Pura Vida!

(From Yesterday)

Today started at a time I like to think doesn’t even exist: 3:15 am. A drive to the airport, 2 flights and 13 hours later, I arrived here in Costa Rica. Despite the fact that the Continental Airlines person told us “Costa Rica has the strictest entry requirements of any country we fly to,” customs and immigration was a breeze. They didn’t even look at my customs form- I just dropped it in a box.

When I walked out of the airport (and struggled to get my backpack on my back while holding my smaller backpack in front of me- good thing one of the waiting taxistas helped me), I was met by 3 staff members, 2 other DTS students and maybe someone else? The whole day has been a sea of new faces and names. The other DTS students (11 of them), staff members, half a dozen kids of staff members. . .

(And from today)

I woke up bright and early this morning, to the sounds of all the dogs in the neighborhood barking. I think I fell back to sleep, but the sunshine, the birds, and the excitement of being in a new place had me up by 6. There’s currently no hot water here, so I had a cold shower. Good thing the beach prepared me for that! Eventually I was bored and restless, so I wandered out to the kitchen to see if I could help with breakfast. While the others were setting off the smoke alarm burning pancakes, I cut up papaya and sliced tomatoes. After breakfast we had our orientation, registration, icebreaker games, and a tour of the neighborhood and the 2 houses. The houses are in the same neighborhood, but several blocks apart- I’m pretty sure I can make it to the other house from our house, but not 100% certain I’d make it back without getting lost.

Our group is doing a bit better already with meshing. Last night we were fairly segregated by native language, but today we made more of an effort to mix and the icebreaker games forced us to. All the English speakers are starting to feel more comfortable speaking (or trying to speak) Spanish. I even translated for part of our tour when some of the bilingual staff were not around. Plans for the rest of the day include maybe wandering around a bit to see the neighborhood (so I actually feel like I’m in Costa Rica and not just in a YWAM bubble), and then going to a local church together with all the DTS students and then out for pizza.