Refreshed

Yikes! Has another month really flown bye? Looks like it has. Thanks to the youth group being here and Elias and Theresa (my...Mary Frances' older brother and sister-in-law) coming down, July has proven to be a full and wonderful month for us.

The second semester of school is in full swing now. In my teaching realm, not much has changed. The usual class routine of managed chaos and rolling with the punches due to a very fluid class schedule has become common place in my life. So, I prepare for the best and hope that I will actually get through a lesson plan! Josh on the other hand has joined me this month in the teaching realm...ha ha! He is finally confident enough, and fluent enough in Spanish, to begin his roll as the computer teacher. He will be teaching the 5th and 6th graders basic computer skills like, how to turn one on, how to open basic programs, and most importantly how to type. However, since we only have 5 working computers (and a few of those are limping along as they are) he has had to get creative with class schedules. So, every Tuesday and Thursday morning from 8-11 he teaches 45 minute segments to groups of 5 students from 5th and 6th graders. The students are excited to be receiving computer classes, Josh is excited to have something "set" in his schedule, and I'm excited for him to understand what it's like to teach these kids! Other than that, things have been pretty quite out in Los Cedros.



With that said, July is a milestone month for us as we have reached our 6 month mark meaning that we had to leave Nicaragua for 72 hours so we could renew our visas. My older brother Elias and his wife Theresa, kindly flew down to hang out with us for a week here in Nicaragua and to then accompany us for a sweet weekend in Costa Rica!







We have heard before what a stark contrast there is once you drive across the border into Costa Rica, but hearing is nothing like seeing! Here's what we noticed:
1- The police men are wearing sweet uniforms complete with bullet proof vests. There are also way less of them, you don't see them hitchhiking for rides, and the few we did run into didn't pull us over just for the fun of it.
2-The roads are nicely paved. Enough said.
3- There are beautiful healthy horses that are equipped with real saddles and are used simply for the pleasure of riding them.
4-Tourist towns actually have supporting infrastructure. Josh and I could tell we'd been in Nicaragua for 6 months cause one of the most exciting things was pulling up to the town our hotel was in and seeing these shopping centers that looked like they could've been a part of Kirkland's waterfront strip or found in Redmond Town Center. In Nicaragua, you've got the hotel...which is usually in the middle of nowhere and nothing else.
5-The cost of everything is double in Costa Rica (even though the exchange rate is $500 Colones to $1). Josh and I can both go out to eat here in Nicaragua and walk away not having spent more than $12...that's dessert and drinks included. In Costa Rica, you could barely find anywhere to eat that had plates under $10...but I'd say the food was worth it.
6-The national food is not rice and beans and fried chicken!
7- We actually saw pure bred healthy dogs. Sure there was the occasional mutt, but for two dog lovers like us, it sure was exciting to see "normal" looking dogs...and made us miss our puppies at home.
8- Costa Rican's seem to grasp a little more that trash doesn't get thrown out your window as you're driving or just thrown on the ground. There's this magical little place for it called a trash can. That was refreshing for us in and of itself as we were able to drive past these beautiful locations and not grieve the fact that they've been ruined by mounds of trash people have left behind.




I'm sure there are many more differences between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, but I'll stop there. The truth is both countries are beautiful and offer vastly different and wonderful cultural experiences if you are willing to embrace them. It's just that one fits our clean and comfortable North American viewpoint better than the other. Either way, we are grateful we had such a lovely weekend away from reality and feel refreshed to come back and finish out the rest of our time here strong...we'll see what August has to hold.

P.S. We're going to add more pictures later...the internet is being finicky.