Chapter 2... Costa Rica

I made it to Costa Rica! Preparing for this trip has been so different from Mexico just because I know how much loneliness and homesickness to expect, and for that reason I think I was more nervous than excited. In the Miami airport I met up with the rest of my group. There are 34 of us in all, and we are a very lovely group if I do say so myself. I only slept 3 hours the night before I left and I think I am still trying to make up the difference. I have been SO EXHAUSTED all week! This week was orientation, on Thursday we split into group of 3 and explored downtown San Jose we had a list of things we had to find, and a map. Unfortunately almost none of the streets are labeled and nobody really knows which street is which, so it is very difficult getting from one place to the other. I was with McCall and Andrew and we laughed a lot at ourselves. After a morning of being quite disoriented and getting incorrect directions from the locals (they don’t want to disappoint you by saying they don’ know where something is) we ate lunch in a very pretty park. We just couldn’t get over the fact that 2 days prior we had been at home in the US and now we were on an adventure of cultural blunders in a completely foreign country, eating lunches packed for us my women we hardly even knew in a park that we couldn’t even find on the map! There was also a lovely object lesson at lunch. Andrew’s mom had packed him a huge orange, but she had peeled it with a potato peeler and cut a small part of the top off. We just really didn’t know how he was supposed to eat it. McCall decided it was a great representation of our situation because “it’s like we have things that are sort of familiar and we have our ways of doing them, and just the fact that people here do things differently makes the normal seem completely abnormal and makes us feel completely incompetent.” We just have different ideas of how to do things.
I have a great host family. Thank you Lord! Henry and Maritza are my parents, and my sister Alejandra is 16, and my brother Manfred is 8. They have had 11 students before me, so they are “pro” hosts. But speaking of doing things differently… tonight we had taquitos for dinner, meat rolled up in a taco shell and fried. I was excited when I got to the table and saw the taquitos piled with lettuce and sour cream and salsa, until I looked closer and realized the “sour cream” and “salsa” was actually ketchup and mayonaise. Yep. It was drenched in ketchup and mayonaise. But I ate it J

A few other observations:
It is colder here than I expected. It rains every day and right now I really wish I had some sweat pants and not just shorts.
People here a clean freaks. EVERYONE takes a shower EVERY day. For those of you who don’t know my showering habits… let’s just say it’s a stretch.
People dress up here. Most women wear high heels or fancy flats. I want to fit it, but I have to walk about 2 miles to school most days and then another 2 miles to language school in the afternoon, so I’m wearing my tennis shoes… go ahead, call the fashion police.

I’m doing this guys! Please keep praying for me. It is overwhelming to think about being here for over 3 months, but God is faithful to give me strength and joy for TODAY, and that is all I need.