Flying Candy

I went to La Carpio on Wednesday afternoon with Pastor Erik, the pastor for that community.  Like many of the ILCO communities, as I've told you, La Carpio is made up of many nationalities, mostly immigrants, the majority being from Nicaragua.  I went there because Wednesdays are schedules to be my days off/used for lesson planing, but since I haven't started classes yet we decided I should do some getting to know people.

The bus to La Carpio takes about 45 minutes from downtown San Jose.  Erik met me at the bus stop downtown so we could ride together.  Circling the bust stops are many street vendors selling purses, toys, lottery tickets, candy - you name it.  While we were waiting in line, a man selling candy out of a cardboard box lost his balance and dumped the whole contents on my feet.  I, of course, bent down and began scooping up his treats and tossing them, handful by handful, back into the box.  Erik, who had his back turned to me while standing in line, missed the entire ordeal and only turned around as I was fixing a problem that I did NOT create.  He found it amusing to spend the first 30 minutes of the bus ride to La Carpio blaming the whole fiasco on my and questioning whether or not he should allow me in the daycare with all the children at La Carpio.  He made me promise not to steal their toys or throw their treats on the ground and stomp on them.  Sweet guy...

La Carpio went well though.  I met Pastora, the main daycare worker there.  (PS - if you were wondering, she is NOT a pastor, that is just a common Nicaraguan name.  I found this out after she introduced herself as Pastora and I said, oh no, I'm not a pastor...)  I spent the rest of the time playing with the children.  It's fascinating how quickly children are ready to welcome in outsiders.  I wasn't there 3 minutes before I got pulled down to the table and spent the next 2 hours working out a puzzle with about 10 hands grabbing at all the pieces.  Kinda makes you wonder when we lose that openness and why.  Why we feel so inclined to use our group of friends or family as a barrier to keep others out.  What do we need to unlearn to get back to the genuine and immediate hospitality of children?

I left La Carpio around 5 by myself since Erik had some work to do there that night.  This meant I had to navigate two busses by myself for the first time, the second one in the dark.  All went well until I got scared that I was going to miss my stop so I accidentally got off 8 blocks early and had to walk the rest of the way to the church to meet up with Xinia.  Super cool and not scary at all... Almost.

Lots to tell about my adventure to El Jardin/San Julian last night and this morning.  I'll write soon.