Mi Familia Tica

So it's about time I posted some pictures of my house and family here in Costa Rica! First, here are the three of us Americans who live together: Brenda, me, and Jessica.

Brenda is from Maryland and her parents are from El Salvador, so she's fluent in Spanish. Jessica is from Washington and speaks Spanish at the same level I do.

We live with our tico (Costa Rican) family and three other students who are from various areas in Costa Rica: Jonathan, Daniela, and Tiffany. We don't see them much, they have a lot of school work it seems and prefer to keep to themselves.

My tico family consists of dad, Romeo, who works as a waiter downtown and rents apartments to families; mom, Beatriz, who has her hands full with a baby and three-year-old but is always in high spirits;

month-old brother, Isaac;

three-year-old sister, Mariana, who loves to play and has an attitude at least twice her size;

and fifteen-year-old sister, Tiare, who is in high school and studies English.

We live about two blocks from the university in a very nice yellow house. It features a small garden just inside that white fence and a larger one in the courtyard around back.

The family lives upstairs and the students downstairs in our own rooms. I got the one closest to the courtyard!

We all share common areas like the kitchen, which gives away Beatriz's love for cows;

outdoor living room, featuring a covered dining table and couch;

and BEAUTIFUL courtyard with a wall-sized mural, hammock and a variety of tropical plants.

It was a little hard getting to know the family at first because there are so many students here, but I really feel settled in now. Tiare and I complain about our school work, and Beatriz keeps me filled in about everything from what kinds of vegetables she cooks with to Isaac's bowel movements. I love to step in and hold him when she gets tired, and I even got Mariana to eat all of her lunch today!