After a fun el fin de semana that included kayaking the Térraba River and cooking a wonderful meal con Thai basil de jardín de hierbas outside la cocina …
it was back a la escuela para nuestra última semana de clase de español.
It took us no time to get our hotel room set up. After three weeks of moving the beds around, connecting up all of our hardware (i.e. cell phone charger, Kindle charger, multiple fans, lamps, laptops, camera battery charger, hot water kettle, etc.) and putting all of our software (i.e. shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, etc.) en el bano, we were expertos at movin’ in’!
Gracias Dios! Esta semana nuestra clase was a week of espanol review.
Let’s see, in tres semanas, we were taught tres verb tenses – present, future immediate and the gerund (I talk, I am going to talk and I am talking). We learned the verb conjugations for I, he, she, you, we and they for the ar – er – ir ending regular and irregular verbs and we have learned a great many phrases, nouns, and adjectives (esp. opposites). Nuestras cabezas estaban llenos y no cabían más en ellas.
Perhaps in our resistance to mas espanol, I have to chuckle at some of the “obstacles” we faced in our final week. Things such as:
1. At study time, our papers seemed to have fallen over the edge of the balcony. Oops!
2. A new gate was put in at la finca and we had to park at la cima de la colina y en la calle a la pulperia and walk down the hill to nuestra escuelita en la jungla. And it was una caminata grande!
3. The toilet in our room broke…well, the handle no longer did what it is supposed to do.
Lest you have forgotten, one of the razones we were not staying at la finca was mi requerimiento for a flushing toilet. Um…no el pequeño cobertizo de bambú en la jungla para mi, gracias.
Entonces, moving on…
En cuatro semanas, la palapa junto a la piscina was completed –
La feria transformed from a place of frutas y verduras extrañas into magical place where yo hablo el idioma of the vendors y hay placeres en cada esquina – buckets full of my favorite fragrant lilies and perhaps the most delicious fresh-squeezed jugo de naranja I have ever tasted –
and consumimos almost dos botellas de licor and muchas comidas deliciosas!
On our last day, we celebrated our “graduation”, but we were muy triste to say hasta luego to nuestros amigos nuevos.
One of my personal Spanish objetivos for the month was to be able to read the saying on the back of los buses de rayas azules, pero yo no podía entender el dicho.
Nuestra profesora explained it to us en ingles durante nuestro último viaje de regreso a la escuela de la feria – “May God give you more than you wish for me”. Quite lovely, isn’t it?
Although I still have many miles to go before I am proficient in Spanish, I am grateful to have finally taken the first steps on the journey.
