We have a lot to be thankful for, but most of all we are thankful for our Lord and Savior. Without Him, we would be lost. We are also thankful for the opportunity to be here in this beautiful country! We have had so many blessings a long the way...
Monday, November 19
Our early morning Exercise Class came just a bit too early
for us, but we made it. Daniel led
us on a run/walk up the mountain again, but it just doesn’t seem to get any
easier.
Mom and Dad flew home from Miami at 9:00am and made it just
on time for my Dad’s doctor’s appointment in Chicago. Thankfully, he had a good report from the eye doctor, but he
still has to wait sometime before his eye will be fully healed.
We have a new student at CISA starting today, bringing our
total number of students to 6 (but Jennea is leaving in a week). Her name is Deidre, and she is a friend
of Amanda’s. She is staying for 3
months. She is one awesome
woman with a cute Boston accent who speaks in a perfect Spanish accent. She knows a lot of Spanish words, but
struggles putting them together in conversation. I believe she will learn quickly, too.
We enjoyed a restful afternoon after class and recuperated
from our weekend adventure.
Tuesday, November 20
Today was a pretty low-key day at CISA. We had Spanish Class and Bible Class
where we recited the books of the New Testament in Spanish from memory. We also discussed 15 questions about
Genesis 1 that we had for homework.
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| Kerlin, Samia and Gabby |
Una
fiesta en la casa de nuestro para celebran cumpleaños de Gabby: Samia hosted a party for Gabby’s
birthday at our house in the evening.
We enjoyed another wonderful dinner and tres leches queque.
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| Gangnam Style |
After the party, Eddie and I had a late-night homework
session because he forgot about the fact that he had to prepare for culture
class.
Wednesday, November 21
Deidre joined us for our work-out this morning. It was fun to have someone with so much
energy join our “equipo.”
We were all feeling less than prepared for our presentations
for culture class today, but we usually have time in class to put the finishing
touches on it with our teachers.
What we didn’t know was:
Culture Class was moved to 9:00. It was now 8:20 and we were just finding this
out. We spent the next 40 minutes
preparing, and when the time came, we were ready. All of our presentations were about Thanksgiving, but we
each chose a different topic.
1. I
spoke about the history of Thanksgiving and the process America went through
for it to become a national holiday.
2. Rysen
talked about the history of Canadian Thanksgiving and how it was celebrated
many years before the first American Thanksgiving. Also, it is celebrated in October because the harvest in
Canada is earlier in the year than it is here. Interesante,
verdad?
3. Eddie
talked about typical American Thanksgiving food… are you surprised?
4. Jennea
talked about typical American Thanksgiving desserts; aka: Pie. She even made an apple pie for us to
taste.
5. Amanda
talked about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and her family’s tradition of
watching it while they cook all morning.
6. Deidre
talked about “Black Friday,” and how it is sadly taking over Thanksgiving
Day. I have to add, that I am more
aware and more saddened this year that our country spends a day being thankful
and then the next day being more greedy than ever. I pray that everyone is able to focus on the significance of
all that we have to be thankful for.
By the way, Deidre did a fantastic job on her presentation and she has
only been here for 4 days.
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| Ana and Jennea |
After class, we ate lunch while discussing “who” would be preparing “what” for our Thanksgiving feast. We were hoping to be able to all go shopping together for the food, but that just did not work out. We did get a chance to invite the staff of CISA and finalize the number of people who would be in attendance.
Jennea had a hair appointment in Turrialba this afternoon,
so I tagged along. We needed to
buy a few specialty items at the grocery store in Turrialba. We found the rest of what we needed in
Tuis and La Suisa (which was much closer.)
As I sat there waiting for Jennea to get her hair done, I
was thinking “I want to get my hair cut.”
Plus, there was a woman there who had just had her hair cut there
yesterday. I loved it… so I
decided to chop it off. I didn’t
even tell Eddie.
He retaliated by buzzing his head that night.
Once Jennea and I were done shopping, we loaded up our
backpacks with our groceries and carried everything to the bus stop to
wait. We waited in the rain for
about 15 minutes and when the bus arrived, it was packed. I could barely find a place to stand,
and there were three more people boarding the bus behind me. The last person was basically standing
on the first step next to the open door.
The lady behind me was practically driving the bus. Eventually, some people got off the bus
and a kind man offered me a seat.
That is about the time things started to fall apart. Jennea was dropping thing out of her
bag, I was bumping into people trying to get my bag off my back so I could sit,
and people were staring. It made
me think twice about ever trying to grocery shop again. To top it off, the bus was so full and
it was so dark, Jennea missed her stop because she couldn't see it out the window.
We had an adventure, but tried to remember all along that we were
thankful for so many things! I
mean… things could have been a whole lot worse, so I try to keep a smile on my
face, even when my heart wishes for modern day luxuries that I took for granted
before we moved here, like: my car.
Thursday, November 22
Happy Thanksgiving… or as they would say here: “Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!”
We had a blessed opportunity to serve those who usually
serve us. All six students of CISA
made a Thanksgiving Feast for our teachers, the directors, our cook, and Jaden's nanny.
I woke up around 7:00 and tried to make Heath bar cookies
before breakfast. That turned into
a more difficult task than I had imagined. I ended up mixing the dough with my hands… I mean literally
“hands in dough.” I had fun and
after the first tray came out burned, the rest were perfect and tasted
delicious.
After breakfast, we got ready to go to CISA to meet the
other students to start cooking. We all planned to be there around 10 and try to eat lunch
around 1:00. Even though we did
not have class today, the teachers had a meeting so they were there anyway. Everyone was calling Eddie and I “loco”
because of our “nueva look.”
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| Leaning Tower of Cheese-a |
Deidre made the sweet potatoes (which were actually white),
Amanda made the bread pudding and coquito, Rysen “made” the mashed potatoes and
corn, Eddie made rice and beans and macaroni and cheese. I made the honey butter (thanks Adama
family). Deidre and Amanda worked
as a team to make 3 chickens.
Jennea made the apple pies.
We definitely had a feast. I helped Eddie prep the cheese for the mac n cheese... this it my "Leaning Tower of Cheese-a."
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| Patricia, Diana, and Ana |
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| ... and Zeidy |
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| Their last day together: La Maestra y La Estudiante |
Everyone loved the food and we enjoyed the chance to serve
and fellowship with the staff of CISA. Daniel even provided the dinner entertainment… he kept
appearing with different costumes.
After we cleaned up (thanks Rysen and Eddie), we hung out
and Deidre even led a little Zoomba lesson. We then had the brilliant idea to set up the projector with
Eddie’s computer and have a movie night.
We pulled the couch out to the main room, hooked up to the sound system,
and sat down with popcorn and snacks. It was a relaxing evening and we are thankful for the
opportunity to enjoy such luxuries!
One additional event of the day was the discovery that may
possibly have a worm growing under my skin where I have a bug bite. I have shown the bite to several Costa
Ricans and have had many different opinions given to me. Some people say it is a worm and has to
be covered to suffocate it so it dies (like with tape). Others say it is just a bad reaction to
a bug bite. Others think it may be
an infected bug bite. I don’t know
what to do, but I am now treating it with antibiotic cream.
Friday, November 23
Everybody needs a day to relax… we slept in until 8:00
today. We ate a late breakfast and
just hung out around the house for a while. Eddie decided to go for a run because it was such a gorgeous
morning… well, it wasn’t raining.
When he returned, he told me that Rysen and Deidre wanted to take a trip
to Turrialba today at 11:00. We
decided to join them. We ate at
“Cocina de Betty” again because we enjoyed it so much when we ate there with my
parents. April and her family
happened to be there too. We had a
chance to visit with her and she invited us over next week for coffee.
Next, we walked into town and just wandered. We didn’t have much of an agenda, but
Rysen did want to buy a cell phone and he was hoping for Black Friday
sales. I never imagined I would go
Black Friday shopping in Costa Rica, but we did. There were many more people in the stores and many stores
had sound systems set up with people talking very loudly trying to attract
attention to their stores. It was
more obnoxious than inviting, in my humble opinion.
We snacked on pastries and I visited two pharmacies to try
to diagnose my bug bite. We took
the 4:00 bus home and had a relaxing evening. We ate dinner with José Pablo and Freddy. While I was washing the dishes, Freddy
was asking me about our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. He asked me why we didn’t make turkey,
and I was trying to tell him that it takes a long time to cook a turkey. I was also trying to say that the ovens
here are small only I said the word for “urinate” instead of the word for
“oven.” Wow… that was an
embarrassing mix-up! The evening ended with a movie night with José Pablo. We watched "Lockout."
Saturday, November 24
Since the months of November and December are very rainy here, there is not much of a chance for our cloths to dry out in the sun. Samia has been worried all week about running out of clean, dry cloths for her family. Since they do not have a dryer, she did several loads of laundry this morning, and Freddy drove me over to Amanda's house for a couple of hours so that I could dry all of the clothes in her dryer. It has been an enjoyable and relaxing afternoon. Jaden took a nap, and I caught up on my blog... Thanks for reading!
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