First Impressions of Costa Rica

I've now spent three nights with my host family, which I've been enjoying a lot, so I'll share how that's going with the rest of you.


My Mama Tica is Felicia. She is very talkative, and was thankful to Dan Puttcamp (the intern coordinator) for giving her the spanish speaking intern. Like many Ticas, she's very connected to everything that's happening in the neighborhood, the church, and with her friends. To an American, she seems extremely eager to please, but that is also typical down here. Since it's not too difficult to please me, I thank her a lot.
My Papa Tico is Fernando. He works a ways away in San Jose, so he has to get up at 4am and gets home after 7 because of the bus commute. He also talks a lot, is quite agreeable and humorous, and teases his wife some too. There was an Argentine soccer game on between the two largest Argentine clubs, River Plate, my favorite team, and Boca Juniors, their fierce rivals, which we watched. Turns out he has taken a bit of a liking to River because Maradona, the controversial, volatile, jerk who amazed the world with his unrivaled abilities, played for Boca, and Fernando didn't like his attitude.

Their two daughters, Maria Fernanda, aka MariFer, who is 21, and Sarah, aka Sarah, who is 14, have been volunteering at a church camp a little bit up the hill from us. The camp is a Bible Institute during school, and has a children's camp during the summer. (Which reminds me: despite being in the Northern Hemisphere, they call this time of the year summer because it's hot and dry, and are thus in summer vacations.) We went and visited them a couple of nights, saw the camp and the kids, and met a few other people from the Baptist church they attend. I don't know too much about them as they were mostly with the kids while we were there, but they are very nice. MariFer first wanted to be a lawyer, but after two years changed her mind and felt like God was calling her to go to the Bible Institute.

The earthquake in Haiti led to two of the staff engineers here going over there to help right before we arrived. As Haiti has one of the highest number of EMI projects, they have a lot of contacts they are following up on. We don't think any EMI buildings have fallen, which is encouraging. One of the things they are doing is performing building inspections of hospitals to allow them to reopen, as every available hospital we hear of seems to have three times their capacity squeezed in. The UN won't allow doctors into some of these buildings until they are inspected, but there doesn't seem to be much inspecting going on, or a system directing how it should be done, so the staff post a typical US building inspection forms, and sometimes spray paint a short message in Haitian Creole for the locals as well. With all the loose ends and disorganization, you don't always know how quickly word will spread, but at least calming some of the fears and easing some of the strain is a good start.