In full swing

The past two days have been a blur of acronyms, signatures and orientation sessions. We have now pretty much met our whole staff, including medical, administrative, safety and security, and our individual program directors ad support staff. Highlights of today included meeting the US ambassador to Costa Rica, Peter Cianchette, who came by to introduce himself and have lunch with us and meeting our program counterparts who we will be working with on our various projects. For the Community Economic Development program, our three partners are FINCA, a rural microfinance organization, MAG, an agricultural organization, and Junior Achievement. We also got our language placements after yesterday's oral exam. I am smack in the middle, intermediate - medio, which is just where I think belong, so that's good. This is going to determine which training village we will be located in for the next 11 weeks, which we'll find out tomorrow. 

At 7 pm this evening, when I was already ready to go to bed, we got on two buses and drove to neighboring communities for our first venture out of the retreat center for dinner. We were each given 3,000 colones, which is equivalent to less than 6 dollar, and our "challenge" was to feel ourselves sufficiently in an hour and a half. I stored up on snacks beforehand just in case, but it turns out we were pretty high rollers. I consumed: chicken fajitas (1400 colones), a beer (850 colones), and ice cream (700 colones) with 300 colones to spare! But the best part of the night was that this meal was consumed in a karaoke bar, where we made many friends by singing a variety of American classics, including Oops I Did It Again, Spice Up Your Life, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and Sweet Caroline. Pictures to prove it below. NOW I am ready to go to sleep...