Day 57, Domingo 9 Septiembre 2012 21:47
A traditional Costa Rican birthday.
I woke up around 9,
had an delicious breakfast and went to the garden to skype home, in the garden
there is WiFi of an other house. It was so good the Skype again, there was a
lot to tell. My family was going to have a bbq but I was not homesick or
anything, just because I am so happy right now.
Around 12 we first
went to the grandmothers house to introduce me, this grandmother (mother of 14
childeren) is really nice and treated me like one of her grandsons. Then we
drove 15 minutes to a very rural area where a birthparty was. At the party was
a lot of family, my hostdad has 11 brothers and sisters and my hostmom 13, so
it’s a big family. But not all of them were there but I got introduced to a lot
of people. Then we sat down at a table with our family and some uncles and
aunts joined. The rest of the party was just waiting on food and eating it,
very Costa Rican they said. Everybody was just so nice to me, asking me about
The Netherlands, telling me about Costa Rica and stuff. Also everybody tells me
I speak really good spanish and they don’t believe I only learned it here in 1
and a half month. Also my hostfamily likes to tell people this J! This new host family is so nice, my hostmom already calls me her son!
Also the hostdad is really nice and funny, like all dads are if I quote my
biological dad. Also I talked a lot with my host brother and he is really nice,
invitng me to do a lot of things, and he is a lot like me. Skinny, lazy and
always dropping things and bumping into stuff. It is incredible how I found
this new family which fits me so good, without having to search for ages, or
without making and comparing all those profiles!
I love my crazy beautiful
Costa Rican life!
Day 58, Lunes 10
septiembre 2012 22:15
Feliz dia del niño!
Actually it was
yesterday dia del niño (kids day) but we celebreted it on Monday with school. First
there were some speeches, one really good one about tolerance, this speech also
included a part where the teacher spoke about me as an exchange student. As well we were singing the national anthem
and the schoolband played something. This was as well because it was the
beginning of the events the following week because it is the week of
pattriotism. Everywhere you come you see the Costa Rican flag and the tri
colour, the 3 colours of CR blue, red and white. Also I helped decorating the
school with these colours and flags. In the afternoon there where all kind of
games and also a mechanic bull and piñata’s. It’s a bummer I didn’t bring my
camera.
When I came home I
helped my little brother with his english homework, bought some things I needed
and talked with my family. After dinner I went with my old host brother to some
of his friends, we just sat on a corner of a street and talked, but it’s very
nice he invites me to meet his friends. Also I already met both grandmothers a
lot of aunts and uncles and everyday I get introduced to more family.
This family is a
traditional Costa Rican family, which means you eat rice and beans a lot, don’t
do more as necceseray and being extremely nice. Also there are a few Costa
Rican words which most people use a lot:
·
Pura vida, ‘puur life’ means a lot, from cool to
goodbye.
·
Tranquillo, ‘relax, relaxed’ means that there is no
hurry/
·
Ahorita, means like a little bit later.
·
Manaña, means tomorrow.
·
No importante, not important
·
Heuvon, no translation for this word
·
Mi corazon, mi amor and amorcito, which all means my dear or sweety.
Day 59, martes 11
septiembre 2012 23:11
Religion talks
A new family means as
well new friends, and getting introduced to a lot of people. In the evening I
went to watch CR-Mexico at a friends house of my bro. All of them were very
nice, like all Tico’s are actually. And like always they were firing questions
at me, this time it were like 20 teenagers. What do you eat? Do you smoke marihuane,
are The Netherlands beautiful? Is everybody rich? Is everything really
expensive and all these sort of things. Anyways with other teenagers I like it
to tell them about my country and culture. But after the match I went to the
house of my bro’s girlfriend, a very religious family. Then the question about
religion came up, I said I don’t have a religion nor believe in god. They were
pretty shocked, the kids understood but the mom not. She said: ‘but god
excists, he created everything.’ I told here that in my culture not a lot of
people are religious and that it’s not common to believe in god. I didn’t make
any statements about religion, I just changed to subject. I don’t like these
talks about religon, but sometimes I have to have them, and when I do it’s
better to just say it’s a cultural difference. I would love to make a statement
about the big bang and the evolution theory but I think I would insult them so
I do not. Also I have more opinions about religion but I think in this culture
it’s better to keep them for myself. Also I do respect it that they are
religious and as well the people respect other religions but no religion is
just very uncommon here.
In school there were
again some speeches, this time about recycling and we practiced the national
anthem. Saturday is independence day but I have no idea what is going to
happen, I do know that I have to come to school to do something. As well I
found out that here I do have HBO on the television and my hostmom watches
‘Dexter’ as well, that means I will be watching the new season first of all my friends!
Day 60, Miercoles 12 Septiembre 2012 21:58
Tae kwon-do!
I found a sport to
practice here, Taekwondo. I had one training, my friend Fabio introduced me. It
was pretty cool, but hard as well. But I will go on with it at least for the
next couple of days. If I don’t like it, I quit but I think I’ll go on with it.
But way more
important: today I got a letter from my grandmother, I took 15 days to get
here. It was pretty hard to read the letter but I like it a lot. I will keep
writing hand-written letters with my grandmother. As well a waterpolo magazine
came from my parents. With this I can finally show a little bit more of
waterpolo!
Day 61, Jeuves 13
Septiembre 2012 22:07
Taekwondo part 2
My feet hurt pretty
much now, and that feels good! Finally sporting again! yesterday I didn’t wrote
that much about taekwondo because I was really tired. But today I went again
and I liked it better as yesterday!
Taekwando is a
material art, which practically means that it’s an Asian fighting sport I
think, I will google it. The teacher is an old man who looks a bit Korean and
who became 4th on the olympic games of 1978. Our training area is on
a outside small soccer field with a concrote floor and it is done barefeeted. Furthermore it is a fighting sport and you
mostly use your feet. At the beginning of the training the teacher spoke for
about half an hour, he spoke about discipline, training, taekwondo and more
stuff. It was all in Spanish but I think I understood like 90% of what he said.
This talk was pretty inspiring, and I kind of felt like church, but the church
of sports. After that there was a little warming up, running, kicking, jumping
and everything. After that we practiced to names of the positions, some kicks
and like a lot of moves quickly after each other but I don’t know them.
Everything is pretty hard but I get better in my bad things like my balance,
how stretchable my muscles are, my condition and the muscles it self get
stronger, so that usefull! The teachers are really friendly and one of them
gave me a lot of help, they said if I practice a lot I can participate in
mtournaments later this year! That would be very cool!
When I got home I
watched the final of futsal, where I wrote about last Saturday. It was Orotina
playing again barrusia and Orotina lost with 6-2. Next week is the return, and
I’m going to watch for sure!
Day 62, Viernes 14
Septiembre 2012 21:32
Independence run.
It was an amazing day!
I carried a fire which was lighted in Guatamala, passed through Honduras, El
Salvador and Nicaraqua and now finished in Costa Rica.
The day started
normal, going to school with the bus, at school I bought sport clothers,
changed and got into the bus. I had no idea exactly what was going to happen,
but I did knew we were going to run. After 20 minutes in the bus we stopped and
everybody got out. 5 minutes the school from Esparza arrived, with torch and
flag. They they lighted our torch, and we started running, around 30 students
from our school and some kids from the primary school, which stopped earlier.
We passed by a lot of primary schools, and everytime we enlighted their torches
and then they ran for a few 100 meters with us. I carried the flag most of the
time and the torch 1 time as well! When we arrived near San Mateo where the ending point was everybody who
stopped during the run got out of the bus and joind us we were running all the
time again. So all of us arrived at the parked, the 2 sixth graders with the
torch, us 5th graders with the flag. The whole village came to the
park and were clapping and stuff, we ran around the park and then entered the
park. At the park there was an other torch enlighted and there was a speech,
the national anthem and the flame was passed to other schools. And again one of
the speeches said something about, me as an exchange student, it made me feel
pretty special and honoured! I thought we were finished but we had to take the
flame to some more primary schools, so we ran more. This time it was all up
hill so after 4 more kilometres I stopped, I just couldn’t move my feet
anymore. I ran most of all students, so when I entered the bus everybody was
clapping and stuff. I was so tired after running 16 kilometers, through the
mountains without any propiate running shoes. I couldn’t move my legs well
anymore, it was amazing!
At home I just rested
a few hours and around 3 we went to the barbershop to cut my hair. This was
really Costa Rican, my hostmom told me to hurry up, and when we arrived there
were 14 waiting before me, and there was 1 guy cutting hair. But I thought, it
might go quick and just sat back. After 1 hour my and my hostbro went to walk
in Orotina and drink a frozen cappuchino, which was extremly good. When we came
back there were still a lot waiting. It was almost my turn at 6, when I already
waited 3 hours. But at 6 there was a fiesta in Orotina because it is the night
before the independence day. I decided to go there and cut my hair a different
time. At the park were a lot of lampions, I don’t know if that’s the correct
english word but it is with beautiful lights and stuff. We walked with a lot of
people through the streets and ended in the park again. In the park played the Orotina music band and
there were more speeches. In one speech I was mentioned again, it was the
father of my friend Fabio, he is pretty important and famous in Orotina. He
said that he was glad that I joined their community and he asked if everybody
in The Netherlands is tall, and he welcomed me to Costa Rica. It was very nice
from me the introduce me to the whole village. The rest of the night I walked
through Orotina and sat in the park with my hostbro & friends.
Know I am really tired
of everything, especially the running and tomorrow is the independence day, so
it’s sleepy sleepy time!
Day 63, 15 Septiembre
2012 21:16
Independence day!
191 years ago, on this
day Costa Rica got it’s independence from Spain. And that is what we celebrated
today!
I got up at 5:30,
because I thought I had to go with a bus at 6:30. But I went with a taxi at
8:15 so I wasted some precious sleep. At school I was asked by the school
president, -who is one of my best friends here- to carry to flag of San Mateo.
We gathered at the soccer field with all the schools from the ‘canton’ San
Mateo. There were speeches, singing the national Anthem, and the independence
day song. After all this we walked a parade, school by school with band,
dancing girls, traditional clothing flag carriers and everything. I walked with
the San Mateo flag together with Braulio, the school president who is better
known as Jackie Chang. We walked around 800 meters in 2,5 hour. And was
incredebily hot and pretty hard to keep the flag up all the time. But it was a
really cool parade, but I didn’t see so much of it since I was walking it
myself. I was pretty honoured by walking in the parade and a lot of people were
watching it. After the parade I got picked up by my hostdad and we went to
grandmothers house to have lunch with some family members. I talked with more
uncle’s and this one invited me to go sea fishing sometime! It is pretty hard
to keep all those uncle’s and aunts apart since there are around 40 of them.
Then it started
raining and there were no more parties, I expected that there would be some
parties but Orotina doesn’t have such a good party scene, or I didn’t discover
it yet. My hostbrother did show me to local discotheque which I didn’t see
before.
I liked the
indepencdence day, the spirit and the people. But I actually did expect more of
it, but maybe that’s just because I celabreted in San Mateo, which is way
smaller as Orotina. As well it was pretty weird that not everybody
participated, since it is a pretty important day. Some boys were just skating
all day and not paying attention to any of this.
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