Sólo bueno...

Wow! When you wait too long, there's too much to say! So I'll try to give the short version. Last Friday we had an amazing adventure on a day trip with Rodrigo the specialist at the Employment Center, and the Torreros, a couple from Panama who are part-time missionaries, volunteers at the center in Panama. We headed up in the mountains to an amazing town called Zarcero that has a beautiful topiary park, and we even got lucky enough to meet the old man who started the park and still takes care of it. He's an artist really, and we felt privlidged to be in his presence in the midst of his masterpieces. On the way there we stopped at a little road-side restaurant and had a typical breakfast of tamales, sweet-corn tortillas, and agua dulce, this amazing drink made of sugar cane. After our mountain adventure, we made the long treck back down and headed for the coast. Before we got to the beach, it looked like the couds were about to burst, so we stopped for a late lunch at an amazing jungly restaurant that had its own in-house parrot that hung out near our table. Tell you what- the fish is better around here than in Utah. Not that that should be a surprise. By the time we finished eating, the rain had actually let up, and we drove the last 20 minutes or so to Puntarenas, a little peninsula on the Pacific coast. The weather had actually turned beautiful, and we spent a little time on the beach soaking in the sand, sun and warm waves. Before we left, we saw a big group of locals set up a game of beach soccer, and we decided to brave it and jump in. We ran into the middle of the group, and I think they were all pretty surprised (but pleasantly surprised). We got a bit of the action, and Allie even scored a goal. I was proud of her. We finished our adventure with these amazing ice cream drinks that are famous around here, and pretty much as bad for you as they possibly could be, and topped it all off with a dark, rainy drive home on a curvy, narrow mountainous road with Rodrigo at the wheel. Let's just say we are lucky to be alive.

Saturday we were up for another adventure, and the weather was beautiful, so we headed to the park near our house to do "canopy", a series of zip lines that goes through the tops of the Eucalyptus trees in the park. It was pretty much amazing, and we really enjoyed ourselves, and made some friends while we were at it.

Monday we headed to the mercado central and randomly met a fellow cougar named Allen, and ended up spending the rest of the day with him. It turned out to be super fun, and we felt not quite so far from home.

Tune in next time for an update on the state of the Panama Canal. Thanks for reading!

Sarah

Paseando por el centro

At the cost of boring you with too frequent of posts, I write once again. Today we ventured into the center of San José, an easy nine or ten block walk from our apartment. We wanted to see the Teatro Nacional, which was build after a fameous opera singer bypassed Costa Rica during a central american tour because. To get back, they raised coffee taxes, and build a Paris-style opera house. It is a beautiful building, and we're excited to see some performances there. ¿Qué más...? We ventured over the plaza de la cultura, and then headed underground to the Museo de Oro Precolombino. It has the world's largest collection of pre-Colombian gold artifacts, and it was quite impressive. My personal favorite was the Lamanite-esque statue of a warrior (see the war chapters of Alma for a good description of this guy).

We also visited an exhibit on the war that happened in Central America in the 1850's. Apparently a general from the Souther U.S. during the Civil War decided to conquer and enslave Central America, and marched on Nicaragua with a band of pirates and filibusters. Fortunately, he was unsuccessful (after several attempts, and his eventual execution). Anyway, we made friends with the guard at the exhibit, and got to talk to him a little bit about the Book of Mormon, which was perfect, becase on our way out, there was a huge group of missionaries in that same exhibit! (It's P-day!) We chatted with them for a few minutes, and let them know about our contact so they could do some follow-up work. It was a pretty full and awesome morning. On our way out, it was raining as usual, and we got pretty soaked trying to share a small umbrella, but despite the rain, we stopped on the way home at a couple fruit stands and scored a big bag of mangos, another of apples, and another of avacados for under $3 total! Very impressive! We are preparing to feast! ¡Qué les vaya bien!

Sarah

Country Dancing and Portuguese in Costa Rica

On Friday Allie and I headed out to our first big dance. It was hosted by a nearby stake, and we were excited to brush up on our salsa skills. The theme was "country", which meant that people were supposed to wear jeans and some kind of plaid shirt (I failed to comply in the plaid department). We got there, and warmed up to some reggeatón before getting ready to do some "real" latin dancing. I stepped out of the cultural hall for a few moments, and was surprised to hear the music change from reggeatón not to salsa or cumbia, but to some good old fashioned country music. I stepped back inside to see what was going on, and was shocked to see a blonde kid with blue eyes teaching some country steps to a group of hesitant latinos. As I walked back up to Allie, I wanted to laugh, but as the song changed, "country kid" looked around for a new partner as he tried to get the group on the dance floor to learn, and before I knew it, I was dead center trying to follow his country lead. (I knew I should have gone country dancing all those times Kirsti tried to get me to go!) I think I bluffed my way through it alright, but it definitely wasn't my area of expertise, and not really how I was planning to make my debut into the dancing world of San José. Stranger yet, when the song was over, the mysterious country boy dissappeared into the crowd without ever telling me who he was or what he was doing there. Before too long, the salsa kicked in, and I got to do my thing (though I also discovered that Ticos salsa a bit differently than my beloved Mexicanos). Fortunately for you (I know you're all dying of curiosity) I ran into country boy a little later at the drinking fountain. They call him Memo, but his name is Bill. He is from Logan, UT. He's an exchange student at the University of San José. He served a mission in Paraguay and has been home three and a half years. He used to speak Guaraní. And he usually travels on weekends.

Earlier Friday we were at the center doing a bit of homework when our managers asked us if we wanted to accompany them to a bilingual job fair to do some resource development. The idea was to talk to the companies as if we were applying for jobs, and to get as much information on the application process (and hiring managers names and numbers, etc.) as possible. Af first it was a little weird, but in the process I got two on-the-spot interviews, one with IBM and the other with Western Union. They seemes to be intrigued when I said that I spoke English, Spanish and Portuguese, and both companies actually interviewed me in Portuguese. Too bad I wasn't actually looking for a job...I think they were impressed.

Saturday we had a pretty amazing experience. We went with Edwin, our manager, to one of San José's ghettos, a neighborhood called 25 de julio. We taught a workshop there to community members who tend to have very few opportunities, and who are looking for ways to better their lives. Including the two coordinators from city hall, we had 13 participants. We taught them an abbreviated version of the workshop (it usually takes 10-12 hours, we did it in 5), and it was a really amazing experience to see some of them change their perspectives about their goals, and who they can become. We were also introduced to an amazing program that adjoins to the community center called the "Clubhouse" where they provide all kinds of experiences with technology (less like an internet café and more like a place where disadvantaged youth can learn to use Microsoft Office, learn graphic and web design, record their own music, make and edit videos, etc). I was really touched by the mission of the project (started at MIT, and now with over 200 Clubhouses worldwide) and the way that it is opening doors for those kids. It was a really touching and humbling experience to work with those people- many of them, both youth and adults, looking for jobs with no more than an elementary school level education.

Today we went to Church, and already got to help fellowship some investigators. We were wholeheartedly welcomed into the ward, and the bishop told us he'll put us right to work, so that's exciting.

Other news from the week...We're going to Panamá! They bought us our plane tickets last week, and we're super excited to head down and help prepare people to qualify for PEF, which became available in Panama about three months ago. Also, we knew it was the rainy season, but what we didn't really know was that it would dump down tropical rains every day starting at around 1pm. We've had our share of wet everything, and I have pretty much stopped doing my hair or wearing makeup. Back to natural for us! Life is good here. We are happy and well taken care of, and hoping that you can all say the same for yourselves.

Sarah

Adventures in bathroom-cleaning

Our second and third days in Costa Rica proved even more interesting than the first. And if we thought the the toilet seat being too small was the most interesting thing about the bathroom, we were certainly mistaken. Now I guess it's possible that we may have mistakenly thrown a tiny bit of toilet paper in the toilet (gasp!) but I'm gonna blame this one on the former tennants. The flushing process has been a little rough since we got here, but last night it was just too much. Literally. Water (and without going into too many details, let me just say that it wasn't all that clean) flowed from the toilet, flooding the bathroom, and the better part of the hall and the bedroom. We haven't quite made it to the store to find cleaning supplies as of yet, and we also discovered that we had no plunger. The shower curtain is made of thin fabric, and is lacking the plastic lining, so Allie had used her beach towel the day before to mop up after our showers. Once I got the toilet to stop flooding, we used mine to mop up the bedroom and the hallway, and once we went downstairs and begged a plunger from the night guard, Porfirio, we "fixed" the toilet (not a quick OR pleasant job) and were left with nothing but our bath towels and an inch of (dirty) water in the bathroom. Being the self-sacrificing individual that I am, I volunteered my towel on the condition that Allie would let me share hers. But I wasn't really convinced that the towel would do the job. There was a lot of water in there. We resourcefully found a plastic bag and used the toilet brush to sweep water in, and then dumped it out into the shower. I am pleased to report that it worked quite well, and my towel was sufficient to absorb the remaining water and dry off the floor again (with the clean part) once we washed it (with a bit of laundry detergent). Our bathroom is now sparkling. But that left us with three very wet, very dirty towels. Fortunately, we have a washing machine. Unfortunately, we had no idea how to use it. We put in the towels and soap, and turned it on, but noticed that no water was flowing into it. Allie grabbed another plastic bag and started filling it with water and dumping it into the machine bucket-brigade style. But without the buckets. Or the brigade. Though I did help, while I wasn't taking pictures, so that's sort of like a brigade. Once the waching machine was half-full of water, we noticed a tube that connects the sink (outside the window) to the machine. Feeling a little sheepish, we connected it, and quickly filled it up the rest of the way. After one cycle, we weren't sure how clean the towels were, and we really wanted to wash them in hot water. We thought of boiling water, but then realized that the kitchen sink has hot water... we would not be fooled again! We used the two pots we have to bring hot water to the towels (this time the bucket-brigade image is a little closer to the truth). Once the machine was half-full of hot water, we noticed another spiget in the outside sink. We turned it on, and sure enough, out came hot water. Feeling a lot sheepish, we connected the tube and filled it up the rest of the way. After that cycle, and another rinse cycle, we felt like there was still too much water and soap in the towels to move them over to the other side of the machine that does the spin cycle. So again, I sacrificed myself, and stomped the towels, wine-maker style. The spin cycle afterwards worked surprisingly well, and we hung the towels on the line out the window. We were pretty proud of ourselves, but, by this time, exhausted. Things have gone a little more smoothly today, but we did wake up to smokey towels...darn downstairs neighbors. Maybe if we take up smoking ourselves, the smell won't bother us so much. Then again, the consequences just might outweigh the benefits. You will be happy to know, however, that there was no loud American last night or this morning. Thanks for the ideas of dealing with her though...I'll let you know if she returns.

On another note, today we finished teaching the workshop, and had 15 graduates. It was an amazing experience to see the light in their eyes as they came to understand their worth, and that they can achieve their goals. We also found out that Panama is in our employment manager's area, so there's a good chance we'll get another stamp in our passports.
Hasta la próxima,

Sarah

Estoy aquí, queriéndote...

¡Aquí estoy! Allie and I arrived in Costa Rica yesterday afternoon, and things are fabulous! So far we have eaten at 3 (count them, three) American resteraunts...well, I guess two, but one of them twice. My lofty goal to not set foot in an American establishment during my time here has been foiled! I think our manager and specialist are trying to break us in slowly, but we're excited to dive right in! We have a great apartment. The only problems are that when we shower, it floods the entire bathroom, and there is a foul-mouthed American woman who talks really loudly all night in the apartment below us. The windows are always open, so we hear everything, and now know more than we want to about her Nicaraguan ex-boyfriend, what kind of soup she likes, and how her car was stolen. We're a little bit afraid of her so we haven't yelled anything back as of yet, but we're seriously considering blasting a little bit of Mo-Tab out the window. A ver. Also, the toilet seat is too small for the toilet, but we're dealing with that one pretty well. Today we helped teach the first half of the workshop, and it was great! There were 19 participants, and they seemed really receptive. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the culture, and to find out specifics of the economy and employment atmosphere here in Costa Rica. Everyone has been really friendly. Tonight we're going to institute, and there's a dance on Friday. So far we are healthy and happy, but Allie still has an appendix, so I guess we'll see. Thanks for reading...'till next time,
Sarah