Days Two and Three

I am living proof that, whether or not it is a mortal sin, flatulence at the whiteboard is not a crime punishable by summary execution.

Besides that, getting everything wrong in the problems I was preparing first thing yesterday morning, and then missing the breakfast call—which meant we started an hour late—everything has been fine. We’ve stopped going through the PDFs of the textbooks I brought and are now looking at problems to give them practice in grammatical analysis in different languages. I’m not sure they’ll be able to keep the oomph up for two more days of endless grammar problems—I’m reminded of the Far Side cartoon about the library in hell consisting of nothing but volumes of math story problems—but I think they’re satisfied that they got what they came for already, will change the routine as it suits them, and go home happy when they think the time is right.

One participant, Josiah, has already agreed to put me up (with his family) at his father-in-law's place in Cartago and then get me to San José, so I’ll have no excuse for missing the plane home on Monday.

Josiah (another displaced Northwesterner, except he doesn't miss it) and Cynthia

At sunrise I took a hike up the road to the high point of the Jones property to grok the landscape (and returned before the breakfast call, mind you).

At the top of the property

From there you get a view of the main house and the (yellow) building we’re meeting in.

This should give you some idea of the context. I’m looking northeastish.

Down there in the distance you can see Ihu Grano de Oro, the main town in the valley.

Let me introduce you to the other workshop participants.

Joel (from Switzerland) and Rebecca (Timothy Jones' daughter), newlyweds

Stefan, who met the Lord in prison

Timothy's son John, who's getting an early start!

I suppose if a 1960s vintage electric guitar can run an amp this size a cell phone can, but it just doesn’t seem right. One more bit of evidence that this world is not my home, I’m just passin’ through.

Thanks to so many of you for making this part of the passage so enjoyable!