primera fin de semana (first weekend)

the roof that needs replacing on the sunday school building and the contractor of sorts...
Royner, 3 years old (4 very soon!)
entrance to the parsonage
Baby Ashley, 5 months, Royner's sister
inside one of the rooms in the parsonage the Wichita team will cleaning, painting the walls and ceiling and adding base boards
The front of the church the group from Wichita will be working in
Mani smiling
Marion Woods with some of the group from Pennsylvania
our mixed leftovers :)
me trying my hand at domesticity... pressing curtain seams in our future house

Hola!

So hooray! it's the weekend! I guess that's exciting even though no day is actually better than the other; they're all great thus far. Actually since it was the weekend we didn't have a reason to be in the office and therefore didn't have an internet connection.
I suppose I left off on Thursday night with our Costa Rican comida. Friday morning we did more work in the office translating Sunday School stuff, which I’m really getting the hang of and have developed a system for. I hope the system makes sense to whoever’s hands it falls into… Apparently one of the local Sunday School teachers for young kids is a 7th grader…yikes! We ended up eating our costa rican leftovers and they were delicious. We took a late lunch for some reason and therefore didn’t eat in the company of the professional Costa Rican leftover eaters (?) And mom, if there is even an ounce of space for my stuff, I suppose Tupperware would be glorious. We’re going through baggies like crazy. So bring Tupperware or baggies. Either will suffice.
For dinner on Friday we had leftovers… we had one portion of both spaghetti and chicken and rice. Couldn’t decide who wanted which, so we both had both, in the same bowl. We told this to Mary and she said that was of true costa rican form. Looks like we’re evolving. We watched Grey’s Anatomy and went to bed. Bedtime seems to be around 8:30, which is so extremely early but we end up reading till around 10:30, so that’s a little better.
I just finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for the second time. I read it for sophomore English, which was taught by Melissa Bagley, who was extremely inspiring and incredibly brilliant. When I heard it’s been made into a movie, I was thrilled but decided to reread the book. It has been on my list of favorite books since I read it but as I finished it today I realized that I really am not sure that I finished the book the first time around, which is nearly unbelievable but proof that it’s not the ending that makes it such a good book, it’s the writing. This makes me curious to see how the movie will convey such deep feeling. I’m assuming it will be a lot of narration. I’m a very firm believer that any book made into a movie must be read before seen. It’s like you’re let in on little secrets and underlying symbolism the average viewer misses out on. I recommend reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer asap.
Ok back to Costa Rica:
Yesterday a group of 16 people from Pennsylvania came back to the camp from a worksite in Los Chiles, a city on the Northern boarder between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Alissa and I were in charge of preparing their lunch. A neighbor lady, Elizabeth, made lasagna for them. It was absolutely delicious. Apparently it’s common here, and why shouldn’t it be, it’s not like it’s native to our country either. It tasted a bit different but was delicious. It had onions and sweet red peppers on top, which was fantastic and easy to pick off for those who are not fans. Brilliant if you ask me. I ate them though for all of you who are assuming I didn’t. ☺
Anyway, she made the lasagna but Alissa and I prepared garlic bread (buttering French bread with this delicious pre-made garlic butter that comes in a tub like regular butter. Yummy. And we made the salad of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. Preparing lettuce here is quite the task…. You have to soak it in salt water for a minimum of 30 minutes to kill all the bugs and germs, then hand wash each leaf to make sure all the dirt is gone. Yikes, and we think it takes effort to eat healthily in the states?? We cut up the tomatoes and cucumber and tossed it in there and at the last minute you add lemon juice and salt as the dressing. Everyone said it was delicious and tasted really fresh. I think the only food, in my opinion, worse than those three things (lettuce, tomato, cucumber) is pickles, so I clearly didn’t touch the salad. We made lemonade from scratch, which takes more sugar than anyone should ever know…. And coffee. It was a successful lunch and we were proud to manage our time perfectly so that everything was hot and ready.
After that we went to Santa Rita where the team from my church will be working when they come next week. They will be working on a parsonage and a Sunday school building.
Well I’m starving and food and internet do not exist at the same time here.
I’ll fill you in on today’s activities tomorrow.
Love to all!
Molly
p.s. happy belated birthday to my awesome cousin, Cathy!!
p.p.s i have lots of pictures to add but for some reason the option to do so is not on here right now... i'll try tomorrow when i have a stronger connection

día cuatro

12-1-12

Hola,

Today was nearly identical to yesterday minus the trip into town. The only thing really worth writing about is that we finally made a semi-costa rican dish. Not one that either of us have actually had down here, or heard of, but still. We made rice (a feat in and of itself!) with garlic and onion and seasoning in it and the poached chicken in juice from onions and peppers (a green pepper we simply prayed was not hot… and it was not) with the veggies in the pot. We served it with Costa Rican salsa and put corn in the rice… I took the above pic about ¾ of the way thru eating because I was so wrapped up in tasting it and then loving it. For those of you who know how I am about food pics, this was a big deal. We even have leftovers, which means great news for lunch time tomorrow! All the ladies that work at the camp eat at the same time we do and always have tupperware of Costa Rican dishes they bring from home. We’ll feel more appropriate except for the fact that our leftovers are in plastic baggies and the fact that they will all probably be wondering, “what in the world are those girls eating”. I’ll give a full report tomorrow of the whole ordeal. How exciting for all of you… yikes.

Well that’s all.

Until something exciting happens….

Molly

Día tres

Spaghetti Dinner watching The Bachelor...
view of Ciudad Quesada from the open air bakery where we had a snack
Mary giving Mani some love
Oranges and other fruit (?) picked from the grounds. We made fresh OJ from it

11-1-12

Wednesday

Buenas!

So today is day three? Feels like day 5 and day 1 at the same time… We are still getting into the groove of things and I feel as though things will not actually fall into place until a team arrives. For those of you who don’t know the process down here, we are a camp that hosts volunteers from the states in groups from 5-100, give or take. When there is a team, we eat with them starting with breakfast at 7 then our day revolves around their schedule , whatever that may be, but there is always some place to be and something to be done. We have dinner with them as well at a set time etc… Our first team doesn’t come until the 18^th (my mom and the group from my church!) So until then we are flying by the seat of our pants.

We got up today and made a fine meal of cereal and toast. We both eat cereal dry! No one in my life besides my brother has ever had that in common with me before and I like it. And we don’t have to buy milk, which comes in a box here. We went to the office to do some translating and organizing of intense amount of donated children’s workbook pages that can be used for Sunday school and the like. We got quite a bit done but it is difficult to concentrate because the internet thrives in the office and it was really the first opportunity to make the rounds through cyber space. So after some blog posting, facebooking and skyping my mom, we managed to make a dent. Had tuna sandwiches and chips for lunch (how unfortunately American) then went back to town to get my phone. It was ready, cost less than I thought it would, and works like a charm. I have a crazy Costa Rican phone number but I’m pretty sure it costs a bit to use it to call the states. But I do have an app through which I can text for free. So if you want that number email me or facebook me and I’ll text you from it, which Is much easier because I’m not even sure what the number is… but it is confirmed to work just fine!

We hung out in town a bit after getting the phone while waiting for the bus. Had a coca light a diet coke equivalent but with less fake stuff? Kinda like coke zero I’m assuming? It tastes alright but most importantly quenches my Diet Dr. Pepper cravings enough to the point where I’m not a terrible person to be around. We split some cheese filled pastry…. It was good. And greasy. And completely erased all the walking around we did.

Went to the grocery store near the bus terminal to grab a few more things and headed back. We returned to our translating until around 6:30. Made spaghetti and watched the bachelor on some illegal website. I promise we’ll become more Costa Rican eventually… rice is so cheap it’s bound to happen. We’re not refusing, just lazy. Boiling pasta is a lot easier than basically anything (except sandwiches but we already had those for lunch…) I guess we did put costa rican cheese on top of our spaghetti. That counts. Well the knot in my shoulder that haunted me through my entire Spanish essay writing career in college seems to be returning after all the typing I did today. Not a happy camper. I’ll go rest it and play fruit ninja now.

Hasta luego!

Molly

No turning back now!

view from our future home
our future home
our temporary bedroom

9-10/1/12

Well I made it! I’m currently in my little bed at the end of day 2 (This is true while I’m writing this but once it’s published I’ll be in the office as I do not have the spoils of internet in my room). It’s 8:20 pm but if I were to have guessed I would’ve assumed it’s around midnight. It’s been a super long couple of days but I’m so happy to be here and in the process of getting settled.

Yesterday was a whole, whole lot of traveling and for basically just sitting all day (on a variety of chairs in a variety of vessels) I sure was exhausted and pretty stinky. A long layover and terrible in-flight movie aside, the day went smoothly and without incident.

At the airport in Dallas for my layover I met Alissa, the other intern here at the camp, and made the next chunk of the trip with her, which was quite nice. A friend of Mary and Marion’s, Fernando, picked us up from the airport and drove us the two hours from Alajuela to San Carlos.

Alissa is from Coppell, Texas. She went to school at George Mason and graduated in May. We both have no idea really what to expect in terms of a routine but are pretty open and ready for it to all unfold. She has a blog if you want to get her perspective on all of this: www.alissasheehan.wordpress.com

We are currently staying in the building that groups use to gather and eat when they visit because the house we will be living in is still being furnished. As of right now there are two bed frames, a sink and a couple plastic lawn chairs. If anyone feels led, go ahead and ship down a fridge or stove…

Today the secretary, Keytlin, took us (we road the bus and she was our guide) into Ciudad Quesada to learn the lay of the land and take care of the important things: money and cellphones… so sad. Apparently are priorities are consistent worldwide. I brought an old phone of mine and thought it might just be easiest to get a Costa Rican sim card. Went to a place, bought the card for cheap then realized the phone wasn’t activating. We left the phone with them and went to the super mercado… We bought a random assortment of things trying to keep in mind that we had to carry the bags through town, back to the cell place, then to the bus… fail. I truly think plastic bag handles are capable of slicing through fingers if carried far enough with enough weight in them. Went back to the cell place and waited “one minute please, you wait just one minute miss” thirty times over. After the cheese got dangerously soft and the raw chicken’s temperature started to climb we decided to come back tomorrow because we were bound to get food poisoning from some one of our inconveniently heavy groceries if we waited any longer. So fingers crossed we don’t go back to find that I’ve made yet another Costa Rican one iphone richer. (see earlier posts from 2009 for that nightmare…)

Had delicious tamales for dinner, figured out we only have internet near the office/Mary’s house, and came back to crash only to discover it was only half past 7.

Until tomorrow!

Molly

Goin' back to the pura vida

Buenas!

I'm leaving for the beautiful (and warm!) Costa Rica once again! I've promised a blog to a few people so I'm going to do my best to keep it up.

I leave a week from today and have not a single thing in order. I thought I'd better get a move on so naturally I'm doing the one thing I don't have to move a muscle in order to do. Thank goodness I have my mother. She is a Godsend when it comes to packing and planning and tolerating me while I’m basically a monster with no attention span.

The plan for those who don’t know I’m headed to Ciudad Quesada (aka San Carlos) to work at the Rural Methodist Center. A couple named Mary and Marion Woods run the camp and do great things through it. Here’s the website that can give a much more thorough description than I can. http://costaricamethodist.org/

I’ll be there for most likely 4-5 months working as an intern doing office work and coordinating with the teams that come to the camp from all over the U.S., including my mom and a group from East Heights over my birthday!

I’m very excited and very nervous because I have no idea what I truly will be doing or how well I’ll do it but I have total faith that it will all pan out to be an amazing experience.

Wish me luck and stay tuned (pictures to come!)

Molly