What a day!

Compared to our life in the States, it seems like we have more days here that cause us, at the end of the day, to let out a long sigh and say, "Wow, what a day!". But, November 18th made all others of those days seem like normal old life. Here's the story. It's long, so I'm dividing it up into sections. If you just have a few minutes to read now, read a section or two and come back later to finish the story... Or, make yourself a mug of hot chocolate and get cozy to read it all at once...

A Normal "What a Day" Day

The day started out just as a "what a day" day usually does - rushing with our schoolbags, diaper bag, and Timmy in his stroller to school because we were late, getting confused by crazy Spanish subjunctive grammar rules, feeling frustrated with difficulty communicating, and just generally being busy at school all morning. I (Sarah) stayed after school for my once a week afternoon of uninterrupted studying and Dan picked me up at school several hours later to run some errands. Traffic and shopping were stressful for some reason and we got back home later than we expected.

A Special Delivery

When we got home, our neighbor told us that our landlady had just left minutes ago. Because we had missed her, it seemed we'd have to wait even longer for the long-anticipated brand new stove/oven she had gotten for us. The oven was a bit of a sore subject for me because we'd been without a functioning one for months, and with Thanksgiving around the corner, I really wanted to bake! After a series of phone calls, a man came to install the oven and we were quite happy. Here you can see how happy Timmy and I were as we made supper on the new stove!

The Great Robbery

In the excitement of the special delivery, it slipped our mind that our car was still parked in the street. We rarely leave the car out for long past dark, and we had never left anything in the car while it was parked in the street before. Unfortunately, that evening we did both of those things and the result was our first personal experience with theft here in Costa Rica. Someone broke into the car, stole the stereo, and, much worse, my school bag. My bag had my school books and other school supplies, my wallet, and, worst of all, our gate and apartment keys. Fortunately, my wallet only had 10,000 colones (about $20) in it, and no credit cards, but it did have my Costa Rican driver's license, a few other IDs, and Timmy's and my cedulas (Costa Rican residency cards). We were really only worried about not having the cedulas until we realized that my keys were in the bag. Knowing that someone who has the propensity to steal had keys to get into our gate and into our apartment (and knew where we lived) was not a nice feeling. It was good, though, to put things in perspective. None of us were hurt and nothing of great value had been stolen...

Shaken

Dan and I prayed about the situation together before going to bed. Although prayer did bring more peace, I could not sleep. Any noise I heard made me wonder if someone was trying to get in our gate and I was worried about how we were going to replace the stolen items, what we needed to do to get new cedulas, when we'd be able to replace all the locks, etc. The sound of our clanging gate brought me to our front window. My heart leapt to my throat, it seemed, when I looked out and saw a shaking shadow on the porch floor in front of our door. My first thought was that it was the shadow of a man's arm (the thief!), but then I realized it was the shadow of our hanging plant. The plant was shaking, as were in the potted plants on our porch. Then I realized the whole porch was shaking, the building across the street was shaking, our floor was shaking... For a moment, everything seemed to be leaning a little to one side, then everything seemed to lean far to the other side. I lost my balance and fell against the wall. It was then that I finally realized I was experiencing my first earthquake!

My thoughts were jumbled, "What are we supposed to do during an earthquake? Get everyone into a room with no windows? No, that's for a tornado. Of course a Kansas girl knows what to do during a tornado and not during an earthquake..." My racing mind still couldn't come with an earthquake safety plan, but, thankfully, the shaking stopped quickly. I ran to Timmy's room to make sure he was ok. Nothing was out of place and he was sleeping peacefully. So was Dan; he slept right through it! I woke him up and told him I thought there had just been an earthquake. He asked, "Are you sure you aren't just dizzy?" and rolled back over!

Aftermath

Convinced that I hadn't just been dizzy and feeling pretty shaken (in more ways than one!), I lay wide awake the rest of the night, wondering if there would be an aftershock or if the thief would come back. In the morning, it was confirmed that there had indeed been an earthquake. It was a 6.2 (dizzy, ha!), but its epicenter was on the Panamanian-Costa Rican border, so we did not feel the full extent of it here in San José. As far as I know, there were no injuries nor much damage.

Dan had to stay home from school that day to guard our apartment. Our landlady was great and had a man here to change the locks that morning. He also repaired the broken locks on our car. That afternoon, my mom received a call from the American Embassy here in Costa Rica! Someone had found some of our missing ID cards. Hopeful that they were our cedulas, we called the Embassy, who gave us the name and number of the man who had our cards. It ended up that he had my driver's license and Timmy's cedula. He showed Dan where he had found them; it was in a little park by a bus stop not far from our apartment. Dan looked around and found my empty wallet, and eventually all of the contents of my wallet, except for my cedula and, of course, the 10,000 colones.

Since then, Dan and I have been sharing one backpack and one set of textbooks, and we've been working on getting my cedula replaced. We were pretty discouraged last Tuesday, when we spent the morning at the immigration department, only to be given an appointment to come back in April to talk to someone about my stolen cedula! With this plan, it would take longer to get the card replaced than it took for us to get our residency here in the first place! When the lawyer who helped us get our residency found out what was going on, she presented the case and our paperwork, and it looks like we now will have an appointment when the immigration department opens back up after the holidays, sometime soon after January 13th. ¡Gracias, Patricia! Please pray with us that this process will go quickly and smoothly, and that meanwhile we will not have any problems because I do not have my cedula. Also, please praise God with us for protecting us, for returning so much of the contents of my wallet to us, and for giving us this earlier appointment with the immigration department.

November 18th has definitely put things in perspective. Having Timmy scream about eating his vegetables followed by a blow-out diaper in a crowded mall food court, having the electricity go out right in the middle of baking muffins in our new oven, or having a day full of frustrating Spanish mistakes just doesn't warrant as much of a sigh at the end of the day anymore. Nothing like a robbery and an earthquake combined to make you say, "What a day!"

ESL Class

After working as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher since finishing grad school, becoming a student again was quite a transition for me. At first, it felt strange to be sitting in a desk looking at the board trying to understand my teacher instead of being the one standing in front of the class wondering if my students can understand me. But, teaching the grammar of my own language definitely helps me learn the grammar of other languages, and I have really enjoyed being in the position of learner again. The truth is, though, that I miss teaching.

Once a week, however, I have had the opportunity to be in front of the classroom again. During our time here in language school, I volunteered once a week at ministry in our neighborhood. Another student from our school and I taught an advanced conversational ESL class. It was fun to teach once again and to get to know our students.

We had our last class a couple of weeks ago. After we handed out certificates of participation to the students, they presented us with a "Good Teacher Award." It was very sweet. I am thankful I had this unexpected opportunity to teach here, and I'm curious to see what kinds of teaching opportunities might arise in Atenas.

All I want for Christmas is a pressure cooker,

and a crockpot, and a stove, an oven, a refridgerator, an automatic washing machine, dryer, bed, table and chairs, sofa, kitchen cabinets, closets, window curtains, shower curtains, lamps... The list is way too long. Getting ready to move out of our furnished apartment and into our very unfurnished house has been a little overwhelming.

One overwhelming factor has been that household items, especially appliances, are really expensive here. They are often twice or even three times as expensive as they are in the States. We have been researching every appliance store we know of to get the best deals so that we make the most of the money we have allotted for this. Please pray for us to have wisdom!

We've also been realizing that when we lived in the States, the vast majority of what furnished our home was either given to us or borrowed. I think the only furniture we ever bought for ourselves was our couch. So, it's crazy now to need to buy everything. Here in Costa Rica, when you rent a place, it does not usually have appliances and you might have to put in your own closets or cabinets. That is the case for us. There is a lot to do in the next couple of weeks!

Where we will live soon...

In two weeks, we will be leaving San José and moving to Atenas. We are eager to get to the place we've been preparing to go to, and we are excited about what God has been preparing for us there. One of the things that we're excited about is our house. The story of finding this house is a story of God's provision and guidance.

In August, we spent a week in Atenas during a break from language school. During that time, we looked at some houses that were for rent just to get an idea of costs, locations, what was available, etc. It was discouraging because it seemed that what we were looking for was going to be hard to find. We wanted a house that was good for both our family and for our ministry. We found a couple of houses that would have been great for our family, but, because they were far from the center of Atenas, they were not so great for our ministry. We also found other houses that were a great location, but were not good for our family. Very few of the houses had a large living space that we feel would be beneficial for having over groups of interns, host families, etc. In addition, not very many houses are available to rent in Atenas because it is such a small town, and those that are for rent are often quickly snatched up.

When our team director and his wife returned to Costa Rica at the end of that week, they drove us around showing us some of the areas of Atenas they liked. They drove us into a neighborhood where one of our intern host families live. I remembered that I had been there before and liked it, and I also remembered that we really liked that host family. There were no for rent signs, but our team director pulled over at a house that was obviously not being lived in. Out of curiosity, we all got out of the car, and started looking around. The man across the street immediately came out of his house and asked, "Are you interested in renting that house?" !!!

He had the key and took us in the house. I almost cried; it was more than we had been hoping for. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, one large main room that is open to a kitchen with a lot of counterspace, lots of windows, a yard, and beautiful mountain views. The man told us that the owner's family was coming to Atenas that afternoon and we could meet them if we wanted. Later that afternoon, we met with them and basically made arrangements to rent the house. What's amazing is that the family, who actually lives very close to us here in San José, was coming to Atenas that afternoon to post advertisements about the house! What an encouragement to see how God put us in the right place at the right time!

Another amazing thing is that we are paying a similar rent to what we pay for our apartment in the city. Why? Well, here's the catch. The house is unfinished. It is definitely ready to be lived in, but there is still a lot of work to do. Dan was out there two weekends this month painting the inside of the house with the owner's family and some EMI staff. The EMI interns worked on it some a couple of weeks ago, too. There is an upstairs loft area that is completely unfinished. It will eventually have two additional rooms and a bathroom up there, but since we don't need that space now, it's not a big deal that it's unfinished. Kitchen cabinets, closets, and a laundry area outside need to be put in before we move in or soon after. Throughout our time living there, we will be working on the house and our rent will be used for materials, labor, etc. Of course, all of the engineers and architects on our team will be excited to help out!

We signed a three year contract, so this will be home for quite a while, longer than any other place we've ever lived in so far. We're excited to get to know our neighbors, who have been so friendly and welcoming (by the way, the man in this story is the same man we talked about in our latest newsletter). We are excited to set up our home and to open it up for ministry. We are thankful for this blessing. Please pray that we will be good and grateful stewards of it!

Timmy says...

...HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We give thanks to God for His salvation, for our son, for bringing us to Costa Rica and for teaching us much more than Spanish during our months in language school! We are also so thankful for the love, support, and prayers of you all, our dear friends and family. May you all have a blessed Thanksgiving day!

Progress

Our Spanish is definitely improving, which is very good, since our focus has been Spanish study for the past 6 months. We've learned a lot. Sometimes I recognize the progress we've made, and it's so exciting! Today, as we were singing in church, I realized that I understand the songs so much better now than several months ago; I felt like I was truly worshipping in Spanish. It was great! I still haven't mastered grasping the whole sermon while trying to keep a squirming baby quiet, though.

I know that I make so many mistakes every day. I'm sure I often conjugate verbs into the wrong tense, saying that I'll do something tomorrow when really I did it yesterday. There are so many times that I take a really long time to say something because I don't know a word. Instead of just saying the one word, I use ten words to say what I'm trying to say! And, there are other times that I just say completely the wrong thing. A couple of examples come to mind:

Back in September, I wrote in a grammar class composition, "mi bebé nació el día antes de la fecha del vencimiento." (translation: my baby was born the day before his expiration date). Whew... good thing he got out in time! Just in case you're confused, I meant to say that our little guy was born the day before his DUE DATE. The same week, after putting my sleeping baby in the school nursery for a nap, I told the teacher, "Voy a regresar pronto para comerlo." (translation: I'm going to come back soon to eat him"). Fortunately, the teacher is used to talking to gringos who don't know what they're saying in Spanish. She just nodded and smiled, and probably laughed as I walked away! She must not think I'm a cannibal, because she willingly handed Timmy over when I came back to FEED him.

Recognizing the humor in our mistakes has helped us along. We definitely have made a lot of progress during our time in language school. While we still have much more to learn, we feel like we're getting to a good point to leave school and move on to more "normal" life in Atenas. Only three more weeks!

(And, because blog posts just aren't as fun without photos, the two photos here show how studying with a baby gets done around here!)

Fall, we missed you!

Sometimes it's hard for us to believe that it's the middle of November. This is the first year that we haven't experienced seasons in the way that we're used to. We haven't seen a single leaf change color, nor have we sipped apple cider, eaten my favorite pumpkin desserts, pulled out our sweaters and jackets, or visited the pumpkin patch. As cute as a photo of Timmy with a pumpkin would have been, I had to settle for something a little more, well, Costa Rican:

Timmy and his piña

"Um, Mom, isn't this supposed to be a pumpkin?"

how Timmy would have been dressed for the pumpkin patch...

Enjoy the last days of Autumn for us!

Where we live now...

I thought it might be interesting for you all to see where we live now. Since the beginning of June, we have been renting a little, furnished apartment in San Francisco de Dos Rios, the area of San José where our language school is located. We really love our neighborhood. What we love most about it is that we can walk everywhere - to school, the market, the bakery, the meat shop, some restaurants, and five different parks.

The photos I'm posting are from when we first moved in, so our place looks a little different (and a lot more crowded!) now. But, these at least give an idea of what it's like. I know if I wait to take recent photos, I'll never write this post! The top photo above is our apartment building (ours is the top door on the right) and the second photo above is the view we have from our front porch. Here's what it's like inside:

the main room (add a rug, desk, high chair and play pen to imagine how it is now!)

the eating area (and the front door)

the kitchen (and the door to the laundry patio)

our bedroom

what Timmy's room looked like before we got a crib and rocking chair

the laundry patio

You may have noticed we have bars on all our windows. That is standard here in the city. Every house or apartment building is surrounded by a wall, often with barbed wire or razor wire on top of it, with a locked gate and bars on the windows. It might look a little scary, but that's just part of life in the city here. We are used to it now, and in some ways, I like having a wall and a gate around our place; I definitely feel safe inside my home! I won't miss the bars, though, and I'm looking forward to the unobstructed views of the mountains we'll have from our house in Atenas. Check back soon to see where we will be living soon!

octubre

We have somewhat neglected our blog for the past month, even though there has been a lot to write about. In fact, I (Sarah) have a growing list of blog post ideas on a Post-It note on our computer, including posts about Costa Rica's Independence Day (which happened six weeks ago!), some of the funny Spanish mistakes we've been making, our ongoing fight with las hormigas, our house in Atenas, etc., etc. etc. The list keeps getting added to, but our blog does not!

My excuse, or at least my main excuse, is that October was not the easiest of months for us. Now that it is the start of November, we are nearing the half a year mark of living here. With that, some of the struggles of cultural adaptation have arisen; we sometimes just have a hard time not understanding the language (we call it a Bad Spanish Day), or miss home more than usual, or wonder when we'll do a better job getting to know people in this new place. In the midst of that, our whole family got sick with colds, nausea, and ear infections (there were six infected ears in our household a couple of weeks ago!). We were really sick and missed a lot of classes. We're beginning to study grammar concepts I've never studied before, so missing class was rough. We were sick during a week when it was very cold (for Costa Rica) and rainy. We had solid rain for four days straight! We felt pretty low, but as always, God lifted us up.

He brought us a breath of fresh air, a cool, refreshing breeze all the way from Kansas - my mom! Months ago, my mom planned to visit us during the last week of October and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. God is so wise! Having my mom with us for a week gave us a link with home that comforted our homesickness. It gave us time to rest and recover from being sick, thanks to her help with Timmy and housework and to her treat of a relaxing weekend at a lovely inn in Atenas. As we showed her around and introduced her to people at school or met new people with her in Atenas, we were reminded of what we love about living and working here in Costa Rica. And, of course, Timmy had a great time playing with and snuggling his abuelita all week long! (hmm... now I'm adding another topic to my blog post list: Timmy's time with his grandma...)

We were also blessed with another breath of fresh air - spiritual emphasis week at our school. The school arranged for a pastor from St. Croix (in the Virgin Islands) to come speak to our student body twice a day every day this past week. His talks definitely were encouraging and challenging as they addressed issues that we face here and in our walk with the Lord. But, what really brought the refreshing, cool breeze was the change in our schedule. Our classes were shortened to make time for the extra chapel times and our teachers could not give us any homework or tests all week long. Having this more relaxed schedule was a blessing to us. The revised schedule worked out so that I had extra time every day that I could spend gazing at the mountains and communing with the Lord. That time refreshed my soul! (another addition to the list: what I've been learning from the Word lately...)

Now we're looking ahead to six more weeks of language school and of living here in San José. It's hard to believe that we're that close to the end of this chapter in our lives. Please pray for us to remain refreshed as we finish.

More to come soon... if I can ever get started on that list of mine...

Just a gecko...

Every once in a while, one of us says something that reminds us that life really is different for us than it used to be. These comments or questions are never really anything very significant, but they are different enough from anything we used to say that we realize life has changed since moving to Costa Rica. Here are just a few examples:

• "Oh, it's just a gecko..." This was Dan's nonchalant, reassuring answer to my question of what our friends' dog was barking at late at night when we were housesitting for them. We just didn't say things like that in Kansas. My response was simply, "oh, ok," which was quite the contrast to when we first got here and I cowered under the blanket on our bed until Dan chased the gecko hanging out on the wall above our door out of our apartment! (Why I was scared of a gecko, I do not know...)


• "How many piñas did you get at the market?" We rarely ate pineapple back in the States, but here we eat it almost every day. It's so good and very common here. And, for some reason, we never call it pineapple any more; it's always piña, whether we're speaking Spanish or English.


• "Do you want gallo pinto or arroz con pollo for dinner tonight?" We've been enjoying learning how to make traditional Costa Rican food. Even though we didn't know what these two dishes were before moving here, we know prepare them on an almost weekly basis.


• "We have a lot of homework tonight." The transition back to being students has been interesting for us. It's been a while since either of us were thinking about our own test scores or staying up late to finish preparing for the next day's presentation.


• "Do you have your rainjacket and umbrella?" We obviously asked this question occasionally in Kansas, but definitely not daily as we do here. When we leave for school in the morning, it's usually sunny and clear. By early afternoon, it's almost assurredly raining. Because of this, we never leave home without an umbrella.


• "Oh, the roof's leaking... Can you bring me a bowl?" Along with the rainy season comes a leaky roof, at least in our case. It's only in one spot and as long as we can get a bucket or bowl under the leak right away, it's not really a problem.


• "Wow, it's 7:00! We really slept in!" I could count on one hand the number of times we've said this since moving here. While it certainly has a lot to do with being new parents (and not just living in a new culture), I definitely did not used to consider 7am a luxurious sleeping-in time. The days start early here, with the sun beginning to rise around 5am. Costa Ricans in general get up with the sun and from our neighbors' sounds of laundry, showers, and breakfasts being made starting around 5:30am, sleeping in past 6am is uncommon for us now.


• "Can you drain the washing machine for me, please?" Refer to our previous post entitled "Laundry, Costa Rican style" for an explanation of this one!


• "Is that a ficus tree!?" We love the tropical plants and flowers that we see everywhere here. We are constantly surprised by seeing what we used to think of as a houseplant growing in someone's garden or in the park. We've even see poinsettias growing on the side of the road. We used to have a little ficus tree in our apartment in Kansas City. We saw this ficus tree when my family was here visiting (that's my mom and brother under it):

This list could go on and on. We are learning a lot from our experiences and it's fun to recognize that things that seemed strange when we first got here now seem completely normal and familiar. We still have a lot of learning to do, though!

¡Feliz cumplimes!

In Latin America, it is not uncommon to get your face knocked into your own cake on your birthday. That's right; your friends or family wait until you've just blown out the candles, and before you stop leaning over your cake, someone pushes your face right into the cake! ¡Feliz cumpleaños!

I remember experiencing this years ago with some friends from Chile and Colombia. I was a little shocked at first, but I participated fully in the all-out food fight that followed. Conveniently, I don't have the photos of that event here in Costa Rica, so they can't make it into our blog!

We have yet to experience this rather... um, aggressive... tradition here. Dan's birthday came after only being here for a few weeks and his face fortunately was not shoved into his cake. We did get a cake from our neighborhood bakery in celebration of Timothy turning 6 months old. No, we did not push our baby's face into his cake. But, it seemed that after realizing that he wasn't going to get to eat his own cake, he would take matters into his own hands. Before I could stop him, his hand was in the cake and then he smeared the whipped cream frosting on his foot. ¡Buen provecho!

The disappointment of not getting to eat his cake was reconciled by getting to eat rice cereal for the first time. It wasn't surprising to us that our little guy had no trouble figuring out how to eat from a spoon. He loves to eat and seems to really love both rice cereal and oatmeal. By the time he's done with the bowl of cereal, it looks like he's had his face pushed into the bowl!

Our blog readers can be assured that if one of us ever does personally experience the shove-the-birthday-guy's-face-into-the-cake tradition, we'll write another blog post about it!

Half a year ago...

Half a year ago, our lives were changed. We entered a new stage in life, one that we had been anxiously awaiting for a long time. Half a year ago, we experienced the miracle of new life. We were given the gift of a love we had not yet known and now can't imagine being without. Half a year ago, we welcomed Timothy Daniel into the world. Here's a photo tribute to his first six months:

March 3rd, 2008, the day Timothy was born:

1 month old and already interested in everything around him:

2 months old and CUTE:

3 months old and relaxing in a hammock just a couple of days after our arrival in Costa Rica:

4 months old and enjoying his first visit to the beach:

5 months old and sitting up:

6 months old and "helping" fold the laundry:

We are so grateful for the past six months and are excited to watch our little guy continue to grow and learn! As we say about all good things here in Costa Rica, ¡pura vida!.

Surprise!

We were pretty excited when we came home from school to find this on our front porch:

Muchísimas gracias to Doña Ana Isabel (our landlady) for this blessing!

Laundry, Costa Rican style

When we arrived here, the most obvious surprise and adjustment we had to make was washing clothes. As soon as we saw our washing machine, we knew we were in a different place. As you can see in the picture, even Timothy is a bit confused by it.

First, let me describe this contraption. It is old, probably made in the late 80’s or early 90’s. The original color is that strange yellowish-beige that was so popular in the 80’s, complimented by over a decade of sun-fading. The lettering on the front reads “semi-automatic” and “Super Deluxe.” It has a cycle selector, two timer dials (the only automatic part), two toggle buttons and one buzzer volume control (perhaps this is the super deluxe feature). There is one large basin on the left and a smaller with a tall cylindrical basket in it to the right. It is connected to the water faucets with ordinary green garden hoses. We asked our dueña (landlady) how to use it and she gave us a crash course, but it took some experimenting and questioning to finally get the hang of it. Here is how it works, as explained by the engineer of the family:

Wash
Step 1: Manually turn on water ensuring that “wash” is selected on the “water selector” button and “wash/rinse” is selected on the “drain selector” button so that the water enters the large basin on the left and does not drain away.
Step 2: Add desired amount of laundry detergent.
Step 3: Insert soiled clothing into large basin.
Step 4: Wait for basin to fill to desired level and turn off water.
Step 5: Use the cycle selector to select gentle, normal, or strong (this simply changes the time between agitations).
Step 6: Set the wash timer dial to the desired agitation time for washing (about 9 minutes).
Step 7: Wait for agitation to complete.
Step 8: Select “drain” on the “drain selector” button to drain the water.
Step 9: Wait for the water to drain.

First Rinse
Step 10: Select “wash/rinse” on the “drain selector” button.
Step 11: Manually turn on water to refill basin for rinse.
Step 12: Wait for basin to fill to desired level and turn off water.
Step 13: Set the wash timer dial to the desired agitation time for rinsing (about 6 minutes).
Step 14: Wait for agitation to complete.
Step 15: Select “drain” on the “drain selector” button to drain the water.
Step 16: Wait for the water to drain.

Second Rinse
Step 17: Repeat steps 10 to 16 adding fabric softener to the rinse if desired.

Centrifuge
Step 18: Move as much clean clothing from the large basin on the left that will fit into the basket in the smaller basin on the right.
Step 19: Select “centrifuge” on the “water selector” button.
Step 20: Manually turn on water to run over clothes in the small basin.
Step 21: Set the centrifuge timer dial to the desired centrifuge time (about 2-3 minutes).
Step 22: Wait about 30 seconds and turn off water.
Step 23: Wait for the centrifuge to complete.
Step 24: Place clothes on line or in dryer to dry and repeat steps 25 to 30 for clothes that wouldn’t fit in the basket the first time.

Going to the market...

We have been living here in Costa Rica for over two months now, and are starting to feel more confident in living our daily lives here. When we first arrived, even basic things like food preparation were daunting because we did not find all of the food that we are used to, and because we did not know how to prepare the food we did find! We have a long way to go in the learning process, but we are learning how to use the fresh vegetables and delicious tropical fruits we buy at the feria (outdoor market) to prepare our meals.

Our neighborhood has a small feria that we had been walking to every Saturday morning, but we recently discovered the HUGE feria in Zapote (a nearby town). The 5 minute drive is worth the experience of this market. There we encounter not only rows and rows of every kind of fruit and vegetable you can imagine, but also vendors selling flowers, baked goods, many kinds of raw meat, juices, clothing, kitchen items, etc. We squeeze our way through the bustling crowds (which is tricky with Timmy's stoller). We are surrounded by the vibrant colors and smells of tropical fruits, vegetables, and herbs. The yelling of the vendors trying to attract us to their produce can be overwhelming because we can barely understand it. There are many surprises as we walk around, including cases of chicken feet in the meat section or juice being squeezed out of some sort of large stalk in the juice section (we're not sure what it is: bamboo or sugar cane?). After an hour or so, we go away with our week's supply of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Throughout the week, we enjoy fruit salads and meals made from the fresh vegetables. By mid-week, we might start running out of what we purchased at the feria over the weekend, but a truck stops on our street every Thursday morning selling produce and we can replenish our fruit and vegetable supply from his goods until we go to the feria again on Saturday or Sunday.

¡Que lindo!

Here in Costa Rica, when we walk down the street, around the feria (outdoor market), or through a store, we hear exclamations of "¡Ay, que lindo!" (how cute!) or "¡Que bello!" (how beautiful!) as people walk by us. It only took us a couple of seconds to figure out that these admirations were not in response to Dan or me, but to our darling baby. Timothy is definitely the source of much attention here. Even really little kids like to stop and peek into his stoller. People stop to admire his blue eyes, his curls, and his roly-poly chubbiness. They inquire about his age, his weight, and his eating or sleeping habits. He seems to really melt hearts when he's wearing a sombrerito (little hat). When we first arrived here, Timmy often cried when someone spoke to him in Spanish, but now he almost always rewards his admirers' Spanish baby talk with a winning smile of delight. It is so cute. Dan and I also enjoy the names we've heard him called, including guapito (handsome little guy), gordito (little fatty), blanquito (little whitey), and muñeco (doll). [cultural note: calling someone, even adults, gordito or blanquito is not offensive here and often shows endearment...]

I realized how much attention Timmy draws a couple of weeks ago when I was on a walk without him for the first time since we've been here in Costa Rica. I noticed that no one stopped to talk to me; usually when just Timothy and I are out for a walk, we talk to a lot of people. So, the lesson learned is that having a baby is a great relationship-building tool, especially in this warm culture that adores children!

It's not so easy...

The week after we wrote our previous post about accepting the unexpected, we were put to the test, and I (Sarah) was completely humbled. Right after optimistically writing that we had learned to accept inconveniences like the electricity or water being out, I realized that that really wasn't true of me.

Our running water was out first for repairs, then because a bulldozer broke a pipe during the repairs, and then because of un movimiento de la tierra (lit. "a movement of the earth"). For six out of eight days, we did not have water, along with hundreds of thousands of others in our city and the surrounding areas. The first day without water was a Saturday and by Thursday, I had had enough. Dan had gone to three different stores before he found a large bottle of drinking water to buy for us. We had only a little bit of water left of what we had saved and pouring that into the toilet did not flush it. I had absolutely no desire to accept this unexpected event! And yet, we heard on the news that no one knew when we would have water again. By Friday, we were both tired of rationing drinking water, barely washing our hands, not having showers, and giving Timmy sponge baths. Our dirty dishes were piled up in the sink on our back patio and we were out of clothes to wear. The smell of unflushed toilets in our neighborhood was getting more and more evident. Thankfully, we were able to leave for our previously planned visit to Atenas, not only to see our friends there, but to take showers! How good of the Lord to have arranged that trip for us for that weekend!

I sat down and cried when, as we were getting ready to leave Atenas on Sunday, we learned that our area was still without water. I really wanted to outright refuse to go back to San José, convinced that our water was never returning. I was not even thinking about trying to deal with the difficulty, much less gracefully and joyfully accepting the unexpected (who wrote that previous post anyway?). Dan assessed the breakdown and decided to keep the family in Atenas until Monday morning.

We took 15 gallons of drinking water back with us, with plans to share it with friends or neighbors if everyone was out of water and still couldn't find any in the stores. We were esctatic to find out that that wasn't necessary because we had water again when we got home! Apparently, it came back on sometime on Sunday night; we were among the last neighborhoods to get it back.

So, I learned that I have a long way to go before I can say that I've learned to accept the unexpected. But, I have learned to be thankful for some of the things I used to take for granted... and to keep a large supply of full water bottles on the back patio!

Accepting the Unexpected

Greetings from beautiful Costa Rica! The past several months have been a whirlwind as we adjusted to life as new parents, packed up and prepared to leave home, moved to a new country, and began language school here in San Francisco de Dos Rios. Amongst the whirlwind, there have been many new joys, unexpected struggles and important lessons. As we look back on the experience so far, we find it hard to believe that we’ve already been in Costa Rica for nearly a month. At the same time, it seems a very long time since we left home!

Our focus right now is to increase our knowledge of Spanish and to learn how to live and thrive in our new home before moving to Atenas (the location of EMI’s Central America office). While we are eager to begin our roles of project leader and intern program coordinators there, we are realizing more and more how necessary this time focused on learning is for us. One of our biggest lessons has been learning to expect to be surprised and to expect things to not necessarily be as we had originally anticipated.

Accepting this has helped us feel at home in the “furnished” apartment that surprisingly didn’t have the pots, pans, utensils, dishes, small appliances, or the automatic washer and dryer that we had understood it would have. It’s helped us to start to accept in stride things like our electricity or water being out at random times throughout the week. It also helped us very quickly change our original language school plans when we arrived at our school on orientation day and realized that we did not feel ready to put little Timmy in the nursery while we are in class. While Dan is attending conversation and grammar classes, Sarah is now studying with a private tutor so that Timothy can be with her. In all of these things, God has graciously carried us through the unexpected.

In addition to our language study, we are beginning to learn how to live here – how to shop for food at the local stores and the market, how to cook with this food, how to find our way around, how to appropriately dress our baby in the rainy season, etc. We have enjoyed exploring and putting our Spanish study into practice. There are many things that we appreciate about this culture and we are eager to become more a part of it as it becomes home to us.

Please pray for us as we learn to expect (and accept!) the unexpected.