I just got back from my weekend visit with my mentor volunteer. Her name is Andrea and she lives in the north of Costa Rica. I was very fortunate and my travels went smoothly. I left at 11am and arrived a 9:30pm. It was much warmer in that part of the country even walking to her house in the dark I was sweating.
We had a wonderful weekend together. She showed me around her community and I got to meet lots of wonderful people. We shared meals with three families and were very well fed! We also made some American food on Saturday, French toast an and a salad full of fresh veggies. I think I could live off of fresh fruits, veggies, bread and chocolate.
She is living in a beautiful wood house, my favorite feature of the house is a hammock on the porch. It was wonderful to have a chance to relax in the afternoon heat, because training thus far has been go, go, go! I had some time for reading and it was so refreshing.
On Sunday we went on a hike with her neighbor who is a farmer. We walked through some of the local farm lands and then through a mountainous area. The purpose of the hike was to find the home of a boa constrictor the farmer has found earlier that week. So we walked for two hours and then Don Juan found a large bamboo stick and put the stick in a hole in the ground. What happened next shocked me: we heard a loud growl. Now when I say growl I am not saying that the hissing sound I associate with snakes was deeper than I expected. I am saying that I suspected that (based on the noise) there was a lion living in the whole, and we had upset him. But after a short while, Don Juan extracted an alive boa constrictor from the hole. The snake was over 2 meters long and weighed over 20 kilos. I still don’t had a firm grasp on the metric system, so in laymen’s terms it was GIGANITIC! We took some photos, marked the whole and continued on with our hike. Just another day in Costa Rica.
That afternoon the community was having a feria, a local community event including soccer games, music, food and usually fruits and veggies for sale. We spent the afternoon hanging out in the shade watching to soccer games. I left that night/morning at 330am and arrived safely home by 1pm. Now I have to finish my homework for the week and I think I am going to try to make hummus to bring to class for a snack tomorrow.
One final note – I received such a wonderful welcome when I arrived home today. I am so glad that after only a month I feel as though I have established a stable home base here in Costa Rica. And I am infinitely gratefully for my Tico family and my newfound PC friends.
Loves,
Chelsea
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