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We got up early Friday morning and headed out to meet everyone up at Roberts. We packed all our luggage, said a prayer, and headed south to Atlanta. We stopped in Chattanooga to grab a bite to eat and pick up our Spanish interpreter, Jose. Jose owns Monterey's in Cleveland...one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. I went there all the time while I was growing up in Cleveland.
The flight from Atlanta to Costa Rica was a little over 4 hours. It was a confusing math problem to me on what time it actually was in Costa Rica. They are on central time. We left from an eastern time zone. They don't honor the daylight savings time change so they are actually 3 hours behind us leaving from Atlanta? I don't know if I even said that right. HA!
We got to the airport, stood in a long line for customs and we met our COGOP brothers who would take us to the hotel we're staying at.
Day 2
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We ate breakfast and met early to head out to the job site so we could see what materials needed to be ordered. We made our way through San Jose, which is a very large city. The housing and buildings would go back and forth, randomly, between very poor to nicer areas. There are a lot of American restaurants like McDonald's, KFC, Taco Bell, Subway, and Quiznos. One thing that is just common is trash everywhere. It's all in the streets and in grassy open places. That was consistent no matter what part of the city we were in.
The area we headed to was close to the mountain and very hilly. I wasn't sure our van would make it up the hill, but it did. The houses people live in are made of sheet metal, wood panels, and anything they can use to construct their living area. There isn't much separating each home. From the outside, it looks like one long wall of sheet metal and material. One little boy ran up to his house, pulled on a piece of sheet metal that was hinged to everything else. That was the door.
The church has a dirt floor and small chairs. They have a stage area that is well presented. There were workers already present putting in metal support beam extensions so more block could be laid for the outside walls. We won't actually start working on the church until Monday.
After leaving the site, we went to a hardware/material place to buy supplies and materials. We spent some time there. Once we left there we went to the Overseer's home for lunch. They fixed such awesome food for us! Fried chicken, fried fish, tender chopped beef, rice, salad, fried plantain, beans....I could go one. It was one huge spread of awesome food! We ate well.
We left there and went to a church that Pastor Tim had brought a team down to build 6 years ago. It was in a very poor part of Costa Rica as well. This area actually had sewage running in the street gutters and the smell was pretty thick. The other pastor from Westmoreland that came with us explained the area was very bad at night. Apparently, there's a heavy Columbian drug presence in the area. This area actually looked worse than where our building site was. The overseer cut up coconut that wasn't rip yet and the called the milk in side coconut water, since it wasn't actually milk yet. This church structure had tiled floors, and painted walls. It was very nice. Upstairs was where the pastor and his family lived.
* Disclaimer...my spelling and grammar are probably not the best but gotta hit the hay for an early start to a long day tomorrow. Don't have time to check it.
