Tico Tuesday, June 1st

Oh hey! It's Wednesday. I know at least a couple of you were disappointed that Tico Tuesday didn't come yesterday. Tranquilos! Pura vida! Chill out! It's all good! I actually did it on purpose to give you another taste of tico (Costa Rican) culture. Yup, a lot of ticos run late. The Spanish language even makes it easy for them to not take responsibility by making an impersonal verbal expression that's kind of like “It got late.” Many ticos also aren't very good at making commitments and following through with them. Exactly half the girls I rounded up to play futbol on Saturday me quedaron mal (let me down). It was a bit frustrating, but that's life here (and it was a good lesson to recruit way more people than necessary). My wonderful InterVarsity cross-cultural training reminds me that people here tend to be more people and event oriented than time and task oriented. The fascinating thing is though, this drives a lot of ticos I know absolutely bonkers! Costa Rica has been so highly affected by people from the US that I see the culture somewhat divided- into the more traditional, relaxed, not-so-committal ticos and the more “North Americanized” ticos. It's very interesting....

Have a great rest of your WEDNESDAY!

Love,

Carrie

PS. La foto es de my friend Fer and me. She is the one I went to Jacó with en bici (and her boyfriend David). She is a great playmate!

Yeah, so literally half of the girls that told me they would come didn't show up. That left me with 6 girls and 4 empty slots. Well, after the girls game the guys from church played, so my friends Jorge (the one who ran the race with Albeiro and me) and Luis (his brother) stepped in and served as our goalies. And Yenny and Winny's mom and their little brother played too. So, it worked. As the game went on Jorge and Luis' brother David and another family's young son joined us too. But really, even though they are only 7-11 year old boys, they were about as good as us in some ways and better in others. I used to think futbol ran in latino blood, and that often seems the case, but it must be acknowledged that is a generalization. I've met a lot of people here who don't like to watch or play futbol.

Earlier last week someone told me that futbol 5 is more tiring than normal futbol because you have to run up and down the cancha so much. I kind of believed him/her (I can't remember who it was!) because I knew he/she knew what he/she was talking about. But it didn't make sense to me, so I was waiting to see how the experience unfolded and see just how tiring it was. It was tiring! Really tiring! But it was also really fun and exciting and it ended up being a close game (though I considered my team far weaker than the other). We managed to tie it up and then when there were less than 10 seconds left the other team scored another goal! Too bad! I was still just impressed with how everything turned out though and surprised at how well I'd actually managed to do. Daddy was right! Even though I hadn't played in forever, I'm in the best shape physically I think I've ever been and that made a big difference!

Well, I felt good after the game... Endorphins and such, you know. So I decided to stick with the plan to bike with Albeiro on Sunday morning. Well, I knew it would take me a while to fall asleep because I had exercised so recently, but it didn't take me too too long. But then at 2:30am I was lying in bed, WIDE awake, once more. It was so unfair! I couldn't fall back asleep until after 4am. Finally I did though, and all Sunday I felt fine and was on the go. I went to church in the morning and at night and in between made pizza, ran errands and went out for lunch with friends. Well, I ran out of steam as church was coming to an "N" (end). I fell into bed before 9:30pm and woke up Monday with SORE legs. I guess I did kinda overdo it. Well, I've learned my lesson for next time!