Monday, 21 January 2008
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Los Sucesos
Well I'm settling in pretty well. I haven't been to any touristy stuff since my last entry, but I'm checking into some of that stuff and hopefully I'll go somewhere with my host brothers. I must say though, these Ticans know how to eat! I never thought I'd complain about having so much amazing food, but I will say that it's difficult to down those last few spoonfuls of rice sometimes!
They make us write more papers than I thought they would, but that's good, it makes us think more about things. So far we've learned about a lot of the injustices and inequalities in Latin American business and foreign policies. It's brought up a mixture of sympathy and desire to help along with skepticism. I've still got a lot more to learn, but basically it seems like everything we've read says Latin America has a small uper class and a huge Working\Peasant class. In Costa Rica this is less so. Our reading so far places a lot of blame on US and other foreign investors who take advantage of economically weak Latin American countries. It makes you feel bad, but at the same time, you think, "I'm not running a sweat shop or a sharecropping farm, why should I feel bad?" I'll explore these issues a lot more as the semester continues.
All this reading about politics has made me realize that being a missionary some day will be harder than I've given it credit. I mean, I come from a family of missionaries, so I sorta just expected to go for it some day and have good results. I'm starting to realize it'll take a lot of work learning a language and culture and building relationships with the people there, as well as a lot of prayer and preparation. At the same time I think I'm liking being here the more I interact with the people and become confident in Spanish and Tican culture.
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