Merry belated Christmas and happy new year to everyone!
I’ve been pretty busy here in El Capulin working, moving and
entertaining my Christmas visitors.
Since about mid November, school has been touch and go. Students
took their exams on the 18th and after that a lot of them took an
early vacation. Since there wasn’t a whole lot to be taught, I focused my
energy on planning JumpStart, the month-long English camp I am leading during
this month. I was running all over the place asking for donations, make sure
the kids were ready to go and transportation was organized.
I know many of you donated and I cannot thank you enough. I
am so relieved and comfortable knowing that my camp, and the other thirteen camps
in Costa Rica, are well on their way to being completely funded. Today was the
first day of the camp and it went really well. Not without its minor
complications, but I am feeling really confident that it is going to be one of
my favorite projects so far. I am writing short posts about my group in the
JumpStart blog, http://jumpstartcostarica.blogspot.com/search/label/El%20Capul%C3%ADn.
That is a link to my Liberia page. And from there you can look at posts from
other camps around Costa Rica.
While I was finishing up the details for JumpStart, I came
down with a pretty horrible fever, which turned out to be Dengue. I remember
teasing Coco and Chris when they were getting ready to visit me about catching “The
Dengue,” but never thought anyone really got it, let alone me. It honestly wasn’t
as bad as it could have been, and I think because I didn’t know it was dengue
for the majority of the time I had it helped. It was a nasty fever, headache, eye
ache for about five days, and then a horrible, itchy rash for another five
days. My platelets and white blood cell count dropped quite a bit and I had to
go to San Jose for monitoring by our medical staff. But after four days in San
Jose I was cleared to go back to Liberia and I am feeling, and looking, back to
normal.
One of my main concerns when I was trying to kick The Dengue
was being healthy in time for when Megan and Kaitlin, my two best friends,
arrived. I was, gracias a Dios (another phrase that Costa Ricans say in
response to everything), and they were with me from the 22nd to the
31st. We had a really awesome trip and it was nice to be able to
share some of my Costa Rican life with peeps from home. I dragged them all over
the country, from the Caribbean coast to the Pacific coast and up into the
mountains. It was an incredible breath of fresh air and quite entertaining watching
them observe the nutty things that have become my normal. They will be writing
a guest post about their experiences, which should be pretty enlightening for
people that want an outsider’s perspective on my life and Costa Rica.
Oh! I finally moved into my own house/apartment! It is
really awesome living on my own. I do miss my host family, but I am right around
the corner and I have already been back to eat a few meals and chat. And I am
actually living next door to their aunt. So it’s all in the family.
I feel a lot more productive with my own space and more
relaxed knowing I don’t have to tell anyone where I am going, when I’ll be
back, or if I swept my room. Although I have found that I’ve acquired that
Costa Rican habit of sweeping the house and outside patio approximately four
times a day.
JumpStart is going to keep my busy, but look for shorter
posts from me, more often. And keep an eye out for Megan and Kaitlin’s post
too. (It’s on here ladies, you have to do it).
Peace and Love.
