My Costa Rican mom Carla got robbed on Tuesday. She was walking a few blocks away from our house when five men surrounded her, pushed her around, then held a gun to her. This was at 4 in the afternoon right outside the corner of our neighborhood. My mom has been pretty shook up, she isn’t doing that well. She naturally has a very strong overbearing personality and this has made it worst. They have increased her medicines (I don’t know what she is on) and she is doing therapy. She isn’t supposed to be working for a month, she is just supposed to relax, but she won’t. She isn’t sleeping, doesn’t eat much of anything, and has increased her exercising. She is also drinking more and often is a little tipsy. She is also very depressed and just weird because of the situation. She has come to me several times and just dumped all her problems on me and it is really hard for me to deal with. My siblings aren’t getting as much attention now, so that are misbehaving more just to get attention, and my dad has just become really quiet. I am afraid that things are going to get worse before getting better. Please pray for her and my whole family situation.
I’ve also been feeling a little sick since I got back from Nicaragua. My stomach has been hurting a lot, normally after I eat. I’ve also been getting a lot of headaches and I think I had a fever the other day. I think my headaches are from caffeine withdraw. In Nicaragua I had coffee everyday, sometimes a coke, and 1 or 2 Tiamina (Vitamin b pill with a lot of caffeine that prevents mosquitoes from biting). Since I have been back in Costa Rica I have only had one coke in the past 5 days. I don’t think my body is liking that change very much.
I have a lot of schoolwork to do in the next week. All of our assignments are due and everything is coming to a close. I have a lot of work to get down and turn in. My mom wants a lot of attention from me and that makes it hard for me to do my schoolwork. I’ve been trying to go to other places to study some in the evenings so I have some time to get stuff down.
It is over halfway through the semester and I am missing home. It was hard after my two weeks in Nicaragua to get on the bus and ‘head home’. It almost felt like I should be going back to the states, but I wasn’t. I have been away for 58 days and I only have 50 left. Now time is counting down and it should be getting easier. My mom and sisters are going in about a week and it will be great to see them. I think it will be good to have a glimpse of home here in Costa Rica for awhile.
Keep praying for me, things are going really well, I am enjoying my time. The past few days just have been difficult. Luckily I haven’t gotten very sick this semester and I have been safe, so I don’t really have anything to complain about.
Thanks for all your notes and cards, it is always fun to get those!!
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Nicaragua
I am now in Costa Rica after a wonderful experience in Nicaragua. It is nice to be in a house with a bathroom and to be clean.
I was in Nicaragua for almost two weeks and for one of those weeks I lived with a family. I had a mom names Lorena, brother Bosco (17), and sister Scarleth (14). They live just outside of Masaya in a little town called Tipitopa. I lived on a farm with a bunch of cows, chickens, roosters, pig, and a dog. It was fun.
I lived in a little bitty house with one bedroom and then one room for the rest of the house. They gave me the one bedroom and allowed me to sleep in there. We had electricity which was great and also running water. The water was only outside. There was a sink for washing dishes, also a shower with water, and then a sink type thing in with the cows for them to drink. Both the toilet and shower were outside. The shower had windows in it about chest height and then a sheet metal door that you just leaned against it. The ‘toilet’ was an outhouse type thing, you just had to squat, there wasn’t actually a seat or anything. It was just basically sticks with sheet metal leaning against it to kind of close it in. It was interesting, but it was there life and it was great that they were willing to share it with me.
They were about middle class; I had a lot better living conditions than most of the people in the group. Most people had 10 or more people living in a one room house that hardly had walls. Usually they didn’t have running water and would bath in the river.
The food was great in Nicaragua; it was a lot better than here in Costa Rica. The only bad thing is that there is this cheese that the Nicaraguans eat a lot of and it is disgusting!! It was really hard to eat it, but I always managed to with a smile on. After some meals I felt huge, I ate so much food. At meal time I would look at the food on my plate and have no idea how I was supposed to eat it all.
The culture in Nicaragua is very different than anything I have ever experienced. It took several days to figure some things out. They speak very differently than the Costa Ricans and have a very small vocabulary. Costa Ricans talk in an embellished way, they are just very friendly and polite with everything. Nicaraguans are basically the opposite. After several days I was figuring out what vocabulary they use, how to joke with them, how to interpret what they say, and all that fun stuff. I feel like I really learned a lot about their society in my two weeks there.
I have many stories to tell about those weeks, so if you want to know more you will have to ask me sometime.
-Carol
I was in Nicaragua for almost two weeks and for one of those weeks I lived with a family. I had a mom names Lorena, brother Bosco (17), and sister Scarleth (14). They live just outside of Masaya in a little town called Tipitopa. I lived on a farm with a bunch of cows, chickens, roosters, pig, and a dog. It was fun.
I lived in a little bitty house with one bedroom and then one room for the rest of the house. They gave me the one bedroom and allowed me to sleep in there. We had electricity which was great and also running water. The water was only outside. There was a sink for washing dishes, also a shower with water, and then a sink type thing in with the cows for them to drink. Both the toilet and shower were outside. The shower had windows in it about chest height and then a sheet metal door that you just leaned against it. The ‘toilet’ was an outhouse type thing, you just had to squat, there wasn’t actually a seat or anything. It was just basically sticks with sheet metal leaning against it to kind of close it in. It was interesting, but it was there life and it was great that they were willing to share it with me.
They were about middle class; I had a lot better living conditions than most of the people in the group. Most people had 10 or more people living in a one room house that hardly had walls. Usually they didn’t have running water and would bath in the river.
The food was great in Nicaragua; it was a lot better than here in Costa Rica. The only bad thing is that there is this cheese that the Nicaraguans eat a lot of and it is disgusting!! It was really hard to eat it, but I always managed to with a smile on. After some meals I felt huge, I ate so much food. At meal time I would look at the food on my plate and have no idea how I was supposed to eat it all.
The culture in Nicaragua is very different than anything I have ever experienced. It took several days to figure some things out. They speak very differently than the Costa Ricans and have a very small vocabulary. Costa Ricans talk in an embellished way, they are just very friendly and polite with everything. Nicaraguans are basically the opposite. After several days I was figuring out what vocabulary they use, how to joke with them, how to interpret what they say, and all that fun stuff. I feel like I really learned a lot about their society in my two weeks there.
I have many stories to tell about those weeks, so if you want to know more you will have to ask me sometime.
-Carol
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