Oh life in rural Costa Rica. Here are some stories of the past week. First of all I will freely admit that reading has taken up a good majority of my time. Some pleasure reading, but a lot of reading materials for potential counterparts and projects. I sit on the porch (in the rocking chair that I move outside every morning, and inside every night) and read. The public payphone is in my house, so people are always coming by to make calls, so I get to meet people just by sitting on my front porch. That’s been nice.
So there are buses that leave my community! Yay! But they are mostly student buses and they are infrequent and a pretty long walk. But that exist, thank goodness. Also I am more clear on where the sites of my peers are, and how I am able to get to those sites, which is amazing, because Lord knows I am going to need to visit my friends.
I almost died (huge hyperbole, Mom don’t freak out) on Thursday. My counterpart was driving and he car almost rolled into a ditch. No one was hurt. Gracias a Dios. The funny part was that (I swear this is not an exaggeration) the next car to pass us was a HUGE tractor that pulled us right out of the ditch, as though nothing had happened. Some of my favorite details about my counterparts car are: that he can take the key out and the engine doesn’t stop, that there are literally holes in the floor and sides of the car that have covers that you pop open for air conditioning, he does not turn the engine off when we fill up on gas, and there are only 4 gears (one of which is reverse).
Right now I am in bed, in my tent, which is kind of like a cocoon. I like it, it makes me feel artificially safe. There are animals, zorros to be exact (but not all that exact, because zorro translates to fox, and these are more possum like animals) that scrape at the outside wall of my bedroom during the night. And there are birds that must have a nest in the outside wall of my bedroom as well, and they chirp during the night. The moral of this story is that those noises used to be frightening and now they aren’t. That’s progress, my friends, progress.
So things about my community. There are 70 people. I didn’t’ count, but I read the community diagnostic of the volunteer who was here 5 years ago and it said there were 72, but I am sure that there are less now because this is not a community that has experienced much growth in the last decade. The kids play football behind the school in the afternoon and today I joined them, it was lots of fun. I have attended two meetings of organized community groups and those both went well. I think I am going to begin visiting houses and filling out my diagnostic next week.
It is hot here. I know I have said that before, but its still hot. Really hot. I sweat all the time. Sometimes I get out of the shower and it is impossible to dry off, because I am already sweating again from the heat. Oh! There is now a shower curtain in the shower, which is possibly the best news of the week, because before there wasn’t a shower curtain and I am pretty sure that everyone could see me showering from the staircase. Thank God for shower curtains.
I also found three fruit trees so far. Which is wonderful. And one of them is a new type of fruit. I am told that it is the fruit that people make chocolate out of, but not 100% certain on that.
Also! The dog (who according to my host mother is 20 years old) that was preggers had her baby and she is hiding her puppy so that dog that eats puppies doesn’t eat it. I found the puppy today and he is black and cute and hidden. I hope he lives so that I can adopt him. The dog who eats puppies likes me a lot, and he follows me when I leave the house. Today he followed me to the soccer field and I had a hell of a time trying to play soccer with this dog following me.
All for now. Loves
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