Tinga...

Im now back in Moraiva and more than 3 months in Costa Rica are now over! and what an amazing 3 months it has been...especially these last 3 and a half weeks! I have aboslutly fallen in love with Grecia, Costa Rica and the amazing people there. I have gotten really close to my family and people in the church and It was truly hard to leave today. These last weeks working at the school have been amazing and I have gotten very good at using mandatos in Spanish! ;-) There was one day right before Semana Santa that I even had my own classes the whole day and I was actually in charge and teaching as a sub! It was awesome! I really grew close to a lot of the kids in the school and I know I will not soon forget them!

My family in Grecia is awesome! I feel so close to them. My brothers honestly feel like my brothers! On Monday the 6th I was talking with my brother Dani and we got on the subject of food and cooking and I said that I loved to bake choclate chip cookies and he got excited and asked if I could teach him so we went to perriferricas (Grocery store) and got ingrediants and then went back home and made amazing choclate chip cookies! it was a blast! When we were finishing up cooking them the rest of my family came home and my mom and grandma made empanadas and we all sat around the table talking and eating empandas and cookies. It was truly awesome. It felt like we were all a big family and wow was it great!

My birthday was on Wednesday the 8th and that was my first real day of vacation for semana santa. I got woken up midnight by my brother Dani because he said he was going to be the first to wish my happy birhtday! After I actually woke up much later I hung out with all my brothers and then that night a bunch of friends came over and we played games and had pizza and cake and had a great time. It truly was a great birhtday!!!

Over Semana santa I got to hang out with all my brothers and my family a lot and we taught each other awesome card games! Last Saturday Andres, Dani and Yoshi (my brothers) and I stayed up until 1:30 playing cards and talking and joking and laughing about ridiculous things in Spanish and English, and then Dani and I stayed up til 2 talking some more. It has been awesome getting to know my brothers and getting really close to them. I love it!

last night we had a ceremony for the program and my class sang ¨cana dulce¨ and we were dressed in typical Costa Rican outfits! it was really awesome. We recieved certificates for the program and I even got to recieve my certificate from my brother Dani who was one of my teachers! we then took a lot of pictures and hugged and said goodbye to all the amazing friends we have met there and when we got home Dani and I made another batch of choclate chip cookies while discussing many things including me being a tinga- half tica, half gringa. Ive learned so much about the culture and people here and even learned a bunch of slang from my family! I love Costa Rica so much and boy am i going to miss it!

It was so hard to leave today and as i hugged my mom goodbye i was crying. Thankfully i get to see my brothers again this week because we are going to get together for a movie tomorrow and go to a jazz cafe Friday night! I have truly loved Grecia so much! The people there are so awesome and I have made so many friends for life and I have gained three awesome brothers! I truly love Grecia and my family there and its hard to be leaving and I know a part of my heart will always be in Grecia Costa Rica.