Friday a.m.

Good morning! Ready for a cool rainy day? Ready or not. . . We sure had a nice string of beautiful days, didn't we? As I hoped would happen, I was able to get out and work around the house some yesterday afternoon. Ben came home and we got my dad's tractor. We drug several logs in from the woods, and then Ben cut some firewood out of them. I got up on the roof and blew leaves off, and then got on the mower and chopped for a while. It was a perfect evening for all that.

 

We heard from Rebecca last night. She had just arrived back in Costa Rica after spending several days in Nicaragua. She traveled pretty far in Nicaragua, getting pretty close to the border of Honduras. She had quite the experience, and I can tell she is really changing. This is so good for her. She will view life in such a different way after this time in Central America. I think she will seek simplicity and appreciate things a lot more. Here is an excerpt of a note she sent last night.

 

For the home stay, I slept in one house, ate in one house, and spent all my time in another. There were 4 students in that community and one family couldn't afford to do all those things so we split it up. The houses were dirt floors, concrete walls, and tin roofs. I slept under a mosquito net! They had outhouses and bucket showers and I got to wash my clothes on one of those board things! Definitely something new.

They had basically nothing but they were all so happy. Where I slept, there were only two beds for a 4 person family so my parents and the 3 year old slept together and my 11 year old brother slept on a pad on the concrete floor. And they only had 2 chairs in the house and they always gave them to me and the other student and they would either stand or sit on the floor.

Rebecca has 2 more weeks were her family in Costa Rica, and then she has a 4 week internship with a school. She'll be staying with a different family for that. I think she is getting very comfortable with her Spanish. She said she had a hard time in northern Nicaragua because the people spoke with an accent and didn't finish their words, dropping letters. (Sounds like around here - ha ha.)

OK, let's get going today and enjoy the weekend. Easy day today for me. Hopefully. Then a 10 mile run in the morning, plus nothing eventful for the rest of the weekend. Hopefully.