alright, I understand its been a long time since I've updated but there's just been so much going on I haven't really had time to be on the computer much.
Hmmmm lets see..
Thursday 6/16: I did a lot of school work, we have a big project in Tropical Ecology with a first draft due, and I basically went to classes, ate food, and worked on that project and all my homework for my other class, which every day happens to be a presentation of some sort and a packet of whatever verb tense we're working on...
Friday 6/17: morning we worked on it some more until around lunch time. My mama tica thought they would be eating here too so she put out a lot of food, and when she found out she laughed at me and was like well guess you have to eat all of it. Dear lord, like that was going to happen, I couldn't even finish my portion. I've come to accept the fact that I cannot eat everything on my plate though and I've stopped feeling bad about it. Its just not in the cards for me, impossible feat lol I hung out with Deivy for a while that day and then headed over to Casey's to get ready for our night out of dancing. I wore my hair down for the first time since I've been here and its getting really long, and I had to borrow a shirt because I didn't bring anything that resembled something I could wear to a club. It was a really nice place in San Jose called Pepper club.. or something along those lines. We were seated in an upstairs section (VIP) but we didn't stay up there much because all the dancing was downstairs on the main floor. THANK GOD I took those dance classes, because I would have been so miserably lost without them. There was salsa and meringue and all sorts of dances going on and the floor was packed full of couples twirling around. It was really difficult to make ourselves known and get our own space because its so crowded everyone bumped into us, especially with the turns and spins! We figured though as long as you don't stop moving you don't stick out so much. The first couple hours was real dancing, with a partner and specific footwork and then afterwords they started playing "party" music and everyone just jumped up and down when the DJ said to and danced like any other club in the US.. we left around midnight in our lovely private buses, otherwise it would have taken forever to get a taxi!
Saturday 6/18: I hung out at the house with Deivy til 2pm and then we all (except for Marito) left for Tilaran in Guanacaste. We were off to see the family for Father's day! I really had no idea where we were the entire time but it was fine, I just kind of went with the flow and asked questions when I thought it was important. like.. are we getting back in the car for a couple hours because we need to find a bathroom first. important things. We stopped at a beach to take pictures of it, because where we live is in the middle of the country and there's no coast, and apparently they don't get out a lot so it was like a mini vacation for them and they were all very excited :) stopped at the halfway point (not that I knew that at the time) and they bought us these strange smoothie looking things.. they were so good!! I really don't know what was in it, some sort of powder, strawberry mix with ice, ice cream and condensed milk.. who knows but it was delicious! Then we stopped somewhere else and I thought maybe we would be staying there but it turns out it was there aunts house or something and we were lost and asking for directions.. then finally we were in Tilaran and we stopped at the uncle and aunts store, which they've only owned for a month. I met some of the cousins (on mama tica's moms side) and I thought for sure we would be staying there because we even went to the house for a little while until we hopped back in the car. Then FINALLY we arrived at the abuelos (grandparents) and we took our things out of the car and I found and claimed a bed so I knew were I would be sleeping. In total it was 4 1/2 hours in the car. the abeulos were on papa tico's side of the family I met a couple of the cousins that lived close by. Apparently he grew up there and everywhere we went he ran into people he knew and hadnt seen in years so we stopped to talk a lot. It was already very late, around 9 or 10pm and we were out walking around to see the fiestas. Tilaran is a very small town and it used to have a very large tradition of every weekend have big fiestas that took up the entire town, now papa tico was telling me that its only a few vendors and some dancing. There was a carousal and one ride called the "Bailarina", it didn't look too exciting, like disc that spun around and went up and down, side to side, etc. So we walked around for a little and then headed back to the house. Went to bed around midnight because I was exhausted and had absolutely no concept of time the entire day.. I really need a watch lol
Sunday 6/19: I woke up relatively early because we were supposed to head out by 8 30am.. I slept surprisingly well considering I didn't have my fan for white noise and the room was making creepy noises and I swear there were spiders all around my bed! It was the cow that put me to sleep though, every two minutes it would just moo, like a song or something, in time with some sort of rhythm and I swear if it wasn't for that cow I would have been up all night with the spiders. good cow :) I was up by 7am and the rest of the family wandered out of their rooms at 7 30.. Deivy apparently knows me better than I thought because he ran to get me when he discovered that they had cats :) hes not really an animal person, so it surprised me but it was all excited to show me, and of course I was excited just because I tend to be excited about everything lol Chepe (grandpa), Papa, Deivy and I left for lake Arenal to take pictures and walk around, and then we went and visited the wind farms. Tilaran is known for a couple things: The giant artificial lake (arenal), fiestas, monte cruz, and wind power. Monte cruz, its basically just a really big wooden cross on a giant hill overlooking the town. The wind turbines were really cool though, it doesn't seem like they would be but when you're there its so much more interesting, especially when you look really close and you can see the whole turbine moving to face the direction of the wind, I didn't actually know that they did that, but it was pretty cool! afterwords we went back home around 11, and then left again with mama tica, and deivy to go visit her dad. He lived literally two minutes down the road but it was not as nice of a house.. to put it nicely. I'm not sure how much I understand the relationship they have with him or that side of the family in general, but I think she said that they don't like her or talk to her much, so it was an awkward visit in the house. He made me very uncomfortable while we were sitting and talking, he stared at me the entire time and I couldn't understand what he was saying because he mumbled so badly. There were other people there but I didn't know who they were. One of them came in and talked for a long time about me, like I wasn't there, and all about "Gringos" and he seemed very macho and kind of like a stereotypical ... I don't know how to say it, just not a nice guy. Then we took a trip to the cemetery with her father and his "senora" to visit her mothers grave. It was kind of sad because mama tica cried and no body else seemed to care.. Deivy tried to keep things light and hummed a little song, but her dad seemed very stiff and ambivalent toward the whole thing, maybe thats just his way of coping, but either way it was uncomfortable.. THEN we had this weird little adventure to some random place up in the hills nearby that I have NO CLUE why we were there. Even now, I just don't understand what we were doing there.. something about how we were looking for someone but we didn't know their name and we stopped at this house for a while and mama tica disappeared and we waited outside in the blistering heat.. because somebody owed somebody something about a farm? I was thoroughly confused and really just wanted to sit down and eat something. Deivy felt the same way but of course did his best to keep things cheerful :) he was telling me all about how if you looked over there were all these mountains and that from this mountain on, was Nicaragua, I had no idea we were so close. After an hour or so we left and headed back to the house where we were staying.
It was a little crazier when we got back, there were so many people there and I had to walk around and kiss all of them even though I only knew about 6 of them... and they were just as confused as I was because they had no idea who I was. Introductions came after food, because we were starving but I still only met a few of the vital people. I basically hung out with Deivy and all of the cousins all day, all of which were much younger than me. It was good though, because no one spoke English and I learned so much more this weekend that I feel like I have the entire time I've been here only because I was forced to comprehend and talk back. It was a lot of fun and we ended up walking around town and going on that ride in the middle of town twice, it was so crazy, it seemed so little but when we were on it that thing was intense!! Twice was enough for me because we all felt a little sick after the second time, but it was still worth it. We played a whole lot of Uno (the card game) and talked a lot and joked around so much, I feel like its a whole new level of Spanish when there's sarcasm and jokes included, everything is so much more complicated but more fun at the same time. I think my family understands that I know more than they think I did too after this weekend because I talked more with everyone that was there. We left in the evening and didn't get home until a little after 10, I was exhausted and passed out almost immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment