Leeeeaaaaaaaaaaavin’ On a…1998 Suzuki Sidekick?

     So one thing about Costa Rican culture that I have encountered: it tends to be very non-confrontational which can at times just verge on passive aggressive.  Not surprisingly, in a town of about 180 people like La Esperanza, chisme (gossip) spreads like wildfire and more often than not if you ever really really need to know some piece of info, you will almost always be the last person in town to find out.  Well, I learned first-hand the interesting situations that can arise in such a culture when I was…wait for it….waaaaaaaaaaait for it…kicked out of my host family’s house!!  I won`t go too much into the details other than to say that I found out one day about 3 weeks ago (from my school director, not actually from my host family) that my host family just didn’t want to have a volunteer anymore (don’t worry I didn’t do anything really stupid to actually deserve an eviction) and I would have to leave that day to go to another family who would graciously host me for the remaining three months.  My neighbor, who naturally knew about this before me picked me up in his 1998 Suzuki and off we went about 5 minutes up the hill to my new family!  To sum up, I learned several valuable things. 1) Sometimes a blessing in disguise takes off its mask after only a few hours. 2) A year is not nearly long enough to understand ALL the subtleties of a different culture. 3) When under pressure, I can clean up my entire room here and move out in about 45 minutes, so if I accidentally commit a felony here, I can get out quick! Hooray!  Long story short, I am very happy (dare I say happier?) with this new family.  I am now living with the family of one of my struggling students so I will be able to help him all the time with English and given the amount of reading I have been doing with so much free time, having a porch with a big comfortable chair overlooking the coffee mountains now ain’t too shabby.  I also actually like living a little further from the school.  My old house was literally about 50 feet from the school and this new one is about a 15 minute walk and I’ve found I much prefer waking up earlier and having a relaxed breakfast (gallopinto and coffee is not designed to be downed quickly) and walking with my students as oppossed to rushing through breakfast and leaving the house 2 minutes before school starts just because I lived so close. Sometimes the move does break my heart a little bit, like yesterday when my old family’s adorable dog named Braudi followed me all the way from the school to my new house and waited on the porch staring at me for an hour until he finally realized/accepted I wasn’t going to walk back to the old house.  It’s okay though, me and Braudi are still good pals.  Dear Braudi, if you are reading this right now, I miss you and I hope you can accept this for what it is...We’ll always have La Esperanza.  Also, if you are reading this right now, holey gallopinto Batman we’re gonna be so RICH! You can read! Your friend, Mark. p.s. Can you talk too???