Day 2: A Not So Good First Impression

I woke up at 4 a.m. put on clothes and went downstairs. Checked my mail and waited for the other students.
At 4:30 we took a shuttle to the airport. As we were going through security, we were "randomly selected" for a thorough searching. Since all ten of us were "randomly selected" I question how random it was. In fact, I know it wasn´t random because they told us it was because we had special tickets because we missed our flights the day before.
7:15 we finally left Charlotte on a 44 minute flight to Atlanta. We waited an hour and a half for our connecting flight to Costa Rica.

After leaving the airport and being harassed by some locals, we took a van to the university for our first orientation. On the way it began to rain. By the time we got to the university it was a full out thunderstorm. And orientation was in a covered amphitheater.
Orientation was fine except for the last guy who spoke. He said good, relevant things, but it seemed like he was yelling at us.
After orientation, our families were suppose to pick us up. Well, a few eof our families were waiting for us, but most of us ended up waiting a while. Eventually, our families were called and one by one, slowly they showed up. Mine was penulitmate.
We took a taxi to the house. Not as scary as an Argentine taxi, but not overly safe either. We got to the house and the mother showed me around, all in Spanish. I´m not sure she speaks English at all.
As the evening wore on I began to feel really overwhelmed. I had a hard time understanding the family. For supper I had a plate of rice and beans and potatoes and a small piece of chicken. It was good, but I couldn´t eat it all.
At some point, another English speaker walked in and I was a little relieved. Later on a married, English speaking couple came in and the wife can´t speak any Spanish so I was a bit more relieved.
This may be the hardest thing I´ve ever done.

But all is not negative. God has allowed me to get past the awkward, not talking stage really quick with the other students from Winthrop. I feel very comfortable talking to them, joking around, etc. This is a huge answer to prayer!