“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”

Part I: Our House and Neighborhood

By American standards, we live in a very small house, maybe 800 feet square. There is a 6 foot by 16 foot “yard” in the back, adjacent to the cuarto de pila (laundry room) and another 50 square feet of grass beside the front gate. The major attraction for us was the large, tiled garage (which I like to call the courtyard). This is the kids’ main play area. Thomas rides laps on his tricycle at high speeds and Claire pushes around her walker (until she grows bored and moves on to Thomas’ Matchbox cars).

The house has three bedrooms and two baths (which is one of each more than we were expecting). The owner installed cabinets in the kitchen and wardrobes in the bedrooms (both rarities in Costa Rica rental homes). Thomas and Claire each have their own room (and for this, we are very thankful!). Each of bathrooms has a shower with an electric water heater. This is a heater connected to the shower itself. Water runs through electric coils before is falls from the head. Now that may seem somewhat dangerous, but it’s perfectly safe (as long as you do not touch it while the water is running).


As I’ve written before, our house is in a newer section of an established neighborhood, Villas de Ayarco. Villas is about 20 minutes from downtown San José on the main highway to Cartago (the old capitol city) and Panama. It is a working middle-class area, nearly self contained with a grocery/hardware/clothes/shoes/housewares store (Pasoca), countless corner shops (pulperías), two panaderías (bakeries) and a few restaurants.

Charging a fare of 155 colones (30 cents), the local bus winds slowly through the neighborhood, picking up passengers headed to San José. The buses stop near the center of the capitol city and then turn around after collecting the passengers on their way back to Villas. The buses are clean and great view from which to watch people and learn the area.

Every Saturday morning, the main street is closed off for the fruit and vegetable market. Everything from bananas, watermelon and green beans to exotic fruits (that I still do not know the name of), is sold by farmers from the surrounding countryside. In general, the prices are cheaper than in the stores. This morning, among other things, I purchased 10 bananas for about 29 cents!

For less of a cultural experience, HiperMas is just on the other side of the highway (about a twenty minute walk from our house). HiperMas is like Wal-Mart in Spanish. There you will find everything from ovens, to clothes, to groceries, to fresh tortillas. And just like a Wal-Mart in a small town, it is community meeting place on Saturdays and Sundays. On these days the lines are like long trains of carts, many full to overflowing with a month of food.

Villas is a friendly neighborhood. People are quick to say good-day or smile. Since we do not exactly look the same as everyone else (we have not seen any other gringos around), many people have kindly asked if we were new to the neighborhood. Everyone speaks Spanish, so our language skills are continual stretched and, hopefully, expanded.

We look forward to the rest of our year here. The last two weeks have been excited and new, but not been easy. Nothing is convenient. Everything takes a longer than you expected it would. However, this is all part of living in another country and culture. It will be an adventure and this house and Villas de Ayarco will make a great home base.

Stay tuned for Part II and Part III, on Costa Rica and on the ministry we are working with.

Paz

We're Here!

We've now been in Costa Rica for a little over a week. It's taken some time, but we are starting to get settled in and figure out our new neighborhood. Our house is in a new section of a established community. The house is perfect for us and our family. Thomas and Claire like it a lot and play well here. They expecially like garage (aka Courtyard). They spend most of the day playing out in this walled in area in front of the house.

Thomas has quickly taken to riding in buses and taxis. Every time we get near the front gate, he asks to "go ride in bus?". Taxis here are red and whenever we see a red car he points and shouts, "Taxi!" I think he considers "Taxi" to be the personal name of the red car (and the red car's driver), like "Thomas" and "Diesel" from the train show. Everything here is a new experience and he is soaking it all in.

We'll post more pictures at stories when we get a chance. The sun is shining outside and we better take advantage of this time. So far, the rainy season has been true its name.

Coffee

Coffee (or, "Foffee", as Thomas calls it) is a national treasure of Costa Rica. Coffee farming and exportation has played a major role in the history of the country. Though much of the original coffee land has been replaced by homes and roads and sprawl, there are still countless hectacres of active plantations. These farms are mostly on the mountain side in the highlands of Costa Rica.

I learned to drink coffee in 9th or 10th grade. These were days before the fame of Starbucks and coffee shops. The only places to get coffee, around here at least, were country cooking (a.k.a. "kountry kooking") restaraunts, usually between the hours of 6 and 9 a.m. One of these places was "Vittles" on Whitlock. For $4 you were served an unhealthy amount of food, with all the coffee you could drink.

Vittles was regular meeting location for a Bible study group I was in with my youth pastor (Tom Tanner). Now Tom was (and is) a big coffee drinker, but the real pressure to try coffee came from the atmosphere of Vittles, not from him. You just don't go to a place like that and order milk or orange juice like it's the your middle school cafeteria. You drink coffee, regular and black.

Coffee did not become a daily part of my life until college. By this time, Seattle had shared its little coffee house trend with this rest of the country. Coffee houses were popping up all over, especially around university campuses. For this reason, and because of the late and odd hours that ever college kid lives, coffee and caffeine became a major study and survival aid.

However, it was not until my first trip to Costa Rica that truly discovered coffee. In the "Grano de Oro" (Grain of Gold, as they call the coffee fruit), my eyes opened to true hot beverage perfection. When Ali and I returned to Costa Rica for our honeymoon, we were both hooked.

Now, this, of course, is not the reason we are moving to Costa Rica. The "Grano de Oro" did not influence our interpretation of God's will for our lives. However, this is an added bonus! We could have been called to countless other, non-coffee drinking countries (and one day soon we may be). But for now, for this season, we are very thankful to moving the land that produces the finest coffee in the world. Gracias a Dios!

Top Ten Things I'll Miss About America / Marietta

In no particular order...

10. Family and friends
9. Smooth roads without potholes
8. Convenience of Kroger (1 mile from our house)
7. Convenience of a car (to drive 1 mile to Kroger)
6. Family Dinner Night
5. The Worship and Teaching at RiverStone Church
4. Our neighbors on Hope Street
3. Autumn (the season)
2. Our House (the only house our kids have ever known!)
1. The World Series!

Once again, this is not in order of importance...

Recent News

Cousin Graham was in town earlier this month with his parents, Steven and Allison, and sister Georgia. This marked the beginning of the celebration of Claire's first birthday. We shared meals at the Bailey house (Mimi and Papa Bailey), and had Claire's first cake on Saturday night. Graham is four and LOVES to play baseball (a.k.a. Wiffle Ball) outside with the men. I think he could play non-stop for hours. Luckily for the adults, the severe heat gave us a good excuse to cut the games short! He also plays great with Thomas and Thomas thoroughly enjoys himself when Graham is in town.

As I mentioned, it was Claire's birthday last week. We had cake before her birthday with the Steven Baileys and April (sister), Shannon (brother in law) and Daniel (nephew). As she does with any other food, Claire devoured her cake.
She also had her first experience with spaghetti on the same night, which was a bit more messy...
In other news... we are busily packing up our things, preparing to leave for Costa Rica in October. We have boxed up and given away many things, but there is still much left. We have even found a few wedding presents, still in the box, that it may be time to part with.

Please join us in prayer that God would continue to prepare our hearts and prepare the way before us in Costa Rica.

It's hard to get pictures of...

...Thomas! Looking through our pictures to add to the blog, I've realized that pictures of Claire outnumber shots of Thomas by about 5 to 1. At first I thought maybe we had been neglecting our eldest, but then I figured it out. Thomas can run, and stays in motion for most of the day! Don't get me wrong, Claire is a highly mobile crawler, yet even so, she's much easier to capture with the camera.

Alas, we will keep trying with Thomas. Most of what we have is blurred, or of the back of his head. I think this is the best we have over the last few weeks:

Eventually, Thomas does slow down. Usually he will stop for a Thomas the Tank Engine or Hillsong United DVD. He will sit and rest until he is ready to go again.

So, sorry Thomas. I hope you don't look back our pictures over this year and think we had forgotten you!

October!

The Bailey family is getting ready to move! We have begun the long process of sorting and packing, deciding what goes, what stays, and what we'll give away. You'd be amazed at what you can accumulate with a couple of kids!

We will be in the States for another two months, packing and spending time with friends and family. Pray for us as we prepare to take this step of faith!