Travel day to Central America was long. Five hours to China, fifteen hours to New York, then six hours to Mexico, and another two hours to San Jose, Costa Rica. We had a day and a half layover in New York. To tell you the truth it was pretty emotional. Seeing parents coming to see their racer made me miss my family. In New York, I sent a gift home to my fam then went to REI and bought a new pair chacos. The employee thought I was crazy buying sandals in 30-degree weather. We also ate Chick-fil-A, because we surely all miss that.
We are staying at the Adventures In Mission’s base outside of San Jose. Jet lag caught me soon as we landed. Much like the US, Costa Rica has Walmart, Taco Bell, and Denny’s. Then we had a couple of days of orientation, which saved us from a lot of trouble.
Here are the cultural facts we learned:
1: You greet with a side kiss
2: There are no addresses here
3: Personal space doesn’t exist
4: Service+Tax=23%
5: If they don’t know, they’ll make it up.
6: Cars won’t stop for you
7: Burping+blowing nose= disgusting
8: It’s extremely offensive to call anyone stupid
9: They don’t like confrontation
- If you don’t care about my family, I don’t care about you.
For the rest of the month, we are serving at a church in Heredia, Costa Rica. We have been doing construction work in the kitchen and gardening for the church. We also visited a local nursing home and served them. And yesterday we spent an entire day at a farm doing manual labor.
Even though we haven’t been in Costa Rica for very long, God is already teaching me a lot. God has been teaching me to speak truth over myself and find joy in hard circumstances.
The World Race fundraising deadline is around the corner and some of my teammates still need support. I would be very appreciative if you considered donating to keep them on the Race.
https://zachgregory.theworldrace.org
https://cjshiner.theworldrace.org
https://zachtrest.theworldrace.org
Tikki
