Back Up to Speed

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 18^th 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 22^nd to the 31^st. 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.