The Strength of the "Yen"...

My name is Jennifer Johns. It's a good name. And I like the alliteration of it. Jennifer Johns. Go ahead, say it out loud. :) "Jen-ni-fer Johns." Did you have any trouble pronouncing your "J's"? I didn't think so. And you'd think that J-Lo would've paved a wider path for the Jennifers of the Latin American world, but I'm sorry to say that despite her popularity, "J" is still pronounced here like an "H". And well-meaning Ticos do their best to pronounce "Jennifer" correctly, but the "J" actually ends up sounding more like a "Y" than a "J". Unfortunately, "Yennifer Yohns" doesn't have quite the same ring to it...and "Yen", or better yet, "Yeni"...well, all I can say is you just have to get used to it.

Last Friday, Daniela invited me to her church youth group's talent show. She and a couple friends got all dolled up and we walked over to the church. They weren't quite set up when we arrived, so we made a grocery-store run for snacks and then went back over. In the show, there were lots of guys playing guitar, lots of girls singing badly, and an inappropriate-for-a-church-talent-show dance routine with way too many pelvic thrusts. Regardless, it was pretty fun hanging out with the girls.

Saturday, I had plans to go to the center of San Jose to do a bit of souvenir shopping and to go to the Gold Museum. Don Quincho volunteered to take me, and Daniela went too. We had a fun day that ended with a "fruit salad" that turned out to be fresh fruit topped with ice cream and cream and jell-o...! !Que rico! :)

Sunday, we took a day trip to the province of Limon. My host mom's sister (Yami) and her husband (Roberto) have a house they are building there, and my friend Beatriz and I were invited to go and spend the day with the family. The drive was beautiful, and in the course of the day, I swam in the river, drove the family van (stick-shift and without power steering!), went fishing "lasso-style", and saw more of this beautiful country. It was a great day! :)

Now, as beautiful as the country is, I have to admit that I'm pretty sick of the bugs. Particularly the bugs in my bedroom. I know, spoiled American, huh? But the other night, I get up to take a shower and right in front of my bathroom door is a "dead" roach. You know what I mean by "dead", don't you? He's laying on his back with only antennae twitching. And I'm temporarily immobilized by anxiety. Because I'm not at home. I don't know where the broom and dustpan are...and I'm certainly not going to sacrifice a perfectly good shoe to smash him. Everyone in the house is asleep, and I can't in good conscience wake someone up to take care of a roach problem (although I did consider it!). So, I get resourceful. I'm a smart girl. And I have some newspaper in my bedroom that I decide to use as a dustpan of sorts to scoop him up and put him in the trash. Only as soon as I dump him in the trashcan, he's revived--brought back to life like Lazarus out of the grave--and he's ready for some action. Good thing I'm stronger than I look.