I survived my first week in Costa Rica!! and so much has happened since I landed in San Jose. At first, adjusting to a home stay was difficult and uncomfortable, but after accepting that communication will take longer than I expected I began to see the beauty of living in a new country.
A couple of days ago I was sitting at the kitchen table eating my breakfast before my early classes. (All students have four hours of spanish monday through friday 8:00am -12:00pm). Every time my tica mama makes me food, I feel like a child quietly sitting and waiting to see what my mother has made me to eat. Usually I am a very talkative person and fill silence with noise, but now the silence is calming. For now my communication skills consists of SÍ and nodding my head with a genuine smile.
In this particular morning I was feeling a little sad that my vocabulary was so small, but their was so much I had wanted to say. I was staring outside in the courtyard trying to ignore the awkward silence, when I saw this bird land on the wall of my tico house. It had a bright yellow underbelly and was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My jaw drops as I am staring at this bird and my tica mama says, “¿Que?” and I point outside. She looks back at me confused and probably wondering if I was a little crazy. I start flapping my arms and she understands right away what I was looking at. She says, “ahhh SÍ, el pájaro.” I realized then that I was going to be ok and that I should try my hardest to talk with my tico family, even if that means looking like an idiot and flapping my arms. For now I will put my worries away and go with the flow. Pura Vida mis amigos.
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