halfway through our first trimester of language school, as schedules and friendships were being solidified, i began to compile thoughts and accounts of our daily lives. but because daily existence can be somewhat boring, and it seems now somewhat superfluous, i offer here a short(ish) version of what was once our reality.
i wake up early, at 5am, to read my bible and other religiously inclined books, and at some point in this process everyone else will awake. we make coffee, have our bowls of cereal, pack lunches, get dressed, load up our packs, and after seven we are out the door. our two-block walk to school generally coincides with those of friends’ and their families near the local park, so we greet and chat and walk together. after dropping the girls off at the preschool/daycare area in the greater language school compound, steph and i head to our first class, which is language. we learn and practice with new vocabulary and hold fumbling conversations (but actual conversations!) completely in spanish. and that’s two hours. there is an hour break where we do our homework, study, run errands, and twice a week attend the chapel held for and by the language students. we have both led worship at times. class two is grammar which is, with great classmates and a great teacher, a lot of fun. a little after noon school is over, we pick up iona and go have lunch, often inviting a friend over. in the afternoons we study, play in the park, pick up ivy at 2:30, visit, and do all the little things that make up a life. we go to bed earlier than we used to, contentedly worn from a day of entertaining kids, social interactions, and using our brains in new ways.
this routine blends into the strange but welcome opportunities for travel. weekends have allowed us to see more of the city and of this beautiful little country. for example, the other week, after weather changed plans, we were offered spots on a day trip to jaco, the closest coastal town. the beach was nice; the sunburns were not.
another recent outing took me and some fellow dads and their sons to tapanti national park. such an incredible little place and it reminded me so much, oddly enough, of many other outings, and i felt when in that new place a sense of familiar peace. i thought of creek walking around lake whatcom with my good friend tyrell; of rock-hopping along the chuckanut coast with keaton; of walking mountain access roads with both of them; of counting the many types of ferns in nyguwe rain forest in rwanda with dear friends anna and travis. and it ended up being more of an adventure than planned, what with no cell service, a several-mile walk outside of the park, a ride with friendly canadians, and an uber driver who got us around a road closed by an accident on forest routes, valiantly crossing a river in his wee car. a great day.
and now all of the burgeoning normality has been incredibly disrupted. as i’m sure you all well know. in the last few weeks, each day brought news of another little shock to society as we know it. plans for a memorial service in california were cancelled and we switched our flights to miami, the cheapest exchange, in the need of renewing our visas. in that ocean-side sprawl we saw the tangible fear in the empty shelves, stores devoid of toilet paper, baby wipes, any sanitizing product, any frozen food. we enjoyed our time as we could. we returned to costa rica and entered what felt like a different world. schools and borders closed, friends returning to the states, the local parks taped off. and so here we are, waiting in semi-isolation and hoping like everyone these next weeks to see if we have that sickness hidden in us now, if we brought anything with us, if we passed anything unwittingly on to others. it is a bizarre time, not without its element of trepidation, not without the doomsday scenarios of the book station eleven buzzing in my mind, and all this with the boredom of expectation, waiting. yet we are active. in addition to meeting online in our classes, we have our daughters with us. so we are students and teachers. we are trying to be intentional and creative with our time, making new routines, finding joy in being a family. steph and ivy bake something new every day. i take iona on a walk through near-abandoned neighborhoods. we’ve gathered a hopefully more-than sufficient amount of food. we exist.
during this unprecedented time, many are encouraging us to remember the most vulnerable, the least, the poor, the communities in which we serve. i feel these encouragements, and, like many i am sure, i am wondering just how we are to be good neighbors in a world where we can’t (or at least really shouldn’t) physically be neighbors. the internet is great, yes, but what do we actually do? some are saying loving your neighbors these days is staying home. so we’re staying in touch with those around us and those in the states. we are praying for and supporting those in our wider network as we are able.
and we stand on the street outside our friends’ house to have a somewhat restriction-acceptable hang-out. we take the girls to run around in the field adjacent the closed playground for a few minutes. staying home is a luxury, i realize, that much of the world doesn’t share. a friend who lives in china recently posted a picture of the authorities opening up their neighborhood playground. on the day they taped up our playgrounds, this was a good thing to see. yet i can’t stop thinking about the vulnerability of our refugee friends around the world, of the potential disaster if this virus finds its ways to the structural poverty of the camps. i am torn between hope and something else.
another day.
and everywhere i go i see You.. 