Family Party

So this Sunday was the family party. The whole weekend I spent my time hanging out with the other trainees and/or getting ready for the big party. On Friday, some Trainees spent the night out in San Jose, but I decided to go hang out at a closer bar/restaurant in my community with the rest to watch sports. The bar had satellite TV so we got to watch the last 5 minutes of the Sharks game, which they lost with like 2 minutes left or something crazy. Then we watched game 3 of the Lakers/Dallas game, but I didn’t get to finish because I had to go home for my curfew. Actually, I got lucky and somehow charmed an extra half hour out of my family that night, so I got to stay out til 9:30. The madness. So late. Hahaha. Not really.

The next day, I left to meet up with my friend Maitreya so that we could work on the slideshow for the family party and get other decorations together since we were on the decorations committee. I ran into Thomas on the way, which was lucky since I had no idea where Maitreya lives. Basically, Thomas decided to hang out with us all day and help out with acquiring and making some of the decorations.

We decided to go to have Pizza Hut for lunch and go to one of the malls to see what was there and to see a movie. The pizza was incredibly delicious. It reminded me of being at home. On the way to the mall we saw that there was a fair going on a couple of blocks down. After walking around the mall for a little bit, we went to the theater to see if there were any good movies to see. There really wasn’t. We decided we should walk around come back later to potentially see “Arturo: Millionario Irresistable” starring Russel Brandt and Jennifer Garner. None of us had ever heard of it, but decided we would give it a shot.

We walked around the neighborhood and bought candles and such things for decorations the next day. Then we stopped at the fair because we had time to kill. After walking though and seeing a bunch of weird people and a crowd of clowns, we saw a broken down museum and decided to check it out. It turns out that it no longer runs as a museum. When we went in, we found out that they show independent movies for free there every week. At that point, we had a choice to wait a bout an hour for the independent movie or an hour and a half for “Arturo.”

In the meantime, we decided to sit at the fair out in the open. There were people in the street trying to convert us to, actually I don’t know what religion they were trying to recruit for because it said Jesus is our Savior or something, but the picture on the front looked like a hybrid of some Egyptian god and other random creatures. I was very confused. Then, Thomas saw that there was a station giving out free massages. More specifically that there was a girl giving out free massages. So, he goes up to the stand and he ends up getting rubbed down by a man. If you know anything about Thomas at all, this is hilarious.

So, since Thomas decided to get a massage, we didn’t have any time left for the independent movie and we came to a consensus that “Arturo” would be the one. Frankly, Maitreya didn’t want to watch it, but I’m pretty sure Tom wanted to see it. I don’t know if any of you have seen this movie, but let me tell you, DON’T DO IT! It wasn’t the worst movie I ever saw, but it was far from the best. It was so weird. I’m not sure if it’s because it was a British movie and sometimes those Brits lose me with their humor. It was just incredibly odd and slightly boring and slow for the most part.

After the movie, we walk out of the theater and start to go down the escalator in the mall to leave when we realize that there is a large group of people causing a traffic jam. I realize why there’s a crowd and I start to crack up. Remember when I went to visit Chamisa for tech week and we had that incident with the roller-skating? Well, the crowd had formed because they closed off the middle of the malls so that these three guys could roller skate and do these fancy roller skating tricks, which resembled figure skating more than bad-ass x-games stuff. To paint a better picture, these guys were dressed like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. However, they were skating to Trans music. Yes, it was bizarre. Maitreya and I were laughing so hard. It was so weird. It felt incredibly surreal. Anyway, we eventually made it home.

So the next day was the family party and all of our CYF trainees met at the place a couple of hours earlier than our guests so that we could set up and start cooking before people got there. My current host-mom decided to come with us because she didn’t know where it was. Yes, there was an address on the invitation, however I have to explain how streets/addresses/directions work here in Costa Rica. None of those things exist here. Houses and establishments don’t have numbers, streets don’t have names, and unless you know the area, you can’t understand directions. Seriously, addresses basically follow this format “Red House with a lawn 400 meters North of the old lemon tree.” If you need directions, the go as follow “Go to the town _____, turn left at the school, look for the old lemon tree, go north for 400 meters and look for the red house.”

Enough of that tangent, so we set up and eventually the party gets started. I have to say, it was pretty awesome. The food was amazing, the decorations looked legit, and the place was beautiful. We definitely over-estimated the number of people who were going to show up, but that’s OK. We ended with more food than we needed, which is always better than too little. Our boss told us that it was the best and most organized family party that she had attended since working for the Peace Corps. It was awesome.

There was one awkward part of the party where they made everyone go up on stage and thank their families and give them certificates and flowers. This normally shouldn’t be a big deal, however I feel awkward because my former host-brother and his family were there as well as the new family. Also, I felt bad that Andres’ family didn’t get any credit at all and had to watch while this other family got so much credit for not even doing much. Frankly, everyone in our group knows how Claire and I feel about this family, and they basically laughed at our obvious discomfort on stage. It was pretty awkward. Really, sometimes I think I’m living in an independent movie. I’m not sure how I always get into such situations.

Well, the family party ended up being a success and a bunch of us wanted to go out and celebrate and blow off some steam. We went to this local restaurant we call “White Castle” because they serve hamburgers/cheeseburgers. It is not a fast-food restaurant at all. It was a good night. We all had a few celebratory drinks and got kind of got emotional. We all started to talk about how much we love each other and are the best group ever. We keep being told how special our group is and how our manager had asked for the best volunteers and they got them. So my new thing is to say that “We are the best America has to offer.” Just to be a smart-ass. On the one hand, it’s flattering and pretty unbelievable. I mean, I’m the best in America? When did that happen? On the other hand it’s a lot of pressure. They have a lot of expectations of us. However, I do think that we are a pretty talented, passionate and hard-working group of people. So I hope we live up to the name.

That’s all for now! Laters!