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!