Sometimes the fence is hard to see

Funny moments, Week 5:

(1) Running for your life: good times with Costa Rican sayings

In Costa Rica, rather than say “robbing the cradle” when an older man dates a younger woman, they say “jumping the fence” (in Spanish, “brincando la cerca”). Why?

Because the young woman’s father will not be happy with said older man and will probably chase the man off his property. But, as the Costa Ricans tell it, the father is charging at the older man with a machete in his hand. So, in order to save his life from the crazed father, the man must run for his life and get off the property as quickly as possible. How will he do that?

By jumping the fence.

(2) Susan the Sweet

I had the pleasure of spending the night at the house of one of my construction co-workers, Roberto (he also happens to be the one who told me about brincando la cerca). I rode to his house on a bike, while it was raining, and I was wearing my glasses. So when I showed up to the house, it was impossible to see out of my extremely watery, foggy glasses.

Many of you know that my vision is less than stellar without my glasses/contacts (or absolutely horrendous, however you feel like describing my -8.50 prescription), and so as I was walking through the doors of his house and cleaning my glasses on my t-shirt, I couldn’t see a thing.

Yet that didn’t stop Roberto’s two young children, Kendal (6) and Susan (2), from greeting me warmly with a plethora of hellos, how are yous, and gigantic hugs. Then they started yelling at me to look at the butterfly on the wall. Trying to be polite to the kids, while still cleaning my glasses, I start scouring the wall for the butterfly, telling them that I can’t see very well. The butterfly turned out to be a piece of artwork that Roberto’s wife had done, and I started staring at it from 2 inches away.

Then I feel a tap on my leg. It was Susan, having just returned from her bedroom in order to give me a gift.

And, with outstretched arms, she was proudly displaying her toy binoculars, and encouraging me to take them. “So you can see the butterfly!” she excitedly proclaims.

So there I was, looking through an old pair of toy binoculars, still unable to see anything and still inches from the wall. The adults in the room (there were four of us) were laughing hysterically.

What a sweet little girl. As you can see . . .