Well, I’ve been home for Costa Rica for about a week and a half already, and let me say, I didn’t notice how different Costa Rica was when I got there—I guess because I had prepared myself to be living in a dark and dirty dump and our Costa Rican house was actually very nice—but when I came back to Lindon and started hearing everyone speaking in English again, I realized that here is quite different from there.
The streets are cleaner, there is no jungle around you, people don’t speak Spanish, everybody’s white, everybody has modern conveniences, I can use a disposal and I kept burning my hands in the hot sink water after I went to the bathroom for the first few days. (In Costa Rica almost no one has hot water. We were one of the few people that did because Middle Class in the United States is RICH in Costa Rica where so many people are farmers, taxi drivers, and construction workers).
I had Saren smell my shirt yesterday, “Smell it! It still smells like Costa Rica!” Or at least it must have smelt like whatever smell I got from letting it air dry outside in Costa Rica… and from wearing it when I still smelled like the ocean and sunscreen…
It is so much easier not to speak Spanish. I feel a little like I’ve “abandoned ship” from my family by being back here again. By the time I left I felt like I was just starting to get to know the people of the Costa Rican ward better. I’m really glad that I was able to help with giving out clothes before I left. The people of Puriscal are really admirable people. They’re so polite and respectful and warm to other people. There are those who are rude, of course, but as a culture I think they’ve saved a little more human kindness for themselves than some other places in the world, but that might be just because it was a small, poor town, and… I guess you’re pretty much shooting yourself in the foot if you are unkind to the people that you have to grow up with all your life…
Salmon
I had my first taste of Salmon. Saren was adamant that I try fish sometime, so she bought a fish, cooked it for dinner, and even catered to my whining and cut a very un-gross piece for me to try. My first complaint was: “Ew! It’s PINK! Meat’s not supposed to be PINK!”
Saren: “It’s fish! It’s salmon! Of course it’s pink! What other color would it be?”
Me: “WHITE!”
Saren: “Fish aren’t white! It’s cooked! Salmon is pink when you cook it, here I’ll show you…” (and then she goes to her computer to prove something I already believe. The point is, it’s PINK. I don’t care if it is raw, it is still PINK. And pink + meat = MALO [bad]).
My second complaint, after trying the miniscule piece and letting Saren cut me more:
“Don’t get me skin… EW! SKIIIIN!!!! GET IT OFF!” (Saren rolls her eyes and gets the nasty gray skin in the sink while I hyper-venilate). “EEEWWWWW!!!”
I set it down on the counter, wander away, and then I give out my third complaint: “AW! I can see where the skin was! It’s gray and indented! AAAAH!” (Saren rolls her eyes again and picks the nasty parts off, and I eat with less complaining.)
Gee, I was hungry enough I probably could’ve eaten it if it WAS gross, but it was good… even though it was pink… and I was only giving her such a hard time because I couldn’t give in to fish that easily after I’ve been screaming at her about how disgusting it is for all these years I’ve known her. She’s a good sport about my whining though; It’s a good thing I tried it with her first too, since I could ditch the rest I didn’t want to eat on her… and I wouldn’t have been able to bawl so much if I had had it from someone I had to act civilized around , you know…
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