Monday, April 25, 2011

Here is a rant:

To give some background to this rant... Last week was holy week here in Costa Rica and everyone heads to the beach to be with family and it's a MAJOR holiday here. During this time all the people and things that make my house incredibly loud were visiting their family or they didn't have to get up in the morning and go to work or whatever the reason you can not imagine how peaceful it was last week. Which brings us to today. What a horrible nights sleep that was topped off with a ridiculous symphony of noise starting at 5:30am and ended with me giving up on sleeping at 6:15am. First, one of the dogs here Canela was poisoned 2 days ago. It was really sad, I came across here and we were able to give her some milk and sugar (I was told that was the cure) and she lived! We thought all was good and she was fine yesterday, but all night, I'm saying allllllllll night she was coughing really loud and dry heaving right outside my window. Then, at about 5:30am Oscar the taxi driver is out and messing around with his truck and the alarm on the truck which he manages to turn on and off a bunch of times. Thanks. Then comes Janet and Jose, they live in the cabinas that are connected to my house. Last night they got back from their holy week adventures and brought their little girl with them who for some reason unknown to me was really pissed off this morning and crying a lot. Then comes the final blow, Jose goes out to warm up their car to take Janet to work and leaves it running blaring ranchero music for no one in particular. Not cool or needed and as I write this very blog, it is still not 7:00am, my host dad has deemed it necessary to burn leaves outside of my window. Awesome. I live in a house that has a bunch on windows with no glass, just screen and bars, also, my roof is not fully connected to the walls so pretty much whatever is going on outside is also going on inside. Also, the wall that I share with my neighbors is not exactly sound proof, if they turn on their light it ligths up my room too. Not sound proof at all. Well, that's my rant. It's usually not so bad and I think I just got used to a week of quite and will need to get back to blocking out the noise. I have 3 more months in Costa Rica and then I will back to the peace of my parents house. I can't believe how well I slept when I went home for my visits, it is just so quite and in the winter when there is snow and of the windows are closed, you can't hear anything. Well, I think I can handle just 3 more months of noise, tonight I'll be using some earplugs.

My plan for today is a beach clean up at 9:00am with the banera azul committee and english classes in the evening. Should be a good day.

Friday, April 15, 2011

nada especial

Last week ended up being a really busy week with Guias y Scouts meetings, and environmental group meeting and my english classes. At this point I really only have about 3-4 students, but let me just say, I love it! We all know each other so well now and they can speak so well that when we have class it's like friends sitting down to chat. I still teach a little from the book, but I really try and focus on them talking as much as possible and the fact that there are only 3 of them most of the time (sometimes 2) means they get a lot of that. I can't believe how much they know. I think the Matt/Laura combo really worked (he was the volunteer there before me). They had 2 years with Matt and now 2 years with me and I can really see a difference.

For the scouts we are taking them to Jimenez on April 30th to participate in the Day of the Forest celebration. Today they are making a work of art (a painting) in which each scout will paint something that makes them think of the forest and then they will take it to Jimenez and present it. Hopefully it goes well.

Currently I'm in San Jose just finishing up with the last left overs of shingles stuff and tomorrow will be attending AVC, all volunteer conference. It's pretty much a party for volunteers to get together and hang out. Should be fun and it's always a nice break to have some cable tv and a hot shower. Soon enough my regular life will be filled with both of those things! Weird to think that soon enough I'll have comfortable couches and chairs to sit on and mirrors and good lighting and a big comfortable bed and hot water all the time and a tv that works and most importantly, an oven! I really can't wait to have and oven and a grill, it will be great. I know little tigre is really going to miss hunting all of the lizards that are everywhere and the frogs, but she'll still have birds and rats to eat so hopefully the little dear won't be too sad when we get to Colorado.

On the visa front, one of my peace corps friends just got his visa approved! He was about a month ahead of me so hopefully we will move just as fast as he did. There is just no real way to know.

P.S.

Today was the most productive day I've had in the past 2 years. I was all over town and got tons of stuff done all in time to watch Days Of Our Lives by 11:00am. Not bad!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Rain, Rain, you can STAY!!!!

My parents just came for a visit for the past 2 weeks and we had a really good trip. For the first time I headed over to Drake Bay and it was beautiful. What a cool place! We arrived from La Palma in bus which only took about an hour and a half super easy and direct. Our first day we took a tour out to the caƱo island where we snorkeled along the way. Super cool. It's actually the second time I've done the tour, but the first time for my parents. We saw tons and tons of cool fish. The next day we went hiking along the beach for most of the day and got caught in the total down pour on the way back. I knew it was a risk when I saw how late we were hiking out and knowing how long it would take us to get back, but what's going to the rainforest without any rain? This was not my first hiking/walking experience in really hard rain, but it was for my parents. It's warm rain so basically you're just totally soaked but not cold. I don't think my mom was such a fan of that part of the hike... I'm happy to report though that none of us were burned by acid rain and we are all still in perfect health (ticos try to get rained on as little as possible saying that it will make you sick or that it could have acid in it). We made our way our of Drake via boat to Sierpe and then in taxi to Palmar where I got a bus going South and my parents headed up North to San Jose where they flew out today early in the morning. All and all a really good trip and they got to spend some more time with Deivin so that they will all know each other well before we temporarily move in with them! Yay living with your parents in the basement ;).

I just have to say that I'm soooo happy the rainy season is back! I love the rain here and it is just so much cooler and I can go running at 10am or workout in my house and it's not an oven. It's my favorite season by far, the dry season is waaaay overrated.

Time is going by quickly and at the same time really slow. We are still waiting on the visa and will be for a lot longer. All in it's time...