Johnson & Johnson

This is an actual conversation I had last week (in Spanish, but I'm translating it for your convenience).


"Your last name is Johnson? Johnson, like shampoo?"
'Well, yes, but no.'
"Oh. Ok Andrea Obama."

Uh...I'm not sure how we got from shampoo to Obama...but God Bless America! 
I suppose I should have seen it coming. There is something fundamentally "American" about the last name, Johnson. 
Whatever the case, it made me laugh.

Latesgiving

Thanksgiving did not go at all as planned this year. If you recall, I was incredibly gung-ho about preparing the perfect feast and cooking everything myself from scratch. I scoured the internet for recipes that don't require ovens (since nobody has one and those that do are afraid to use them). I found a reliable recipe for stuffing and of course, mashed taters, but pie was going to be the trickiest.

Planning was difficult, but progressing when I received notice that the youth group trip to Alajuela to return the favor of conducting the Sabbath School and Church service was moved to Thanksgiving weekend. This meant that practice was moved to Wednesday and Thursday night before leaving on Friday. This, in turn, meant that there would be no time for cooking or feasting. I was devastated, but feigning optimism, I called my parents, informed them of trouble and arranged to skype them in between school and practice: a 3 hour window. It ended up perfectly. I talked to my family and they showed me all the great food I was missing out on. Our conversations ended pleasantly, and though I was sad not to be there with them, I realized how happy I am to be where I am, doing what I'm doing.

Friday came and with it, the trip to Alajuela. I was tired to begin with, but after the long car ride and a couple hours of practicing, I was ready to sleep. So needless to say, I was a little irked by the fact that everyone in the house decided to stay up 'til 12:30. Amazingly, I was ready for the day when I woke up. I showered, breakfasted, got in costume and headed to church, which was just 6 houses down. The Sabbath School Service was a play of sorts with special music, scripture and the mission story mixed in. It was the story of the 10 virgins. I was one of the 5 that didn't bring extra oil. My part in the play was to say a few lines and...wait for it...sing special music. In Spanish!!! I sang Solo Cristo (None but Jesus). I was really nervous, but I made it through with only one noticeable squeak. The rest of the service went beautifully. After church, we had a deliciously filling potluck and then nap before evening worship, supper, and evening games.

Supper is back on track with the topic of Thanksgiving. Our group went to PriceSmart, which is the exact same as Costco. It was wonderful. We got pizza and then we roamed the halls of the store and low and behold, we came across a pumpkin pie. I was so happy that I did a little dance. Obviously, I bought it.

After supper and evening games (which I did not participate in on account of being too full), we went back to the house where I was happy to stay up and talk to my new friends from Alajuela. We stayed up 'til nearly 1 am. Next day, we went to some pools where we swam and got some much needed sun. By the end of the day, I was flushed but not burnt. It was glorious. After bidding farewell to everyone, we made the long trek up the mountain to Monteverde where it was raining, per usual. And yet, I was happy to be back in the comfort of this town I've grown to love over the last *gasp* 3 months. I still can't believe it's been that long.

Finally Monday came. This was the day Nate, Calle and I were planning to celebrate Thanksgiving. We used the packet of mashed taters that came from WWU Student Missions, the pumpkin pie I bought in Alajuela, and to this mix we added corn, homemade stuffing, sparkling grape juice and rootbeer floats. It was glorious. We laughed, we listened to music and we took pictures. Then we carefully set up the dinner table, said a prayer ("God on three, 1, 2, 3, GOD!!!") and dug in. We ate soooo much. Many smiles, laughs and burps (kind of a contest) later, we cleaned up and went into Calle's room and watched Psych. I ate so much I couldn't lay on my stomach. I was so happy.

Reflecting back on it all, I don't mind at all that Thanksgiving didn't turn out how I planned. I wasn't home, but if I had been home, I wouldn't have met so many awesome people, I wouldn't be teaching, I'd still be horrible at Spanish. As it stands, everything that happened to hinder my plans of "The Perfect Thanksgiving" just made it better. Just another reminder that God is in control and that his plans are better than mine.

Jesus and the 10 virgins

Clearing my throat before the big Spanish debut

Oh soymilk, how I miss thee

Stuffing in the makings

I dish it out real good.

Happy to the point of squinting

Salud!

Pumpkin pleasure

A visitor

Teaching, Movies, Crying, Running, Schedules and things of that nature.

8/19 – I taught Kinder all by myself today. Granted, it was only a half-day, but I did it. It was tiring but it was good. We made additions to the Noah and the Ark project we’ve been working on. So far we have the ark, Noah, the rainbow, clouds and 3 pairs of animals (tiger, elephant, horse). We were all really tired today. Around 11, I asked them if they wanted to play outside. They all screamed yes, grabbed a toy and headed out. I was helping Aniela pick out a toy so I came after them. I walked out and they were all sitting on the grass by the fence watching a repairman fix the power line. I sat down next to them and we just sat for probably a good five minutes. That’s a lot in Kinder world. Now we’re at Calle’s house watching a movie. Bring it on weekend. Bring it on.

8/21 – Yesterday was interesting to say the least. Since I can see church from my window, I didn’t go over until people started going in. There were only 3 people at 9am. Things really started around 9:30. Sabbath school was a Día de las Madres presentation by the jovenes since they were gone last week. It was really nice. We all wrote down characteristics of our moms (Amable, cariñosa, buena cantante, preciosa, lista, etc). They even read mine in front of everyone and gave me a rose even though my mommy isn’t with me. It made me miss her a lot. After church I went home and changed, grabbed some beans and rice and headed to Daniel’s. We made makeshift empanadas. Then we gathered our stuff for camping and braved the drizzle and hiked up to Ivan and Mayi’s house (about an hour walk, where we have the Thursday worship). I got really lucky. On the last, loooooonnngggg stretch of hill before their house, Esteban, their son, came by on his motorcycle. He gave me a ride up the hill. First time ever on a motorcycle and it was so fun! I may have screamed a little. Then we waited for everyone to show up. Melissa (Esteban’s twin) had the girls over for movie night. In the end, I decided to stay with them because it was pouring rain, thundering and I would be the only girl. The guys ended up having a pretty good time and it wasn’t too miserable (so they say) but I’m ok that I didn’t go. There will plenty other times to go in better weather. We watched 5 movies last night! It was crazy. I cried in 3 out of the 5. But it was kind of a good thing because it triggered my homesick emotions so I think I released some of my tension. The first movie we watched was The Last Song. *Spoiler Alert* When the Dad dies at the end, I cried a lot and it made me miss my dad and then I felt homesick and I couldn’t stop crying. I went into the bathroom and cried for a good long time. I hope nobody heard me. They probably thought I was dying. In total, we watched The Last Song, The Proposal, Anita, Wedding Crashers (only part of it because it was so raunchy), and My Sister’s Keeper. Now, I’m back at my house. We took the long walk back and it’s time for lunch. I’m gonna eat and then go over to the school and help paint the Kinder room if they need. If not, I’ll work on decorations for Yolanda’s classroom, plan Kinder and find internet. I also need to rearrange my room a bit.

…Later… So, I fell asleep. So much for helping paint. They’re done. I can’t decorate either because I don’t have the keys to Kinder of Yolanda’s room. It’ll just have to happen later. I suppose I’ll just make my plan for tomorrow and prepare in the morning. Nate came by to get the keys and we moved some stuff from the Kinder room to the library because of the mess and because it’s not finished. Pulga followed us over. She peed in one of the classrooms. Don’t worry; it got cleaned up (Thank you Nate).

8/23 – These last two days of school have been really great! For one, I’m a little less homesick. For another, I’ve gotten a chance to bond with all the classes and I’m feeling more confident. I’ve definitely bonded a bunch with Kinder because I’ve been helping out with them the most. But this is test week and I’ve been giving tests and also teaching class. 3^rd and 4^th graders are definitely the most challenging for me. The girls are easier to deal with. I guess it’s not that they’re really terrible per se, they just have more energy than time to get it out. Teaching math was way more fun that I ever thought. Yolanda wasn’t here today and yesterday, so yesterday I taught 1^st grade Math and Spanish. In Math, I got to teach them about adding/subtracting big numbers like 123 + 46 or 245 – 34. The trick is that they don’t know how to carry over yet or how to borrow but I taught them to always check to see if it’s addition or subtraction and then to start at the right and move to the left. Calle also had me teach her math class again today. I actually had a really good time. I freak out every time she’s had me do it but in the end, I always enjoy myself. Today, we all hashed out the new schedule (starting Monday). Here it is:

Time	Mon/Wed	Tues/Thurs	Time	Fri
8-8:35	Worship/Kinder	Worship/Kinder	8-8:45	Worship
8:35-9:45	Kinder	Kinder	8:45-9	Limpio
9:45-10:15	Recreo	Recreo	9-9:30	Recreo
10:15-10:50	Biblia 1	Biblia 1	9:30-10:20	Musica 5-7
10:50-12	E.F. (PE) 1	E.S. 1	10:20-11:10	Musica 1
12-12:45	Almuerzo	Almuerzo	11:10-12	Kinder
12:45-1:50	Matematicas 5-7	Matematicas 5-7
1:50-3	Ingles 1	Ciencias 1

For those of you who don’t know Spanish:

Limpio = Clean (Clean up, clean up! Everybody everywhere…)

Recreo = Recess

Biblia = Bible (Please tell me you already figured that out :P )

Música = Music (Self-explanatory, eh?)

E.F. = Educación Fisica = PE

E.S. = Estudios Sociales = Social Studies

Almuerzo = Lunch

Matemáticas = Math (Again, I hope you got this already)

Inglés = English

I’m really looking forward to teaching my new classes! The only thing I’m apprehensive about is Music class. Resources are really limited for this class. I just need to figure out what angle to take with this. Should I concentrate on theory or maybe just teach them to sing songs or teach them to play the recorder or should I use a keyboard (we don’t have a piano L) instead? The possibilities are many though the resources are limited. Tricky business indeed.

On a completely different note, I went running with Nate and Daniel today after school. I think I’m going to be really sore tomorrow. I wanna keep it up though. This was the first time in quite awhile that it hasn’t been pouring rain in the afternoon. It was quite nice. This evening after I ate and showered, a bunch of the youth group came to the school and we had worship and then ate some snacks and played games. It was really fun! The stars were out again tonight. It’s a little disappointing that I don’t recognize the constellations, but it’s still beautiful. Now for bed. I’m zonked. Tomorrow is supposed to be an easier day. I hope that it’s so.

8/24 – Today was not as good as I hoped. It was just so lonnnnnggggg…I woke up exhausted. It probably had to do with going on that run. I’m really sore. My thighs in particular. I was so tired I had a full cup of coffee at lunch time. I barely even drink a full cup when I drink coffee, let alone every morning. I’ve resolved not to become an addict. I bet Nate and Calle a sock each that I won’t get hooked within 1 month and 1 ½ months. I spent most of my day cleaning and organizing the Kinder room. The paint was all dry by this morning so Calle and I moved everything back inside and then I put everything in it’s place and rearranged stuff. It really satisfied my CDO tendencies (CDO is like OCD, but in alphabetical order. As it should be). Yolanda was back today and we had a meeting after school. Apparently the schedule may change a bit. Kinder is only going to be 4 days a week too.
My puppy, Pulga, has a broken leg. It’s so sad! She still tries to follow me school. Poor baby. I hope she heals well.

Tomorrow, the other teachers, the 5^th-7^th graders and I are going door-to-door to collect money for ADRA. I’m really not good at all at this sort of thing. It should be interesting though. Now for Movie Night!!! We’re going to watch Top Gun. Kindra, I’m thinking of you. =]

Hermanitas

I've adopted Helena and Valentina to be my little sisters. They're just too much fun to be with to not have them be part of my family. We talk about boys and how great they are. We also talk about boys and how much they suck. Balance is key, ha! Tonight we ordered pizza and watched La Bella y La Bestia which is Beauty and the Beast en Español. We munched on pizza and had to use my pocketknife to cut it. It was a silly and splendid night.

Now for the sad part. Valentina is from Italy. It is highly unlikely that I will ever see her again. Helena is a Cali girl like me, but I'm headed to Costa Rica for the year and when I get back, I'm headed back to WA for school so it may be quite some time before I see her. I wish I didn't have to leave my hermanitas. Come Wednesday, I may bawl my eyes out saying goodbye to people. Tomorrow is the last day of classes. Then come finals. Thursday, I fly home. I'm sad.