Bill (Gutenberg) Green: Renaissance Man

Welp, its half-time of the Netherlands futbol (soccer) game, so I thought I’d share some deets about my weekend.
Friday, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to watch the opening ceremony for the World Cup, which was totally worth waking up for (I probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway). After the excitement of the opening ceremony, I threw on my green and yellow tank top and yellow shoes, sporting a self-inflicted “Bafana Bafana!” tattoo on my forearm while I ran out the door to take my final exam at the Mesoamerica Language Institute. I practically ran to school (about 2-3 miles away) to find my teacher watching the Mexico-South Africa game. All over Central America, most people share the same negative feelings towards the Mexican national futbol team, so everyone I talked to here was going for South Africa to win the game. We watched the first 15 minutes of the game together, then decided that I should get the exam over with. The exam was 3 ½ hours of mental gymnastics, covering every area of grammar I wasn’t good at in Spanish (being the only one in my class, my study program was tailored to my needs, a double-edged sword because it was all my problem areas, but good because now they aren’t so much of a problem!). To celebrate after the exam, I ran to the bakery to get 2 gigantic cinnamon rolls, hot out of the oven, oozing with gooey cinnamon bits and cream cheese frosting (numnums). I plopped on the couch at the school with cinnamon rolls and ice cold liter of milk in hand and watched the Uruguay-France game for my victory lap.
Friday night I hung out around the house; highlight was definitely the curry chicken my ticamadre made for dinner, which went perfectly with the Casillero del Diablo 2008 Chardonnay =]

Saturday morning I woke up early again to watch some futbol; my ticamadre’s reaction to waking up seeing me glued in front of the small kitchen TV clutching a half-drunk pot of coffee was “¡Que bárbaro! (literally translated: “how barbaric!”, but without the negative connotation barbaric has in English) After the watching a downright (Lionel) Messi Argentina game, I left again with my host dad for the Farmer’s Market. We left with two grocery lists: one for Flori (ticamadre) and one for his hermana (sister). So by the time we were finished shopping, we had over 100 pounds of produce and I was chomping at the bit, hoping we would make it back for the U.S.-England game. Saturday night I made the trek to San Pedro to JazzCafé, a relatively small but chic hangout spot for junkies of the local music scene. Playing at JazzCafé Saturday night was the ultra popular Costa Rican band Malpaís, the 6 piece band I talked about in an earlier blog. The concert was absolutely amazing, with songs featuring accordion, violin, irish whistle, piano, drum, and ukulele solos. Needless to say, their music was moving, and the intimate atmosphere of the concert (150 people?) made the experience pretty sweet (they even made frequent eye contact with me because I had a seat up front =] )

I got back from the concert around 2 a.m., took a little nap, and then woke up at 7:30 to get ready for church. I walked to Bill and Aletha Green’s house in Guadalupe to meet for worship. The Green’s are a missionary family in Costa Rica and have been here for many, many years. They are a part of the Reformed church and have started multiple churches, a Christian school, and a very thriving printing/publishing business for theological books. We headed over to the church property for Sunday School and worship around 9:30 a.m., which was all in Spanish. Pastor Bill (Guillermo, as they call him here) is a man of many skills. He preached a passionate sermon in perfect Spanish, played guitar for pre-Sunday School singing, and played the piano for singing during the worship service, all in stride. The sermon he preached was on the importance of the church in the coming of the Kingdom, and how the church is the spearhead of the Kingdom. A very good sermon, encouraging not only spiritually but also for my Spanish comprehension ability! Post-service, we all climbed back in Bill’s mini-bus to head back to his house. There were two other groups of 15 that were down for a mission trip, one from Loveland, CO and another from somewhere in Michigan that were at the Green residence Sunday, so needless to say it was a busy place. A little overwhelming for me to hear tons of simultaneous English conversations happening at the same time, something I haven’t experienced in some 5 weeks. After feasting, Rev. Green showed us his print shops, explaining the whole process of his Christian publishing ministry. The progression of his undertaking is incredible- you can definitely see God’s hand at work through his ministry here. We also toured the multi-storied Christian school, where I met some of the gringo English teachers, and was even offered a job at the school if I changed my mind about getting on my plane home tomorrow.
(Pause)
Ok, game’s over. 2-0 Oranje! Hup Holland!
Just had my last breakfast of banana pancakes, courtesy of Reina, our housemaid. I told her I think she’s ready to marry, because she can cook (in Central America, it’s a well-known saying that when a woman learns how to cook well, she is ready for marriage)
Back to the Green’s- I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of the work they have done down here the last umpteen years, and the impact they have had on the community is huge! I definitely am keeping an option of coming down here to work with them in my options for the future.
Today is my last day here- my plane heads out tomorrow morning at 6:20 a.m. Gotta catch a cab from my house at 4 to get to the airport on time, yikes! With my last day I’m steppin over to the city center to hit up the artisan’s fair that is going on right now to get some cheesy Costa Rica souvenirs and seize my last opportunity to buy some coffee to bring back.
¡Adios, Costa Rica!

Pura vida

One last shot

Welp, this is my last week of class here in Costa Rica. It is strange to me that I am almost done here already; it seems like I just got here! Although, I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't getting ready to go home. Because of the brevity of my remaining time here, I've found myself in a frantic rush to experience and take in all I can before I head back. =]

This past weekend was rather uneventful- I had made plans to go to the beach on the Pacific coast, a place called Playa Manuel Antonio. But, God had other plans in mind I guess, because I woke up Wednesday morning to see on the news that the zone was to be shut down for 8 days because of heavy tropical storms. This news announcement was accompanied by images of local residents' houses thrashed and flooded from the storm; needless to say, I was more than convinced that I needed to alter my plans for the weekend haha
So, instead, I discovered that my host family has HBO and other movie channels, so I entertained myself by watching movies such as "Indiana Jones:Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Hitch" in Spanish. Also, I went to go see the new movie "Prince of Persia" in the theater here, which was very entertaining. I ventured to Costa Rica's version of Trader Joe's and picked up some exotic dark chocolates and a few bottles of red wine from Chile and Argentina ("Carmen-Merlot" from Chile and "Fabre Montmayou-Cabernet Sauvignon" from Argentina.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to watch the Costa Rica national team take on Slovakia in a friendly soccer match. After it was done, I went with my host dad to the local Farmer's market, which was an enormous, chaotic assortment of fruit and vegetable stands with vendors yelling constantly. I felt a little out of place, probably because my blonde dome popped up above the masses. There were probably a few thousand people at this place, as Costa Ricans have a diet based heavily on fresh fruits and vegetables. My host dad goes every Saturday and buys a shopping cart overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables, and that is to feed 6 people for a week. I don't think I bought half that much produce in an entire year at college haha!

Today marks the beginning of my last week of class here. My classmate Muriel went back to Utah, where she is the Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Utah (embarrassingly, I found that out her last day of class. woops.) So, I'm flyin solo in class this last week, which means no daydreaming, wandering thoughts, or sleeping because most likely my teacher would notice...
Since its just us guys left, I'm predicting a hearty hunk of class time will be dedicated to discussing the impending World Cup (starts on friday woo!), which I am more than o.k. with! In other news, today I was given a crash course in Costa Rican slang, which I quickly found out was a monumental task. In trying to describe one "slang" phrase, my teacher dropped the f-bomb in class sans qualms; I was pretty stunned that he carried on like nothing happened, because it caught me by surprise. But, then I realized that cursing in another language doesn't have near the effect as they do in your native tongue, because you haven't been trained to react and think that it is a bad word.
To reward myself for going for a run at 5:30 this morning when the sun rose, I cancelled out my athletic gains by gorging myself on two cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven, washing with a liter of icy-cool milk. I'm not really sure what my rationale was for making this into a meal; must be my genetic disposition towards sweet desserts (this one is directed at you, dad!) Probably the best cinnamon rolls I have ever had (now you're jealous Lyle, I can hear your drool hitting the keyboard 2500 miles away =] )
Well, I think this post has been exhaustive enough- I think I hear my ticamadre calling for me to ask about her Farmville farm!
Final exam on Friday heyo!

¡pura vida!