Still finals

Not much of an update, but wanted everyone to know where we were at with finals. I have my last final today - it's going to be brutal - a lot of info that's very confusing. Madison took her written Spanish exam, will take her oral exam today (hopefully) - they ran out of time and didn't get to her, so now she has to find some time during the next few days to take it. She also has her Science and History final today. We are all out by noon today - and I will be able to breath a little easier, having all of my tests behind me. Rumor is we will get our grades on Thursday. So, please pray for Madison as she is still neck deep in finals. Love to everyone!

Finals update

Mike has completed all of his finals last week. He will still be busy learning new things, but nothing to be tested on, and probably no homework. I had 2 finals on Friday and lots of homework over the weekend. We are finishing up on a topic in our grammar class, and will be tested on it on Wednesday. Confusing information, so prayers would be greatly appreciated! And poor Madison - oral Spanish test on Monday, written Spanish test on Tuesday, Science and History finals on Wednesday, Grammar and Math finals on Thursday, and Bible final on Friday! Whew!!! She will be READY for vacation! So, prayers for the Pettengill family would be greatly appreciated this week as we wrap things up.

La Carpio

On Saturday we are all going to La Carpio for a Christmas party for underprivileged kids. La Carpio is neighborhood where the poorest of the poor live in a city landfill. Most of the people that live there are Nicaraguan refugees. Students from our school are organizing a Christmas party for 200 kids from La Carpio.

Mike has been attending a ministry to the kids at La Carpio on Thursdays. Take a look at this five minute video and learn a little about the kids of La Carpio and the ministry:

Field Trip

Only men are allowed to work the saws because how dangerous they are

Only women are allowed to sort and string the beads because of their small, dextrous fingers

The warehouse women aren't allowed to talk, only listen to music because it's considered rude to not pay complete attention to someone speaking to you, and that would require them to look away from their work.

String together a placemat

a "puzzle" jewelry box


Some of the final products

Our language teacher wanted us to experience some Costa Rican culture, so she organized a field trip to a local wood working factory. They ship all over the world, and employee 250 people in the factory, and another 150 women they allow to work out of their homes. This is a new concept for the people of Costa Rica - women with young children rarely have an opportunity to work because there are no child care centers here, and the women are completely responsible for house and children. So, this is an incredible opportunity to involve women who would otherwise have been unable to work. It was quite impressive to see all that is involved in making these wood pieces. Enjoy!

So...what DID we learn?

We have been here for 3 1/2 months - not that long in the grand scheme of things - but here we are getting ready to end the trimester. We have come a long way - here is the nitty gritty for those who want the down and dirty. For more details, keep reading.

Vocabulary words learned: 685
Verbs learned: 310

Over 900+ words we were given to learn...

Keep in mind that these are words that we were given to learn. These don't include the hundreds and hundreds of other words we have learned along the way - after the 4th time your teacher says, "por ejemplo", you figure out she is saying "for example" - this is an example of vocabulary we weren't given to learn, we learned from immersion por supuesto (of course).

Now, for the details (stop reading if you are already bored, or could care less):

• Conjugation of verbs in present tense - both regular and irregular verbs


• Conjugation of verbs in two forms of past tense


• We only have 12 more ways to conjugate verbs we have to learn....sigh....


• We learned that EVERY word is either masculine or feminine, and each has an article that goes in front of it: la casa (as an example), or una casa, or unas casas, las casas (the house/es)


• Then of course your adjective has to agree with the masculine or feminine tense as well. Do you live in a red house (rojo)? Then of course it's not rojo - it's raja - because it must match casa - yo vivo en una casa roja.


• Boring you yet?


• We learned about Estar and Ser - both "to be" verbs - and the 20+ different reasons you have to know to determine if you use either Ester or Ser


• Then we learned about "perifrasis verbales" - different phrases to say different things


• Then came direct objects - easy you may say - well, that's in English - Spanish is entirely a different thing!


• Indirect objects, of course, came next.


• Then substitutions of both the direct and indirect objects (Ellen went to the store....changes to "she went to it"...oh so easy you may say? Even third trimester students confuse when/how to use these)


• How to phrase a question - different format than regular sentences


• then comes reflexive verbs. It's used when something directly affects you - such as you look at yourself in the mirror. The sentence structure is different. A VERY different way of thinking about things.


• Intransitives - You think you like the cookie, but in Spanish, the cookie is pleasing to you. In English, "You" is the subject of the sentence, but in these type of set-ups, the "cookie" is the subject of the sentence.


• All of the above is JUST what we learned in our grammar class. We have two other classes


• In our phonetics class - we spent the whole trimester trying to sound like a Spanish speaker, not a gringo - learning diphthongs, accents, syllables, intonation, etc. We have had some success with it :-)


• In our conversation class we try to pull it all together! Each week we have a different topic we discuss. House, family, foods, animals, occupations, etc. We learn words and verbs about each topic, then discuss them in class.

Well my friends - that's it in a nutshell. I've only covered our main topics - we learned so much more, but if you are still reading, I don't want to bore you even further. I've included a picture of the flash cards I made, and vocabulary lists of words I didn't make flash cards for. Enjoy!

Winter in Costa Rica

Yes, I hear it's very, very cold in the States right now. We had to "suffer" through 3+ months of rain - all day, every day! However, now we reap the benefits of that - Winter in Costa Rica. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. These was taken outside today. I've also included a picture from our friends who enjoyed their first snow fall for the season as a good comparison - they live in Chicago (Jess...Aaron - hope you don't mind - all credit for the beautiful picture goes to them!)

Chicago - where Aaron and Jess live


Mike getting ready to go run in the sun!


Madison, on the way to school -shorts and shades!

Sushi in Costa Rica

Yes, we found it - Sushi in Costa Rica! We had heard of a place that was supposed to be not too far from one of our local malls. We saw a movie, then grabbed a taxi to find it. Of course we didn't know the name of it, and asked our taxi driver if he knew of any Japanese restaurants in the area. Well...we started off, not really knowing where to go - the taxi driver managed to find a place for us. We stepped inside and immediately knew we were way under dressed! But...we were here for sushi, not for looking good. We sat down at the sushi bar and got to talking (in Spanish) to the sushi cook. Come to find out we were in the biggest sushi restaurant in San Jose! And it's no wonder - the sushi was incredible! We gorged ourselves on the first sushi we have had in over 3 months! It was an awesome moment! One you wouldn't understand if you aren't a sushi lover! So - another interesting moment of eating sushi, a Japanese food, prepared by a Tico, ordered in Spanish, and consumed with relish! Ahh!!!!