pura vida

Sunday

I'm not gonna lie...I didn't do ANYTHING today. The locals never know when mass is so I just read my Bible for a while. Then I caught up on some reading and college scholarship applications. Other than that, it was a pretty chill day :) Oh, and we saw the biggest frog-toad thing on the way to dinner!

NOTE: the reason I haven't been updating as regularly as I should is because these last few days have been a whirlwind and staying at Aurora's without internet kind of put me back a few days, but I'm getting there!

ANOTHER NOTE: I also lost my memory card and was not able to upload photos for a while

Saturday

This morning we drove to the nearby town of Pilas to donate a few laptop computers to the school. If I'm not mistaken, Pilas is even smaller than Islita. They all gathered 'round to hear Megan talk about the educational programs and computer classed she will be offering. Everyone there welcomed us with open arms. We met an American who lived in the village. She taught there for a year and then fell in love with a tico. The whole story is really cute. Ask me about it and I will tell you the details. Good News, the baby shower did not get canceled. Aurora's daughter-in-law is having a girl and they are naming her Dilana. We played all sorts of games (Mattie even won earrings). We ate a ton and then topped it off with horchata (queue Vampire Weekend). Oh, by the way, the town domesticated a deer. We were so freaked out when we saw the kids playing around with it. Who has a pet deer? I tried to pet it and it rammed into me. Fail. Even worse, I was allergic to it, so my face started breaking out at the party and we had to search all around town for Benadryl. Mega Fail.

the people of pilas

such a cute dog

that deer practically ate Margaret

me and the guest of honor

Friday

'Twas a dark day in Islita on Friday the 13th. The man that died was going to attend our party, so out of respect, we are not going to have it. Actually, all fiestas are called off because of the great loss. Today we pretty much cleaned up the map (which took a surprisingly long time) and wrote all the country names in Spanish. The plans for the new library are in motion. We got some people to help move some of the trash and broken furniture in the Centro Creative's back room (that is where the library is going to be). It's going to take a lot of work for it to look decent back there, but I'm up for the job. After lunch we went zip-lining. What a rush! The guides would wobble the line just to mess with us. After that, we got all dolled up for the opening of the new art exhibit, Watery Flowers by Dunia Molina. Each piece was breathtakingly intricate and beautiful. I wanted to take them all home with me. Dinner was exceptionally wonderful. All of us (including Megan and Marvin) had dinner on the beach. It was this huge Costa Rican BBQ. There was everything from shrimp kebabs to guacamole to bananas foster (which was quite delicious). I never want to leave this place...end of story.

my gosh, I CAN'T FIND COSTA RICA

this kid could barely speak spanish, let alone english, but he was the cutest thing i had ever seen

all geared up with twix in hand

those two

Loita (the art director of Islita) and Dunia (the incredible artist- look at those arm muscles)

true art lovers right here

Thursday

I have no idea why I woke up at the ungodly hour of 5 this morning. It may have something to do with the fact that everyone in Aurora's family goes to bed at 9pm. Anyway, the kids around town were really excited today. Today we paint this giant map of the world for the new library. Before the painting ensue, we played a few rounds of capture the flag. The kids picked me to be their team captain (...and we still lost). They literally attacked that map. It was quite funny to see what they did with it, though. Central Europe was all one blob and Korea and New Zealand just disappeared off the map completely. Dinner at Aurora's was great. The kids made arroz con camarones (rice with shrimp). YUMM. We watched some more 'Combate'. Equipo Azul lost this episode. Today has just been a bad day. Lulu, Aroura's dog, got into a bad accident and Aurora had to pop her eye back in. Also, I just got bad news about the local surf instructor and dear friend of pretty much everyone in the village. He died in a wreck and they just found his body this morning. I offer my condolences to his family. Ummm, I really don't know how to end this on a lighter note...

Palabra del Dia: Mapa Mundi = world map

before

after the attack

mirror self pic in my bedroom

poor lulu

these things are sooo loud

Raquel's grandmother

Wednesday

The whole town knows about the party now...it's gonna be huge. All the karaoke songs are in Spanish though. We'll see how that's gonna go. Greg is going fishing so we can have fish for the party and we promised him we'll take care of the beverages (don't want anything sketchy). Today I worked on organizing the library books we brought down in the centro creativo. We are using the old fashion card system. After that, we had a meeting with Alonzo. He explained to us the hotel's social responsibly and their ethics. Everything the hotel and the community are about is quite honorable. I'm actually doing my language immersion for the next two nights. I am staying with Aurora and her family. We will be eating breakfast and dinner together for two days. I arrived at about 6 and the girls (her daughter Raquel and her cousins) and I made jewelry in Aurora's craft room. She makes a lot of the jewelry that is sold in the Casa Museo. After dinner, the whole family got a slice of melon and sat out on the porch to watch 'Combate'. From what I understand, it is a daily reality game show with two teams (naranja and azul) that either win and keep all players or loose and eliminate someone to get a new player each week. It's surprisingly really entertaining.

Palabra del dia: regalame - the tico way of saying 'give to me...'

ps. I'm equipo azul!! wooohooo

Aurora's work shop

earrings

I picked this shell because it looks like a recent moon

this is my favorite necklace

Tuesday

This morning Marvin took us on an official tour of the town and explained the meaning behind all of the artwork. It's incredible the amount of symbolism that is put into every work of art around here. Unfortunately I left my camera in my room this morning so you are going to have to deal with my lovely instagram photos. After the tour, I started my shift at the centro infantil (the daycare). I'm not gonna lie, those were the most adorable kids I've ever seen. They we so well mannered and enamored by the fact that I spoke both Spanish and English. They kept giving me books to read in my strange accent. After nap time and a quick snack, we made all sorts of things with playdoh. I can really see the emphasis the community places on free creative expression. It's quite liberating to be in a place that tries to debunk western aesthetics and create something that is uniquely their own. After I said farewell to the kids as they each left with their parents, I headed over to the centro creativo for Megan's intermediate English class. We talked about holiday traditions and how they differ within each culture. Megan does this thing where she posts partial lyrics to a song on facebook for her class to copy. They each listen to the song and try to fill in the missing words to their best ability. This really helps them comprehend different accents as well as broaden their musical pallet. This week they listened to "It's a New Day" by Will.I.Am. We all joined in on singing the song once we had the correct lyrics. One of the students suggested that we have a karaoke night on Friday for the whole class. I'm totally in. This will be exciting!