Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Old Story, New Blog
So I must have this fascination with musicals or something because I’m always singing, I love almost every musical I’ve seen and one day I’d love to have someone follow me around with a guitar and play background music to everything I do…how sweet would that be. Anyway, I’ve had this new obsession with my trips into and out of San José. Every time I’m on the bus I imagine everyone (you know, the tired, serious pissed-off looking people) suddenly smiling and breaking out into song…like High School Musical, except on a bus…in Spanish. *Like a blizzard, only different.* So get this. After I expressed this ridiculous desire to my friend Amanda, IT HAPPENED, almost. She was riding the bus one morning and a drunk, crazy or possessed man stood up in the front of the bus and started singing at the top of his lungs! FOR TIPS!! How great is that. Too bad I wasn’t there because I would have peed my pants laughing, not to mention that he would have gotten and extra tip from me. Wow. What a life. God can use the most odd situations to bring a smile to my face. Thanks.
It’s always really hard to leave a place that you love…but I guess that’s the same with anything you love—it should be hard to leave, let go of, or lose. That’s how I feel about Nicaragua. The first time I went there, there wasn’t much I loved about it—but this time it captured my heart. My family was incredible, than they were beautifully sincere and intentional people. They really did take me in like a daughter, sister and even aunt…which I loved of course. I saw a genuine side of Latin American culture and people that haven’t quite seen in Costa Rica…not to mention the change in the ‘time concept’ which took full course where I’ve stayed. God totally blessed my time there and I hope to return one day.
Since I’ve been back I’ve learned more about my family than when I left. But since I’ve given up complaining for Lent (I know stupid…but it’s really changed my attitude), I don’t want to write what I’ve noticed with the small chance that my honesty will be mistaken for complaining. ~Perhaps a snake mistook it for an egg and ate it.~ (side note/inside joke, sorry). Back to the point…I’m still learning.
Funny story: In Nicaragua we stayed at a convention center for a couple of days. Well, on the first night when we went out to eat something happened with the water and 4 of our rooms were flooded…I’m talking like almost 2 inches of water in every room. Instead of crying about out wet things and adding more water to the swamp…we turned the tragedy into a slip n’ slide, with a intermission to make ‘water angels’ in memory of out Midwest weather situation. Most people thought what we did was gross and that we were stupid. Lesson 1: Being ‘cool’ is SO LAME!! Lesson 2: I’m still a kid at heart. Lesson 3: God so rocks all the time…because a flooded room is just what I needed!!
Other things:
-Praise God for my friend Amanda who has just been AMAZING!!! I love her.
-My body broke out in some crazy red rash…hope it’s not Dangay.
-Went to Honduras!! Woo Hoo. It rained a whole lot.
-You can make like 32 kinds of food (breakfast, lunch, supper, desert and drinks) from corn. No joke.
-I was told that the first corn in Iowa was grown underground by cavemen from someone in Nicaragua. Let me know if this is true.
-Nicaraguan history is was more interesting than US history.
-Learned how to box…a dream come true.
-Made nacatomales….FROM CORN!!! No way.
Since I’ve been back I’ve learned more about my family than when I left. But since I’ve given up complaining for Lent (I know stupid…but it’s really changed my attitude), I don’t want to write what I’ve noticed with the small chance that my honesty will be mistaken for complaining. ~Perhaps a snake mistook it for an egg and ate it.~ (side note/inside joke, sorry). Back to the point…I’m still learning.
Funny story: In Nicaragua we stayed at a convention center for a couple of days. Well, on the first night when we went out to eat something happened with the water and 4 of our rooms were flooded…I’m talking like almost 2 inches of water in every room. Instead of crying about out wet things and adding more water to the swamp…we turned the tragedy into a slip n’ slide, with a intermission to make ‘water angels’ in memory of out Midwest weather situation. Most people thought what we did was gross and that we were stupid. Lesson 1: Being ‘cool’ is SO LAME!! Lesson 2: I’m still a kid at heart. Lesson 3: God so rocks all the time…because a flooded room is just what I needed!!
Other things:
-Praise God for my friend Amanda who has just been AMAZING!!! I love her.
-My body broke out in some crazy red rash…hope it’s not Dangay.
-Went to Honduras!! Woo Hoo. It rained a whole lot.
-You can make like 32 kinds of food (breakfast, lunch, supper, desert and drinks) from corn. No joke.
-I was told that the first corn in Iowa was grown underground by cavemen from someone in Nicaragua. Let me know if this is true.
-Nicaraguan history is was more interesting than US history.
-Learned how to box…a dream come true.
-Made nacatomales….FROM CORN!!! No way.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Randomness
Things I’m still getting used to:
PDA—couples will randomly make out on the bus…along with hands all over each other
Some places just smell REALLY bad.
I saw a dead rat in the run-off ditch by the road. (I hate rats, but better dead than alive)
Not making eye contact with people.
Speaking Spanish in the morning
Potholes
Things I’m finally okay with:
Throwing away my toilet paper
Fresh fruit juice—everyday!
Taking public busses
Blaring sun and drizzling rain, at the same time
PDA—couples will randomly make out on the bus…along with hands all over each other
Some places just smell REALLY bad.
I saw a dead rat in the run-off ditch by the road. (I hate rats, but better dead than alive)
Not making eye contact with people.
Speaking Spanish in the morning
Potholes
Things I’m finally okay with:
Throwing away my toilet paper
Fresh fruit juice—everyday!
Taking public busses
Blaring sun and drizzling rain, at the same time
Comfort
I went to the beach again. It was splendid. But I recently realized that the places themselves aren’t what make the experience great. As cliché as it sounds, its really how God shows Himself. Maybe a better way to say it is that I ‘get life’. It’s like everyday of my life I get caught up in me, and all the junk that fills my time—disguised as homework and my ‘to do’ list. But on vacation I see life…real life. Like seeing a blowfish. Listening to friends laugh. Watching a sunset and moonrise. And reading a chapter of a book—one that feels like a biography. There’s just something about getting away that makes me feel so much more like…like I’m where I need to be.
I think that’s how God feels about comfort; whether that’s in routine, money, tradition, beliefs or whatever. Its hard to leave it because its just ‘what you do’. But if you can find the time to pull away, you somehow get a glimpse of ‘completenes
s’ that the comfort just doesn’t have. Knowing this should make leaving comfort a bit easier…yet it doesn’t. I guess we just have to force ourselves to get away, even if it does cost a lot (like a trip to the beach). But feeling a bit more complete…now THAT, wow—how do you put that in words.
I think that’s how God feels about comfort; whether that’s in routine, money, tradition, beliefs or whatever. Its hard to leave it because its just ‘what you do’. But if you can find the time to pull away, you somehow get a glimpse of ‘completenes
s’ that the comfort just doesn’t have. Knowing this should make leaving comfort a bit easier…yet it doesn’t. I guess we just have to force ourselves to get away, even if it does cost a lot (like a trip to the beach). But feeling a bit more complete…now THAT, wow—how do you put that in words.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)