My computer has ants

That doesn't really have anything to do with my past week, except that it occurred to me this might not be a problem Apple has had to deal with in the past. Everything still seems to be functioning, there are just a few little creatures scrambling around my screen and I'm not sure how to get rid of them...

It's been another fun and busy week in Quebradas. I still don't feel quite settled into a routine, but am getting there. I took an awesome 5 hour hike with Richie through farmland and more farmland on Monday. We are almost finished painting and decorating the volunteer office, bedrooms and conference room, which is exciting, especially because I am pretty ready to be done inhaling paint fumes. On Wednesday a representative from the municipality of San Isidro gave a recycling charla at the Quebradas elementary school, and then they announced that I would be helping kick off the recycling project in the community and I had to make an impromptu speech with a still very stuffed nose. Luckily the majority of my audience was between 6 and 12 years old. Yesterday I had my first English class, and it went really well. Twenty three people showed up and two more came by after to ask if they could join the class, so I am a little concerned it is too big and might split it up into two smaller groups, but in general people were enthusiastic and willing to participate and help each other out, which is really great because there is a wide variety of experience within the group. It definitely helps that almost everybody knows each other. The hardest part is definitely going to be remembering everyone's names, especially since they're not so common in the US. Lots of extra i's where you wouldn't expect them. And people have trouble saying my name, so I get called Kaylie, or "teacher," which is fine. I made brownies for the first class, which were a pretty big hit and some of the high school girls came up to me after class and asked if I could teach them how to make them, at which point I had to admit they came from a box and all I had to do was add eggs and margarine...

Tonight my family is hosting a Christian families gathering at their house, and the theme is money management, and I have been invited as the guest of honor. There will be arroz con pollo and monopoly-like games involving fake colones, so how can i go wrong? Other than that, my mind has mostly been occupied by excitement about my first visitor to Quebradas! Dan arrives Sunday and we will be spending three nights at my site and then heading to the beach. My host family is very excited to meet him my host dad and I practiced English today in the car, so meals will not be filled entirely by awkward silences. Will have lots to report and hopefully some new pictures and videos next week after the visit!

Whirlwind week

It all started last Saturday, when Ines and I were invited to the birthday celebration of Gilberth, the treasurer of FUDEBIOL. There was some mention of some animal he had killed earlier that week that we would be eating, but I didn't catch the details. The party was held under a gazebo in the gardens of the biological reserve, which was pretty idyllic. There was lots of meat and guarro, Costa Ricans' signature homemade alcohol. Trying to be open minded and blend in, I tried a little bit of everything. It was not until about halfway through the meal that I found out I was either eating goat or sheep. I'm still unclear on the details, but I figure it's probably better that way.

Sunday I went on a hike with the scouts and their fathers to a Christ statue with awesome views of the whole valley. Followed by a feast of more meat (this time I was promised it was cow) and cake at my host grandparents' house. Sunday afternoon I went to mass in Quebradas at 4pm with about 150 other community members. I had met the priest earlier last week and asked if I could make an announcement at the end of mass about English classes I was going to start teaching, so after much kneeling and mouthing words to prayers I didn't know, the priest made an announcement that he wanted to welcome a new member to the community, and that in our discussion earlier in the week he had found out I was Jewish, which he thought was wonderful because the Jews are considered the older brother of the Catholics. Wow, what an introduction. I was pretty nervous to get up in front of so many new people and speak Spanish, so I kept it brief but people were very receptive and a few came up to me after to ask questions about the class. Sunday night was the community Fathers' Day dinner in the Salon Comunal. One of the women's groups did all the cooking, and only dads were invited to sit and eat. About 40 dads showed up and all sat together and then there was a live band and dancing and games and prizes, and I was pretty impressed with how much everyone participated and appeared to have a genuinely good time. It's pretty cool being in a small, tight-knit community where everyone knows each other and feels comfortable being silly around each other.

The work week entailed more painting and many meetings. Tuesday night I went to the local development association's meeting with a bunch of people that talked super fast and switched topics every other sentence, so it was a little confusing. Wednesday I did a FODA analysis with AQUA, the artesan group in Quebradas, which was more successful than the ones we tried during training in that people showed up and participated. The big challenge with all these groups that I'm meeting is that they seem to genuinely want to work with me and develop new projects, but nobody has any time. These groups are voluntary and generally not people's first priority, because they also have families and other jobs. I am the only one who is a full time volunteer and have all the time in the world to dedicate to these projects, but I can't do it alone. I also went and visited a recycling center that was started by a woman in her house a few years ago and now is the main recycling center in San Isidro and has two other employees and a bunch of trash to sort. Recycling seems like an easy and obvious project to start, because people in Quebradas are very environmentally conscious, but of course nothing is easy as it seems. Thursday was my informational meeting for my English class. It was pouring rain, and I was really nervous no one would show up, but there ended up being a big turnout, and lots of people also said they had friends who couldn't make it but were interested in the class. So now the problem is figuring out how to accommodate everyone but still have a small enough group to be effective. But anyways I was excited that there is so much interest and I think it will be a good first project for me to do on my own and get to know more people.

After all this action, combined with inhaling paint fumes all week and stark weather changes from super hot in the mornings to cold and rainy in the afternoons, I started feeling a little sick yesterday and spent most of the afternoon sleeping, which is what I plan on continuing to do for the rest of the weekend. When my head is congested and I can hardly swallow, the last thing my brain wants to do is think in Spanish, so I'm going to try to lay low until I feel better. It's tough because I feel like I always have to be on when I'm walking around in the community, making an effort to say hi and meet people and smile at everyone, and it can get exhausting! Also my host mom made yucca bread and pineapple cake yesterday, so I think I'll be just fine staying inside and snacking on those for the rest of the weekend...

Mucho que hacer!

It's been a busy week since I last wrote. Highlights include painting two bedrooms at the biological reserve, resulting in clothes I should probably never wear in public again and one elbow that may be permanently stained yellow. Another family party with a cake that literally served 50. A beautiful and relaxing day at the beach in Dominical, about an hour bus ride from San Isidro. Posting flyers for the English class I am going to start teaching and having to come back and scratch out and rewrite the date and location twice because of communication issues regarding who has to approve the use of the classroom (Ileana told me that Paula told her that I could use it whenever, but then Luz told me to talk to Paula directly so when I finally found Paula, who it turns out works for Ileana, she said I have to write a formal letter to get approval from the board of directors in charge of the room, who will discuss it Tuesday. Get the idea?) Making a presentation about Peace Corps and my ideas for projects and the board of directors meeting for FUDEBIOL, my counterpart organization, and actually being able to communicate what I wanted to say in Spanish and understand what was going on during the rest of the meeting. Eating homemade chicken soup and empanadas after the meeting. Getting used to waking up before 6 when my host brother is getting ready for school and watching cartoons two feet from my bedroom door. Getting used to walking uphill and hour every morning to get to the biological reserve and then have energy to do work. Playing Spanish Jeopardy in English class with Richie and Ines, the other volunteers. Meeting the town's priest last night and being the first Jew he has ever encountered. Drinking a frozen cappucino in town with Nicole, another volunteer near San Isidro.

This brings me to the present moment. Over all everything is going great and I am contentedly settling into my new community and getting to know my surroundings. There's lots to do here and, knowing myself, I of course want to do it all, so the challenge is going to be narrowing down to a few projects that the community is most interested in and that can be sustained once I'm no longer in the picture (though that won't be for a while).

Sunday there are lots of Fathers' Day celebrations to attend (for some reason they celebrate it the week before here), including a hike to a Christ statue in the mountains, mass, and dinner después. Not the typical way I've celebrated Fathers' Day in the past, but should be fun.

Pura Vida!

My first "work" week

So Monday morning I woke up and wasn't really sure what to do. FUDEBIOL is closed on Mondays so I couldn't go up there, so I decided to go for a run. About a half hour after we got back, Richie, the Spanish volunteer, came by the house to see if I wanted to take a 3-hour hike up a mountain with him, and of course I accepted. We stopped on the way at a finca with 400 pound pigs and lots of cows and horses, just kind of hanging out. We made it to La Cruz in about an hour and a half, and from there we could see the entire Valle Del General and all the rivers and mountains that surround it. It is really amazing how green everything is here. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually, but right now, every time I walk outside I am totally amazed at how beautiful the scenery is, how fresh everything smells, and how clean the air feels. After our hike I stopped by the local elementary school to meet with the director, who is interested in having me teach environmental education once a week. She said we could plant a garden or start a recycling program, both of which I'm super excited about. I just realized after that coming up with things to talk about for a few hours every week to 1st-6th graders about protecting the environment is going to take some work.

Tuesday I went up to FUDEBIOL with Ines and Richie. It takes about an hour to walk up there, which is fun right now but could get old. We stopped on the way at the home of a women's group, called AMOSA, that makes crafts out of recycled paper. Ines and I spent a couple hours making the paper with them, and we are going to go back on Saturday to help paint. She is actually a good artist so I think they assume all volunteers are artists in Quebradas, so explaining to them that my strengths lie more in organizational planning and business development could be tough. We spent the rest of the afternoon at FUDEBIOL, planning a project to redecorate the classroom and design an office for all the volunteers that come through, and we managed to squeeze in a hike to a waterfall. On Tuesdays and Thursday Ines and Richie teach English classes to 13 students of all ages that live nearby, so I sat in and helped out a bit with that. It's tough because the age range is 10-39, and some definitely have more experience than others. The saddest part is that a few of the kids don't go to school at all, so this is their class for the whole week.

Wednesday I climbed up to FUDEBIOL again, and this time we spent the morning in the herb garden weeding. About 5 minutes in I got knicked by Richie's machete, and no major damage was done but that WOULD happen to me. We spent the afternoon painting new signs for the hiking trails and then I hiked down for a 4pm meeting of ASOFEQUE, another women's group that works with FUDEBIOL to prepare food and accommodations when guests visit as well as hosting other community activities. This week's meeting was about the Father's Day celebration they're planning, and somehow I got put in charge of designing the invitations (ie I let it be known that I have a computer and that was that), so my next quest is to find somewhere to print for cheap in San Isidro. After that was straight to another meeting with AQUA, a group of artisans in the community that all use recycled or organic materials for their work. The meeting was held in this amazing open cabin in the woods, made entirely of wood, with cool sculptures and crafts cluttering the walls. We had coffee as the sun set and I felt like I was in an enchanted forest. Then I came home to the Costa Rican soccer team whooping USA butt, but fortunately no one gave me too hard of a time for it.

This morning I got up with my family at 5am to go to the feria in San Isidro. It was AMAZING. Like 1000 times better (and cheaper) than Whole Foods. It's held in this big open warehouse space and there are just rows and rows of fresh produce, many fruits and vegetables whose names I don't even know in English. Needless to say, I will be a regular there, even if it means waking up super early on Thursdays...

Anyways I probably won't be giving as thorough a play by play of my days as time goes on, but this is just to give a sense of the range of work I'm going to be doing and all the exciting new things I am encountering every day!