FAMILY

Me and the family last Summer in our favorite place...Idaho!

The best friends a kid could have.

:)

3 month old kitten that I played with for an hour at el Rio hoping the kids might show up.

            I headed down to el Rio today to find that the kids were all at a school event which meant that I had about six hours in my day outside of el Rio that I wasn’t use to. I headed down to an internet café only to find that the storm that was rolling through wouldn’t let me connect for too long. It seemed like all signs were pointing to being unproductive. Luckily, it gave me the opportunity to finish all the letters that I had promised to send to friends and family back home; it was quite an accomplishment.

            The letters have probably been one of the best things I thought about before coming to Costa Rica. Writing them has proved to be a reflective time for me during the early mornings or late nights. I have grown just by thinking about what I am going to say to my friends and family. After finishing the letters, I absent mindedly scrolled through the pictures I had collected over the last few weeks and decided it was about time to start compiling the book I had been thinking about since before I arrived.

            I spent a few hours putting together the poems I had written since being here and some of my favorite pictures of the children. In no way do I think that the book is near ready, but it is coming along to be something that I am really proud of. While I was sitting in the café, a boy named Luigi came and sat next to me. He was interested in what I was doing and after I told him he said that he was going to write his own history. Granted, I was happy because it kept this 18-year-old boy from talking for too long but once he finished and I brought the paper home to look at I realized that it was pretty neat what he had written. He talked about how he and his mom came from Nicaragua and his grandma lived with them too. He loved his mom very much and said she was a strong woman.

            The people here have a lot of respect for their families. I think that is something big that us Americans back home can take away from Costa Rica. At thirteen, it becomes weird to hold your mom’s hand, or give your dad a hug before you run into school in the morning. Here, fifteen-year old-boys hold their mom’s hands in the grocery stores and daughters hug their dads each morning when they wake up. When someone describes where he or she comes from, they don’t talk about a place, they talk about their family’s history. How beautiful is that?

            I was reminded that in the rush of everything when it seems like we have the most time in the world, it is easy to become self-absorbed in whatever project we are concentrated on. I wish I could go back and give Luigi some genuine attention by listening to his story; I missed an opportunity. He told me he would be there tomorrow so maybe I can make up for a job left halfway done. As for now, I have a greater appreciation for my own family that loves and cares about me and friends that have opened their hearts to me as a second family!