Greetings from Costa Rica!
It’s been a wild two weeks of exchange and celebration in San Antonio. This past week, Semana Santa, is an important weeklong holiday for most of Costa Rica. Because it is a holy week, there were many church-based activities, including the “Viacruz,” a reenactment of Jesus’ death, burial, and rebirth. The whole town squeezed into “the Clubhouse” on Wednesday night to do some research for the reenactment that was to happen on Friday (the research, it turns out, was a viewing of “Passion of the Christ.”)
At 9 am on Friday morning, we all watched as Mariah’s host dad, Luis, in a long brown wig and white tunic trudged up the hill while being followed closely by three aggressive soldiers. Pontius Pilate followed with a large, red boombox, eighties music echoing in the background. The whole thing ended on the Plaza, where Jesus and two common thieves were pulled up on real wooden crosses. I think we were all confounded by the simultaneous seriousness and lightheartedness of the town’s production.
Another interesting part of Semana Santa was the food. During this time, people do not eat meat, so many of the typical dishes include fish. We had fish soup, sardines in tomato sauce, caracoles con atun (shell-shaped pasta with tuna), soup, palmito (hearts of palm), ensalada de remolacha (beet salad), ensalada de repollo (cabbage salad), and lots and lots of arroz con leche (rice pudding) with sweet squash honey and coconut.
Semana Santa calls for a week of school vacation. So on Wednesday morning we hosted a fun day camp for the kids in the community. We had an egg toss, a scavenger hunt (with a page full of stickers as the prize at the end of the hunt), a three legged race, a wheelbarrow race, a water balloon fight, and face painting. The face painting sort of turned into body painting because after everyone’s face had no more room for drawing, the kids moved on to drawing all over everyone’s legs and arms. To see their faces when the eggs exploded in their hands, or when they won one of the races was priceless. The day was more than a success and it was such a solid, good way to spend the free time that Semana Santa granted us.
In addition to the day camp and the typical Semana Santa activities, we had lots of fun with the youth of San Antonio. On Wednesday night, we headed into the cow pasture of Mariah and Sarah’s grandparents to camp. We all slept in a regular tent, but some of the other slept under plastic sheets that they hung up on ropes between trees. During our camping trip, we cooked chicken over an open fire, laughed with our new friends, and introduced them to the concept and flavors of s’mores. Sarah and Mariah had an adventure while trying to use the bathroom. They walked down a hill to be out of view, and looked up just in time to see a cow charging down the hill! Fortunately, the cow was more interested in eating grass than in eating them, and they made it away unscathed.
After taking a few days to recover from our camping excursion, we had a slip and slide adventure on Saturday. The teens set up large plastic sheets on a hill and covered them with soap. We waited until it started raining before we threw ourselves down the hill. We all had a great time sliding and sliding and sliding. Once the rain stopped, we brought over a hose, which proved useful when we wanted the wash off all the soap and grass at the end.
Overall, while this week broke the routines we were getting used to, we managed to pack in some exciting adventures, lots of laughs, and new cultural perspectives. We had to say goodbye for our friends and families for a short while, as we will be spending the next week on our mid-program break in Panama.
Pura vida,
Jonah, Mariah, and Sarah
