dinner like the States.

My host family and Eric's host family are actually related so we decided to have a large family dinner last night. Eric and I wanted to cook for our families and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to combine forces. He made hamburgers and an attempt (failed) to make french fries. I made deviled eggs, butterfinger chocolate cake, and macaroni & cheese. It was so much fun to be in a kitchen cooking foods I actually know how to make. [One of our GST assignments a few weeks ago was to cook with out Tica moms which proved to be very difficult as all of the foods don't have a definite recipe and ingredients I am not used to.] After we were done cooking, I got a little nervous that my family wouldn't like the food. I couldn't have been more wrong - they loved it! "Que rico!" "Es delicioso!" "Buenisimo." - this is all we heard for the entire dinner. My mom wants the recipe for deviled eggs and the cake I made. Her and my grandmom (Eric's mom) are planning on making deviled eggs for Semana Santa (Easter). I am so glad we spent the extra money and had such a great experience with our families. It was rather difficult to find hte ingredients and we did improvise on several things. It was also very expensive because several of the ingredients were imported; our final bill was 32,000 colones which is about $60. The excitement of our family and introducing them to our culture was well worth it.

As I got ready for bed last night I thought about the night and how excited my family was to try new foods, but then I began to feel bad about it all. The food was so expensive that I know they won't eat any of it on their own. The bottle of relish for the deviled eggs was $7. My family isn't able to afford that on their own. It directly relates with tourism in Costa Rica. Yes, Costa Rica has a great tourist stream, but the attractions are things that Ticans aren't able to aford and experience. It just makes me sad that these people I have come to love so much won't experience the things I am, as I will only be here for 4 months, even though they live here. I want them to experience all of the things they have heard me talk about.