Fútbol! (etc)

Hey Everyone! Wow, I can't believe August is almost half-way done. Anyway, let's see, what's new? Oh, I finally got my burning hands situation looked at. I went to the PC office (which, by the way, takes 2 buses and an hour and a half) at nine in the morning on Friday. The medical officer looked at my hands for about 2 minutes and sent me on my way to see a dermatologist. FYI my index fingers and thumbs are pretty red, and although they don't burn and sting anymore, they still don't look normal. My toes are kind of red too. Okay, so anyway, the dermatologist is in a hospital way on the other side of San Jose (and about 4 blocks from where my first bus dropped me off on my way in)! Ahh, and I had to get there in about 15 minutes (not even possible). Fortunately, I got there eventually, and the doctor prescribed me some medicine which should return me to normalcy in about 10 days.

After that, I had to get back to my town to do another session at the school, which I think went well. My next session there will be observed by some of the staff (ahh!). No, I think it will be fine. Anyway, after that I had to head out again to another nearby town (about a 35 minute walk) to discuss my evaluation of training so far. We had to check off if we had learned all these things, but I had not learned a bunch of the stuff on there (i.e. the economic situation in CR), so I thought they were just throwing in trick questions to see if we were really reading. Turns out, they had given me the evaluation for the Economic Development program instead of Children Youth and Families. Oops.

Anyway, I was going to see a movie that night, but I was just leaving my evaluation when I ran into the other people who were going to see the movie also. They were leaving earlier than originally planned, but I didn't get the message since I hadn't been home. I had been running around all day though, so I decided to just head home and take it easy (I know I know, watching a movie doesn't exactly require a lot of effort, but the coming and going does, and plus it was raining a little).

On Saturday, I went to the feria with my family, which is a big farmer's market. They go every two weeks to get all their fruits and veggies, but this was the first time I went with them. There were tons of fruits/vegetables I had never seen in my life, but my host-mom told me she doesn't know what a lot of them are either. Then we just hung out at home, and in the afternoon we went over to Mainor and Maryuri's house (my host-brother and his wife). She sells bakery items out of her house, and she had just made the best bread ever (and she gave me the recipe!!). Then I had to go to meet up with Angela and her host brother and sister to go to......a soccer game! The league in CR has a bunch of teams from all over the country, and they play each other and the games are always on TV, and everyone has their favorite team, etc. The game was between Heredia and Saprissa, and Saprissa is the team for San Jose, so the stadium is not that far. We ended up having a pretty decent-sized group, since other trainees met up with us on the way. The game was at 7pm, and it was so cool! The place wasn't super-packed, but there was definitely a good showing (I guess it can be kind of dangerous at night, so not as many people go...by the way, that was foreshadowing). Plus, “Bailando por un Sueño” was on TV at the same time (that is not a joke). So anyway, Angela's host brother Juan told me the futbol games are the best place to learn all the swear words in Spanish, but we were a little off to the side, so my education is still lacking... (hmm, maybe I should have brought that up in my evaluation).

Anyhow, the game was scoreless until the final minutes when Saprissa, the home team, scored not one, but TWO goals right in a row! People went crazy, climbing onto the fences behind the goal and jumping up and down and whatnot. The buses to get back to the central part of San Jose were really packed, but we finally got on a direct one that doesn't make any stops. We were slowing down for a red light when all of a sudden, two guys jumped out the back door (right in front of an approaching car, by the way) and ran off. It was kind of odd, but I thought, “Oh, maybe they're just in a hurry to get somewhere”. When we got the bus stop, everyone got out except for two guys sitting in the last row, looking kind of in shock. We had been sitting really close to the back, and so Angela's host sister went over to them and helped them off the bus. On the sidewalk, we saw that one of the guys' arms was all bloody, and they had both been robbed. Apparently those guys that ran off earlier had robbed them and slashed one of their arms a few times, and no one else even knew it had happened. That really scared me, especially since we were just a few feet away while it happened. I will say this, I won't sit in the way back of a bus ever again—it's too easy for someone to attack and then run, since the doors are right there. Walking the rest of the way to catch the other bus would be scary enough, since SJ is not the most welcoming city at night, but after that little incident, it was that much worse. All the stores are covered with garage doors, and everything looks kind of creepy, but there were lots of police officers around. By the way, the bus driver called an ambulance for the guys. He also told us that we should avoid direct buses in the future, since they tend to be more dangerous...

So, I got home just in time to catch the end of “Bailando por un Sueno”. Yes, it was four hours long. To say that this show is sweeping the nation is a bit of an understatement. It is in the paper every day, all over the news, and the topic of a lot of conversation.

Anyway, I was pretty tired from staying up till (gasp!) 11 pm, so on Sunday morning I took a little nap. It was weird though because at the end of it, I thought I could hear my host parents' sons and grandkids outside my window. I tried to open my eyes, but I physically could not open them. Then I thought someone was squirting me with water through the window, and I thought, “Open your eyes!” but I still couldn't make them open. Then I thought I heard someone come in (which is impossible since my door has a latch that only opens from the inside) and I swear someone whispered “Kate! Kate! Kate!” and touched my shoulder, and immediately, my eyes flew open and I shot up out of bed, but no one was inside my room or outside my window. I went into the kitchen and my host-mom was making lunch, and my host-dad went to the door to see if their kids and grandkids were there yet, and then I couldn't remember if I had already known before I went to sleep that they were all coming for lunch, or if I had only dreamed they were coming. It was weird...kind of deja vu-y. But everyone did come over for lunch to celebrate my host-brother Esterlyn's birthday. It was really good, and my host-mom dug up her cookbook with all her recipes in it, so now I can copy some of them down!

Well, that is that. To everyone moving around Mad-town this week, good luck! In the next few weeks, I am going to be really busy with training, including eleven total days of traveling around, so it might take a while with email and whatnot. I'll do my best though! Okay, that's all, bye!