ECU

On Tuesday night, my host mom Marta had to work the night shift.  She started work at 7 pm and got off at 7 am.  I didn't really want to stay alone at the house, so I decided to go over to a friend's house.  Jill and Katie live right next to each other and their host families are best friends.  That night was "karaoke night" and they apparently have it every week.  I took a taxi from my house up to their area and was warmly welcomed.  The moms had made a delicious soup together.  There were all different types of vegetables, most of which I had never tried or even heard of before.  You put the vegetables in the bowl and then pour the soup on top along with some squeezed sweet lemon.  It was so delicious!  My host mom doesn't really like to cook, so I haven't really experienced any truly delicious home cooked meals.  After dinner was karaoke.  The men got really into it and were belting out every song.  They always tried to hand us the mike even though we knew none of the songs.  They insisted though and we did our best.  After dinner, I headed to over to Jill's house where I spent the night.  They had an extra room down in their basement that I stayed in.  In the morning we had gallo pinto and fresh fruit:)

Yesterday, Wednesday, was el Dia de independencia, or Independence Day, in Costa Rica.  Because of this, every school is closed in Costa Rica, and we decided to hold true to that for the Whitworth campus too.  In the morning, after waking up at Jill's house, I went with their families to the parades.  Almost every school in the area has their band perform in the parade.  There were lots of drums and kids 12 and under.  Right after the parade we headed up to the campus to meet a group of Christian students from the University in Heredia.  They are an intervarsity group and call themselves ECU (can't remember what that stands for).  We ate lunch together and then played a ton of different games like Signs.  We hung out all afternoon and just had a wonderful time.  We built a fire in the fireplace in the dining room area and roasted these tiny little flavored marshmallows that one of them had brought for some reason.  They had brought a guitar and some songbooks, so we sang a lot of Spanish worship songs.  We all told some jokes, did a little dancing, and enjoyed some good Christian fellowship.  Hopefully we will get to spend some more time with them in the future.

This afternoon we planted some fruit trees on the campus right at the entrance.  I planted a naranja (orange) tree.  We've been doing a lot of little projects around campus to kind of make it ours and make it really great for years to come.  This is a picture of the whole group and a compost bin that we made.

Hope everything is going well back in the states!  I'd love to hear from anyone what's going in your life!