August 27th. First Day in new land.

Again, I am posting after the fact, thus the “boatswain´s” log.

Boatswain’s log August 27^th

 

It’s only been a day or so, but lots has happened.

 

After about 9 hours of travel or so I am finally in Costa Rica at the home of my host family. My host mom is called Liliana, my host dad is Oscar, and my host brothers are Juan Carlos (18) and Jose Alonso (20). They’re pretty great. I was super pumped to find out that I had host brothers and they’re lots of fun to be around. Very lively guys. My host mom is wonderful. She gave me treats and a refreshing drink when I got into the house this afternoon. The drink is called “cas”. It’s made with sugar, ice, and a strange little green fruit all blended together. My host dad is a taxi driver and he’s very funny.

 

I live in an area called Sabanilla. It’s totally walking distance from where I’ll be going to class. Sweet awesome. There are 2 banks nearby for me to change money at. Also there are grocery stores and a pharmacy nearby too. It’s a convenient location. I need to learn how to say “convenient” in Spanish. Nonetheless, my family seems fairly impressed that I can speak Spanish at least decently well. I wish I was better though. They’re pumped about this mac I’m using too. I may leave it behind and pay You-sef 20$…

 

My host family calls me Diego because my full name is Chauncey Diego Francisco Handy and Chauncey is too hard for them to say. So we went with Diego. I don’t mind being Diego.

 

Diego was EXTREMELY tired last night, almost to the point of tears. I needed to stop moving and relax. I got time to sleep, but tomorrow morning at 5:15 my day starts so I can get to get to my “finding the way in San Jose” training. I feel bad because one of my host brothers will have to ride the bus into town with me, but not too bad. If he didn’t come I’d be likely to be shanked or robbed. It’s true.

 

My host family is Pentecostal and it seems like they mostly hang out with neighbors and people from church. Everyone that I’ve met thus far seems to be incredibly kind and welcoming. I’m excited to go to church with them.

 

I’ve got my own room here with plenty of space for everything. My host mom said to say “Desde Costa Rica…Pura Vida!” So there it is. For those of you who lack the Spanish comprehension that means “from Costa Rica…Pure Life!” I guess so. Pure Life seems to come with Spanish that is spoken really really fast. I think I’ll catch on soonish, but at the moment it’s a tad overwhelming. I would love to be able to sleep for more than 6 hours. Maybe it’s an unreasonable dream.

 

Costa Rica itself is very pretty. I am in a valley surrounded by mountains. Green mountains. When I got here it was dark and this morning the sun came out. It’s supposed to rain the whole time I’m here (joy). I came during the rainy season. The sky looked the same as it does in Bellingham. Who knew? I guess for some reason I thought that the sky would be different. Nope. Not different at all.

 

It’s way warmer and a bit more humid here than in other places. On the bus ride from the airport I almost got sick. I smelled terrible. I was sweaty and I’d be traveling for A LONG TIME. Then we got in a bus on the way to our inbetween location. A warm bus. Which quickly became a humid bus. Which then led to me feeling sickly. I didn’t throw up though.

 

This morning we went through briefing about Costa Rica with my program. We talked about our host families. We were all super pumped to meet them…then we had to wait for four hours. We were still pumped then, but a bit more worn out. The program has an interesting philosophy. More or less it’s “Learn from experience.” Attempts to ask questions have been met with no answers or a “yes” when something doesn’t necessitate a yes or no. I mostly enjoyed that. I like the idea of figuring it out. Especially tomorrow. We get to figure it out tomorrow in the Downtown. I think it will go okay. We start at 7AM at the “Teatro Nacional”. Hurray for adventures.

 

I am experiencing a bit of homesickness. Nothing extreme, but really though. I didn’t quite expect this. I didn’t think that I’d be getting homesick at all. I guess that going halfway to the south pole (mostly) makes being homesick a bit easy. I’m praying for you all as I think about you.

 

The people in my program are nice. It’ll be fun to spend time with them as I continue to be here. The guy who is in charge of my concentration in the program is named Javier. He’s a lawyer who is really kind and very funny. He complimented my Spanish this morning. That was nice. I really won’t be spending that much time with the people in my class. As it turns out living with people means you talk to them a lot. So high five there.

 

I paused from writing to eat dinner with the host fam. It was rice with chicken and some cooked vegetables. I’m going to have to seek some fresh vegetables at the market tomorrow. I got spoilt by my parents’ ginormous garden at home.

 

Funny story. Today in class we were supposed to say our favorite Spanish word. I told the class that one of mine was “gigante”. It means gigantic. People laughed because…I’m a big guy.

 

Night in Costa Rica is odd. Music is playing, people are still outside, and there’s weird new birds hanging about. They’re only new because I’ve never seen/heard them before. Well. Bedtime. 5AM wakeup time. Yay…but really though because I get to explore a bit of a new country.