Costa Rica!

If you are reading this I´m sure you know that I am in Costa Rica with the Peace Corps. Chapter 2 in Katherine´s Aventures. Actually more like chapter 107, but we´ll call it 2 for blog purposes. I´ll try to update as I can. Right now I only have internet if I go to the next town, so don´t hold your breath... I´ve been writing emails and blogs and saving them on a disk til I get to internet, so here´s a little something from the other day:

I’m sitting on the front porch of a little green house in Rio Conejo, Costa Rica, in a rocking chair looking at coffee trees, palm trees and flowers that definitely bloom all year. I’m here at my host family’s house, where I will be for the next ten weeks. I’m living with a lovely older couple that married after both of their spouses passed away. They don’t have children of their own, and instead have Peace Corps volunteers. They seem to really enjoy hosting the volunteers and seem excited that I am here.

I was welcomed to their home with a big plate of rice and beans, which I have learned is different than the traditional dish of gallo pinto (mixed rice and beans with a little bit of onion and cilantro). Why it’s different if you mix it or not is beyond me, but it’s kind of funny when they say “We’re having gallo pinto for breakfast and rice and beans for lunch”, as if they are distinctly different things.

No sooner had I finished my last bit of rice and beans did they tell me that we were leaving for a wedding in 30 minutes. No time to waste I quickly unpacked most of my things, which smelled a little funny because it’s very humid here and they were all packed up, and got dressed. We left for the wedding with the lady who lives next door and Marlene who is another Peace Corps trainee from my group who is staying with her. We took a taxi to the wedding, which was highly comical, and ironically just the kind of situation I was expecting in rural Costa Rica. We knew it would be a little tight with 5 people and the taxi driver, a.k.a- there was not enough space, but it got really tight when the taxi driver had a friend. Oh man…there we were 7 people in a old Nissan Sentra, 3- 60 year old people, 2- 22 year-old American girls and 2 taxi guys. We ended up with the four ladies in the backseat, my host father in front … and the taxi driver’s friend sitting in the open trunk. It’s a good thing I have spent some time in Latin America, or I might think this is dangerous or scary, but not to worries we were fine. The wedding was fun as well. The reception was held in a little town hall, they served what else but rice (no beans though) and we dance to all kinds of music from Elvis to Latin American standards to 90s rock. It turned out that there were four Peace Corps girls there even though we didn’t know each other was coming, since the whole town went it made sense that the girls the town was hosting went too.

We spent today eating. A favorite pastime, and something I must make sure I do not do too much of, and singing, or attempting to sing to a karaoke DVD they have. Now the family is going to church and I am going to attempt to walk to San Juan del Sur to post this and send a few e-mails at the internet café. My schedule is going to be very full for the next ten weeks of our training. We have Spanish and culture classes every Mon., Wed., Fri. and technical and Peace Corps training Tues and Thurs. The classes will last all day every day, so I won’t have much free time, but I hopefully will feel well prepared to start my work at the end of them.

I hope you are all well, as I am here, and as the Costa Ricans say: Pura Vida.

Sunday: Part 2

So I wrote that part of the blog, then failed to walk to San Juan del Sur, because, well it just didn’t work out, and it got dark at 5:30ish. So instead I decided to do a workout and go see Marlene across the street. The workout was fine. I brought out my iPod and speaker to the garage, which is actually a carport with a gate, but I was afraid to turn the iPod up too loud so I kept it quiet and did some jumps, plyometric stuff and used the exercise band I brought. I finished working out and immediately someone across the street started blasting music from their car, which changed my mind about turning the iPod up next time. After I took a cold shower, (which is what I will have for two years, haven’t quite adjusted, it’s really cold!), I attempted to go to Marlene’s. After knocking on the wrong door, I came back to my house to get a flashlight because the person told me I’d need one to see the way to her house. I tried to get back into my house and couldn’t because a key had fallen off my key ring. My host parents weren’t coming back for an hour, so naturally I tried to climb in the window. I got halfway in before I decided it wouldn’t work. I tried one more window and gave up. I didn’t want to have to explain why either I was hurt or a window was broken. Marlene actually came to my house at the exact moment I aborted my window-entering mission and we searched for the key. We didn’t find it, and in true Katherine fashion when my family soon arrived they told me the key wasn’t gone, it was the remaining key on the ring that opened the door, I had just been using it wrong. Cool. At least I found out I’m safe because it’s basically impossible to climb in the windows to my bedroom. Ahh…Pura Vida.