Today marked the end of our fourth week of Spanish lessons (three full weeks plus an abbreviated first week). The structure of our instruction has gradually changed as we become more competent in the basics. When we started we were getting three hours of hard core instruction each day and we were pretty well cooked by the time class ended at 11AM. The intensive instruction phase also made it challenging for Jill to come home and quickly transition to Therapy Jill for a 12PM or 1PM client.
Over the last week or so, our Profesoras have decided we are now competent enough with the basics to evolve the structure of the class. From 8AM to 10AM each day we still have hard core instruction, but then from 10AM to 11AM our Profesoras pick a topic and we just converse. Each time we stumble in the conversation Profesora Ana will write the word or phrase we stumbled over on the white board, then with a few minutes left in class we will review the things on the whiteboard before we are dismissed. The conversations are going well enough that Jill and I now leave class at 11AM feeling successful and engergized. That’s preferable to overwhelmed.
By the end of the instruction portion of today’s class we were within 2 pages of the end of our initial Spanish book. Sometime Monday we will move on to book #2. There have been a number of topics that we have asked about over the last several weeks where our Profesoras have told us that would be in book #2. As a result, we are both anxious to get our hands on the new book. The big goal for me is to master my use of prepositions and connectors, which are supposedly early in book #2.
I may have mentioned this previously, but Jill is way ahead of me in terms of getting comfortable speaking in complete sentences in Spanish. Jill is totally fearless and if she needs 5 simple sentences to get her point across she picks her verbs and starts talking. I have not yet mastered the art of simple sentences. My head is a crowded noisy place. I spend a whole bunch of extra time tongue-tied because I am trying to make beautiful flowery sentences that I don’t yet have the words for. Almost invariably, our Profesora will finally grasp the point I am trying to make and remind me of words that we already have in our vocabulary that communicate my point succinctly. I’m hopeful that sometime soon I will start thinking in Spanish verbs instead of English ones, because I think that’s where I’m tying my own shoelaces together. Poco a poco.
A funny thing happened yesterday during our discussion hour with Profesora Ana. She was describing how pressure cookers (called “ollas”) are the implement of choice in a lot of traditional Costa Rican recipes and that she has a love/hate relationship with her pressure cooker. It allows her to cook things quickly, but when full and scalding hot, the weight is hard for her to get it from the stove to the sink so that she can run it under water to release the pressure. And she never knows until she’s got it up to temperature whether the o-ring is sealed right. Then she started to describe this thing she’d heard about but never seen called an “olla programmable.” The penny dropped for both me and Jill at the same time. We realized she was talking about an InstantPot! If you know me, you know I love me some InstantPot. I got super excited and told Profesora Ana that the InstantPot is indeed life-altering and magic. She said that her daughter-in-law in the United States has one and raves about it, but that she cannot find one in Costa Rica. Jill and I resolved in that moment to bring an InstantPot back to Costa Rica when we come back from our intermission in March. We will use it for the rest of our visit and then leave it with Profesora Ana as a parting gift. Because I wasn’t sure whether the manual in the InstantPot box includes Spanish instructions, I downloaded the Spanish language manual from the InstantPot website and sent it to Profesora Ana. She totally geeked out on the manual 🙂 In a million years I would not have guessed that I would be blogging about having a stimulating conversation in Spanish about an InstantPot.
We get a 15 minute break each morning at 9:30. Jill and I enjoy exploring the grounds of the school during our break..
Jill had a touch of homesickness yesterday, just a few days shy of the four week mark. Jill has done a nice job of putting up our favorite photos around the house and we are definitely not living out of suitcases, but there’s no denying that this is not OUR house. I’m thinking that having an InstantPot here will help. I can make Jill my Chicken Adobo whenever she’s homesick. I’m fairly certain that Chicken Adobo is second only to golden retriever puppies in its ability to provide comfort.
We took a walk down our hill late yesterday afternoon. Being in and around the beautiful flora helps also with homesickness.
I haven’t figure out which tree it is yet, but there’s a tree around here that is dispersing these seeds. They’re maybe 3″ in diameter. NASA should study their properties because they stay aloft forever and fly for miles.
It’s Thursday or as we say in Costa Rica… Hoy es el Jueves.
And everybody knows: If it’s Jueves, it’s date night!
Jill and I are creative problem solvers. If necessary we can make a memorable date night out of a frozen pizza and a box of wine at home. Tonight we are going the more conventional route and trying a new restaurant in Atenas. Review to follow.
Jill and Todd in Costa Rica 
Ha! You certainly didn’t fall far from the tree! Your dad is exactly the same in our conversations with Lorenza. He is all bunched up talking about the World Bank, Italian politics and God knows what, always looking for a fancy word when a simple one will do.
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