Among the mango trees and little fighter dogs- Back to Atenas

After leaving Tuis (where the language school was at), which is on the east side of Costa Rica, we headed back to the west side to the town called Atenas. Atenas is where the eMi office is located, it is a rather small town with only one traffic light, but doesn’t quite have the farm town type of feel, it feels more like a bustling city. The town has a few really nice parks, a central area for many restaurants, and has a major road that goes to the coast running through the town.

Sidenote: We had a pretty adventurous travel time back to Atenas. On our third bus of the day, heading back into Atenas, we were on a bus that only had around 10 people on it, so we didn’t think there was much to worry about. Josh had put his backpack, which had his laptop in it, in the overhead shelf thinking it would be fine there. To our horrible surprise as we were trying to get off the bus, Josh’s backpack was gone! Someone must have grabbed the bag when he wasn’t looking and went out the back door of the bus. Wow now that was not a happy moment. But the Lord is so mighty and good. Since Josh needed that computer to do his work with eMi, it seemed even more tragic, but that next day Josh had talked to the pastor of his church back home. His pastor said that he would let the church know, and they would all pray for Josh’s situation. A few days later, the pastor reported back to Josh that the church had decided to buy Josh a new computer! So now Josh has a computer to do his work with eMi on! Praise the Lord!

Since returning back to Atenas, I have moved in with my new Costa Rican host family here in Atenas. The family consists of Oldemar and Maresa, and their two young adult children: Jazmine (18 yrs) and Brandon (15 yrs). Oldemar is the pastor of the local Bible church in Atenas that all of us interns attend. Jazmine just finished 10 months of English study, and is now attending the National University in Heredia, which is north of San Jose, so she travels back and forth to school. Brandon is still in high school. The family also has a little black dog named Nina. Now when first meeting Nina, she comes off as a very mean, barking dog that wears a doggie shirt. Cute on the outside but vicious on the inside. At first, every time I would even look at her, she would growl and act like she was about to launch at me. But sure enough, time has healed our broken friendship, and now Nina usually doesn’t bark at me and will sometimes even let me touch her. Talk about a strange dog! She is the first dog I’ve met that doesn’t like to be pet.

The family is very nice and welcoming. It has been really good practice for me to live with a Spanish speaking family. I have been learning A LOT of Spanish, when looking back to when I first arrived in Costa Rica barely knowing any words- to now being about to build friendships with Spanish speaking people is so incredible.

So life here in Costa Rica has been slowing down a lot these past few weeks. Us interns have been working in the office everyday 8hrs/day like a normal office job. We have been working on the various aspects of the projects in Guatemala. I have been working a great deal on the Agros project- developing computer-generated drawings on a program called AutoCAD. The structural engineering volunteer for the project sent me over 25 structural drawings to be drafted in AutoCAD, including learning how to design a roof truss. It has been a lot of work so far, but I have been learning a lot! I know that I have so much to learn, and that school has only set the foundation of me becoming an engineer. It has also been hard for me to adjust to life in an office. Since I am a very active, love to be around people person, being in an office not exactly what I’m used to, but I am learning to adjust. Being able to work on projects that are for ministries helping the poor, gives me great motivation to do the best work I can on these projects.

Also during the week, us interns, our two eMi leaders, and one Costa Rican friend are getting together once a week to learn what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ. We are learning what disciples back in the days of the bible were required to do and how being a true disciple requires commitment and desire to lay down everything for the sake of becoming like Jesus.

I am so thankful for having this opportunity to work with eMi, and to be able to serve using some skills that I have learned. Yes it has been a CRAZY couple of months, but I have definitely learned a lot through my experiences here so far. I want to be stretched for the sake of becoming a better person and learning how to love God and people better.

(Pictures: 1. a spontaneous symmetrical picture 2. area around Atenas 3. a view from our office 5. during a morning worship time)

Great times with new friends

During my time at language school, I was able to stay with a Costa Rican family- Freddy and Samia, and their two kids Jamina (9yrs) and Pablo (7yrs). I instantly felt like I was apart of their family. Communicating was a little difficult at first, but then as I started going to the language school and we were able to really develop a friendship. The night before we left, Samia made some amazing pizzas from scratch for all of us interns. It was a great time of fellowship and many intense games of Uno. Needless to say it was hard to say goodbye.
(The top picture is of Jamina and Pablo, the second is of Samia and I making some pizzas :)

Before leaving Tuis, us interns snuck in a few fun excursions. We hiked up one of the rivers flowing through Tuis, climbing/jumping from rock to rock. The river was surrounded by beautiful lush trees, many huge vines hanging down (yeah kind of like Tarzan), and there were three waterfalls flowing into the river (waterfall translates to “catarata” in Spanish, it’s a really fun word to say really fast). At the last waterfall, the pool of water beneath it looked rather deep, so Ali and I (thinking that its overrated to stay dry in this situation) decided to jump in fully clothed. Sidenote: which out did the three men we were with because they were too pansy to jump in. Great times!

The day before we left, we got to go on a white water rafting tour in the huge Pachuare river. This was practically my first experience rafting, and I loved every minute of it! Our guide pretty much got us all in the raft and gave a few quick instructions, then we were off in a rapid. So lets just say some think practice is overrated. The river was so beautiful, surrounded by many trees and huge hills. There were some pretty exotic birds, some of the people saw toucans on a tree, but with my bad eye sight I definitely missed them. Ha!

Anyhow its been a fun adventure so far!

(Incredible) adventure to Chirripo

Sorry for the delay in blog entries!! I am in the process of writing about everything thus far, so the blog will be caught up soon!! This entry is about our awesome adventure to Chirripo.

Starting at 6am in the morning, 24 people from the community of Tuis and us interns pack into the bed of a big truck ready for an adventure to the mountains of Chirripo. The ride took us through beautiful green mountains where we were able to see the smoke spewing out of a volcano in the distance. I was standing up for most of the ride, holding on as we drive on very bumpy dirt roads. On the way we stop by the last town before the mountains, this town has a clinic where a lot of the people from the indigenous villages walk many hours for help. From there we pick up a woman and her 3 children who are from the village we were headed to.

Shortly after, the road ends and we hop out with all our backpacks and 15 ft. planks of wood. The wood was brought for the construction of a house in the village. Each man was responsible for one plank and every two women were responsible for one. So Ali and I start carrying two planks between us (lets just say this definitely adds to the level of difficulty for this trek.) Each plank weighed about 10 lbs each. The hike was very strenuous, from the very beginning we inclined down 3,000 ft in less than two hours. The landscape is incredible- it looked like the Lord of the Rings movie meets the rainforest. I absolutely couldn’t believe my eyes.
After inclining down two mountains, we reach the valley where the path runs near a river. The path crosses the river over 15 times, and when rock jumping became to difficult I would just step right through the river. Dry feet are so overrated! Towards the end of the hike the river became very wide with some strong rapids. So, conveniently the locals constructed a zip line made of tree trunks and branches to cross the river. It was so interesting to see everyone zip across the line sitting on little woven bands. Incredible! So with us on the hike, there are a handful of indigenous people carrying things into the village with us. When we got to the river, they just crossed it like it was nothing, helping to carry all the boards across. Another incredible sight! Shortly after the zip line we arrive to the village. Wohoo! We all were very excited to have endured 6 hours of hiking, to release the boards, and that we made it to our destination!

The village was very small with a few wooden/bamboo houses, many chickens, stray dogs, and pigs running around. The majority of the people in the area speak a language called cacvec, but some also speak Spanish. The language is very interesting and not similar to Spanish at all! After we ate some food and got our things organized, we walked 15 minutes to the other part of the village. Upon arriving, we saw 3 structures- 2 houses and a gathering place- and another one being built by a handful of people from California! The people were building a church for this area, and would hold evening times of worship and show parts of the Jesus film. Every night from all over the region, people come to this event. It was incredible to see these people come and sing under the candlelight.
The next day we all were pretty sore and tired, but ready to serve in some way- most of the guys started building a house with the wood we had brought to the village, and most of us girls played with the kids. We brought some crayons with us and colored on the wooden benches. Then two girls started washing the hair of the women and girls, while Ali and I french-braided the girls’ hair. They all were very excited for something new; it was great to see their smiling faces!

After lunch, we gathered our backpacks and headed back the way we came. The hike back seemed easier for the first couple of hours until we hit the upward climb of the hike at which we hiked up the steep hills (some at over 45 degree inclines) for over 2 hours. This part of the hike was definitely challenging, but great when we finished and were back on top of the mountain.
It is very difficult to sum up this experience into writing, but I hope I explained it well. What an incredible experience! And for this I feel so blessed.