Dia Catorce y Dia Quince

May 30-31, 2009

This weekend, Gregorio was interviewed by www.curious.mom

Here is a transcript of that interview:

Curious Mom: I'd love to hear more about your experience at church. It sounded absolutely wonderful. What is a CCI plant? And does your Tico family attend church?

Gregorio: The church has its own building that looks like the downstairs used to be a store of some kind. The service is upstairs and is pretty contemporary in terms of style. They use projectors, acoustic and electrical guitars, and drums. Worship is amazing because everyone sings. It seems like they do not have a children’s ministry so there are a bunch of little kids in the service. One little girl, probably no older than three, gets up and dances around in the aisles during worship.

The pastor is very energetic. He’s probably in his fifties and though he is calm and friendly, he is completely on fire in the pulpit. My Spanish is not good enough to completely understand what he is saying, but they have slides on the projector that I can make out so I get the general gist of the message. This week, we read from Isaiah about the gardener who did everything possible to make the vines grow well but they bore rotten fruit. He first looked at the passage in the sense that we are the fruit and talked about how God blessed Israel, but Israel rebelled and bore bad fruit. Then he looked at the passage as though we were the gardener and talked about no matter what we do, we can’t make the garden grow good fruit, only God can. Anyway, it was interesting, but hard to follow in a foreign language.

Centro Christiano International probably has a different name in the US just because of the way we do adjectives differently than they do in Spanish. You can visit their website at: www.cciheredia.org

My family does not attend church. Noah’s family (nosotros pensemos their madre es la hermana de mi mama tica) and the grandmother go to the Catholic church in town, but my family pretty much only goes on Easter/Christmas.

CM: Have you learned more about Mauricio and Karla? What they are studying in school?

G: A little bit, not much though. Unfortunately, it is still pretty hard to communicate with my family. I can ask the simple questions, but it is hard for me to have a back and forth conversation, understand, and be able to communicate. I have to flip all though my dictionary and it takes a long while to get through a few sentences. Because of that, I’ve been able to ask some things but it has been hard for me to understand the answers to ask followup questions.

Mauricio is actually the father of Sofia and Ricardo, but he is unmarried (or separated/divorced) so Sofia and Ricardo live with their mother during the week and come over on the weekends. I have no idea what Mauricio does during the day because I always see him at home watching TV. I’d like to come up with a polite and sensitive way to ask what he does with his life but my language skills aren’t quite good enough to ask the question delicately.

Karla is the only other person in the family (besides the father, Victor) who has/uses a car. She drives out late in the morning and gets back generally later in the evening. Because of this, I don’t actually see her much and haven’t had the chance to ask her what she studies.

CM: Is the abandoned building actually in front of your house (the one that looks like it was burnt out)? I promise I will not freak out. I am aware more than you know of conditions in other countries. It becomes common to those living amonst the ruins, but it is still a sad state of affairs.

G: Yes, that is an abandoned building across the street. The one next too it looks burnt out too but those are the only “abandoned” buildings on the street so I assume there was a fire of some sort. We live in a very good neighborhood, though.

CM: Do Noah/Benjamin's families have kids?

G: Noah’s family has three boys. One I believe is slightly older than Noah and the other two are a little younger than I. They go to school, like to bike, and are in Boy Scouts. Benjamin’s “family” is one person...the grandmother who is the mother of the madres of our two families. So even though we are in three separate “families” we really are in one large extended family.

CM: Does Noah or Benjamin have a blog they'd be willing to share?

G: No :-P Nag them a little and they might consider it.

CM: So, are you using anything I sent with you? Fess up - tell me the truth. What about the netting? The bug repellent lotion? The sunscreen?

G: Actually I haven’t used the netting at all. I haven’t even used the bug spray. I used the anti-itch once but generally the bugs are bugging me ;-) The sunscreen is pretty much the same way, I used it once because I could feel the back of my neck burning. But really, I haven’t gotten burnt at all and things have been pretty good. I used the ibprofen once because I had a headache but other than those things, the only thing I use from my first aid kid is the malaria pills.

CM: Are you eating okay? Are you learning to eat eggs w/o your stomach churning? Are you beginning to drink the water? The coffee?

G: I am eating great (see previous post). I mix eggs up with whatever else I have and it’s okay. I actually don’t get served eggs often. I’ve only had them three or four times in two weeks so I’ve been lucky enough to avoid them for the most part. I have coffee every morning because that is what they serve. They don’t have any creamer so I generally drink it black or with a little sugar. I have had no problems with the water here and have not been worrying about drinking the water. At restaurants, however, I generally ask for bottled water or soda.

CM: How about the shower shoes?

G: The shower shoes have been wonderful. Thank you madre.

CM: You know I sent you with one decent rain poncho (hopefully)- the small ones are throw aways. Did you eventually get a big umbrella? : D Were you able to return your nino umbrella, or did you just give it away?

G: I haven’t actually used the ponchos yet, just the umbrellas. I haven’t bought the big umbrella, but after getting soaked on Sunday, I am definitely putting it on my shopping list. I’ve been using my niño umbrella and it works pretty well for light rain. I just did not realize how important a bigger umbrella was going to be so I though the little one would be fine for the short time I will be here. Considering that I get soaked once or twice a week, though and would be soaked even more often if I didn’t wait out the rain for more than 40 minutes at time, I have decided that the little umbrella just one cut it.

CM: How is your messenger bag working out?

G: The messenger bag is working okay. I use it as a backpack as much as I can though. You really don’t need to worry about pickpocket-eske crime here. The town is too small and not crowded enough, so backpacks with all the openings behind you and out of sight are fine. The most important thing is not crime but being able to walk. The messenger bag is okay for that, but a backpack is slightly better for that so I just tighten the strap on the back and treat it like a backpack.

CM: Are your clothes working out for you? Are your shoes breaking in okay, or are they too tight? How are you doing your laundry?

G: Clothes are working out fine. Mi mama tica actually does all the laundry so I don’t even have to worry about it. She is extremely generous. My shoes are breaking in fine. I just need to wear them with socks or they rub against my ankles. When I weak socks, though, there is just enough of a reduction of friction that it doesn’t matter.

CM: Did you find all the ingredients for your rum cake? What was it like for you to by the rum- or did you have Olga or Victor buy it?

G: Yes. As long as the money supply holds out, I can make an unlimited number of rum cakes. All the needed ingredients are here. I was able to buy the rum and I didn’t even have to show ID. It was a little scary. Benjamin has been asking me about the leftover rum that I didn’t use for the cake all weekend. He wants to drink rum like Jack Sparrow, but I told him that cooking rum is a bit different from the generic name for spirits/grog/rum that was on ship. He is undaunted, however, and still wants to try some pirate rum.

CM: Are you playing games with Maria Jose?

G: No, not really. The weird thing is that most of the family spends a huge amount of time watching TV. When Maria José gets back from school she watches TV. The only time I have really been able to play games is when Sofia and Ricardo visit during the weekends.

CM: Did you/will you buy dress clothes for church?

G: I have not yet, and I am not sure if I am going to yet. I haven’t really given it a lot of thought lately.

CM: Have you played soccer yet?

G: No, not yet. :-/ That is on my to do list along with restart my exercise schedule. It is really hard because you really only have a two hour window after classes to get everything you want to do that day before going back to the house done. If you stay at the school longer than 2 hrs, you often get stuck in the rain and either get really wet or have to wait for a few hours. So anyway, I’m working on it, but I think it is going to have to be a weekend thing and this weekend I was busy making cake and shopping for ingredients.

CM: I check the weather every day and it seems like your days would be beautiful.

G: The weather here is gorgeous. I am not too hot and not too cold and the warm sun beating down on you is amazing. Mornings have absolutely gorgeous weather...afternoons it rains.

CM: The Nats prep people were here on Tues/Wed. You were blessed to participate in such a neat group of families. The gal who was doing the training was trying to convince McNair not to split the negative, and McNair did not agree.

G: Tell McNair that splitting the negative can work, but it shouldn’t be the default just because that is what he and James are most used to. Deep is better than shallow and the best way to develop deep arguments is to shell and extend. (But also tell him that as long as he is keeping an open mind, he knows best how his team works and tell him not to be pressured into something he isn’t comfortable doing.) ;-)

That’s all for now! God Bless.