It has been an adjustment process over the past few days but it feels like everyone is finally settling in. We have made several Tico friends, Alonso who is working with us painting the church, Marie, our cook, our driver, and even Paul(o) and Diego --- the waiters at the hotel!! We have a feeling they are getting just as big of a kick out of us as we are out of them! We had another dinner with mucho conversation tonight and everyone spent the rest of the evening catching up on homework and talking about our day. It seems a lot of people have a new favorite food.... Cerdo de Chicharron (pretty sure I spelled that wrong) which is a delicious smoky, glazed pork. So, we all have full bellies and are ready to turn in for the night before finishing up work at the church tomorrow.

Today was a little less grueling than yesterday (which we spent the entirety of scraping paint) -- we finished putting the first coat on the walls a little after lunch and were even able to break early for the day and enjoy some time on the church porch before our driver arrived to take us back to our hotel. We also discovered the radio, and found the funniest station playing American music -- everything from oldies (lots of Beatles -- Dad you would be so proud, I of course sang all the words, to everyone's dismay... haha) to current Top 40 hits, it was as if every genre you hear on a separate station in the U.S. was conglomerated into one. We enjoyed singing along and having a little bit of a beat to work to much more than working without it, it definitely changed the atmosphere! The station kept announcing that it is "the only English music station in Costa Rica!" and we found it interesting that they are so proud of the American music.

Several of us also got a chance to practice some Spanish, which those of us who have taken Spanish courses at Mercer enjoyed greatly -- though I will say knowledge of how to take a Spanish test in college is very different than speaking with a native! I wish now that I had listened when my professors told me conversation was so important to practice. I feel a little embarrassed knowing I sound like a goofy American but I also know if I don't practice I really will never get better at it. People have been very patient and gracious about the language barrier and seem very willing to help us learn, which I appreciate and enjoy.

We held class at our dinner table tonight before ordering our meals and playing a little "trivia bowl", and it was interesting to hear everyone's reflections on how our work here has influenced how we look at our course material (even in a few short days).

People are looking forward to seeing the finished product of our work when the walls are finished tomorrow (the paint had been largely damaged due to the high humidity and frequent rainfall here, and the church does not have the manpower to complete the project on their own) -- and many are busy looking forward to our exciting canopy tour this weekend!

We are working on getting other people logged in to write as well and also trying to figure out how to best handle the picture uploading process on a computer we don't really know how to use. (: Hopefully we will have some different perspectives and pretty things to look at for you soon.

Buenos noches!

P.S. Rice and beans are getting old already....