Local Life in Costa Rica

After what felt like a whirlwind visit to the States, I arrived back in Costa Rica on Saturday, 30 minutes early. You go, pilot! Diego picked me up in what he called a turtle--a really slow pickup truck. Slow enough that we didn't arrive back in Silencio until 9:30 that night. I had gotten up that morning at 2 a.m. (Costa Rica time), so the day was a long one, but I was glad to be back. Since then I've been living the life of a local, well, minus the actual job.

All is pretty routine. Diego works in the morning, so I sleep in until about 9 when I'm able, meaning when the dogs and the roosters and the neighbor's music don't force me up earlier than that. We cook (yes, I'm learning to cook), we clean, we do laundry, we go to the store, we watch movies, play pool, video games, read, etc. It's a pretty lazy life for me, and I'm enjoying it immensely. I would enjoy it more if I weren't sick with a cold and coughing half the day and all of the night. The over the counter drugs are helping, though, so I should be well by the weekend.

I have two teaching projects currently: teaching Diego English (he's quite a lazy student!) and training Mechas (our puppy). She's doing better than he is, I believe, probably because she enjoys it. She has learned to sit on command and has almost learned to lay down on command. If I train her before I feed her, she doesn't like to eat from the bowl, preferring to continue learning and being handfed. Diego, on the other hand, says English is too hard and doesn't like to practice. Ever the teacher, I'm starting where my student is--in this case, the first sentences he's learning involve smoking! "I want a cigarette." "I need a lighter." etc.

There are others who want to learn English as well. I helped Mango yesterday with his English homework. He had to write about a famous athlete in Costa Rica, so I helped him write a page in English about a goalkeeper for one of the Costa Rican professional soccer teams. It involved his telling me in Spanish what he wanted to say and my translating into English, oh and my prompting him with what he could say. Hmmm, I'm not sure how much he got out of that assignment. Then Ronnie asked me yesterday if I would help him learn. He speaks Spanglish and wants to learn more. We'll see. A lot of them want to learn but don't want to devote the time to it--just like most people with many things, I suppose.

What can I say except Life is Good?!