Hello friends and family.
I hope everyone was able to enjoy the slice of Americana that is the Superbowl. It definitely has a different feel when all the commercials are just promos for some Mexican Soccer League. I think the SportsGuy (a writer for espn.com page 2) said it best. Giants fans were crying, hugging, jumping for joy all around him. They looked like castaways who had just seen the rescue boat. Isn’t football great. Tom Petty and Jordin Sparks were the only things we heard in English. We still haven’t seen the commercials. Maybe we’ll pull up some commercial ratings website and watch the best ones.
The painter took a break this week and became a carpenter. My brothers-in-law would be proud. We have several kids who have gotten to the point where they can climb out of their cribs. It is kind of dangerous. I was assigned to take a crib and cut it in half horizontally to make two toddler beds. I’ve made 4 of them so far. They actually look pretty good, and the rewards are the smiles on their little faces when they receive their camas nuevas.
So we had a birthday party here at Hogar De Vida. It was a birthday party for all the ninos that had birthdays in October, November and December. I’m not sure if it was a month and a half late or really early. Actually here in Costa Rica it was probably right on time for them. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. A Christian couple from San Jose drove in to throw the fiesta. My wife revealed a hidden talent of balloon animal making. We played pin the tail on the rabbit, ate lots of sweets and we even had a piñata. I however missed the piñata because I had to take Brandon, my little buddy (5th picture), up to the house for stabbing Jerbin with a ruler. You’ll have that.
I have a new exercise plan. The house received a new bicycle yesterday. Running behind a bike with seven 6-8 year-olds for a couple hours is great exercise. We had one small wipeout where I almost annihilated the little girl. No blood though. All in all it was great fun.
You know your Spanish is coming around when you start to hear the kids mispronouncing words. As you know, we have several cows on the property. The cows frequently get out of their areas and come for a visit. Cows in Spanish are vacas. However, when Jerbin sees cows he says “Macas.” Everyone corrects him by saying, “No Jerbin, Vvvaca”, and Jerbin responds, “Si, Macas!” Speaking of the vacas. Two of the cows are going to have babies here shortly. I hope we get to see it.
We started working on colors with some of the children. We had two Duplos, one blue (azul) and one green (verde). We went back and forth saying this is blue and this is green. Blue, Green, Blue, Green, Blue, Green. When we asked Jerbin which one was blue, he of course pointed to the green. When we asked Jacqueline what color this one was, she said siete (seven). I think I have a future as a teacher.
I’m off to play futbol with the other guys. Here’s Jessica.
Hola –
Another week has gone by, and we’re half way through our four weeks here. It has really flown by – not that we’re skipping days, but that the days go quickly.
This past week we got a new girl in the upper house. Pricila is four years-old and her younger brother was already placed at Hogar de Vida in the lower house. Typically they try to keep sibling groups together but the beds just didn’t work in her favor this time. She calls me Jescala, but I haven’t quite caught onto it yet. So I don’t always know that she’s talking to me. It’s been interesting to watch the integration of a new kid into the mix. Unfortunately the tias and kids tend to treat her differently – myself included I hate to admit. For the kids, she’s the “muchacha nueva” (new girl) so they prefer others over her. For the tias, it’s hard to love on her because she has lice and all of her teeth are rotting out. Neither of these things are her fault at all. They’re both very visible examples of her poor home situation. I’m working on my lack of love for her. I’ve decided that lice isn’t that bad. There are easy remedies for it. And if all else fails, I can stand a haircut. And teeth can be dealt with. All kids in Costa Rica have free health care, so we’re going to take care of that too. She needs love – probably more than all the other kids right now. So I’m working on that – for her sake – and asking for forgiveness concerning it – for my sake.
Last week it was the tarantula – this week it should have been a lot of dead bugs because the exterminator just came. However, no such luck. There is a counter in the kitchen that was always dirty. I kept thinking that I forgot to wash it. Finally I realized that dirt was falling from the trim near the ceiling. So I got the broom and tried to wipe it down. I ended up breaking up an ant farm of the biggest black ants I’ve ever seen. Of course I start yelling for Jon. The ceilings are really tall so I couldn’t reach to kill them with the fly swatter. He emptied our bottle of Raid as I swatted the ones that fell. All in all – really gross. So we washed all the dishes again.
We keep getting questions about food so to answer a few of those – we typically eat breakfast and dinner at our house and then have lunch in the upper house with the kids and staff. For breakfast, it’s the usual for us – cereal or toast. For breakfast in the upper house – they usually eat some form of beans and rice. For lunch, we typically have the almuerzo casado (married lunch) which bears the name because it’s what they used to send with their husbands to the field for lunch. It consists of black beans, rice, a small portion of meat (usually beef) and a bit of salad (typically some sort of cole slaw). Once in a while there will be pasta or fish. But always beans and rice. Dinner for us is whatever we get around to doing – most often the same as breakfast – cereal or toast. However we have also had mac and cheese, spaghetti, soup, grilled cheese, and pb&j. Tonight or tomorrow will be hot dogs. If we did have dinner in the upper house, it would be…….beans and rice. Having our largest meal at lunch time has been a bit of an adjustment, but it’s the Costa Rican way. Overall, we’ve found pretty much everything we’ve wanted American-food-wise in the three grocery stores in Atenas. Things are slightly different but overall we’re definitely not suffering in the food department.
We’re off to Atenas once more today to post this blog, and then I think we’re going to go to one of the volcanoes tomorrow.
Talk to you next week!
Love,
Jon & Jessica
I hope everyone was able to enjoy the slice of Americana that is the Superbowl. It definitely has a different feel when all the commercials are just promos for some Mexican Soccer League. I think the SportsGuy (a writer for espn.com page 2) said it best. Giants fans were crying, hugging, jumping for joy all around him. They looked like castaways who had just seen the rescue boat. Isn’t football great. Tom Petty and Jordin Sparks were the only things we heard in English. We still haven’t seen the commercials. Maybe we’ll pull up some commercial ratings website and watch the best ones.
The painter took a break this week and became a carpenter. My brothers-in-law would be proud. We have several kids who have gotten to the point where they can climb out of their cribs. It is kind of dangerous. I was assigned to take a crib and cut it in half horizontally to make two toddler beds. I’ve made 4 of them so far. They actually look pretty good, and the rewards are the smiles on their little faces when they receive their camas nuevas.
So we had a birthday party here at Hogar De Vida. It was a birthday party for all the ninos that had birthdays in October, November and December. I’m not sure if it was a month and a half late or really early. Actually here in Costa Rica it was probably right on time for them. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. A Christian couple from San Jose drove in to throw the fiesta. My wife revealed a hidden talent of balloon animal making. We played pin the tail on the rabbit, ate lots of sweets and we even had a piñata. I however missed the piñata because I had to take Brandon, my little buddy (5th picture), up to the house for stabbing Jerbin with a ruler. You’ll have that.
I have a new exercise plan. The house received a new bicycle yesterday. Running behind a bike with seven 6-8 year-olds for a couple hours is great exercise. We had one small wipeout where I almost annihilated the little girl. No blood though. All in all it was great fun.
You know your Spanish is coming around when you start to hear the kids mispronouncing words. As you know, we have several cows on the property. The cows frequently get out of their areas and come for a visit. Cows in Spanish are vacas. However, when Jerbin sees cows he says “Macas.” Everyone corrects him by saying, “No Jerbin, Vvvaca”, and Jerbin responds, “Si, Macas!” Speaking of the vacas. Two of the cows are going to have babies here shortly. I hope we get to see it.
We started working on colors with some of the children. We had two Duplos, one blue (azul) and one green (verde). We went back and forth saying this is blue and this is green. Blue, Green, Blue, Green, Blue, Green. When we asked Jerbin which one was blue, he of course pointed to the green. When we asked Jacqueline what color this one was, she said siete (seven). I think I have a future as a teacher.
I’m off to play futbol with the other guys. Here’s Jessica.
Hola –
Another week has gone by, and we’re half way through our four weeks here. It has really flown by – not that we’re skipping days, but that the days go quickly.
This past week we got a new girl in the upper house. Pricila is four years-old and her younger brother was already placed at Hogar de Vida in the lower house. Typically they try to keep sibling groups together but the beds just didn’t work in her favor this time. She calls me Jescala, but I haven’t quite caught onto it yet. So I don’t always know that she’s talking to me. It’s been interesting to watch the integration of a new kid into the mix. Unfortunately the tias and kids tend to treat her differently – myself included I hate to admit. For the kids, she’s the “muchacha nueva” (new girl) so they prefer others over her. For the tias, it’s hard to love on her because she has lice and all of her teeth are rotting out. Neither of these things are her fault at all. They’re both very visible examples of her poor home situation. I’m working on my lack of love for her. I’ve decided that lice isn’t that bad. There are easy remedies for it. And if all else fails, I can stand a haircut. And teeth can be dealt with. All kids in Costa Rica have free health care, so we’re going to take care of that too. She needs love – probably more than all the other kids right now. So I’m working on that – for her sake – and asking for forgiveness concerning it – for my sake.
Last week it was the tarantula – this week it should have been a lot of dead bugs because the exterminator just came. However, no such luck. There is a counter in the kitchen that was always dirty. I kept thinking that I forgot to wash it. Finally I realized that dirt was falling from the trim near the ceiling. So I got the broom and tried to wipe it down. I ended up breaking up an ant farm of the biggest black ants I’ve ever seen. Of course I start yelling for Jon. The ceilings are really tall so I couldn’t reach to kill them with the fly swatter. He emptied our bottle of Raid as I swatted the ones that fell. All in all – really gross. So we washed all the dishes again.
We keep getting questions about food so to answer a few of those – we typically eat breakfast and dinner at our house and then have lunch in the upper house with the kids and staff. For breakfast, it’s the usual for us – cereal or toast. For breakfast in the upper house – they usually eat some form of beans and rice. For lunch, we typically have the almuerzo casado (married lunch) which bears the name because it’s what they used to send with their husbands to the field for lunch. It consists of black beans, rice, a small portion of meat (usually beef) and a bit of salad (typically some sort of cole slaw). Once in a while there will be pasta or fish. But always beans and rice. Dinner for us is whatever we get around to doing – most often the same as breakfast – cereal or toast. However we have also had mac and cheese, spaghetti, soup, grilled cheese, and pb&j. Tonight or tomorrow will be hot dogs. If we did have dinner in the upper house, it would be…….beans and rice. Having our largest meal at lunch time has been a bit of an adjustment, but it’s the Costa Rican way. Overall, we’ve found pretty much everything we’ve wanted American-food-wise in the three grocery stores in Atenas. Things are slightly different but overall we’re definitely not suffering in the food department.
We’re off to Atenas once more today to post this blog, and then I think we’re going to go to one of the volcanoes tomorrow.
Talk to you next week!
Love,
Jon & Jessica
