Things I Never Thought I'd Do and Be Okay With

I can think of three off the top of my head...I'm sure there are more, but here are these for now.

1. Picking ants out of the honey and then using it. (the ants are really little, I promise. But now we make sure the honey lid is closed really tight.)

2. Getting my haircut by a barber (this is Angela writing). I've heard that getting haircuts here is quite different. They are very reasonable (less than $20) at the really nice places, BUT they cut your hair how they want, not how you request. And given that my Spanish is still on a beginners level, I decided I wasn't ready for that kind of cultural experience yet. So, there is a man at school who was a barber before coming here. While cutting the boys' hair I asked him if he'd trim my hair. The best part - it was free!

3. Riding in taxis with my children all in the backseat WITHOUT seatbelts. I never thought I'd be used to this, but it's such a normal part of life here. For those who are worried for their safety (namely Nana and Mimi :) we don't ride in taxis very often. Usually we walk or take buses.

What Then are We Fighting, and Why

Lately, we have heard a lot talk of the metaphor "Life is War".

I read recently a quote from Joseph Conrad in which he speaks of our "beclouded and tempestuous existence".

Some mornings, during the time between sleeping and waking, these sort of just-below-consciousness thoughts occur to me; yesterday's was "our lives consist of thousands of quiet revolutions". Again, life is a battle, a revolt against something...

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."

What, then, if we concede that life is war, are we waging war against? We are warring against ourselves—fighting not to be the center of our worlds; fighting others that we may find a way to love them; fighting death—we have to remind ourselves that what we know here are not the most beautiful things; fighting our perversions—we are afraid of who we can be if we allow ourselves; fighting our anonymity—God I will do anything for you just don't ask me to be no one...

And why, why do we fight? Why do we engage in these daily upheavals? Because we know the the world is not as it should be and we are restless for it to be right.

Our Confused Spanish Part Deux

Ok, here are some more anecdotes to demonstrate how sometimes we just cannot get this language right:

—I walked into PriceSmart (Costco) the other day and to the clerk checking my card at the door I said "Ooola" instead of "Hola".

—At lunch on Sunday I attempted to get the waitresses attention by saying "Disculpe, Mom"...I called her mom, some strange combination of ma'am and senora...

—The other day in class I prefaced a question to my teacher with "In esta casa" which means "In this house" instead of "In this case" like I meant to say ("In este caso" is the correct way)

—Most of you know "esta bien", which loosely translates "it is good"....I responded the other day to my teacher with "esta bwee-in"...

—"Forma corta" means "short form" and we use it in class when we are learning how to use direct and indirect object pronouns...so, for example, the "forma corta" of "I give money to John" is "I give it to him"...comprende?....the other day a classmate of our's asked the teacher "Que es la forma shorta"...

Some days we just cannot get it right...

Cultural Learning

Last Friday was Cultural Day at school. We danced and cooked. See these pictures of Angela and I doing the Colombian Cumbia and a traditional Costa Rican dance that I cannot remember the name of...