Hello:)
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What a weekend it was - and now the countdown continues. Six days until we leave! Every day we have is such a blessing.
This week flew by, as does every week, but it seems like this week especially, probably because it was my brother, Andres' last week here. He left for Guatemala this morning! I'm so excited for him that he gets to be with his family and friends for Christmas, but I miss him already!
Friday was the Veritas International students' talent show! woot woot! Somehow I got roped into doing two different acts...in one, I salsa danced, and in the other, Meagan and I sang Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. It was a lot of fun! People were creative and I must say, we've got some talented kids here at Veritas. ;)
Also on Friday, we helped out with a Christmas party for about 50 kids in our community that are in need - it was a little bit like the Angel Tree program, some of you might know about that, but basically, we bought gifts for the kids and threw them a party. Some of the moms came too! It was such a beautiful time and it was really fun to bless them and get to spend time with them. :)
yeeah face paint!! (photo by Margie Halverson)
Harry Potter and Andres ;) (Photo by Margie Halverson)
(photo by Margie Halverson)
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The kids were precious and it was really great! We were SO tired afterwards though. When we left, Andres, Meagan and I walked towards home, and then we remembered that Meagan had left her purse at the Residencia, (our program's dorm and office basically) and I had left my backpack at Margie and Sydney's house. So, we kept walking! And a couple kilometers later we were standing outside Margie and Sydney's house, Andres was leaning against the fence and Meagan and I were debating taking a taxi home. Our feet hurt so bad! haha. Next to our house there is a radio tower, and for Christmas they put this huge shooting star up near the top. It's a really pretty light at night, and it's nice to have as a landmark....usually. But at this point, all Andres said was, "That star looks soooo far."
hehe.
We finally made it home and crashed, and the next day we did a photoshoot! Andres and Meagan were great sports for my less-than-professional photography skills, and we had a lot of fun! One word: paint.
I love my hermanos so much!
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Annnd my weekend continues...
Last night, we went to the Festival de la Luz (festival of lights), which is a really huge deal here. It's kind of like the Macy's Day Parade...along those lines. Floats, bands, all kinds of stuff. Anyways, we ended up being a group of 8, which really was too many people to keep up with all at once, haha, but we went to downtown and got lunch, which was stressful because of the insane amount of people everywhere. Oh goodness. Then, we walked towards where the parade would be starting. There were hundreds and hundreds of people everywhere - bumping into each other, squeezing past you, venders everywhere selling plastic stools and chairs, souvenirs, and who knows what else - navigating through the crowds was a very interesting experience. Once we found a spot where there was kind of some standing room, we realized that there were still at least two hours until the parade started. Awesome! Andres and I tried to scout out another place to sit/stand and watch, but alas, we had to stay where we were. We finally broke down and bought a few of the cheap plastic stools the venders were selling, just to take a break from standing. As it turns out, they also doubled as a platform so that we could stand on them and see over the people in front of us. However, this plan backfired because as we were standing on the stools, two of them broke because people who were passing by kept kicking them and tripping over them. I almost fell many times. haha. So we kind of half stood on the not-broken ones and took shifts. While we were standing and waiting, people were constantly walking by - and it was quite the people watching experience. Unfortunately, it was mostly a shocking and negative one, as at least half of the women who walked by were wearing clothes that could have been painted on, were falling off in the wrong places, or were just plain disturbing. One of these scantily clad women grabbed Andres' butt as she walked by!! hahahaha. The look on his face. Priceless. Once the parade finally started, there were a few cool things, like the three floats we saw and one of the bands was made up almost entirely of xylophones. That was cool! But as for the rest, there were huge gaps in between, and not-very-impressive fillers. Plus, the police kept having to break up fights that were happening not too far from where we were! Eventually, 5 of us decided that we had had enough and started walking out of downtown. We all held hands in a chain and started to push through the crowds. It was insanity. I have never in my life experienced such a mob of people. At some points I wasn't even moving, but it felt like I was walking and swaying back and forth, because the pressure of the crowd around me kept moving me. And at one point during our escape attempt, some genius threw a bucket of confetti on us. Yay for being festive!! When we finally broke out of the crowd and got to the bus stop we started cheering. Success! Then we took the bus to McDonald's for Andres' last dinner with us here in Costa Rica. That was really fun even though it was sad and we were exhausted. But oh, what a night! Such stories.
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And here I sit, after a beautiful but sad Sunday, ready for my last week here before going home for Christmas.
Sundays are one of my favorite days - Kathleen makes special breakfast and dinner, church is such a blessing, (Meagan and I have been going to the Centro Evangelistico near our house), we get to rest, and then start a new week.
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“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn."
(Isaiah 60:1-3)
Love,
Courtney
(World Traveler in Training)
