So it turns out that the three guys spoke much better english then the originally let on. The whole time that they were unpacking they only spoke spanish, including when I introduced myself. When they finished unpacking, Kevin came up to me and asked if I wanted to join them outside. I said of course but why didn't he speak English before hand. He said he thought his English wasn't that good. I have no idea why he thinks that because in reality their English is pretty good. Apparently most Ticos (Costa Ricans) speak English. They are already teaching me some Spanish and I am teaching them some English. Some more students arrived to and guess what… they all speak English!! I am starting to not feel so isolated. When I first got here basically only spanish was being spoken but now with more and more people coming who speak english, more and more english is being spoken.
It is now Saturday. We woke up at 640, which believe it or not is sleeping in here! we usually have to get up at 6:00 o'clock to be ready for breakfast. For those of you don't know, when I was at home I usually went to bed around three o'clock in the morning, and woke up at 12… on a good day. This is definitely a huge transition for me. Luckily because of the plane ride I am already starting to adjust. I broke my watch today though when I woke up and took it off to shower. I've only had it for three days and it is broken. Pops, I should have just taken the one you originally gave me. Oh well
We had our DTS orientation today which lasted a couple hours. Everything is spoken in English and Spanish here, so things tend to take longer. But I am using that to try to learn as much Spanish as I can. However it is going a lot slower then I would hope. I am not very good at this whole speaking another language thing. It makes me wish I tried harder in high school and not get D's in Spanish. Edguardo and I have made a pack though to help each other learn each others language. I have the easier job though because he is pretty good at speaking English. I wish that I brought my Spanish textbook though. That would have made learning Spanish easier.
Tonight we are having our welcome dinner. They made the place look really nice. with flowers, I took some pictures but not many.
They had a very nice tasteful dinner. I actually like the food here a lot so far. Although we still haven't had rice and beans. I have realized that I have been writing a lot so far and that this first post is going to be very long. I know they won't be this long in the future, just so much is happening in these first couple of days so far. Anyways, after dinner we had worship. It was both in english and Spanish, which made it very interesting. I am sure though that Caralee would have absolutely loved it. After worship they played music and people started dancing. I had fun watching people trying to learn how to dance from the Ticas (means a Costa Rican Girl). Ben who is 6'4 was trying to learn from the shortest girl, Ben also isn't the most graceful person either, so it was a very entertaining sight to see.
It is now Sunday. Today I got woken up by a loud thunk at 6:30. Josh who sleeps on top of one of the bunks jumped out of bed. He was wearing socks so when his feet hit the ground they slipped out from underneath him and landed straight on his ass. I wasn't to happy because we could have slept in till about 7:30. After that we all got ready for church. We went to Kevin, Byron, and Jesus's church today three of the Tico's that are in my DTS. It was a short 5 min car ride away. At the church service people were so emotional. So many people were crying hysterically, one person sounded like she was laughing like a witch. There was a guy who had maybe three teeth but was the nicest dressed guy there. He was probably in his 60's and had a face full of wrinkles. During worship he was interpretive dancing the whole time, he actually had some pretty good moves. Worship went on forever though. They like to repeat themselves about twenty six times. I almost fell asleep about twelve times during the service since it was all in spanish and I understood maybe one in every twenty words.
After church we went back to the base and hungout for a while. Then we took about a ten-fifteen minute bus ride to downtown San Josè, we took the bus so they could show us how to do it on our own. The bus ride only costs about 50 cents each way. When we got to downtown we just walked around for a while, and then meet up in the city square. Apparently it is tradition that when kids go there that they feed the pigeons. We were standing there with pigeons flying all around us and I said "someone is going to get hit" right then I see splatter bounce off of someone. Melissa got hit right in the head with a nice big bird turd on her head. It is one of those moments when you feel bad for the person, but you can't help yourself from laughing. After that we had ten minutes to go do whatever we wanted to. Jesus took me to the bank so that I could get some Colonies. 500 Colonies is about one dollar. After that we went and got some ice cream. Jesus and I got to the meeting point first and meet up with Katie, one of our DTS leaders. Katie said she was going to ask the whole group which way the bus station was. Jesus and I both knew right away, and Katie told us she knew we would know, but she wants to show the 18 year old girls who have never been out of the country what being lost feels like. When the whole group got there Katie asked them, I don't think there was a direction that people didn't point at.
When we got back at the base we played soccer. We played 4 on 4 on a small basketball court. I couldn't believe how much I have lost! Granted it has been about four years since I have really played but still. I kept trying to do things that I was once able to do, but failed completely when I tried. I scored two goals out of the ten our team scored so I didn't do terribly. About halfway through the game Rowey, tried to get the ball past me, but I stopped it… with my groin. It was awful, I was decommissioned for about 15 minutes. After that we had a very nice dinner and went to bed. I really needed sleep by the end of the day.
Please remember to keep me updated about your life as well!
Here is a photo that I took that I really like
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