FUN DAYS

LAUREN CAME! For those of you who do NOT know, Lauren is my best friend of my life and she worked in Nicaragua for six weeks doing amazing work with farmers, BUT she has another friend in Costa Rica Peace Corps as well...so she came to Costa Rica to visit! She got to come and meet my family and we made chocolate chip cookies! My closest friend here and I are working to PERFECT the recipe as the Costa Rican ingredients are a TAD different, but it was still a wonderful piece of home to have Lauren here and to make cookies! I miss her already! :(

Playa Hermosa! My bff here and I took our first OUT OF SITE night. (Out of site time is basically mental health nights that we are allowed because technically we are not allowed to leave our sites, even on the week-ends!) My friends boyfriend came to visit and he basically treated us like princesses and paid for TWO days of sleeping in hammocks and watching surfers. I might have forgotten I was in the Peace Corps...and I might have gotten a small tan. Sounds amazing and it was, but please do NOT think this is REAL Peace Corps life! :)

Volcan Poas

My family took me to see this Volcano! Clearly, the pictures do NOT do it justice. I mean...I just looked at hole into the earth with smoke coming out! How cool is that!

Things to note: very touristy. My family laughed a lot because EVERYONE was speaking Enlgish! And also - it was expensive. Ok, not expensive in US $, but on a Peace Corps salaray EXPENSIVE. They charge one TOURIST as mush as it costs SIX Costa Ricans to enter the park! Soon I will have a Costa Rican Registration card though so I will be able to visit places as someone who lives here.

Also - when Lauren came, her friend taught us how to say 'My paycheck is in colones, not in dollars.' in Spanish so that we can say it when everyone thinks we're tourists and tries to overcharge us. I tried to tell one man I was not a tourist and he definitly did NOT believe me!

A Little Overview of Life Here

Thus far my blogs have been about GRAND Peace Corps events, but this one is a little bit about the daily life here.

With Peace Corps training it seems that every other week is a HARD week. During these weeks, we are lucky to have time to use the internet or do do personal things like talk on the phone or just hang out. During these busy weeks, the Peace Corps has LONG days of technical training where all 35 of us conveine in a NOISY room to learn about non-formal education, health issues, history and culture of Costa Rica and other realted things. Now...this may sound fun, but EIGHT hours of school is hard to endure after the luxury of a University Education. (and I mean that in all the different ways it may be taken...) These days are EXHAUSTING not only because we sit in class all day, but we also travel to and from the training site during peak travel hours crammed, standing with our backpacks on a bus (we know each other very intimately now) and as of yet...we haven't quite perfected the art of hanging on. It's quite an experience!

On our slower weeks, we have a lot of Spanish classes in our communities. These days are shorter... from 8 - 2:30 with a break for lunch, but are also exhausting because constantly thinking in a different language is difficult. And its also difficult to hear ourselves speak bad spanish...and to hear each other speak bad spanish. Also, once class ends, we have other "projects" to complete. This week we have to observe a classroom and interview a teacher as well as plan 5 projects to conduct within our community! It may sound easy, but I have to plan 5 classes to teach, IN SPANISH, and convince people to come and "learn" from me.

However, there are always exciting things happening as well. For instance, on Monday, I made pizza (with the DiBianca homemade pizza dough recipe!) for my family and they LOVED it! And tomorrow mybestLauren is coming to visit me and I will get to play with her and her bff Katie Finn on Friday! PLUS on Monday we have a holiday so some of us are going to the beach for Sunday and Monday! And Thursday, we have another HOLIDAY!

It's hard to describe life here becasue it is always changing and at the exact same moments that it is exciting, thrilling, adventurous, busy, and fun, it is also hard, boring, exhausting, lonely, and frustrating. Right now though, I can't wait for more! I want to know more, I want to do more, I want to speak better, and I want to be more immersed in the culture! The best is yet to come!

Thanks for the letters, the e-mails and the encouragement! Everything you guys send to me and tell me makes me laugh and my family here LOVES hearing about all of you guys!

P.S. You can comment on my blog if you want too...

I mean if you are going to read it, you may as well leave me a little comment! :)

Peace Corps Sent Us Into the World

Peace Corps sent us on our first "site visit" and the bottom picture was the view from our house (AMAZING, I know), but we MAY have had to climb up a mud slide to get to our house. Ha ha ha. It sounds silly, but really, I could NOT walk up the hill to our house bc i just kept sliding down the mud. Please picture me with a huge backpack sliding backwards down a mudslide. It was AWESOME. I mean, it really was awesome. We stayed in an indigenous village and learned all about how one volunteer lives.

We also had the chance to hike a HUGE moutain and see the village on one side and a rainforest on the other. It was almost surreal to hike next to coconut trees and such a tropical place. Sometimes I think to myself...is this my life? There is a picture of me and my pcbff, but it is only HALF WAY up the moutain!

Then we traveled to a more urban site to visit another volunteer...and there was a little less mud, but the most exciting thing about this house was that i had a little brother, a little sister and a rabbit!! I LOVED the rabbit. (I felt at home!) And my brother and sister reminded me of all my little kids that i baby-sit! (Which reminds me..thanks for the letter jake, lily & sam!)

At this site we learned a lot from the volunteer! We got to visit an orphanage and experience the type of work he does there, as well as visit a school and tell about our experiences in the United States and participate in a basketball practice! We had a great time! There is a picture of three of us with our packs on! This was as we were heading home...and by this time, we were so use to our backpacks, we didn't even want to take them off. And those two are two of my favorite peace corps volunteers. They help keep me sane!

My Family

The top picture is my brother, QUESO, after he WON a futbol game and the bottom pciture is my dad, my mom, and my sister Karol when we went to the country and got to go to the pool!

A little bit about the best Costa Rican family ever...

My parents are very honest and direct. That sounds weird, but Costa Ricans are known for being overly polite and not being honest. My parents however tell it like it is...and like me to tell it like it is. Which as most of you know works much better for me than telling white lies. Ha ha ha. So I fit in perfectly with them. My mom cooks for me, cleans my room, and does my laundry...it might be a little like heaven. And my dad talks really slowly so that I can understand him which is wonderful. They both have a GREAT sense of humor and this past weekend, they took me to the mountains of Costa Rica! It was AMAZING.

My 15 year old sister Karol is great! She takes me everywhere and has now become my translator. She understands my broken Spanish and really does translate for me to other people! It is pretty funny actually. She is super sweet and made me a welcome sign and card! She loves arts and crafts...so we are going to get a long SUPER well. She also likes to buy me chocolate, so more or less, I LOVE HER.

Last, but not least, my HILARIOUS 18 year old brother. His name is Marco, but his nickname is QUESO (which for those of you who dont speak spanish...means CHEESE!). He is by far the best soccer player in town and I spend a good amount of free time watching him and his friends play soccer. (It takes me back to high school!) His friends are really nice to me and sometimes they even let me play soccer too...they don´t know that I´m not athletic here. I know that Karli and Joshua would be in heaven with all the soccer that is played here!

I am so happy and I am learning so much. I definitly think I got the best family and the language is coming easier than expected, but I still wish I could communicate with them better! They are wonderful and I just wish I could REALLY know what they are saying and REALLY communicate back with them! I cant wait!

Pura Vida! (Pure Life)

Two More Things...

1. I knew I loved the volunteers when I told them ¨I went to UNC-Chapel Hill¨and they said ¨I hate DUKE¨and I said ¨We´re bff.¨

2. In Costa Rica people don´t call me Keeeeeeem, because Kimberly is actually a popular name here so they can pronounce Kim. Cool, eh?

I Live In Costa Rica Now

This blog is going to be SUPER hard because so much has happened, but....

We arrived in Costa Rica with all of our luggage...(I wasn´t the only one who had to pay for luggage that was too heavy!) For four days all 35 of us became GREAT friends and learned so much I cannot even begin to tell you what we learned. But know that the Peace Corps Costa Rica has AMAZING staff and they take VERY good care of us! We received medical kits with every possible medication needed, malaria pills, mosquito nets and books to prepare us for our eventual volunteering! My favorite part was getting to know the other Volunteers and the staff (clearly). I brought Catchphrase and, as some of you know, Catchphrase brings people together.

Now we are all divided (sad - bc seriously all the volunteers are bffs already :)), but good because our families are AMAZING! In my opinion, my family is the BEST! I have a brother (18 yrs old) and a sister (15 yrs old) who take me everywhere and introduce me to everyone and a mom and dad who tell me things 100 times until I understand exactly what they are saying. My Spanish is good enough that I can have fairly deep conversations. Sometimes they have to talk AROUND things until I understand, but I am so lucky that they are so patient for me. My family is so giving and friendly and I cannot say enough good things about them.

Everyday we have language classes and work with WONDERFUL language trainers who teach us SO much about Costa Rica and Costa Rican Spanish. I have some really good Peace Corps friends in my community and I´m soon to have some really good Costa Rican friends as well. Just give me about two more weeks to be better at Spanish...and bam! bff. :)

Anyways, the Youth Development Volunteers are meeting in a larger town today to celebrate the 4th of July - so Happy 4th to all of you! Watch some fireworks for us! Love to you all.