Saturday November 8, 2008
Ok, well here we go. Another week down and I’m still alive but not without a few bruises, near-accident experiences and continual joys of adjusting to daily life in another country that doesn’t speak your native language. I have so many stories I can share, but there seems to be a severe lack of time considering the intensity of my course. So please bare with me as my entries are sporadic.
Let’s see, where to start. This last week was quite a fantastic week. I feel more at home in my homestay house and have adjusted more or less to a little routine. And let me just say that the week’s verse in my head has been “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” Philippians 4:13…..and as Paul explains prior to this verse that he had learned the secret to being content in whatever situation he was in. And let’s face it, Paul faced infinitely more hardships in his life than I have or probably will, considering all his near death experiences and beatings…..Anyway, I am learning more and more that I need to depend on God alone because to be honest, without His hand on my life and His saving grace, I know I would be a basket case living down here once again, away from everything that is familiar to me in either my family and friends or even just the things I’ve grown accustomed to and take for granted (such as the privilege of having my own car and the independence and autonomy that can give). Well, there’s my little philosophical blabbering for a bit….to sum up I’ll just say that I’m just getting used to all the drastic changes that have come into my little world but One always remains the same, and that’s my Lord Jesus Christ who is walking with me in all of this….
Ok, so now to the funny stuff….Every morning I have a walk of about 20-25 minutes to my school. I get to pleasantly walk past a catholic church, the city’s posh University Latina, cross the train tracks and dodge the crazy Tico drivers here. It definitely wakes me up in the morning. So, the first morning I had class, my Tica mom walked me to school. She was talking a mile-a-minute in Spanish telling me about all the ‘sights’ on the way, but then she got into the important stuff: the ever-dreaded bus schedule. Now, the buses here are quite the experience. There are rarely if ever an actually ‘bus stop’ that has a covered seating area. Sometimes the buses just stop near a landmark, sometimes they don’t always stop and pick up at the same place but perhaps it will be around the block, and there is never a time schedule unlike the seriously precise buses I’ve seen in Europe. There’s a thing called Tico time here too, which I’ll explain in another entry. Needless to say, I have a serious dread of taking the bus because I’m afraid I’ll never know where it’s supposed to stop or if I’m on the wrong one. Maybe someday I’ll be comfortable with them- hmmm, scratch that. Probably will never happen. So, I’m trying to concentrate really hard on what my Tica mom is saying about all the various buses that I can take or not take, when I ran smack dab into a thick guide wire/cable thing attached to the light poles. It literally vaulted me backwards and I felt like the cable nearly cut me in half and I was sure my face had that mark for a long time. I immediately started laughing and my Tica mom looked at me like I was nuts, then kinda chuckled and said “you have to be careful.” So I, as I normally do, laughed off my embarrassment at this situation. The funnier part of the story is that the very next day, I was walking by myself to school and conveniently staring at something across the street when I smacked right into the same, the exact same cable! I again bounced back and kinda tripped in the process, and I looked around hoping no one had seen it. Oh, but they had. All the people around looked at me like, ‘what an idiot,’ especially since I was chuckling nervously to myself yet again to pass of the embarrassment.
Lucky for you, this is not the last of my klutzy incidents I’ll share with you on my way to school. This week, I boldly decided to get out my ipod to listen to a little music to drown out the ever-present roar of buses and semi-trucks that grumble down the road. I made sure it was only on the parts that I didn’t have to cross the street, so I was walking past the university. It had just rained the night before so at one point, there’s always the big puddle of mud I have to dodge. Just when I was about to get to it, this girl in front of me started sprinting across the upcoming train tracks…..I thought, “wow, she must be really late for class!” I hopped my way past the mud and was just putting my foot in the middle of the train tracks when I happened to look to my left and was flabbergasted to find a TRAIN about 10 yards from me (of all things to be on the tracks). My eyes just about popped out of my head as my thoughts flashed towards the next days’ morning newspapers telling of the tragic squashing of the gringa girl who was sauntering across the tracks without looking. Only me, I thought. The blessing of it all was that in reality, the train was moving about as fast as I was walking, and it hadn’t even done it’s train sound thing, so how was I to know it was there! All that said, I again had a hearty laugh as I walked away from yet another ridiculous feux-paux of my trek to school. Lesson learned—look both ways before you cross the street or the train tracks. A couple other funny scenes such as this have happened on this very same walk, none of which I will bore you with now since I’ve already taken up precious space telling a few simple stories.
Next entry: Christmas in Costa Rica!!
