I am officially in the place where I will be spending the next 3 months for PC Training. On Sunday morning we packed up all our things and got into buses according to group (RCD) and were on our way. The RCD-ers are split into 4 communities according to language level. Normally, everyone has their language classes in their town, but because I’m in the advanced class(!), we meet with people from the other groups (since there aren’t too many of us) in a larger city that is kind of a meeting point between where everyone is living. Therefore, I’m in the RCD community that is closest to San Jose (16km)—not too bad! Apparently it takes about an hour to get into San Jose and just half an hour to get to the smaller city where I have my class. My little group of 4 was the first group to arrive and I kind of freaked out when I was the first of the 4 to leave for my family. We’ve been together for the past week and it was really scary realizing that we are getting thrown into a completely different environment than staging in DC and the retreat—we are actually entering the Costa Rica of the Ticos! But the coolest thing is that the reason I was the first to get off is because my house is right in the center of town (though I’ve later come to find out that everyone is pretty much in the center of “town”) right next to the soccer field. From our porch I had a perfect view of the Sunday soccer games and can also see the church and school. It’s about a 2 minute walk to the parada for the bus, so really a perfect location!

So the thing is, the advanced class is split in 2 so there are about 5 people in each small group and we only have class every other day. So! Today I had no class and therefore not all that much to do… I ended up reading a LOT (one of the PCV’s who was at the retreat said she had read 80 books so far). I started “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and also did some reading for our PC training. The weather here is absolutely beautiful, so I spent most of the day reading on the porch. I definitely cannot complain!

Which brings me back to my host house! I am living with 2 sisters who are in their 60’s. My host “aunt” is deaf, so it is mostly my host “mom” and I who do the conversing, etc etc. I was kind of upset not to have any children in my host family, but when I arrived yesterday I realized there was nothing to worry about—my house mom has 12 brothers and sisters and they all have between 3 and 10 children each and the children have children and so on! When I arrived yesterday, I had lunch with a few of her nieces, one of her brothers, and the adorable children of one of the nieces. So, one of the kids has—get this—a horse! Just to ride around the town on! How cool is that?! The mother of the 2 kids took me for a walk around the neighborhood and showed me her house. On the way, we stopped at her next door neighbor’s because she wanted to show me the two little vacas (cows) that had been born 7 days ago. They were SO cute! Then she went to get a little bottle to feed them some water because it was really hot and she let me feed them. I seriously couldn’t believe that here I was, my first day in my community, and I’m feeding a baby cow— que chiva (how cool!).

It’s almost 9:30 (I’m writing on my laptop at home) and about to head to sleep because I have to wake up early tomorrow for my first class. I am loving this much more natural schedule of going to sleep early and getting up early (substantially earlier than I was before getting the Costa Rica to say the at least!)—I don’t think it’ll take too much getting used to, as it doesn’t seem like there is too much that would keep me up super late, unless it is the novelas that my house mom enjoys. Her favorite is “Hija de una Mariachi” (Daughter of a Mariachi), so hopefully I’ll get into it, too. The novelas crack me up because the acting is so soap opera-y, but people love them, so maybe I will too!

Bueno, me voy a la cama!
Mil besos!