Tico Tuesday, September 29th

Happy Tuesday!

This week I am featuring a picture of my OFFICE!!

I should have taken a before shot to show you the contrast. Imagine this with no paint on the walls, no lighting and no flooring, just uneven cement. Now take another look. Isn’t it lovely? I have yet to decorate-though decorating is not my forte and I would be perfectly content leaving it just the way it is. But anyway, I just wanted you to see where I spend lots and lots of time working hard every week.

May the rest of your week be productive and glorifying to God!

Love,

Carrie

Yikes, I’m a failing blogger! Sorry! I try to post 2x a week, but Tuesday just comes so fast it almost seems like there’s more than one per week! Jaja, just kidding. I had one of those moments on the bus to San José on Saturday. When I went to Guatemala, Bolivia, and when I have been here in the past I have always had that “ oooooh! I’m in a foreign country and this is so cool and they speak Spanish here, etc, etc, etc.” but my “moment” was realizing that the shimmer of being in another country is definitely gone. I think the honeymoon period of my culture shock is definitely over (I’d say it’s been over for a while). This is where I live. I’m not sure I see myself living here for the rest of my life, but right now, this is where I’m supposed to be. I know if and when the moment comes to leave here, it will be really hard and I will have a lot of sad goodbyes and adjusting to wherever I go from here will be a fine dish of lemons itself. But that's life. Lots of changes and transitions.

Change of topic:

English-how much do I speak it? Lately, I've been speaking a lot more. I feel like my Spanish has never been better, though I continue to make mistakes. My friends and “family” here lovingly correct me though and I am so grateful for that! Anyway, students here learn English in school so most everyone knows at least a little English (though there are many adults who don't know diddley-squat). But a lot of my friends have taken or are taking further English classes and guess who is the ideal practice partner? Oh yeah! But actually it's been really neat because it gives me a chance to know them better. I've realized I'm really bad at explaining English grammar. I don't know all the rules. I don't know how to describe the difference between “other” and “another.” But, I'm great with just conversing and correcting the person's mistakes. And if I can explain something, that's great!

I think I'm going to ask the people who are coming next month to bring me Catchphrase. I think it would be GREAT to have an English only game night and invite people over to play and speak English. (Hmm, maybe we could make it an outreach and do it at church and invite other gringos...) I know a lot of gringos that study another language and then get really embarrassed and don't want to speak if they don't know how to say what they want to perfectly. So, I have been impressed here with the number of people that jump in with both feet trying to express themselves. It's good that I know Spanish because I can see them translating in their heads and saying “I have hungry” instead of “I am hungry” because in Spanish it's “tengo hambre” (and tengo means I have).

So yeah, I speak a fair bit of English. And I should probably keep it up because a lot of words don't come to me as easily as they did before! Last night I was explaining something to Samuel in English and I had to throw in a Spanish word because I couldn't think of it in English! JAJAJA!!!

This is Daniel and me (during the Noche de disfraces we had back in April). He his younger brother Andres are some of my more frequent "tutorees" of English