happy thanksgiving, gringos!

i thought i would try to post again before i leave the city. i'm here in san jose with some other volunteers for thanksgiving... a couple who work for the US embassy invited us to dinner and we ended up going with them to another embassy official's house where there were about 20 of us - almost all of them working for the embassy. everyone was SUPER welcoming and nice and the food was great. and it was just real nice for us to feel so comfortable there.

so i go back to my site tomorrow and have a busy few days coming up. tomorrow i have to give the oral part of the english test to my adults and then this weekend is our fiesta weekend. we have dances, futbol games, bull riding and running, and lots of food sales. it'll be my first bull action so i'm excited to see that. then the mayor comes to meet with us about fixing our roads. the rainy season here is really attacking this country and, compared to limon and other towns, our town is being let off super well. buuut, the river is real full and everyone is worried about it overflowing. sooo, the municipality got us these huge round cylinder like things that are somehow gonna prevent the flooding...we'll see what the mayor has to say about all this. thennn, im gonna meet with some ladies from fuerza y luz who, i'm hoping, are gonna work with us to get a playground, or parque infantil, in my town. im real excited about this project so hopefully it'll go well. then i have my host nephews baptism slash birthday... so, it should be a pretty full next few days.

the point is, happy thanksgiving! i hope the turkey was great and everyone is sleeping safe and sound in the food comas :)

whoops, forgot 2 pictures

i went to volcano arenal with my school...heres a group picture and then you can see the volcano erupting.

...celebran la vida, celebran la vida...

¨celebran la vida¨is a song that means celebrate life that the kindergardeners are learning for their graduation in december. and i thought it would be a good title for some of the photos i´m posting...
not too long ago, we had an all volunteer conference where all 90 something volunteers met at a campsite, got to know each other, and received some more training. most of us went a day early to be together on election day and get some cable. that will explain the first picture and first celebration. the next one is from the halloween party we had at our training. there i am in the middle celebrating yet another huge success!! then, you´ll find a picture of a new bridge and one then one that fell 13 years ago. the only bridge connecting us to the next town over is FINALLY almost done after more than a decade of needing it. motorcycles and people can now cross and we just have a little more to do before cars can cross too. and finally, you´ll see me modeling lovely botas that are completely necessary in these rainy months. buuuut, it looks like the rain maaay be dying down, the sun is shining, and my feet are nice and dry. so, there you have it. there are a lot of celebrations in order!
in other news, we are having another futbol tournement in my town, this time out in the outdoor plaza. the women and i from the womens group are going to sell food to make some money for the group. so that´ll keep us busy for the next 14 sundays, haha. we also will be having festivals in our town at the end of the month which should be quite an experience. we are also head deep in project proposals for a medical facility in our town so hopefully there will be good news soon with that. soooo, hope all is well with everyone back home. keep up the phone calls and start checking on flights to come visit!! :)

the zona norte has a lot to see

rio celeste is this gorgeous national park near guatuso in the zona norte (northern area), not too far from me. a friend of mine in my site was celebrating a birthday so her whole family and i went to celebrate. after a few u-turns needed in every trip, we made it there and started the hike. its a super pretty hike through a rain forest where lots of monkeys and birds live. at the end of the hike is this huuuuge water fall. also, i should mention that celeste is the color light blue in spanish and rio means river. so you can probably figure out the rest. here are a few pictures from the trip.

otherwise, the women graduate from their arts and crafts courses tomorrow. i'm really excited to see all the things they made that they will all bring tomorrow. and we're on to classroom objects in my adult english class. i hope everyone is doing well and looking up flight prices to come visit :)

iguanas and the beach!

These are the pictures I promised from Muelle (the iguanas) and Manuel Antonio (the beach). The beach was absolutely beautiful and we had a great long weekend there. It's on the Pacific side, down between Puntarenas and Dominical. Look it up!!
Also, the last picture was an attempt to capture all the monkeys in all the trees at the beach.

happy independence day...almost!

it's been a while since i've posted anything here. things have been going real well here, besides the heat. it's supposed to be winter right now, but it's basically just as hot year round. just less rain in the summer months. anyway, independence day in costa rica is september 15th is it's just around the corner. people decorate houses and buildings with flags and have little parades with the school kids (atleast in rural costa rica). other towns have dances and cabalgatas (which are kind of like horse parades). so maybe i'll have some good pictures to post next time i get online.

a few weeks ago, we had IST - which is a week long training that peace corps does after 3 months in site. so it was nice to see all the other volunteers again, stay in a great hotel, and relax in the city for a few days. we got some more trainings about teaching english, which was super helpful, and some technical stuff for the job.
things in my site have been going pretty well too. we had a dance in my town a few weeks ago which was nice. the women from the patranato (like a PTA) sold food so i helped them with that. it started with the pig being killed, cutting up the meat (gross!), and then making tamales, chicharones, meat with rice, meat in salsa, and so on. it was quite a process. but i documented the pig part in photos. ive been told they're too gross to post but if you want to see them, just let me know. id be happy to share, haha. then this past weekend i went to a town not to far away, called muelle, which is famous for its iguanas. and i'm not talking small iguanas. these things are HUGE and walk right up to you. they are all over because of a certain kind of tree in the town. i took some pictures but i dont have them with my right now. ill try to post them next time. but it's definitely worth seeing if you come here!
here's some updates on my projects here...
the women's group that we started is doing really well. we are currently receiving 4 different courses from the oficina de la mujer (women's office) that is run through the municipality. there are a total of 55 (give or take a few) women taking one of the following courses: how to make purses (my fav!), painting on wood (called "country"), art in metal (or repugado en aluminio - literally meaning pushing in aluminum), and a beauty and make-up course. the women are really enjoying it and having a good time. when the courses end (they are 8 weeks long), we are gonna come back together, take a few more human resources lectures, and then start learning how to start a business. the goal is to start some form of mini-business where they can sell the things they learned to make (and maybe more) to tourists. it's probably gonna take quite some time to get to that point but hopefully it will work out.
my other main project right now has been english. as much as i didn't want to teach english, everyone wants to learn it. so i've been working with the school kids, teaching them twice a week. and this week we are starting a class for adults (or those out of school). the kids have been really enjoying it, and begging for more classes a week. im trying to find other people to teach more classes in the town, since i dont have time to teach more often, but so far no luck. hopefully some of the english students from the university in a town nearby will be able to come over to my town some day soon to check it out and maybe teach some classes...we'll see how that one works out.
ook, that looks like a pretty good post to me. hope all is well with everyone back home and would love to hear from you when you get a chance!

if these aren't incentives to come to costa rica, i don't know what would be

so here are a few pictures for your entertainment. they are from my mom's visit this past week and the annexation of guanacaste festival recently. as for a quick update: everything in my site is going really well. english classes are going well and the women's group has 43 super excited people in it. hope you are all well and cant wait to hear how everything is going for you guys.



here are a few pictures from my mom and my canopy trip. a guy in my town works at this place (called tierras enamoradas) and took us. it was so amazing and absolutely beautiful to go through the real bosque (forest). i wish i could post some of the videos that we have from the zip lines but you'll have to use your imagination. or come visit me yourself so we can do it!




















i have never ever had so much fun playing twister in my life. i thought i'd share...













this is a picture of the base of volcan arenal. it wasnt such a clear evening but if you look closely, you should be able to see some eruptions going on.









this is the represa - its the lake by volcan arenal. its huuuge and real pretty and powers one of the biggest energy companies in Costa Rica.











and...just in case you havent seen enough pictures of my cute kids here, this is from the annexation on guanacaste celebration. these are the kindergarden boys with their painted bigotes (mustaches).









this is 5th grade showing off some of the traditional dances they planned for the event.












why dont we have any traditional outfits like this in the states? i feel like we missed out on something...

a quick update

i know i haven't posted anything in a while so i wanted to post a quick update. i dont have any pictures to post right now, but i will try to get some of the pictures from the hot springs that i went to last week up soon. in other news, life in my town is going real well. the women's group that we started is looking good. we are about to get some lectures about how to work as a group, women's rights, self esteem, all that kind of good stuff. and english classes for the kids begin next week - the schools have been on winter vacation the last two weeks, weird huh?
but, other than that, no real news. this past week, i went to hot springs (aguas termales) with a bunch of people from my town. we rented a little bus and spent the day in nice hot water. the week before, i was in san jose for a diversity workshop that peace corps did. it was nice to see some of the other volunteers, take hot showers and watch some english movies.
so, i hope everyone is doing well. keep sending emails and free (!) text messages, calling and sending mail. miss you all!

riding in an elevator

i went with some kids from my school on a trip this past saturday to volcan poas. unfortunately, we weren't able to see the volcan or the lake because of all the fog. but, we did stop at a water fall on the way there and a few towns on the way back. the last place we stopped was a mall...i thought we were just stopping to get a bite to eat or buy a few things. but the kids had a different plan. they were going to ride an elevator for the very first time. i never realized that it takes learning to ride an elevator. but everything from pushing the button, to not putting your fingers in the door, to whether or sit or stand in the elevator were things they had to learn. anyway, i thought that was a pretty funny story to share...at least i got a good laugh out of it.
the rest of my life here is going really well. i'm meeting new people each day, working a lot with the kids, and learning a lot. here are some new pictures to check out...the first 4, as im sure you can tell, are my room. there are a gazillion pictures all over the walls (these are just some of the many pictures on the walls). then there are 3 pictures from the trip to the volcano. the last of the 3 is what we saw of the volcano...absolutely nothing. then the last 2 pictures are from my host grandmothers 95th birthday party. there were more than 40 people in our tiny house so i got to meet all her other kids, grandkids and tons of family.
that's all for now. more to come later. stay in touch!

safe and sound in my new home

Well, it’s been a while since I posted a blog with anything more than pictures so it’s about time for that. I’ve been in my new community for a little more than a week now, and I’m really enjoying myself. I’ve been spending my days meeting a ton of new people each day and taking in the gorgeous sites. And, on Tuesday nights they show Grey’s Anatomy on tv so, how could I complain??

I’ve learned a lot in the last week, too. Everything from new Spanish words to how to get frogs out of the house at night. I have also observed a lot of interesting tendencies that we were told about but that I hadn’t really seen so much in my training community. I don’t want to say it’s a characteristic of people in rural communities, because that would be wrong and I’d be guilty of the same thing. But, a number of people that I have met tend to generalize people into specific groups. For example, “Chinos (people from China – although they would call a person from Vietnam ‘Chino’ as well) eat cats and dogs all the time” or “your parents must be really good lawyers because they are Jewish”. It’s an interesting phenomenon and I’m not exactly sure yet how I’m going to confront it, if at all. I think part of it has to do with the education here. For those in elementary school, it is very limited because they only have a few hours a day. Also, since there are only 2 teachers for 6 grades, many grades are mixed in classes, which again, limits what they can learn. The teachers seem to be doing really well with what they are given but, unfortunately, it’s not a lot.

So, clearly this leaves me with a ton of things I’d like to do in this community. And I’m sure a lot more will come up as I live here longer. But, when it comes to education, I’d like to do a lot of out-of-school things to help these kids learn a little more; things like life-skills, sports clubs, girls groups, book clubs, and so on. They also all want English classes, since they are not getting this in school either. The second part of my job has to do with organizational development. Under this goal, I will be working with all the committees and associations that are formed to help them in the projects they want to do. We will hopefully be able to get a medical center built here so that a doctor can come to our town more than once a month. Other things they have mentioned so far include improving the roads and bridges, working on finishing the church, and so on. Finally, the third part of RCD jobs is that of economic development. This will consist of trying to create more jobs for people in the town. We definitely need to work on this since there are very few jobs available in our community. This might get done by working in rural or eco-tourism. I’m obviously not so sure how we’re going to do this one yet but, hopefully we’ll come up with something. If you have any ideas or suggestions for any of these, I’d love to hear them!

Well, here are some pictures from my first week here. There are a few of the green-ness and then a bunch from a reinado (kind of like a beauty pageant) that we had this past weekend. It was for younger girls and boys and then grandmoms and grandpops. The older woman that won is my host grandmom. There is a picture with her and her 2 daughters (my host mom is the one on the left in pink). Then there´s one of her grandkids and great-grandkids. You´ll also see a picture of the 4 winners and one of a some younger kids. I hope you enjoy!

swearing in ceremony!!

last friday, we all become peace corps volunteers!! the swearing in ceremony was at the ambassador's house from the US embassy so it was absolutely gorgeous. here are some pictures that we took...it was nice to see us all looking nice for once, since we're so used to rolling out of bed, throwing on the same clothes every day, and heading to classes.



ladies in black.














here's my host family at the ceremony.














here are the four of us from my training community. don't we all just look great??













and here we are: Tico 18 RCD :)














thank goodness for bagelman's, the only bagel store in this country. this probably made the rankings for the best day ever.
















of course after a day like that, with graduation and bagels involved, celebrating was in order.










some of my favorite tico 18 CYFers...











and finally, some other RCDers who have been in the country anywhere from 2 years to a year.