Limon Trip

Hola!

To sum up my weekend: awesome! I honestly had a great time, and I praise God for the opportunities we had this weekend. I also praise God that he has given me so much healing and the pain in my neck/shoulder is very minimal now. This has been such a huge relief and blessing for me. Thank you so much for all your prayers—God is good!

On Friday morning, we left at 8:00pm for our 3 hour road trip. We took off in 2 small buses, and made several stops along the way. We stopped at a coffee plantation and learned about coffee. We also stopped at a pineapple plantation, and this was very informative. Did you know that pineapples do not grow on trees? You would think that being a farm girl I would know more than I do…but nope. Thankfully, I was not the only one who assumed pineapples grew on trees. They actually grow on the ground above the ground! How interesting, huh? Next, we stopped at a Delmonte banana processing plant. We went out in the field among all the banana trees, watched the workers in the processing plant, and learned about how bananas get from the field to our tables. I do not think I will be able to eat a banana the same way again. It was really informative, and I love learning…so it was great!

During our ride to Limon, we saw beautiful landscape. It was just gorgeous. We were driving through the mountains, saw monkeys hanging out in the trees (literally), a sloth chilling in the tree, and tons of beautiful plants and trees. When we arrived in Limon we went to our hotel and checked in. The hotel was nice and clean, and each room had 2 small beds, which means I had 1 roommate. When we got there, they gave us money and sent us off into the city of Limon. Throughout the evening we had a few objectives: randomly go up to at least 3 different people and ask them about poverty and discrimination, eat supper, and explore the town. The town of Limon was really different than San Jose. First of all, we stuck out like a sore thumb even more. Limon is a lot slower pace and even more diverse. In fact, the majority of the people are from AfroCaribbean descent. This means that it was really obvious that we were not from around there! Anyway, we walked around town, went into cool little shops, went to supper, went out for ice cream, and talked to different people. It was a great night.

The next day we got up early and went to an indigenous reservation. This was fascinating. I was just totally fascinated by the woman who talked to our group. She is the leader of their tribe called the BriBri. We were at this reservation for a couple hours while she talked to us and showed us their iguana farm, which has a lot of meaning and symbolism behind it. I would love to talk about this more, but it is difficult to sum up this woman’s story. I also run the risk of going on and on…so if you are interested, you will have to ask me about it later :)

After the indigenous tribe we went to la Playa Cauhita. It was beautiful! The weather was perfect, and it was a wonderful afternoon. For those of you who know me well, you know that I do not like to swim. In fact, I don’t really even like water. However, I would like to proudly inform you that I was in the water for a lot of the time playing in the waves. Yeah, I know…I was shocked too!

After the beach, we headed back to the hotel for showers. Next we went out for supper at this community center place that was the starting place of Marcus Garvey’s plan (he is a famous person in African American liberation history). At this community center, a woman from Limon brought us some homemade food. The food from Limon is different from the other food in Costa Rica, and it was really good too. The best part of this night, though, was this band of 5 older Afrocaribbean men. They were retired men who have this band and play Calypso music. So here we were: a group of white American college students being serenaded by 5 older gentlemen while we ate our homemade supper. It was just so fun. After we finished eating, we all danced for a long time. Again, I do not dance. I hate dancing. But….I did. And you know what? I actually had fun! I think part of it was that the music was 100x better than the music played at dances at home. With this Calypso music we were able to dance in a fun, goofy, and completely wholesome/clean way. If you don’t know what this is, you should look it up on youtube because it’s great! We had a great time, and went back to the hotel where we hung out for awhile before calling it a night.

This morning we went to an African American Methodist church. The people were so kind and welcoming. The service was actually very similar to the Methodist churches at home with a slight African American twist. However, this was not the Pentecostal feel often associated with African American worship. Nonetheless, it was a good service. When I was walking into church, one of our professors asked me if I would get up and introduce the group to the church (the church was all in English because that is the first language of the people in Limon). Good thing I don’t have a fear of public speaking because I was up there on the spot with virtually no warning :) After church, we traveled home and stopped for lunch on the way home at a restaurant. When we were full and on the road again, the director of LASP actually came and sat by me. We had a really good conversation for about 2 hours...one of my most memorable times of the trip.

In addition to this awesome conversation, I really got to know a few girls better. This has been a blessing to get to have some really good conversations throughout the weekend, talking about really good and challenging topics. Right up my alley :) God has truly blessed me with these relationships, especially with the girl that I shared a room with.

Now that I’m back, I have a 5-7 page paper to write about poverty, and this paper is due on Tuesday…and it has to be in Spanish. Bummer. Anyway, I feel blessed from this weekend, and I am honestly feeling better and better about being here. I like it more every day, and I just feel so much more comfortable being here. In addition, I feel healthier and have more energy throughout the day. I also do not feel so out of place, and I am starting to make good friends. When I got back this afternoon, I also realized that I missed my Tica family while I was gone this weekend. I think that’s a good sign :)

Thank you so much for the continued prayer support. I ask that you pray for a good week as it will be a heavy homework week. Please pray that I can appropriately balance all the things going on in my life, and please pray that I will have time to think about the stuff that is floating around in my head from this weekend. I’m fully aware that processing the information I’m learning this semester is going to take months, even years. However, I also know that I need to at least somewhat organize the information in my head in order to reduce my overwhelming feelings and stress. Therefore, please pray that I would continue to seek God’s truth in the midst of all the different things I’m hearing and being exposed to. My bubble is being popped, and I have to decide what is Biblical truth. Please pray that God will sustain me in this process and guide me through his Spirit.