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!"
Neither Dan nor I had a clue how to go about cutting hair (especially a wiggling baby's hair!), so it was somewhat of an adventure. Eventually, the only way it worked was for Dan to cut while I read a book or danced (yes, danced) in front of Timmy. Here are some photos of the event:
And, here was the end result. Unfortunately, Timmy already needs another haircut. I'd better get ready to sing and dance again, or he'll be a little hippy once again!
