Day In and Day Out

I'm afraid my blog posts are becoming boring. Rain, ride, rant and rave about how cool life is here. Sorry.

The pictures are of Christopher's little girl. I forgot her name. Christopher is the bike guy who lives in Panilla. Jack had a flat and we stopped at Christopher's house to have it fixed. He's very nice and generous with his stuff. We ended up having to buy a bike tube from him and he helped Jack fix it.

Today was wash the sheets day. Every week I do our sheets and hope they dry before bedtime. I threw the sheets in the wash this morning and hung them on the line and they are no where near dry. Plan B. Don't have a plan B so we may be sleeping on towels.
This morning at 9:30 the girls went to Liad and Idan's graduation at their school. The school they go to is about the the same distance as the girls' middle school. About a half hour away. They have 5 kids to a class and it is grades 1-12. The girls want to go to school there. 5 kids in a class? Yeah. I can deal with that. It's a private school. Costa Rican schools aren't like that. They said the graduation was pretty fun and met some interesting people. Everyone has a story. People are from all over the world here so it's great for Jordan and Hannah to meet all sorts. They have met kids from Isreal, France, Nederlands, Chili. All speak a different launguage. Everyone speaks English. We need to learn Spanish. It's that simple. We're trying.

Jack and I rode out to the lot. We met Marc at his house and he took us to Huacas to the place where we ordered our barbed wire fence and fence posts. It was a huge purchase and thank goodness Marc was there to translate. He speaks better Spanish than he does English and the hefe (boss) came up and shook his hand. We were introduced and treated like royalty. Obviously, Marc has spent a lot of money there to be treated like that. We were in good hands. Our materials are to be delivered manana. We got back to the lot and found our 2 workers to put the fence in and it's all set. Andre, we met walking down the road carrying a ladder and asked if we needed help. We told him we might. Eddie, who dug all of the holes, is the lead guy and we asked him if we could hire Andre to help him. Si, we could and each will be paid $2/hour. We have been told over and over by everyone that it is a fair price. I'm still trying to get used to it. We'll have a fence by next week on the perimeter of the lot. A good feeling since we had no idea what we would get done, if anything. We'll take Marc to lunch next week for his help. He likes Jack and is a very mild mannered man. Very mellow. Maybe that's because he has a hard time understanding us. Jack especially. Jack talks to him as if he is getting everything and I'll have to say to Jack, "I don't think he understood a word you just said" and Marc WILL understand that and agree. It's funny. We're like the blind leading the blind. This language thing is so unreal. Everyone is communicating just fine somehow without speaking the same language. We are just amazed as to how it is all working out.
We rode away trying to beat the rain since it was threatening. We got to Panilla and it started raining. We opted to go the "long way" instead of the back way. The back way is kind of a shortcut but it is a hilly, muddy road with cows and horses and if it's raining it's gnarly. I wasn't up for gnarly since we were getting rained on and we were soaking wet and already muddy. Good thing. We stayed fairly clean on the main road. We got home, got showered and ate tortillas and rice and beans AND fresh guacamole and had an ice cold beer. The girls turned the tv on and I layed down and read for about 5 minutes and fell fast asleep. It has been raining all afternoon and it is so nice and cool in our little casita. I just woke up a little while ago. Jack fell asleep in the hammock. It feels so natural now being here. The shock has worn off. I'm still in awe everyday at the smells and the sounds. Speaking of smells. We were riding to the beach the other day and Hannah and Jordan were in front of me talking away and Hannah say's, with excitement in her voice, "Jordan, doesn't it smell like Grammy and Grandpa's house?" Jordan agreed. I asked them what they meant by it smelling like G and G's house and they both said that it just did.
We rode to the beach taking in huge, deep, long whiffs of Grammy and Grandpa's house.