Confused and befuddled...a mere shell of my former personality
Much of the family visited today, too.
Hi Patsy (email to one of my sisters),
Am learning at the speed of mud. This internet cafe only has Spanish on its pcs, so it is a bit difficult to figure out how to do things. I didn´t realize I even read the menus anymore, but now that they are all in Spanish I sure can´t remember them.
Hi Mom (email to my mother),
I was so exhausted yesterday I could barely speak English, let alone SPANISH!, but somehow I managed to make it through a huge family party. I was asleep, however, by 7 pm and didn´t wake until this morning at 7 am. I´m set to jet today, however. I feel great and my Spanish is improving by the minute. Or maybe I am just faster with my dictionary. (Is this exactly the opposite of what I just told my sister?)
Journal:
Everyone is taking my Spanish lessons very seriously. They correct me and make me repeat things continually. If I don´t learn Spanish here then I´m just not going to be able to learn it at all.
My every-day life in Costa Rica is going to be way different than my every-day life in San Francisco. I already appreciate things I had never even considered, like not having to wash my clothes by hand in a big basin of water. They have just purchased a washing machine (it is kept outside) and are very proud of it, however, they don´t have a dryer. They have no microwave or toaster or dishwasher or … actually it sounds like my house before William moved in.
One of the dogs, a diminutive brown brindle named Binky, tried to bite me. If no one had been watching, I’d have bitten him back but it is only my second day here, so I didn’t think that would be cool. The other dog is blond and white and inexplicably named Blackie. I feel like I may have entered the pages of some strange Mexican novel.
Painted pictures with Gilary (6, pronounced Jilary…though they told me it was like Jilary Clinton), Monica (Gilary’s mother) and David (14…son of Patricia, one of William’s 4 younger sisters). They think my drawings are strange, but interesting.
Tomorrow I visit my cousin who runs a feminist radio station down here with a friend.
Carmen the Chicken Killer by Sarah Curtiss 