Pictures!

I cannot believe how fast time is flying by. It feels like we were just celebrating Christmas and New Year’s and now it’s almost April. May 16th marks one year in my site. One year down, one to go—incredible! Last week the new batch of volunteers, 52 in total, came down to Costa Rica to start their training. In a way, it is reminiscent of college and feels like the “freshman” have arrived. I must admit, it’s nice feeling (at least somewhat) old and wise, at least in Peace Corps terms. This weekend I have a trainee coming to visit to experience a few “days in the life” of a volunteer. I’m really excited for her to come, as I remember how much it meant to visit someone this time last year. Visiting a current volunteer during training is quite a big deal, making the whole process a lot more real--- the reality that in a few short weeks, one will be in a similar situation in his or her own town. Peace Corps is very good at transitioning between the various stages of one’s PC experience. We started all together spending a few days in D.C., flew down to Costa Rica together and headed to a 5 day retreat outside of SJ, then were sent off to our training communities for 3 months. Training includes three visits: a group visit to a current volunteer, a solo visit to a volunteer, then a visit to one’s future site, and then we’re off to our sites for the 2 years. I look forward to sharing my experience with the trainee and hopefully making a new PC friend in the process.

I realized that I haven’t posted pictures in a while, so the following are some pictures from the past few months. A highlight was my little brother Austin’s visit. He came down for his spring break and we had a fantastic visit. He came to my town and we ended up going to a “tope” (a horse parade which is a typical event for a town’s annual festival) in my closest city. Upon our return he had the opportunity to talk to a bunch of guys his age from my English class, which I know meant a lot to the guys and was eye-opening for Austin. Then we were off to Malpaís, a beautiful beach town on the southernmost tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, where we zip-lined, Austin surfed, and just relaxed and enjoyed the Costa Rican sun. It was a really nice visit and as we were realizing, we have seen each other for just 3 days during the entire past year, so it was nice to have time to catch up and spend time together.

The pictures are a somewhat random assortment of events since December of last year, but I have little captions to explain each one. I will be sure to write another post soon detailing my current projects.
Enjoy the pictures and happy almost spring to all!

this picture is the cover of my community diagnostic which I finally handed in a few weeks ago. any spanish speaking readers who are interested in reading a document that includes everything you could ever want to know about my town-- past present and future-- send me an email and I will gladly pass it along!

the school in my town

community center in my town, also current home to the high school

some chicas poderosas and I playing around with my camera while we were watching a soccer game

no joke, that little colt was born the day this picture was taken-- isn`t she adorable? I named her Miel which means honey in Spanish because of her coloring

Ross, a friend I worked with in Barcelona a few summers ago, came to Costa Rica and visited my town-- a really great visit!

my host brother and host niece on Christmas

some chicas poderosas at a Christmas portal (see Christmas/New Year`s post for my details on what a portal is). we are next to a Christmas nativity scene.

Christmas dinner celebrated in the rancho

horse parade

surfer dude Austin

preparing to zip!

view of Malpaìs/Santa Teresa from way in the mountains while zip-lining

a la the Fisher clan`s pictures in Dominical, me ´touching´ the sun

view of the beach at sunset


the little plane Austin and I took from Malpaìs to San Josè-- 30 minutes (in a somewhat claustraphobia-inducing plane) instead of the 6 or more hours it would have taken by bus

framed Costa Rican sunset, gracias a Victoria-- love it!