BUSY BUSY, but GOOD week!!!

This past week has been crazy! We had a fair amount of homework due this week and I got to spend some time with my Costa Rican friends as well as American friends. I’m sooo glad it’s the weekend though because I did write 2 papers in Spanish, which were each about 4 pages long! My brain was fried! However, I’m definitely improving, which is a main reason I’m here. I also worked really hard on Tuesday to finish my first paper because I knew I would not have time to do it Wednesday night because my hermana tica (Andrea) told me that I HAD TO COME to this big surprise 30^th birthday party for a guy from our church here. The party was great! Pizza Hut pizza, cake, and candy from the piñata! Best thing ever was watching all these grown adults (25 – 40) clench their party bags while leaning forward ready to pounce on the candy as soon as it fell, and that is exactly what happened!!! (pic above) Of course the good Latin music was playing the whole time and one of my friends (Esteban) was showing me how to salsa. They all definitely make it look a million times easier with all their spins, but now I have something to aim for! After most of the people had left, Andrea’s close friends who I’m always hanging with decided to take a bunch of pictures. If you look at the picture of me laying across their arms their names from left to the back and then to the right front are: Carla, Andrea, Esteban, Edgar, Carlos, Ellen. Anyway, got home at about 12:30am and I had to get up at 6:00am the next morning! Whew! So I walk into my room, shut the door, and there is this fatty cockroach on the wall in the corner behind my door. I got Andrea who can and killed it…ick! Then I moved some clothes in my closet to grab my pajamas and these white bugs scurried out from under my clothes. Needless to say, I shake everything before I put it on now. Haha! I’m pretty sure it’s just cause the bugs come out late at night and I’m usually asleep by then. HOWEVER, I remember being woken up the other night by something that was crawling on my arm! I brushed it off and realized that it was rather large…so…in putting two and two together…I’m pretty sure a cockroach was crawling on me while I was sleeping the other night! NASTY! (Holguins, you can probably empathize!) So that was my fun story for the middle of the week. Friday morning all LASP people met up and we spent the majority of the morning sharing brief “life stories” or some story that went below the surface, so we could start to get to know each other deeper. Great time of sharing, being vulnerable, laughing, crying, and being in community with one another! This time was topped off with HOMEMADE CINAMON ROLLS that LASP had brought to us!! Soooo incredibly delicious!! Friday night I got to go to a Mexican restaurant with a bunch of my American friends. It was great to continue our being in community and getting to know one another better! I’ve gotten pretty close with a handful of people from all over the US! It’s also always nice to be able to carry on a deep meaningful conversation with someone (obviously in English) after you’ve been constantly TRYING to have similar conversations in Spanish. However, my Spanish is indeed improving! Some days are definitely harder and more discouraging than other, but I just have to keep going for it and messing up in order to fix it and move on. I think I’m beginning to be able to show my personality more to people through my clever statements in Spanish here and there as I try to incorporate my humor in another language! Here’s a neat story for you: My host mom’s dad is not doing well health wise, and this has been hard on her and the family in general. This morning, she randomly comes into my room and starts to tell me how she woke up at 4:30am cause she couldn’t sleep (sounds like someone else I know…cough – mom – cough). So she got up and read this devotional, which she then proceeded to read to me. After she finished reading it to me, she pretty much just started to pour her heart out to me. Talking about how she’s just been asking God why he’s put this situation in their life and what are they supposed to get out of it. She was telling me how it’s been so hard on her and the family to just be waiting around and hoping, but not knowing if her dad is going to die or what’s going on, all the while she’s crying as she’s telling me all this. What do you say and how do you respond?! So…I just told her that maybe God will use this to make her stronger in the end, and I reassured her that I was praying for her and her family. Anyway, kind of a random shock and yet neat experience, and the best part was I pretty much understood everything she was saying. In addition to that, I sat at the table after dinner with my host parents and had a long conversation with them about their previous students and all sorts of stories that went along with that. The incredible part was when we were done talking and I was walking to my room and I realized that I had pretty much understood EVERYTHING they were telling me in their FAST pace talking! Woot Woot! My Spanish is improving!!!! All in all, a great, very full week! I leave for a 2 week trip to Nicaragua Monday morning, but I’ll blog about that tomorrow!