Day 25.

Observations:

-While walking downtown, I saw a Rocket Power backpack. It was one of the few times in my life that I have been genuinely jealous of a material item.
-Also while walking downtown, I almost get full on pegged by two pigeons as they flew above everyone's heads (aka where my face is).
-For the first time, I broke down and bought a chocolate milk. While it wasn't as good as in the States, it was better than the white milk/cocoa powder/sugar combination my tica mom made me last week.
-I'm trying really hard to not say "home" when referring to the US. I want this to feel like home.
-Where ever I am in this city, I feel like I'm walking around in an oxymoron: there is so much garbage, but there is also so much green. Sure it's the rainy season so every plant grows at about 15 cm a minute, but really -- this place is filthy and breath-taking.
-So far, I haven't found a road sign that hasn't been bent/graffitied/plowed over by a car.
-Father, here's a little inverse equation for you (I think that's what it's called):

How much Western influence a tico has = 1 / amount of gel in their hair

-Alanna and I were discussing how we see a lot of homeless people in our neighborhood (an upper-middleclass suburb) but we have yet to see one in La Carpio.
-In Costa Rica, almost every three blocks you will see a "Pulperia" or a little Mom and Pop version of 711 -- mostly just candies, cookies, and frozen treats. Whenever I'm dying from heat in Carpio (close to every day), I buy a little 100 colones helado (a 17 cent "ice cream") that consists of milk, sugar, and usually some sort of flavor...be that coconut, syrup, or smashed up chocolate cookies, all frozen in a tied off sandwich bag. Like a lot of the thing sold in pulperias, it's cheap and it takes a long time to eat.
-On the buses, senior citizens have cards that they give to the driver who then writes down their information before he hands them back. The driving system is sound, but it's those kinds of tedious things that remind me I'm not somewhere that has up to date technology.
-Last night while I was putting my umbrella away, I impaled my hand. While it isn't too bad, I've never experienced that much pain when I used my hand sanatizer today.
-I'm going to leave you with some pictures of one of the niece's of a girl I teach. When I asked her what the red marks were on her neck, she told me "that's where my mom burned me." What a world we live in.

-Hannah