Day 43.

Observations:

-Yesterday, I went downtown to run some errands with my tica mom before I went into Carpio. One of which was the purchase of a new umbrella (my two-dollar one has long since lost some spindles). Anyways, I felt like I was car shopping or something. The walls were lined with all sorts of umbrellas and the woman had me try out many styles and shapes. In the end, my tica mom persuaded me into getting a large, very sturdy one and she garunteed that I will never need another umbrella. Nor a billy club for that matter.
-The other day Sarita (a tica missionary who is fluent in Spanish and English) asked me to look at a math test she was giving her class. She couldn't figure out why her answers didn't match the book's. I showed her the few places early one where she mixed things up, and all was settled quickly. That's right though. I tought the teacher. Go ahead, call me Alex Dunlap.
-Mercado Central in downtown is essentially Pike Place Market, except with a lot more cockroaches.
-My host family and I watched "The Proposal" today in theaters. My ticket cost 1200 colones, or $2.03.
-I saw entire cow feet being sold. And a certain meat called "mondungo" (Sounds like a Harry Potter character, no?), which, my tica mom informed me, was cut up cow stomach. She assured me that she didn't eat it and advised me to not try it should the opportunity arise. I headed out to Carpio shortly after, and guess what they were serving at lunch?! I didn't eat it.
-This city is just that -- a city. On my bus ride to Carpio, I pass a block with a belly dancing parlor on one side and a Western themed store on the other. I love it here.
-Deep thought of the day: there is an incredible difference between confidence and pride. Pride is that thing you mount in your living room, the name you drop when you meet some one new, the way you hold your head. Confidence is none of those things. Confidence is the day you know another prize will be greater still, the opportunity you give to some one to prove who they are (including yourself), and the way you hold your heart in your hands. Pride is what you have done; confidence is what you can do. Pride is concrete, it is fact while confidence contains a hint of doubt -- a possibility that some thing can still go askew, but that chance is worth taking. Confidence needs faith.

-Hannah

Day 42.

Observations:

- Sunday night, I went to Melisa's house for her aunt's birthday party. There were people from all over the world and we ended up singing Happy Birthday in the following languages: Spanish, English, Korean, German, Dutch, and finally Portugeuse. Check out some pics:


- Katia, Melisa's younger sister who was 16 last time I saw her, has two years left of school until she becomes an orthodontist. She is still with Alonso, a young man who played bass at our church.


- Three of the people at the party heard I play volleyball and invited me to come play with them at the park on Sunday afternoons. I'm pumped!
- My girls were back to fight-mode...it made me so glad that I was never involved in high school drama.
- The girls in my more advanced typing class are getting really excited about making a newspaper.
- I woke up this morning and looked at all the pictures on my wall from this summer, and for the first time I didn't feel like they were all taken just yesterday. I'm realizing more and more that I've convinced myself that I left Anacortes on pause, that next summer everything is going to be the exact same. It's not. I know that.
- This is on my wall:

"Hope begins in the dark. You wait and watch and work. You don't give up."
-- Anne Lamott

--Hannah

Day 39.

Observations:

-Life is good.
-Wheelbarrows can be used as playpens.
-Lauren (another gringa missionary) and I stayed up making 52 sandwiches for her and Alanna's students field trip to the zoo today. Although Alanna was very nervous/stressed about the whole deal, everything worked out marvelously.
-Everyone really like mayonnaise here. Really. A lot.
-Yesterday I saw two GREAT old friends! Mileidy and Urania! They were visiting San José for a doctor's appointment and swung by Carpio. I also got to meet Mile's son, Dylan Steven. I have their phone numbers and I'm going to call them when my fam comes so we can all have a little reunion. :)
-I'm connecting more with Jeffry, the fifteen-year-old son of one of the cooks. We've been talking about all the fun we had as kids, about English (he knows a lot more than he lets on), and about how much I miss my brothers. I think that's why we're getting closer: he's just another little brother.
-Tonight I had another four hour long meeting in Carpio for camp in January. At the end, we were asked to get in partners and pray for each other, preferrably some one you don't really know. One young man named William (I remember him from six years ago) eagerly agreed to be my partner and I was a little hesistant. After countless cat calls daily, awkward conversations on the bus, and scary stories on the news every night, something inside me has become sadly wary of all latino men. However, as soon as he grabbed my hands and we started praying, I realized that he was there in that room for a reason and it had nothing to do with me. As our murmuring voices simultaneously filled the empty space between us (mine in English and his in Spanish), life filled my heart and I was overcome by how real this place is. Afterwards William thanked me for praying in English (I only did it because it's still hard for me to pray in Spanish). He said, "I like remembering that God knows every language we speak."

-Hannah

Day 37.

Observations:

- The first time my girls used Microsoft Paint, over half of them drew one thing: a house. Not the kinds of houses here, but the kind of house that you see in suburban America.
- Speaking of my typing girls...today my new group (the one with the babies) had their first test. One girl, Keilin, the sixteen-year-old mother of one-year-old Christopher, did twice as well on her first test as any of the girls in the other class who have been at it for a month. Teaching makes me feel good.
- While at the Thursday meeting at the CFCI office, we prayed for a Costa Rican mission team that's headed to...*drum roll please*...YAKIMA! Crazy, no?
- This morning I bought a ginormous otter pop from a man on the street. It cost one two hundred colones and I gave him one thousand. He gave me eleven hundred in change back. I told him that was too much. The second time around he gave me seven hundred back. I had to talk him through basic math in order to get the correct change.
- Whenever I have children/siblings/nieces and nephews of my students in my computer class, I usually sit them on my lap while my girls work. Then I turn on the various screen savers and watch as the kids try to reach out and grab the floating 3-D objects.
- It's easy to make a ruler out of folded paper.

--Hannah