Taxi rides, friends and families, and a dead guy

The past few days we have spent in San Jose. This past weekend, some new friends from San Jose came to visit us—Luis and his wife Gabi. They have worked with QERC in the past, so they came to meet us and while they were here, they took over our kitchen and cooked all our meals for us. It was great to get to know them and they are a great contact and resource for us here in Costa Rica. When they went back home on Sunday, we rode into the city with them.

Since David and I spent most of our time in the city when we were here as students, we really felt like we were at home in San Jose. We had a great time running errands, shopping for QERC, and meeting up with people. We had lots of purchases to make for the reception area, the laboratory, the snack bar, and some things for our apartment. We got to ride taxis all over the city and visit lots of different stores.

One of our errands was to stop by the University of Costa Rica (UCR). We met with a professor of entomology (insects, for those non-biology majors like myself), who is helping us with our own insect collection at QERC. It was fun to be on a college campus, and we hope to make more connections there in the future and host student groups and professors who utilize our facility for education and research.

Our first night we stayed at a hotel right near the downtown area, and it was pretty nice and quaint—with the exception of a bunch of parakeets squawking outside the window and taxis honking at 5:30 in the morning. We had wanted to check out a few hotels in the area. When we woke up in the morning, we went to a market downtown to do some bargaining. When we returned, we were walking back to our room and David saw two policemen standing outside one of the rooms. He glanced in as we walked past, and exclaimed “there’s a dead guy in there!” So later I went back to check it out as well, and sure enough, I saw his legs also. The rest of him was covered up with a blanket. A hotel worked we asked said that he was old and died in his sleep. At this point there were lots of people swarming around the room, and since we had already discussed checking out another hotel, we decided that was a good time to check out. :) So we walked across the street and checked into another one. We liked this one even better and stayed there the next two nights.

One outing that was really fun for us was visiting LASP (Latin American Studies Program), which is the program that we studied with 4 ½ years ago. We made our way to the building and surprised some of our old professors. Only two of the people we knew were there, but we got to meet Anthony Chamberlain who is the director of LASP, but was on sabbatical during our semester. The students are all in Nicaragua right now, along with the rest of the professors, but we had a great time catching up with don Gerardo (who was my professor of the literature concentration) and dona Jessica (who is the receptionist). Anthony will actually be coming out to stay at QERC this weekend, while his son is getting baptized at the Christian campground nearby. It felt like we were with old friends visiting with them, and they have offered for us to stay at the sabbatical house down the road from the LASP building anytime we are in San Jose in the future.

Another really fun outing was going to visit our families that we lived with while we were here as students. We first took a taxi to David’s house, and it happened to be absolutely POURING rain when we got there. We had just seen a teenage boy go into the house, and we even saw the TV turn on, but no one would answer the door when we knocked. But as it was pouring, we couldn’t even walk the 5 blocks or so to my house without getting drenched, so we waited for about 25 minutes under cover outside David’s house. Finally, I saw David’s mom peeking out the window, so after a minute or so, she let us in. She said she thought we were just a couple of gringos passing by, taking shelter from the rain! It was a neat homecoming for David and his family. His mom was so surprised, and she called up both his sisters and his dad and put David on the phone to surprise them. His sister Sophia came home right away and was thrilled to see us. We had a great time chatting with them, and right when we were leaving, his dad showed up. They gave each other big hugs! They all insisted that we call them up next time we are in town and we can go eat there for dinner.

Sophia then drove us to my parents’ house, and they were equally surprised. We were greeted with big hugs from my parents, and it felt great to be home again. My youngest sister was 10/11 when I was last there, and she is now 15! She has changed quite a bit, though my parents are exactly the same. We ended up eating dinner with them—soup, which happened to be one of my favorite things about Costa Rica as a student. My older sister is now married to a guy from Michigan, but she is coming to visit Costa Rica in a few weeks and we’ll get to see her then.

Another friend we met up with is a friend from my college, Meagan Anderson. She and I both did a Summer of Service at the children's home in Brasil, and got to know each other through that commonality. Meagan has been living in the San Jose area for just over a year, and it was really good to connect with her for breakfast before we left the city. And while it was nice and felt comfortable and welcoming to be in the city, I have to admit that it is nice to be back here in the valley and be able to wake up only to the sound of the river behind our house. :)