Farol making

September 15th is Independence Day for Costa Rica. As a part of the celebration they have Farols. These are items kind of like lumanaries. At as a part of our school classes on Friday we made a Farol. As you or may not know I am craft challenged so making this wasn't as easy for me as it was for some others. But it was still fun. I said I did feel like a school kid when I left school with the Farol which I had made.

God knew better

Yesterday another student gave me some money and asked for me to buy a few items for her while I was out. I said sure no problem. Well, after the Bible study I along with some others went to the mall to eat. After we finished eating, the stores started closing. So I wasn't able to buy the items for my friend. I was disappointed.

This morning at school I gave the money back to her and said I'm sorry that I couldn't get the items. She said no problem, thats okay.

Well, in chapel this morning an offering was taken up to help a family. I happened to be sitting beside my friend who I wasn't able to buy the items for. She smiled and said that she hadn't brought any money with her today. All she had to give was the money that I gave back to her this morning.

Isn't that neat? God knew that the stores would be closed and that there was an offering today which she would want to give to. I smiled as I thought about it later.

No driving on Thursdays?

I found out something interesting yesterday. Even if you have a car in Costa Rica there are certain days which you can't drive. It depends on what the last digit of your license plate is. For instance the family that I live with has a license plate which ends in 8. So that means that they can't drive on Thursdays. Thankfully the public transportation is good.

Timer shot in my bedroom

I am very thankful to have a private bathroom attached to my bedroom. I was playing with the timer and took this photo. You can see the door leading into the bedroom. My room is off of the party room.

View from across the road

When the sky is clear this is the view which I have across the street at my house. The mountains are really pretty. I'm sure once the rainy season is over in two months or so it will be even prettier. Everything is very green around here because of all the rain.

Relaxing

I took this picture with a timer shot on the front porch of the house after I had taken the dog for a walk. Taking the dog for a walk is one of my favorite things. The Costa Rican mom here said that the dog has a nanny now because I take her for walks when I can between the rains of the rainy season.

First week of classes

I'm sure alot of you have been wondering how the first week of Spanish classes is going. The day starts with Spanish grammar at 7:30 am and it goes until 9:10 am. Then its onto conversation Spanish class until 10:15 am. After that it is chapel time. The chapel time is in English which is a nice break. After chapel I go to a phonetics class. At 12:10 pm I end the official classes for the day. Then the afternoon is left for studying, meetings, practicing and anything like that.

Right now I'm finding out how many words are similiar in Portuguese and Spanish but they are different. The phonetics teacher forewarned me and the class by saying something to the effect of she will have to do a lot of correction for Carol because of the Portuguese.

A big relief/accomplishment yesterday was to go to the Police Station to have fingerprints made as a part of the visa process. It took about an hour to get this done. But thankfully I was able to go and do it in one trip.

I'm continuing to get adjusted to getting up earlier and getting back into the class mode. The school has tried to place us in groups of about 4 or 5 people who we are in class with all day. The placement was done based on our Spanish knowledge level.

I'll try and keep you updated on how things are going......