First Impressions

Our third day in Costa Rica (or “Woodyland”, as some like to call it) draws to a close. Actually, my new word of the day is “cockshut”. This lovely sounding word means “the ending of a day”. So there you go. I write this blog at the cockshut of February 17.

Our arrival to Costa Rica managed to coincide directly with the team retreat, so right off the bat we met the whole team, and then some. It wasn’t a retreat in the sense that the team went away together, like the team retreats most of us have been on. It was simply a weekend here at the Multiplication Center, where there was a speaker who taught on the teaching style of Jesus, and how these youth leaders could engage and develop relationships with students the same way Jesus did with his disciples and friends. Hm, long sentence there, I hope it made sense.

Anyway, being thrust into a large group of people we didn’t know was a little awkward at first, but thankfully that didn’t last too long. The people here are incredibly nice, and Spanish is just really cool sounding ☺ It’s a fun group, I can already tell I’m really going to enjoy getting to know them better.

So, for those of you who don’t know already, the main thing that Becky and I will be doing while we’re here is teaching English to some Costa Ricans on the team. These particular team members are preparing to become missionaries in certain countries where English will be a better asset than Spanish, so there you go – for six weeks, it is our job to teach them grammar, increase their vocabulary, and most importantly, have conversations with them!! The fact that we don’t speak a lick of Spanish actually works in our favour in this situation – they’ll have no choice but to speak English ☺

High points:

1) I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to walk outside and NOT have to cover every inch of skin! No coat, no gloves, no scarf – just beautiful, wonderful warmth!
2) I must now join the multitude that sings the praises of Woody and Sue Roland. God bless these wonderful, wonderful people who are letting us stay in their home, eat their candy, officially whoop me in games of Quiddler, and read us the poetry of Taylor Mali. I’m sure these are just the start of many enjoyable things to come.
3) Yesterday I introduced myself to a Costa Rican guy named Norman who did some translating for the speaker over the weekend. We briefly chatted. As you can well imagine, the name “Kendra” is not a common one, and I’ve had to repeat it to people more times than I can count, especially to those who don’t speak English as a first language. Well, today I saw him again, and he said: “Hello, Kendra. Kendra, right?”
Astonished, I replied: “Yes! I can’t believe you remembered, no one ever remembers my name!” To which he shrugs and says: “Yeah, it’s an easy name.”

Go ahead and laugh at me, that was music to my ears!

Interesting fact: Did you know that 30% of Spanish originates from Arabic? I never would have made the connection. Of course, being neither a Spanish or an Arabic speaker, that’s not saying much.


I think it’s safe to say that we are off to a pretty good start ☺

-Kendra