Vamos a ver- We will see...

What do Karaokee 
Kooking & Klicking all have in common???

A. They all start with the letter K
B. They are all grammatically incorrect
C. They all involve a new experience
D. Some crazy girl named Rachel was involved in these activities.
E. All of the above






If you guessed "E" give yourself a star!

Vamos a ver- We will see....

#1. The Spanish phrase above is my new phrase of the week. It is another frequent catch-phrase, which my cooperating teacher is often saying, and I hear it from other people all the time.

#2. We will see what this Rachel-girl means by all these KrAzy "K" words.

#3. We will see what Teacher Rachel has been up to in the classroom.

#4. We will see a few more pictures and highlights from Costa Rica.

I know it has not been very long since I last blogged, but I am all about schedules, so I'm trying to get caught up to blogging on Monday's/Tuesday's. This weekend/past week brought about a few more new experiences and some great catching up time with friends and family via Skype! *Oh the wonders of technology!*

My first "K" word is Karaoke and this came about from our Sunday outing to Santo Domingo (not too far away from San Jose). My host mom, her two daughters, me, and Leo (can't forget the dog!) all went to the 35th anniversary party for their community church group. The community my host family is a part of comes from "The Sword of the Spirit" ministries. They are all about bringing together Christians from different traditions and cultures for common mission. If you want to read more about them you can check out their website: Sword of the Spirit Ministries

Here are some pictures from all the festivities: 

 

 What is this, Halloween? Nope, it is a typical Costa Rican thing...however, I am still not fully sure on how the tradition started. I think these musicians traveled through Costa Rican towns and then people would dress up with big masks and chase the kids around. 


*The creepy man on the far right is cousin Pablo (I have seen him multiple times in various masks. He is a wild and very energetic kid!)

 Lunch time :) The brown stuff in the center of the table cloth is "pasta de frijol"-bean paste. They use this for a variety of foods: put it on sandwiches, chips, tortillas, rice, etc...


And every once and while they surprise me with some American food: Doritos!


*My lovely host mom below with her daughter Caro. It was quite the picnic!

*Standing next to me, above, is Verena. She is a 15 year old girl I met from Germany. She came to Costa Rica five days ago, and is staying with a host family for six months. Yesterday she began studying Spanish and will be here for six months. She was super homesick, so I cheered her up and Buwe became good friends. (Her native tongue is obviously German, but she also speaks English, and will soon speak Spanish) Our friendship became even stronger when she persuaded me to go sing that K word...yep, Karaoke.

Elisa (the girl singing with me in the picture) is our neighbor girl. She is in 3rd grade and attends the school I am teaching at. I have gotten to know her a bit, so she was excited to find me during Karaoke and drag me upstage with her. I could have easily escaped to the bathroom, which was conveniently close by, but I remembered that I am putting "miedo" behind me. Might as well live it up! Oh, and I forgot to mention that they had songs in English, so it wasn't that bad. However, the song Elisa picked, "Help" was not the version I was thinking of, so I am sure everyone else was pretty amused. 


Oh K, now on to our second "K" word: Kooking. If you didn't figure it out, Kooking=Cooking.  I don't get to do a whole lot of cooking because we have a maid who does most of the cooking, but the maid was gone last week and so was my host mom, which meant Cook Rachel was in charge! The girls were hungry so I whipped up some tasty tortillas. I forgot to take a picture, but they looked something like this picture to the far right: (mas o menos-more or less)

*And this picture below is what a typical breakfast looks like for me
        (But we do also eat a lot of eggs, tortillas, and oatmeal) 
-Quick story about the smiley face by the lactose milk: my first week
here I just grabbed the milk from the fridge and didn't really read the label. 
A. Because I can't really read Spanish and B. Because I was in a hurry.
Well, the daughter came in and asked why I was drinking lactose milk. 
Oops! But I have gotten used to it, and I don't really taste the difference, 
so lactose milk it is :)
 

And my last "K" word: Klicking. 

Unfortunately I will not be able to say this to my 2nd graders :)

Klicking=clicking, and man have I been busy doing "mucho" (lots) of clicking! Teacher Rachel has begun the new task/battle of grading papers. IT NEVER ENDS! Sort of like laundry and homework. My pen is constantly clicking, checking, and correcting. 
*This next week I take over Social Studies and will be in control of Social Studies until April! I am starting to plan out my lessons, which is very exciting. 
*Week by week I will begin adding a subject on, until March, which I will then have FULL control of the classroom for 3 weeks. KrAzY!!!!


***And I'll wrap up by saying that yes, my "K" words were not grammatically correct. But I have been learning that language is a tricky thing and it is not always going to come out right, sound right, or write right ;) But we serve one gracious God! I am pretty sure He has had quite a few laughs from this girl, but He has remained faithful in His all encompassing love for me, and His promise of never leaving me. So "whom shall I fear?" That's all for now but "vamos a ver!"-we will see!***


1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you"