Graduation day! (12/1/2007)

Well apparently we are now no longer beginners in Spanish, we are starting intermediate level on Monday. I'll be quick to add here that this is all according to Ana. According to us, lets just say we don't entirely agree on what you would safely say is an intermediate level. If it's walking into a fast food shop, ordering something your really looking forward too, only to find you get two of the vegetarian option, then we've reached intermediate status.

Ana said we must have a graduation ceremony for this acheivement. At first we thought it was a joke, but she was deadly serious. And so we we're to invite everyone on the campus to come, obviously not by just asking them, that would be far too easy. We had to make invitations in a language I can only describe as the Spanish equivalent of the New King James version of the Bible. So after we'd made cards asking people to 'grace us with their presence', she also insisted we made a speech. As in a speech.



In the end it wasn't that bad, in fact the graduation ceremony was a good time. We cooked 'arroz con pollo' (rice with chicken) and had some nice cookies made by Karen and her family here on the campus, also Ana let us read our speech instead of recite it. Helen and I received a nice certificate and we thanked everyone for making us feel so welcome and how nice Costa Rica is. I also thanked Ana for introducing us to 'verbos iregulares' (irregular verbs). If you've ever studied a language then you'll know just how unneccesary these things are.















Actually Helen and I are starting to understand conversations a bit better now, but are still struggling to speak ourselves.
Everyone here says there's no short cut to learning a language, it just takes time, and we can certainly see why. We're still enjoying life here on the campus and have made some great friends.