Busy week!

Whoa... what a busy week. Kevin and I were helping with the organization of the Bingo that took place today. The women of the community got together to clean the banana leaves for the tamales, then the following day prepared the tamales. Kevin worked with the men to get the community centre ready by installing a temporary roof and installing toilets.

On Friday, Kevin picked up our friends (two nuns and two young ladies from El Salvador who live with the nuns) and drove them here. They young ladies, Veronica (22) and Fatima (17) don't leave the city much and haven't seen much of Costa Rica. They both go to university and are incredibly studious. They have been taken in by the nuns so they can benefit from a better and safer life. It appears the girls are not squandering their opportunity. Veronica speaks English quite well so we were able to have nice conversations with her. We had a really nice time. Yesterday, I drove them back to San Jose and got back in time to watch the World Cup Holland vs Costa Rica game. Costa Rica lost in penalty kicks. So disappointing, but they played so well throughout this World Cup, they should be very proud.

We were up early this morning to add the finishing touches before the people arrived. Before the Bingo, there was a fishing tournament of three groups (kids from 5 to 8, kids from 9 to 12 and the adults). This year we decided to provide an extra service. Since not everyone knows how to prepare fish, we thought it would be nice to offer to gut, clean and filet to those who wanted it. I was at the gutting and cleaning station and Kevin and our friend, Roberto, were fileting the fish. We were charging 200 colones (40 cents) for gutting and cleaning only and 500 colones ($1) for gutting, cleaning and fileting. We made a little over 16,000 colones ($32!!!). That's completely separate from the registration fee to participate in the tournament. I think we raised a decent amount with that event. Then we had all the food... everything was so delicious and we saw people going up for seconds and thirds, so more money raised. And then there was  the Bingo, which always pulls in a good crowd. It was a long day, but everything went off without a hitch and it appears everyone had a good time. We'll no doubt have a committee meeting later this week to count all the money and see how much we raised. Hopefully, it will be enough to finish the work that needs to be done. And if not... then you can be sure there will be another Bingo in our future. And so it goes in our little community.