I had never been to an orphanage before, it was interesting. There were primarily little kids there, but they were cute, they smelled good, and they were obviously loved, although they did have some attachment difficulties. There was an eleven year old girl there that I wanted to talk to really bad, but opted out of it because I knew I would sound like a dork, and I didn’t know how she would react and things. I did get to have a “conversation” with a little boy who was probably three or four years old. He kept babbling on about something along the lines of painting. I didn’t understand a word he was saying, which was pretty embarrassing. I was being out talked by a four year old. The only thing I knew is that he like to draw, and that he really liked cars. I tried to get his name, and his age, but I got the same response to both questions that made no sense. It was entertaining nonetheless.
We stayed there at the orphanage for an hour or so until lunch, when we left to go to the Flying Tomato. My dad had been talking about this place since the day before. He REALLY wanted to go there, and honestly, I did too. I share his passion for new vegetarian or vegan restaurants. Each one is different, but this one sucked, to be quite frank. We pulled up to the place, looking around for something that looked a little bit more like a restaurant, and a little less like somebody’s house. We went in anyways, since the anticipation was killing us.
The review on Happy Cow (a website we usually fully trust because of its normally truthful reviews) said that the seating was sparse. But in reality there was one table in the place. It was occupied by us for thirty or so minutes before we decided that our play date with the dust coated dog, hamsters, and love birds was over. We had already ordered our plates of spaghetti, and some juice things, but we didn’t want to risk it. It really shouldn’t take longer than twenty minutes to make three plates of spaghetti, and it had been ten minutes longer than that by now, because it took us about ten to fifteen minutes to order. The chick who took our orders wasn’t extremely bright, and I don’t think it was our Spanish skills that were confusing her. They were pretty clear. We even used obvious charades. We did finally get what we were saying across though, and then waited for a period of time way longer than really needed. Eventually, we just put the money for our uneaten meal on the table, and left.
We then went back to our place, ate, and thought about a note that we would write in Spanish to the orphanage. This was probably the most difficult thing so far, but we did finish it, and enclosed a donation of about one hundred dollars with the note.
The original plan was that we were going to go to the orphanage, give them the note, and then leave, because we didn’t want the kids to get to attached to us, but we wound up going in anyways (which turned out to be okay). I got to hold a baby, and talk to the eleven year old. The baby was banging a rattle on my shoulder, but she was cute. Fatima was the girl’s name. She liked books, and music, and I was able to understand what room was hers. She asked me what grade I was in at one point, which made my heart skip a beat. This is a hard subject to explain in English to most people, let alone in Spanish. I told her that my home is my school (which probably made no sense because she furrowed her eyebrows), and that I was in 9th grade. Now, none of this probably made sense because half the people I tell this to look at me strange. “How can you be twelve and in 9th grade?” They ask, and then I have to go off on a long tangent of explanation that either clears things up or make things worse, depending on the person and day. Sadly, and probably for the better, she had to go take a shower before bedtime (6 o’clock!). I didn’t get to say bye to her when we left, but it was probably for the better. I’ll most likely see why later in my life why I didn’t get to say good bye to her.
(NOTE: This post was written when I was 12. I edited it in 2017 for grammatical errors and other technical stuff, but maintained the content to preserve my 12-year-old perspective)
Related Posts:
Lydian – Day 19 – The Trip to La Fortuna
Jennifer – Day 18 – Fortune and Misfortune in La Fortuna
Initial Thoughts on the Costa Rican Orphanage
Dogs, Birds, Hamsters, and the Flying Tomato
