sleeping during his naptime. I was so happy to have skyped with you and Samia. She is wonderful! I tried calling several times but it went into voicemail. I wanted to ask you if you wanted me to buy you a baby carrier that you hook on your back for Jaden so you won't have to carry him up and back. I was going to send it with Amanda. Let me know what you think and I can ship it to you. Also let me know if there is a particular brand you may want and include Jaden's weight. We are sooo proud of you and love you very much! Beso y que Dios los bendiga.
ReplyDeleteHi Deana! My name is Deidre and I will be attending CISA from November to February. Reading your blog makes me want to leave today!! (like Amanda. We are on the same praise team at CBG) I am looking forward to meeting you and your family. I love reading about your time there thus far, thanks for blogging! I will be keeping you all in my prayers. See you next month! Oh btw...did Amamnda tell you we will be doing Zumba? LOL
ReplyDeleteGod bless.