Monday, February 7, 2011
On Saturday I moved in with my host family! We packed up all of our things from our dorm rooms, and had a big reception at Whitworth South for all of the families.
My room at Whitworth South that I shared with Hollie and Heather
The knobs in the shower said C and F, meaning caliente (hot) and frio (cold)
Each room has its own bathroom
Each room also has a desk and a fireplace
Hollie standing by the closet
All of our beds and things sort of packed
Everyone came around 10:00 Saturday morning, and we greeted them at the door and then went to the comedor (cafeteria) for cookies and coffee. My host mom’s name is Orella. She has two daughters. Yara is 12 and Wanda is 20. Orella, Yara and I sat in the comedor and talked a little bit about our families, what we liked to do, etc. It was a little hard to understand her at first, but I’m getting more and more used to it as time goes by. All of the families and students ate lunch together, and some students presented a skit to all of the families that showed some funny examples of mistakes that we as host students might make during our first few days.
After lunch we all left campus with our host families. Orella’s house is beautiful! All of the floors are tile or hard wood. The front door is inside of the garage. A lot of the houses here are like that. The front door opens into the kitchen, which then goes to a dining area. Across from the dining area is a rock wall that has several plants growing from it. The rocks continue from the wall to the floor, where there are a few flower plants growing. At the top of the rock wall is a sprinkler system that is more like a waterfall down the rocks. When turned on, water trickles down the rock wall, watering the plants. It is such a peaceful sound, I absolutely love it. My room has a window that opens up to the rock wall, so I can see it while I am lying in bed. I have a bathroom all to myself that has an enormous shower. The house is very modern, not at all what I was expecting. I have wireless internet and a tv in my room with satellite (and all Spanish channels). My room has a bed, a desk, a night sstand, and a walk in closet. I am really blessed to have such a wonderful home and family.
Orella’s husband is an artist. He’s away on business right now, so I haven’t met him yet. Their house has his work hanging all over the place, it’s really neat! Yara is such a sweet girl, she’s a little shy, but has begun to talk more and more as I have gotten to know her. Wanda is at the very end of her summer break, so she’s out with her friends a lot. I haven’t gotten to know her very well, but hope to soon. I’m a little intimidated to talk to her for some reason. I’m not sure why, but I know that I need to get over my nerves and get to know her. Orella is a very sweet and loving lady. Every day she cooks me breakfast and dinner, and lunch on the weekends when I’m not in class. She cooks with a lot of butter and salt, so it’s a good thing I’m doing the Insanity workout on weekday mornings! Her food is really good. We had fish the other night, and a Costa Rican version of a tamale for lunch yesterday. Breakfast is always some kind of bread served with coffee.
Today I took a bus and taxi to San Jose with my friend Isaiah to go to our internship at Habitat for Humanity (Habitat para la Humanidad). We have class on Tuesday-Friday at Whitworth South, and Mondays are set aside for us to do internships all day. Initially, I really wanted to be on the work sites doing translation between workers and homeowners, but after talking to Tifani at Habitat, it looks like that won’t be possible. Unfortunately, Habitat is going through some changes that aren’t exactly good. They are currently transitioning from a volunteer organization to a more corporate organization. That being said, there has been a large lapse in the number of houses being built, especially in the Costa Rica area. Tifani started working for Habitat last November and was supposed to stay there for a year. She wasn’t happy with the way things were being run, so she decided to finish early at the end of this month. I will be taking over her position as Volunteer Coordinator. My job will be to coordinate people who want to volunteer in the office setting of Habitat, kind of like what I’m doing. It isn’t exactly what I imagined I would be doing, but I’m going to go into the job with an open mind and make the best out of it.
Isaiah and I took a taxi to San Jose, which cost around 5000 colones, which is about $10 in American money. We decided to be adventurous on the way back, so we took the bus instead of a taxi to save money. The cost of the bus was SO much cheaper, I was amazed. We paid around 500 colones each for the return trip, which is equivalent to $1 each. Needless to say, we will be taking the bus from now on. We walked around Heredia for awhile, and I bought a guabana (guava) smoothie from a smoothie store. I think I have an unhealthy addiction to all things guabana, this could be a problem.
Now I’m at “home” working on some homework. The sky opened up today and poured rain for a solid 45 minutes or so right after I got back from San Jose. I have never seen it rain so hard in my entire life! It was incredible.
The rain today.. so amazing!
I was standing in the garage when I took this picture
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