Nosotros tenemos una empleada, pero no tengo agua!

One of the many blessings we are enjoying here in Costa Rica is being able to have an empleada help us out at home. Empleadas domestica, as they are called, are basically housekeepers. Almost everyone here has one - it is very cultural and very very affordable. We have a sweet woman named Marina who comes to our house 3 mornings a week. She is a huge blessing to us for many reasons. By having her come do laundry, clean, and iron, it frees us up to have more time to study. Plus, we get to practice our Spanish with her, as she eats lunch with us on the days she's here. She speaks faster and with a little different accent then our teachers, so it gives us good practice.

So today when we got home from school, we clearly understood her when she said "No agua". Apparently we didn't pay our water bill - because we never received it - so they shut off our water today without any notice. Marina told us the man said that if we paid it today, they'd turn it back on tomorrow afternoon. Well, after a frustrating few hours, with lots of Spanish practice for Bubba, our water is back on! Nosotros tenemos agua! Gracias a Dios! (We have water. Thanks be to God!)

The Mornings, Finding Us Alive

Our alarm rings at 5am each morning. We have not been awakened to the day this early, this regularly, well, for our entire marriage (10 years). We stumble out of bed (usually two snoozes later), and into the kitchen first to turn on the coffee. One of the simple pleasures we enjoy here each night before bed is choosing which Costa Rican coffee to prepare for the next day. I think right now we have five different brands in our freezer.

While the coffee brews, Angela and I sit together in our living room and begin to journal, read the Bible and pray together. The kids still sleeping, the street outside not yet sounding off with commuter buses and motorcycles delivering papers, this quiet time is an indispensable component to our days.

After 30 minutes or so, half-awake then with caffeine in our blood, Angela will shower, and I have gotten in the groove of listening to music and singing—one song in particular has become my favorite. This song is helping to shape a perspective on God that has been lacking in my life. Here are the lyrics (by Bebo Norman):

Am I unfit for You
Remember me, the one who turned from You
I come in rags tattered by the Fall
And all the earth, a witness to my crime

Mercy, weep over me
Let Your tears wash me clean
Majesty, be merciful with me
For my eyes have seen Holy

Hear my prayer at night
Let the morning find me alive
For I am tired and weakened by the Fall
Let all the earth bear witness to my cry

Let the Amen sound from Heaven as You lift my soul
Let the Amen sound from Heaven as You lift my soul
Let the Angels sound from Heaven, Holy is the Lord

My children ARE teaching me Spanish

Everyone said our children would be teaching us Spanish, since kids learn so much quicker than adults, so here's a funny story. I (Angela) walked to the bakery with all 3 kids the other evening to get bread to go with supper. Here, everyone has iron gates around their houses/yards and most have some type of "guard" dog. As we were walking home, a dog started barking at us (not unusual) but it came right out through the iron bars. It was only a small poodle, but Ty reacted like it was a pit bull - screaming and climbing up me as fast as he could. This only excited the dog more. Sam was holding the bag of bread over his head and Georgia was clinging to my other leg. (I'm sure we were a gringo sight!). I start saying to the dog...go home, go home. And then I realized, this dog doesn't speak English. So we started walking, only to have the dog follow us for a long time. Every now and then I'd stop and snap at it and tell it to go home. Nothing worked. Finally Georgia looked at the dog and said "Adios doggie" and with that he turned around and trotted home!

Ephesians 3 14-21

My good friend Mary wrote that she was praying this scripture for us. It has been meaningful to me, so I thought I'd share it. God is teaching us a lot about Him and a lot about ourselves, as we trust Him everyday in new ways.

"For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father.....that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,to HIM be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."

This is our prayer for all of you as well.

Parque de La Paz slideshow

Patacones and Mongodo

I (Bubba) am the cook in the family now. This weekend I rustled up some patacones—take not-yet-ripe plantains, cut 'em up into one inch pieces, fry them in a little oil, then smash them into patties, then fry them again until golden brown, good with a slice of tico cheese on top, or a little cinnamon sugar.

Then today in lenguage class we are eating Mongodo, tasty little treat of COW STOMACH...costariccense delicacy.

Sunday Afternoon at the Park

We found this park this afternoon, Parque de la Paz. It's about a 15 minute walk from our house. It's a huge park with a big hill in the middle where people fly kites. It also has a few lakes, some fields, and a walking/biking path. The 2 most popular things to do are fly a kite, and slide down the hill on pieces of cardboard. Our kids loved sledding on grass! I must say it doesn't work all that well (doesn't quite compare to sledding on snow, but I guess in a city where it never snows, it's a close second :)

Our daily schedule

I thought I'd give everyone an idea of our daily schedule. Hopefully this along with seeing the pictures will help you envision our life here a little better.

5:00 - our alarm goes off
5:15 - 5:30 - we roll out of bed
5:30 - 6:00 - coffee and quiet times
6:00 - Angela gets ready, Bubba fixes the kids snacks and lunches
6:30 - the kids get up, get dressed, and we all eat breakfast
7:10 - all 5 of us are out the door to school! (a small miracle :)
7:30 - school starts for all of us
7:30 - 9:15 - Bubba and Angela have grammar class with Oscar Rodriguez
9:20 - 10:10 - Conversation class, Angela with Rita and Bubba with Elena
10:10 - 11:15 - Break time!
11:15 - 12:05 - Phonetics class, Angela with Ana and Bubba with Gabriella
12:10 - pick up Ty and head home for lunch
2:30 - pick up Sam and Georgia from school
In the afternnons we usually end up going to a local park, or Bubba heads out for an adventure :)
4:30 - homework time for Sam and Georgia, Bubba usually fixes dinner while I help with homework
5:30 - dinner
7:00 - bedtime for the kids, study time for us
8:30 - 9:00 - bedtime for us! (you would not believe how exhausted we are -walking everywhere along with using all our mental faculties just to say "my name is.....where is the sugar....what time is it...") but really this is 9:30 - 10:00 east coast time :)

Bathroom Games, anyone?

Ok, another funny language learning story. This week in class, studying vocabulary, the word "juegos" came up. Juegos primarily means "games." Well, I recalled seeing a sign in our neighborhood outside an interior decorator's shop that said, among other things, "Juegos de bano."

So I asked our teacher, his name is Oscar, "Well, I saw this sign ya see, and it said juegos de bano, so are we talking about "bathroom games?" Oscar started laughing, as did everyone else in class when Oscar told us that when juegos is used in this manner it refers to a "set" of something, so you can have "bathroom sets", you can also have "juegos de cama"—a la cama is a bed and no it does not mean "bed games", but a set of sheets for the bed.

So no, bathroom games and bed games are not weird cultural pastimes of Costa Rica.

My List of Things I Love in Costa Rica

First of all, I should say that we got our internet hooked up at home today!! Now we'll be more connected and hopefully make more regular posts.

I (Angela) was thinking the other day of all the things I miss about home, about Charlottesville, and about life in general in the United States. Suffice it to say, if I made a list of all I miss or all that is hard, it would be a long list. So....I decided to make a list of the things I love here in Costa Rica.

*wearing tank tops and flip flops in January
*walking to and from school everyday with my family
*holding hands with my children as we walk (everywhere, everyday!!!)
*crema dulce in my coffee (there is no half and half here - crema dulce is whipping cream!)
*the satisfaction that comes from understanding and communicating with a native speaker, mas despacio por favor
*the crisp blue sky in the mornings

More pics, more news

The above slideshow has more pics than the ones from the other day. Below is our house, on the corner there, terracotta with black gate.

Yesterday I (Bubba) took ill in the morning during class. Hit me like a freight train. Never got sick per se, but my body felt so fatigued that in the afternoon I stayed in bed until dinner. I am ok now.

Sam remarked yesterday, " I love school." We are grateful for this. Ty is now doing well also but Georgia is still having a hard time in the mornings letting go.

Espanol es bueno. First three days of classes for Angela and I have gone well.

Funny story. I walked to the Costa Rican version of Sam's Club on Wednesday from our home. About two miles. Place called PriceSmart. I bought a membership (in Spanish mind you, lots of "despacio por favor" from me). About half way thru shopping spree, I realized I had to get all this bulk stuff home. Taxis cannot come into lot so it is not as easy as just unloading into a taxi. So, improvising, I tipped a young tico boy uno mil colones ($2) to fetch two industrial strength, large trash bags for me to load up my groceries. I filled em up, and began to walk through the parking lot with two large trash bags, and a box of Fab laundry detergent under one arm. I was able to hail a cab at the highway, but only after much physicial strain, and gringo embarrassment.

More soon. The mountains around us are beautiful. But the city here looks and feels much like what I imagined a developing country to feel like. The sort of exotic places that we think of when we think of Costa Rica are certainly along the coasts. The highest paid jobs in Costa Rica pay about $13,000 per year.

The First Days

Well, alas, this journey has begun. We are here in San Jose, Costa Rica, getting settled. Our language school (Instituto de Lengua Espanola) begins Wednesday Jan 9. Sam, Georgia and Ty begin school tomorrow on Monday.

We have been here one week. The first couple of days for all of us was difficult—leaving Charlottesville and our friends and family left big empty spaces in our hearts. Each day gets easier though as we hold firmly to the belief that God has appointed us to this place and so we would rather be nowhere else.

I should emphasize how difficult it was for all of us those first couple days. I did not want to unpack our things because that meant committing to staying and I was not ready to stay. Tonight as I write, we all feel vastly different, we are experiencing peace and contentment—“fight the good fight” has been our mantra. The difference between now and five days ago is so stark that I believe God has intervened through the prayer of our friends and family to lift those onerous feelings from us.

Funny story: Angela took Ty and Georgia to the panaderia (bakery) yesterday while I cooked dinner and Sam rested. The clerk asked Angela if she wanted her pastries in a bag (bolsa). Angela said, “What? Umm, yes, botella.” The clerk just stared at her with a confused look. She came home and told me the story and asked why the clerk seemed confused. I said, “Honey, that’s because you told him to put the pastries in a bottle (botella)!”

There are no street addresses here. You merely describe where you are in relation to landmarks. So here is how we give our address: San Francisco de dos rios (our neighborhood), Parque Los Sauces (park adjacent to us), La esquina enfrente de Abstacedor (corner opposite the Abastacedor ((store)), La casa con terracotta y verja negra (the house with terra cotta and a black gate).

But if you want to mail us something don’t write the above description on envelope. Send us letters and packages to:

Ken and Angela Massey
Instituto de Lengua Espanola
Apartado 100-2350
San Jose, Costa Rica
America Central

We will post some pics later!