This is inside the mercado in downtown San Jose. Our hostess, Maria, periodically likes to go here to purchase meats and other items at a better price. I was especially fascinated by the rustic roofing system and the electrical wires strung from one small business to another.
If you have never learned a second language, then you haven’t had the “joy” of experiencing the feeling of really going “back to school”. This is different than going for further education – this is going back to the beginnings. Things like the alphabet, phonics, understanding the position and use of nouns, verbs and adjectives are part of the process. And this is all taught in a language you don’t understand. Needless to say, it does a lot of stretching to the character and encourages real growth in trusting the Lord.
We were warned upon arrival here in Costa Rica about “gringo traps” – sewer drains that are missing their grates. These covers are often stolen for the metal. We see several of these on our walks in our “barrio” (neighborhood). We heard of one gringo who fell into a “gringo trap” and broke both legs.
We are once again attending services at a nearby Spanish church. We attended this same church last March when we were here at the language institute for an intensive course in Spanish. Sometimes we catch “parts” of the sermons and then other days . . . well, we kind of get left behind.
On Saturday, January 15 Maria (our gracious hostess) and Wanda prepared biscuits and sausage gravy for Herb’s birthday breakfast. It was an experiment – since Wanda was working with different kinds of ingredients and without some of the usual equipment but our breakfast turned out great!
We take a walk every day – to sometimes rest our brains from trying to learn Spanish, to make sure we don’t gain weight because of the great cooking of Maria (our hostess) – and this is one of the parks we often walk through. We always enjoy looking at the mountains from the city here in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Everywhere you look we are surrounded by mountains here in San Jose, Costa Rica (the capital of the country). They are beautiful to notice every day and amazingly there is usually a pleasant breeze each day.
On Tuesday, January 11 we had our first day of classes at the Instituto de Lengua Espanola in San Jose, Costa Rica. We have lots to learn – pray that our minds and tongues will cooperate!