Today was a no good very bad day.

Okay, we all have them, not everyday can be a good one and today has been a bad one. Here's what happened... I have an international phone card that I have been using to call the US and it has been working really well, or so I thought. I have been using this phone card and it has been charging me twice. First it charges the house where I make the call from for and international call at international rates and then it charges me the minuets that I had on the phone call. Not a good deal. I'm probably going to need to pay around $80-$100+ to the owners of the homes where I made my phone calls. This sucks. In addition to this, now I don't have a way to call home. Okay, so I received this news this morning. Then one of my fellow trainees rescued a puppy and the puppy was sick this afternoon. I was carrying the puppy to the vet when I noticed something weird. The puppy had diarrhea on my shirt. It was totally nasty. After this my classmates/teacher were nice enough to buy me an ice cream for my prize. Also, today I realized that I failed to call my brother and sister in law for their birthdays. I missed it, and by a lot. I'm so not a fan of today. I still don't know how the phone card situation will work out or how much it will cost me in the end. At least I was able to clean the poop off of my shirt.

Training is coming to an end

We are getting down to the end of training and we are all burned out. I am ready to go to my site and relax and take a moment to breathe. I'm excited to get to know my community, move into my room and make it feel like a home. The first few weeks are going to be spent settling in and learning more about the town (possibly the first few months). I'm excited to see what I can do and what the town wants since that is the key, finding where the towns needs/wants meet my abilities and interests. It's an exciting time, but also a time for me to recharge my batteries since training has left me pretty drained.

In other news... Last night two of my friends found a little puppy in the gutter and adopted him. His name will be pulga, which means flea in Spanish. Super cute and I'm typing with him on my lap right now.

La Palma

On Friday I arrived at my new home for a get to know you type of visit. I will be living with a family in a "cabina" format, but it`s pretty much like I live in the house, once I get to my computer I`ll be able to explain a little bit better, but it`s cool because I have my own entrance and bathroom that makes me feel a little more independent. I really like the family and I will also be living with another volunteer for the first 2 months of my service. I`m taking over the site from a guy named Mateo so he will be my little brother for the first 2 months. It`s kind of cool that he is there for the start of my service since that will help me to get to know the community and help me get started a little quicker with my work in the community. Osa is beautiful, you can`t imagine a place more beautiful. The other morning I ran to the gulf and it was the perfect distance. The golf is so blue and is surrounded by lush green (pics to come). It is a bit hot, but I`ll have the impending rainy season to help me stay cool. In really great news, John is coming on June 3rd to visit. We will be heading to the CR vs. USA world cup qualifier, I`m really excited as you can imagine and he will get to know La Palma and my family down here and La Palma. I can`t wait. I`ll have more to write once I get back to Acosta and have a chance to take in all that has been happening...

In Trinkle news, my brother and his wife are going to have another baby due at the end of November, I can`t wait!!!! I`m already planning a trip home for a few weeks around Christmas.

Site Assignment Day

Hello Everyone and I have some really really awesome news for you. Friday was our site assignment day, the day when we find out where we will be for the next two years. This is a huge day for a Peace Corps Trainee, for the past 2+ Months we have been training and training for this and at this point it's so close we can taste it! Well, let me give you a little background on the site selection process. Our bosses go around the country and talk to different communities that have requested a Peace Corps Volunteer, they work with the community to see what their needs are, if the community is safe for the volunteer, etc. Well, they work on site development for a really long time and then we arrive and they begin to train us and get to know us and ask us what we would like to do and what we are looking for in a community, they then try to match us up with a community. This could be pretty tricky as you can imagine. I mean, here you have 50 different people all with a different idea of what they want and they try their best to make happen for everyone.
So, my site is La Palma on the Oso Peninsula!!!! I could not be happier. I'm located a 15 min walk from the beach and I will be living in my own cabina with my own bathroom. I could not be happier, this is perfect. YAY!!!!!! I am so happy about my placement and the projects that I'll be working on. I'll be replacing a current volunteer named Matt who will be in site with me for the first 3 months. Okay, this is all I have time for, but I'm going to visit my site for a week this Thursday and will post lots of pics of my future home! Yay, this is so perfect.

This is my Acosta training group, we are all going to opposite sides of CR. We are all really happy with where we are going, but sad to be so far apart.

GRRRRR

Okay, it seems the link to my pics was not that great, so here we go agian. There should be pics from the Volcano, Boruca and my first days in Acosta. More to come...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36935590@N03/

So, this week I am doing a week of technical training and let´s just say I`m putting up with it, but I´m not really that fond of it. Imagine that you go to a random town, live with a family that you don´t know for a week, you don´t have half of you things because it took you 8 hours to get there and you wanted to pack light. Then, you have a ton of projects to do that you´re not really all that into. I mean, right now, I´m preparing to give a talk to elementary school kids on pollution and I´m so not into it... Okay, that´s my mini vent for the day. Lot´s of really cool things have happened in this week too, I´ll make sure to write about that too. Right now, I´m just really not feeling the pollution talk in Spanish.

English Class

For the last 2 weeks on Tuesday I have been giving english classes and for the most part they are going well. For the first english class I had the students (I think there were six) choose a song and we listened to it and translated it and talked about what the song meant. Much to my dismay they were in love with the Katy Perry song Hot and Cold. This song is horrible, or maybe not horrible, but at least it`s way over played and when I was leaving the states I was not sad to leave that song behind. But anyway, we listened to the song about 10 times and we all learned a lot. I hope. It´s good practice since they will be able to learn all of the words and will be able to recognize them when they hear them. In Costa Rica there is a pretty big problem with the students being able to read and write english, but not able to understand or speak it at all. I plan to focus on these two aspects in my classes in the future. For my second class I had my student learn a section of a Friends episode. He had a lot of fun.

Okay, I have some news, I have a new host family and I´m really enjoying my new family. I really really love my new host mom and feel really good about my new family.

More news: For the next week I´ll be in Guanacaste doing technical training. I´ll try and blog throughout the week, I´ve already got some really funny stories, but I´ll share them later....

Okay apparently I need to clarify my comment about the toilet paper. I have toilet paper, gracias a Dios, but I'm not allowed to throw the toilet paper that I use into the toilet, you throw it in a trashcan in the bathroom. The only thing allowed in the toilet is, well, lets say 100% organic... Hope that clears things up a little, my bad!

Things this week are going great. My month crisis has passed and I'm finding my flow. I found an awesome gym and have going as often as is possible. It is a great way for me to feel a little bit of normal in my life and you all know how much I love to hang out at the gym.

Tonight I'm teaching an English class and tomorrow I'm working with a group to help them with their organization. This is a practice run for the business advising that we will be doing during our service. My Acosta group (aka. Team America, I'll write more on this later) will be doing a swot analysis for the group that will hopefully help them to reorganize a little. Thank you MSU-Billings for making me write a hundred swot analysis throughout my years there!

Check out some pics. More to come soon

http://www.flickr.com/photos/organize/?start_tab=sets

These are my pics from my trip to Boruca. Hope you enjoy them!

The month crisis

When I studied abroad in Spain they had what they called the month crisis. After just about a month of being away from home, but still staring a year or so in the face, students would have a mini meltdown. For some it was more dramatic than it was for others. I think I was just a little grumpy and tried to call home and write a lot. That being said, I've now been in CR for a full month and I think I've hit yet another month crisis. Nothing big or unexpected, I think mostly it's getting adjusted and realizing that I have only been here for a month, but at times it feels like a century. Our days are so packed and we have so much to take care of that it really feels like we live two days each day. But, I know that really long journeys get easier as you go. When you're getting ready to walk 1,000 miles, it must seem like you haven't even made a dent in the journey for the first 100. Anyway, that's a little insight into my current world, next week could be the best one yet. I'm really just trying to keep it all in perspective.

So, a little tid bit about Costa Rica. As and American, I have adapted easily to the no toilet paper in the toilet, to the cold shower, to the constant rice and beans, but one thing that is really hard for me is the adapting to the walking pace of the Tico. You have never seen anything like it in your life and it's a sure fire way to drive a gringa crazy. Ticos don't really walk, they kind on randomly meander. A walk that I could do in 15 min will take a minimum of 30. We have to stroll and stop to rest a lot and then we have to stop to talk and then we have to stop to just stop. Oh man. It is so hard for me to deal with, you have no idea! Today I was walking with these 4 girls and it almost killed me. I have to laugh about it though, what a great lesson in patience. They just are not in a hurry and they really don't like to exercise. That's it, it's just a different way of doing things. On Saturday we are heading to a volcano for a day trip... Pics to come.

Laura

A weekend in Boruca...

This past weekend I went to visit a current volunteer in a small indigenous village called Boruca. This is one of the few indigenous villages that remain in Costa Rica. I had such a great time there, you can't imagine how different life in Boruca is not just from the states, but from where I am in Acosta. The majority of the population still cooks over fire (even if they have a stove, they say it's just how they would rather do it). I was lucky enough to stay will a lovely band of women that some how reminded me of the women in the book/movie The Secret Life of Bees. The family consists of the mother, her daughter who lives a stones throw away, her two daughters, the woman who helps them with their store but also lives most of the time with them in their house, her daughter and then the PC volunteer Mariana. They were so much fun to watch and hangout with. I was immediately welcomed and felt like a part of the family. I loved watching how much they cared for each other and how powerful each one was in her own way.

I met so many great people in the span of 3 days. One man named Noel was nice enough to invite Mariana (they are friends) and myself to his farm so that he could show us his fruit trees and we could eat fruit off the tree. It was incredible. I ate coco seeds, coconuts from the tree and a fruit called granadilla and I think a water apple, not sure what it was, but it was good! I saw so much, it's hard for me to give a good break down of my time there. Just know that I wish I could go back and have that be my site, the whole town was so incredible!

That's all I have for now, I have a lot more stories to share, but I'll have to save that for another time!

Miss you all,
Laura


Check out some photos at this link. Let me know if it doesn't work.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36935590@N03/show/

Usted tiene telefono?

Two things:

1. I hate barking dogs. Why do people just let dogs bark, it's annoying.

2. I hate not having a phone. I think I'm going through cell phone withdrawal issues at the moment. I have tried for the past 4 days to call and talk to John without success. You maybe thinking, what's the big deal, just call back. It's not so easy. I can't just pick up my phone and call because, lets think, I don't have one and neither does my house. To talk on the phone I have to grab my computer, walk for like 5 min up a hill; ask my friend/fellow volunteer Mick to open the door for me; sit and chat with his host family for 30 min. then get in the room; hookup my computer, start it and hope that the internet is working. This is a process people! I'm talking a process. The days of just deciding to make a call are gone. I only have 2,000 colones per day to spend and when a phone card is 500, that's a lot of my pay! Anyway, I really have no cause for complaint since I'm on of the few who have such easy access to internet and for free, we're the only town.

I found an women's soccer team to play on and play with them for the first time on Thursday night. They call it fut 5, which is similar to indoor. It was awesome, I had so much fun everyone there was so nice to me and they have invited me onto the team. I'm so happy I found them! I was in San Jose today for classes and will be back tomorrow.

Have fun!

PST

We have left our compound and have headed to our homes for the next 3 months. I´m living with a roommate named Gabriela and her daughter Ada. You may notice that I`m writing in very simple sentences and that`s because the Spanish has begun full on and now and to match my Spanish language level it seems my English abilities are also on their way down. I´m excited to not be able to write or speak either language well. My Spanish is coming back to me quickly, but I still have a long way to go.

My town is a beautiful pueblo in the mountains called Acosta and I really like it. All of the people have been soooo welcoming and my host sister has really made me feel right at home. So far we are just learning and getting settled in. I have 3 other volunteers with me in the town and I don´t doubt that by the end of our time we will be great friends.

I made it!!!

I wanted to post a quick update. I made it! After a really really really long day that began last night at 1:30am east coast time and did not end until around 1:00pm mountain time I am at a retreat with 52 other volunteers. We are training for the next few days and the schedule is pretty packed. Here is the summary:

Day 1 -

First earth quake or "tremor" not sure of the difference, but I know the room shook. (This is my first ever and it was weird)

The people are great, everyone is really nice and I'm excited to get to know them.

I miss John a lot.