jueves a sabado

Buenas noches,

Solamente tengo tiempo para unos pensamientos muy rapidos. : }

Ha pasado menos que una semana--he estado aqui cuatro dias y sali de mi casa hasta cinco dias. Aunque, parece que mucho mas tiempo y es estoy casi comoda como estar en casa realmente.

Entonces, acabo de leer una poca de mi tarea en ingles, por eso, voy a escribir in mi lengua natural...

Switching to English, I am confused a lot because I follow conversations and sometimes can converse and even think in Spanish, but much of my thoughts are still in grammatical constructions and translations, even now, my brain is thinking of how to say this en espanol : }, but I hope I can get past this phase, which my Spanish teacher said is their hope at ICADS--our language school--as well.

A little summary of the last few days since me da cuenta de--I realize that I haven't written since I first arrived.

Martes y miercoles ya saben de esos dias...

el jueves:
Dia en San Jose--Spent the day with Taylor --who knows Hannah : }--from point loma/San Diego and Leah--from New York, a high school student "running with the big dogs" since her parents are a couple of our professors.

--public transport, buses, taxis, hopefully I'll remember the routes I took with mi papa y otros...

--new fruits like tamarindo, limon mandarina, papaya that I actually like; all the fruit es tan dulce--much sweeter than home--haha except the watermelon that was shockingly bitter from being over ripe at our cafecito, and Pop's ice cream--cas flavored sorbet yum!

--finding that gringos stand out-- a lot, for various reasons, and you should sometimes just not open your mouth, but at the same time, you need to fail in order to improve ...

--Taylor has a marriage proposal from an older lady who danced for him...if things don't work out with his novia

--Good conversations begun and to be had with some "non religious" friends, Christians, and my host sister who is catholic in an evangelical family . . . she's actually in Guanacaste until monday...

--Gave my Minnesota presents to my family and stumbled through explaining some of the weird stuff--ufda!

--my suitcase came thursday evening! We joked that it wouldn't come until I left in April, and once I decided not to be frustrated to crying and just accepted the peace of God--Laura and Trevor received it and brought it to me--Gracias a Dios! Same clothes and no stuff for three days--woohoo!

Viernes
--should probably write a little less-- I should sleep!

--Finishing of orientation, so I took a different bus with papa to LASP, we counted 6 paradas before mine and saw Dalia's school etc.

--As a group, we reflected on observations in this culture of more openly affectionate and open ticos with different roles for men and women, las mujeres serving a lot but also holding a great deal of influence... and things like this

--covered our core seminar, concentrations, safety, and health--perfect, I have just recently contracted a cold--tengo resfrio, perfecto.

--ate lunch together--guess what it was?? arroz y frijoles, por seguro :) Yet, it's obviously much more tasty and varied with other things at every meal than it could be en los estados unidos...

--showed our funk with interpretive dance, bowling for culture shock, and group sound offs ( it was difficult to organize and help figure out the second group...) before we did an alpha/beta activity
--I was an alpha, and each society had rules according to which we behaved and had vistors switch and report on each other's group... They were shockingly different and led to discussion of values, and how to approach a different culture etc. It is difficult to discern what truths and Truth is/are certain for all people, all the time and how that is manifest in a certain people ...

--Walked from Alto de guadalupe home with Papa, spur of the moment, it was a good hour of walking which caused mama to worry when she called and we weren't home that Fernando forgot me or something, but we were just walking and talking and stopped to buy water, then again to buy bread for coffee--meals and snacks are different
--speaking of which, figuring out how much to eat is tricky because they're very concerned that you eat and that you like their food, so their might be a tica 10, so I've heard . . .

sabado
--my cold is here for sure, but I slept in some and am pumping the vitamins and the water, although the ticos don't drink a ton of water, or hardly any, actually, more coffee and tea, well juice too, I guess...

--I was ready but las chiquitas were not when mama returned because Carlos finally came today! Carlos is a cat--female, who Dalia thought was a male when she named her ; )--and she has been at the vet and was supposed to be here days ago, so she is all that Dalia talks about-- mama loves the cat much more than papa : }...

--we went to help the oldest daughter, adriana, move out of her old apartment and into her new one in the same area, but we had some extra time, so mama said I could go run for a while and we could eat lunch when I got back--Hacia color! of course, it was the hottest part of the day and my running got slower and slower haha I'm a bit burnt actually after only a little over half an hour when they found me to go eat lunch

--All of her things are in the new apartment, and I played outside some with Dalia and Evelyn.

--Have had some good conversations with my host parents in the car and walking and such about their lives here, in Nicaragua, visiting Cuba and other places, only a little in politics because Papa is not a registered voter and mama is having a hard time discerning what to do for the upcoming elections... and other topics too, of course I spend a lot of time looking pretty dumb--in both meanings of the word : ]

--Did some reading while the girls played computer games--they do this quite a bit, and we ate--you guessed it--rice and beans plus!

--I need to go to the supermarket soon for toiletries, maybe when the girls go to buy the notebooks they've been whining about--they want decorated ones, Dalia, especially wants hello kitty--I love it spoken with a spanish accent; I also like it when they make each other laugh over something silly

--Now it's time for bed; going to wake up too soon to shower-- kind of hokey pokey like Samoa, actually, although they have "hot water" when you flip a breaker up in the shower : } --before church in the morning. yay!

Buenas Noches!