Rambutans, Toucans, & Blackberry Wine

Jenna with a handful of Rambutan

This weekend I made my weekly run to the Feria (farmers market). I love this weekly event, I never know what fun tropical fruits I may find. A few weeks ago, an amazing fruit known as Rambutan ("Mamon Chino" in Spanish) started to come into season. This weekend I found the best looking ones yet, and in two different color varieties (red y yellow). Some people call it hairy fruit, which makes sense. You eat these little self-contained snacks by popping the skin open and eating the white flesh inside which looks a lot and is the texture of a skinless green grape. They have a wonderfully fruity flavor which I can only describe as... Rambutany... with a hint of Lychee. If you don't know what that tastes like, well I guess you are out of luck, that or you need to take the next flight to a tropical country.Red and Yellow Rambutan

Speaking of Fruit, a few weeks ago we bought a bag of Blackberries at the Feria with the intention of making them into juice. Well, two weeks later we found them in the back of the fridge. The still looked okay, and I tasted one which also tasted okay but a little tart... or was that alcohol? Well we blended them up, added some sugar, and stuck the juice in the fridge. Tonight we went to drink some with dinner, only to find it wasn't juice anymore, but rather Blackberry wine. Oops!

Waterfall at Parque Monte de la Cruz

This past weekend I also took a little trip with some friends from the school to a park nearby, well nearby on the map. An hour and a half later, and countless stops for directions, we found the park... right as the rains started. Fortunately, after a lunch in the van, the rain let up long enough for a short hike to a waterfall and up a hill. Before this trip started, for some reason I had an urge to see Toucans. I have never seen them in the wild before and hoped to see some. Soon after we arrived, a couple flew out of the woods and into nearby trees! Unfortunately due to the rain I couldn't get a good picture but I had a fun time watching them!Emerald Toucanet

Well, back to the Spanish homework during one intense thunderstorm. I might want to get off the computer before it melts to my lap.

Catch up

Blue-crowned Motmot from INBioparque

First off, our latest newsletter is on its way. If you are signed up for an electronic version, you should have received it already. Also, I have downloaded some new photos from Costa Rica into Picasa. You can get to the albums by clicking on the slideshows bellow and to the right of this page or you can follow this link http://picasaweb.google.com/JayWeigner?feat=email

Last trimester was rather slow. I felt like I was riding on top of things, sometime running way ahead of life, now this trimester I've been run over and am now being dragged along behind. Classes are much more intense this tri and I have taken on a few more responsibilities. It is mainly the Spanish learning that is getting tough. Some days I really don't want to be learning another language when I already have one I can use. But I must admit, I am getting better at Spanish and it is incredibly rewarding when I can actually carry on a conversation. I've recently learned how to talk in the past and future rather than saying silly things like "I go to the store yesterday". Unfortunately, as my Spanish skills increase, my ability to speak and write in English seems to be waning.

Where's Weigner? Jenna trapped in a maze at INBioparque

One of the responsibilities I have taken on this trimester is to organize once a month "Paseos" or little trips from the school to other parts of Costa Rica. The first paseo was a little over a week ago to a nature center/zoo/botanical garden/farm place called INBioparque. We went with about 32 other students from the school and had a great time exporing their trails, observing wildlife, and checking out the farm that reminded me a bit of ECHO. You can see photos from this trip on the Picasa page. The trip I have planed for June is to Arenal volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in the world giving viewers a daily show of smoke and lava (if it isn't cloudy). Then in July the plan is to go to a little island off the coast, assuming people sign up for it.

Worship time at the men's retreat

A few weeks ago, the men from the school left their women and children behind, passed through the "corador of death", and vanished into a secluded little valley for a men's retreat. We slipped and slided our way down one of the worst zig-zaged mountain roads I've ever seen (and I've been on some bad roads) in the pouring rain dodging mudslides and trying not to slip right off the mountain. We survived and had a great time at a camp tucked away in a beautiful cloud forest valley known as "Valle de los Quetzals". We enjoyed time on the ropes course, rock climbing, hiking, playing paintball, and just hanging out. It was a great time to get away, relax, and reflect (and not speak in Spanish). We had some great speakers and spent a bit of time talking about our struggles and fears. Some times it is nice to be reminded that all these pastors and missionaries I am surrounded by here are are just as broken and are struggling with similar things as my self and everyone else. One of the topics was on fears that hold us back. The following is an outline we talked about concerning the fears that hold us back and their consequenses.
Fear of criticism leads to leagalizm
Fear of insignificance leads to over compensation
Fear of falure leads to paralisis
Fear of exposure/vunerabiligy leads to duplisity
Fear of loss leads to control
It was a great reminder to me to fight these fears that would keep be from living efectively.

Giant Silk Moth (Copaxa syntheratoides) from men's retreat.

Follow this link for more photos from Costa Rica

ESL

(My Friend Amanda teaching ESL)

Oh the irony of my life. Growing up English was my least favorite subject. I hated grammar, I hated the busy work, I hated having to figure out what was a noun, verb, adverb, adjective etc. And now, I am teaching it. I have volunteered once a week to teach ESL (English as a Second Language) at a local ministry directed by LAM (Latin America Mission) called the AMCA house. We meet on Wednesday afternoons and my friend Amanda and I are in charge of the poco mas de precipiantes (advanced beginners). Today was my first attempt and I must say it didn't go badly at all- thanks mostly to Amanda who has actually spent time teaching English before she came.

We had a group of about 7, which was a nice size. We reviewed some more simple English to get a sense of what they knew and didn't know- numbers, alphabet, action verbs, greetings, colors etc. We sang the alphabet song, played a number game, and basically eye-spy. The afternoon consists of 2 50 min. periods with a coffee break/large group time/devotional minutes in between. It worked really well. It's good to get more interaction with Ticos here in the area and be able to offer them a specific skill (learning English) while having opportunities to get to know them and share the Lord with them. Super exciting!

Hurricane Weigner Sweeps the East Coast

(Fun with our ECHO friends, trying not to catch Heidi's germs)

We just returned from a whirlwind tour of the East Coast this Wednesday. It all started last week when left Costa Rica late Thursday evening for Miami. Long before we left for the airport, our dads (Jim & Gerry) began the longest airport run in history. They drove from New York to meet us at the Miami Airport (the reason for this insanity to follow). We arrived in Miami at midnight and then proceeded to drive 3 hours across the state to North Fort Myers where we spent a very short night at ECHO. Friday morning we forced ourselves awake so that we could spend the day catching up with all our ECHO friends and load up our stuff that we left at ECHO into the van our dad's drove down. It felt so good to be back at ECHO, to see the farm (despite its sad state from severe winter freezes and a drought) and to see our ECHO friends. That evening we had a potluck with some of our ECHO friends (mmmm... peanutbutter Chaya greens!). I cannot begin to express what a joy it was to spend time with them again. We devoured everymoment of our short visit.

Saturday morning we left ECHO and enjoyed a huge breakfast spread with my grandparents in Port Charlotte. Unfortunately that was a short visit as well but we had to get on the road if we were to get to church in PA the next morning. We drove from Florida and did indeed make it to PA in time to unload our thing into the Pfluges' basement, take a 15 minute nap, and get to church. Despite being exaused from our journey, we had a refreshing visit with CVC then hit the road once agian to make dinner at Jenna's dad's place in New York. We spent the night there then went up to Jenna's mom's place to visit for the day then spent the night at my parents'. The next morning we visited with my parents then made our way to the airport for our flight back to Costa Rica, or so we thought. We found out our flight to Newark was delayed to the point we would have missed our connection to Costa Rica so we discied to just spend another night in Syracuse rather than spend it in Newark. So we decided to try again the next day. The next day it was on time, that is until we got on the plane and found out we were delayed another 2 hours. We managed to make it to Newark with 15 minutes until our next flight and two terminals to hop to get there. When we made it to the gate (sweating and out of breath) they told us the flight was moved to the other end of the terminal. We then hoped on a cart with 6 other people who were also late for the same flight. Our driver took his time making a 7 point turn and snailed his way to our gate. Fortunately they held the plane since there were enough people late for the flight. We made it to Costa Rica amazingly with all our luggage. We did, however, miss the first day of classes of our second semester.

Incase you were wondering why we planned such a crazy 5 day visit to the states, we did have a method to the madness. For one, we had a return ticket left over since we were planning on only being here for one trimester and we had to leave the country anyhow since our visa was only good for 4 months. We figured we might as well use it and move our stuff back up from Florida while we were at it.

Finally, we are settling in for the next 4 months, starting classes and getting back into our routine. It feels good.

(The picture is of a sunset near Monteverde Cloudforest that we visited during Easter break).

Ahhh a week of rest. Last week brought to conclusion our first half of language school. I can't believe we are halfway done already! On Friday Jason and I attended graduation where about 50 of our fellow classmates graduated, ready to move on to their assigned country. It made me very eager to finish our time here and move on to Bolivia. It was very encouraging and exciting to see all these missionaries ready and excited to head out to follow God's calling in their lives.

This week is a bit eclectic in our plans. We are finishing settling into our new apartment. We rearranged our kitchen and living room. It's such a wonderful thing to have our own space again, our own kitchen (even if it means we have to do dishes!), and a little extra privacy. Our neighbors are another student couple without children and on the other side is a lovely Tica lady with her Panamanian husband. We live just a short walk from school, which is very nice as well. Check out the video we've attached for a short tour of our new place!

As for our mini break from school, we plan on relaxing, getting random errands done, maybe spend a day at a volcano, and we get to head back to the US to visit! Yay! Due to complications with plane tickets once we decided to extend our time here we now are planning on spending a couple of days in the states to get our stuff from Florida and take it back to PA and NY and renew our visas. (Costa Rica allows a 90 day tourist visa + a one month extension, and after that you have to leave the country for at least 3 days and then you can return). So, lots happening and lots going on before classes begin again. But until then, I get to sleep in tomorrow. :-)

Puerto Viejo

This past weekend we went on a little trip to Puerto Viejo on the east coast of Costa Rica. Jenna arranged this trip for me as a little birthday getaway. She found this nice little hotel (3 rooms) that was off the beaten track. Puerto Viejo was a nice little town that revolves around beach life. We met up with some missionaries that our host family knows. They run a little ice cream parlor and coffee shop in town. We enjoyed visiting with them while eating their ice cream with the beach a few steps away. While at their shop, they connected us with one of their employees who has a boyfriend who works at a dive shop. So our host family connected us to the missionaries who connected us to their employee who connected us to her boyfriend, who set us up on a dive. Connections are fun.
So we did get a dive in. The conditions were better than in Guanacaste. It was good to get under the water once again. The rest of our time there was spent resting and relaxing either by the beach or at our hotel. Well, that is except for a little 5:30am hike up a nearby forested hill which I found to be a relaxing experience as well. Countless colorful birds were up and about singing their songs along with a few chattering monkeys. Of course I came across quite a few interesting creatures, the highlight of which were the Strawberry Poison Dart Frogs I found calling from the leaf litter.

It was a great weekend getaway and I came back refreshed, ready to learn more Spanish. For more photos from our trip, click on the slideshow link on the right side of this page.

Where did the time go?

Wow a month since the last post? How time flies. Well as far as school goes, life continues as usual. The Spanish learning process is becoming more challenging for me but still encouraging to see how much I am learning. Yesterday we had a break from the academic routine. The faculty sponsored a cultural day. We had the option to pick two out of four workshops. We picked one on food and one on dance. The other two workshops were cultural games and home remedies. The cultural dance workshop consisted of a sampling of a large variety of Latin dances followed by an introductory dance class in Salsa and Merengue. We butchered our way through it but it was a lot of fun. The food workshop was a tasty experience. We made a huge tropical fruit salad with ice cream, coconut & unrefined cane sugar candy, and Picadillo (kind of like a stew only eaten with tortillas). Tasty times!

We have had a few eventful weekends over the past month. The last weekend of February we spent up in the northwestern part of the country in the driest part of the country known as Guanacaste on a SCUBA trip. Each trimester there is a SCUBA course offered here at the school. Jenna took the Open Water course so now I have a dive buddy! Of course I wanted to go along on the dive trip so I took the Advanced Open Water course.

Guanacaste, right now during the dry season, looks like a combination of the northeast USA in the fall (after the leaves have fallen) and Arizona. There were huge cacti growing between bare trees. We set up at Playa de Coco (coco beach). This area is known for some great diving and incredible wildlife. Unfortunately we were at the right place at the wrong time. A cold, cloudy current moved in and made for an interesting dive with only 5-10 feet visibility. I was rather disappointed with the first two day dives. It was hard to see much and the cold, constant currents were frustrating. However, part of the advanced class was a night dive and it was incredible. I thought it would be overwhelmingly eerie to dive at night, and getting in the water at night was a little creepy but once we descended it was one incredible experience floating in complete darkness guided only by our lights. We saw quite a few Sting Rays and the biggest Green Moray Eel I've ever seen. One of the most fascinating experiences on the dive was when we turned off our dive lights. In the darkness, any movement in the water caused phosphorescent bacteria to glow green. It felt like we were swimming through a galaxy of green stars. Each diver left glowing green trails in the darkness. The next day of diving was a bit better than the first since the water had cleared a little over night.