Social Butterfly...

Just in case you're worried, we're all having fun down here!
Here's a picture of all the girls...


...and then the guys in the group. (I don't seem to have the picture of everyone, even though we took at least 50!)

Then we have our day out in Puriscal, love those limes!

The messy group at Damian's birthday party (my sister Dunia's boyfriend), where dancing and cake were the themes for the night!
And last weekend was the VAC dinner (Volunteer Council of some sort)... volunteers from all over the country came in for the big party in San Jose.

La gira

Training is hectic and quite disorienting. As soon as I actually get to a computer, I have so many things to tell and so much to share that I never know where to start and simply end up speechless. I think that's the biggest frustration at the moment, that I'm unable to adequately express everything that's happening here! So here's my attempt for redemption...

Our training group split in two for our first field trip, visiting various volunteers in their sites to see what the real deal is. My half was in the Zona Norte (North Central Zone) and the other group went to Guanacaste (North Carribean Zone). Monday morning we left for Caño Negro de Los Chiles, which used to be a Rural site (my program is Rural Community Development, just a reminder), but has recently been taken over by the Micro-Enterprise program because of it's significant increase in tourism.
It was beautiful (it's on a river and next to a protected forest), but surprisingly bigger than I expected! We met with a group of women (organized by a former PC volunteer for self-esteem classes) who make and sell jewelry to tourists. In the morning we visited San Gabriel de Upala, which was much more rural and decentralized. We only stopped by to talk with the current volunteer before moving on to Pejibaye de Gautuso, which is a future site for my group (as in one of us will live there). There we were part of a nutrition class and exercise program with the local school; it was great to play some futbol!

The next morning it was of to Sante Fe de Guatuso, which was a tough site. The volunteer, Thomas, will be there for another year, but 5 kilometers away lies a future site, Gallo Pinto, which is even more rural since that person will have to walk to Sante Fe to catch the bus at 5:15am! On the way there and back, we stopped in a city called Zarcero, which has this really cool garden.

Bustamante

So the town I live in is technically Los Angeles de Mora, but since the majority of its residents pertain to the same family, that of Bustamante, it has become the popular name. It's a tiny little place, consisting of a school, church, pulperia (general store), and of course, the soccer field. In practice, I actually live closer to a much bigger town called Tabarcia, which actually has like a restaurant, a Civil Guard, and a bus station, etc.
I live with Dilsia and Justo (last name Bustamante, of course), and I have nine brothers and sisters, the majority of which live on my street. They all have their own families, so all my nieces and nephews come in and out of our house all the time, as the grandparents are the central hot spot. The second youngest of my sisters (5 days younger than me) is engaged to be married on April 8th and due to have a baby in September. So plans for the wedding and the baby are well underway in our household. Here I am with my youngest sister Dunia.

Typically, I'll wake up between 5 and 6am, depending on the day's activities, and either go for a run before classes in Tabarcia or head in to San Jose on the bus (we're about an hour or so outside the city) with my host sister and the rest of the "aspirantes" (Peace Corp Trainees). We have a lot of technical training and classes about Health, Safety, and the like. Coming to San Jose is a bit of a hassle, but it's not so bad. I'm typically tired at the end of the day and read a little before bed at about 8:30 or 9:30pm.
I spend a lot of time with my host family, basically talking about other family members and how they fit in to the community. Over the weekend, I had an hour long discussion with my host mother to be able to walk 10 minutes to the restaurant and have some pizza and a beer on Saturday night! I negociated my 9:30 curfew to 10pm, but it was still embarrassing because there were a lot of little kids at the bar (Saprissa, a local soccer team, was playing an important game, so it was packed).