The first week of Spanish school is always exhausting. Your brain is trying to grow like a two-year-old, and it doesn’t really like it. Also, sleep is necessary to reinforce the new pathways your brain makes when it’s learning new things. In the first week of Spanish school there’s a lot of pathways to reinforce.
Sina, who’s German, was finding being in a country where she could only speak Spanish or English a bit overwhelming (especially when combined with a near total lack of sleep for about 36 hours). I told her then to give her a brain a chance and that everybody feels that way. Fast forward to later that week, when I was complaining of exhaustion and brain-hurtiness. Zaida had to tell me to give my brain a chance and that everybody feels that way. Ooops.
I was so distracted that week that when Maria washed my clothes, I wore what was left and clean repeatedly because she never brought them back. Finally, after 2 and a half days, I asked, Maria, you have my clothes? She looked at me like I had grown three heads. The clothes were in my closet.
Even though I was exhausted, I was especially excited for cooking class–it had been my favorite thing last time I was here. And I was not disappointed. We tasted a bunch of fruits, and then we made dinner. We had refresco of maracuya, cas, and guanabana, with an amazing salad of manzanas de agua, pineapple, cabbage, and other amazing things, and chorreadas, all of which (except the ones I mangled), disappeared rapidly with the help of yummy natilla*.
Also, it’s always fun to watch someone eat cas for the first time.
*natilla is the tico version of sour cream, only less thick and with a slightly different flavor.
