Sitting around the t.v. in Monteverde Backpackers hostel watching futbol, Panama vs. Canada, I get hit with a pillow everytime I accidentally say soccer, "No, es futbol!" I start reading the players names on the backs of their shirts and Alonso and Luis laugh at my pronunciation, I'm glad my accent amuses them. They chat away en español and I follow most of the conversation, occasionally contributing, and it feels so comfortable to be here, en Costa Rica, watching futbol, speaking in Spanish.
That evening I went to meet my host family, at first I went to the wrong house because Costa Rica does not have street names or house numbers, for example, my host family's address is "In front of Hotel Manaquin, 2nd house on the left." The taxi driver says, "I think it's this one" so I knock on the door and introduce myself and the guy is friendly and thankfully knows what I am talking about because his wife is a teacher at the school and kindly points me next door, I guess I miscounted, he must have been the third house on the left.
My host mom, Norely, is so friendly. We chat all evening until her family gets home from their day trip to the beach. Sometimes I forget that I am speaking another language because the conversation flows so naturally and other times I stumble through a sentence trying to remember each word and the proper verb tense. But the moments when I forget I am speaking Spanish and I'm simply speaking...those are indescribably incredible, learning another language is like opening yourself up to another world.
The last moment worth blogging about is the moment during the Zip-line Canopy tour when I am standing on the platform about to do the Tarzan swing, essentially they attach you to a long rope, push you off the edge of the platform and you freefall and then swing out above the canopy in the Cloud Forest. In the brief moment, before they opened the gate and pushed me off, I was thinking, why am I paying this guy to push me off a cliff? Which was followed by intense screaming and an adrenaline rush, and then the realization of the beautiful jungle that I am swinging in, like Tarzan, only wearing more clothing and more safely secured to the rope.
Pura Vida.
No comments:
Post a Comment