Families in Puriscal

We are spending the weekend in the town of Puriscal, home of the famous Puriscal chorizo. A few weeks ago, I made the mistake of describing Puriscal as a ¨rural town¨in order to differentiate the living conditions there from those in San Jose, where most of RCS would be living in posh villas with American ex-patriots. I think that throughout the course of tour, the myth grew such that some grew to believe that in Puriscal, we would be ¨roughing it¨living with local families in a shack in the middle of a bean farm...

Yesterday night, we arrived at a municipal building, where we were greeted by a large group of people holding signs with our names on it. I especially liked the 1´ x 3´ handmade banner that read, ¨Jenny Hsu¨and the printed ones for Emily and Erin, complete with borders and colorful trim. Each RCSer was adopted by her respective host family consisting of cute Puriscal children´s choir members and their families. And as my host mother drove her pristine Toyota Corolla through the automated gate to their house, Cheryl and I decided that it was no rural town.

I met members of my host´s extended family and was served dinner with typical Costa Rican hospitality. We had a great conversation during dinner, despite the fact that I spoke no Spanish and the family spoke no English. (This was mostly to the credit of Cheryl, who translated everything from ¨the guys peels off people´s faces in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre¨to ¨teachers receive low salaries here¨). They were particularly amused by my comparison of the phrases ¨tengo hambre¨and ¨tengo una hermana.¨

My host sister, Victoria, is 13 years old and really sweet. She likes marine biology, archaeology, and Zac Efron, and she wants to go to Paris someday. She also has a great taste in music, as far as I can tell from the music blaring from the bathroom (rather impressive speaker system in the bathroom, it seems). It appears that she is hogging the shower, and I am hogging the internet. Somehow, this makes me feel at home...

Speaking of home, Happy Father´s Day to all the families, on behalf of RCS!