Over the weekend I took a much needed trip AWAY from the paint fumes way way up north, near the border of Nicaragua, to a little town called Caño Negro. My friend and fellow volunteer, Mick, lives up there and I decided to check it out. 16 hours of travel on rocky, dirt roads in stuffy buses is all it took to arrive delirious and tired in his neighborhood of 210.

Several other volunteers live up in that area so we had a chance to all hang out together, sing a little karaoke, eat the best fish fry of my life!, sleep in hammocks, sweat profusely, and forget about work for a little while.

Popcorn! In an electric skillet. Not the easiest thing to do, but it worked better than my mini-fridge or blender would have so I'll chalk it up as a victory.

It has become very important for me to keep having and celebrating these small victories to keep me going during the laborious and often endless seeming larger projects. Speaking of, here is a visual update on how the library is coming along:








This upcoming Wednesday is Independence Day in Costa Rica so i'm trying to take advantage of the students' irregular school schedule to paint in peace. (This after 2 separate kids on 2 separate days ignored my 2 distinct signs to be careful-a sign that read "Please do not enter! Wet Paint!" and a 5' ladder blocking the door-and went on to both back plant against a wet wall. Sorry about the melon colored paint, Mom(s)!

Painting should be finished Monday or Tuesday at the latest...then it's on to shelf building and book buying!!

Wow, it's been over a month already... Well, I'll just hit the highlights.

*I spent 8 days at home and enjoyed every second of it. My grandparents celebrated their 60th anniversary, I went to a Brewer game, played lots of lawn games, and visited with lots of family, friends, and Dan! yay!

*A committee has officially been formed in "the projects." I'm ecstatic at the current momentum and hope that it continues in the future... "The projects" have been a difficult area to for me to integrate in to, but now with an "official" project, things are moving forward! All members want to work toward building a small community center and fixing up the 2 playgrounds in the community.

*The book club lost 8 members. 5 of which I "dismissed" due to inappropriate behavior (yelling, throwing, hitting) and the others left because their friends were booted. Life goes on.

*I turned 26!

*I bought a toaster oven and have already made 4 loaves of banana bread. Definitely a life changer.

*Next week we're painting the library. 14 "drawing contest winners" will be chosen to paint their drawings on two of the walls. I've also made contact with an organization to beef up our book collection. Finally, we have the grant $ in hand!

I posted pictures from the month... take a look!!

For the past two-ish weeks I've been without hot water. For some reason or another my shower-head heater, supposedly "new," is extremely temperamental and will choose to stop working at any given moment and then magically start again a week or two weeks later. Always a crap shoot. Well this past Wednesday I headed in to take a shower determined that TODAY would be the day it would start working again.

Tinkering with the sliding tab, the running water remained ice cold. (expletive) Even though the outdoor temperature may be 79, at 6:30 in the morning, cold water is still just cold water. Sigh. One more try. Ta-da! The shower gods bestowed their magic.

There really aren't words to accurately describe how great a hot shower feels after being without for a while. Reveling in it's greatest, I was nearing the end when BAM! POP! I was surrounded by a shower of sparks. I screeched and lept out of the shower dripping. (also taking sudden note of the swishing sounds of machetes in my back yard and the likely confused workers) POP! WHAM! POW! The metal wire connecting the shower head to the ceiling snapped in two, and began to smoke. The bathroom smelled of burnt electrical tape and the water continued to run as I contemplated my chances of electrocution. I wasn't too thrilled at the thought of having to be found, no doubt days later, in the shower after having succumb to the powers of that stupid 6" heater... and all for a little warm water.

But clearly, I've been granted another chance and thus survived to tell the tale of my 2nd house fire in less than 3 months. Thanks for everything, Costa Rica!!

The book club has officially accomplished it's first activity... de-cou-page! Despite it being the mid-year break, 5 out of 6 of the b.c. leaders came to school at 9a.m. to beautify a bookshelf bringing lots of excitement (and gluey hands). After two hours, and a bag of marshmallow treats, we were done. I was thrilled they all worked so well together; they were thrilled to get away from their parents.

Here's the before and after...





In other exciting library news....our grant application was approved!! (In May, I had applied to receive money (a max of $500) to go towards funding the library and the activities and supplies for the book club.) Finally, the wait is over. Within the next month we will be receiving $499.86! This money will be coming from an organization called "Kids to Kids" where kiddos in the states raise money to support projects involving kiddos in other countries. They then vote on the applications and choose the most "kid-friendly" projects. We're famous!

http://www.kidstokids.org/projects/project.php?project=474


The mid-year school breaks continues through this week and then it's back to the normal schedule again. I've taken advantage of the extra time to start a backyard garden and dig a compost pit. Yeah! I've been wishing and wanting to do so and finally got the green light from my landlord.

I've also had the opportunity to tag along with the "San Vito Bird Club" and go on a bird-watching hike through the beautiful botanical gardens with a group of kids. I'm not really into birding myself, but hiking through botanical gardens on a sunny Saturday morning is a great way to start the day. Especially when coupled with enthusiastic kids and a pair of binoc's.


The rain continues and continues. I fight to get my clothes dry and never leave the house without wearing my tall, leopard print boots. Lately I've been into making wheat tortillas and have tried my hand at "blender hummus" too. As mid-month rapidly approaches, so does the number 0 in my bank account... Hummus tortilla anyone?? (for the 3rd time today?)

So please send me your gardening tips n tricks and cheap (no-bake) recipes!! I'd like to spice it up.

P.S. I'm trying to keep up with the picasa photo albums as well so if you're dying to see more than the thumbnails I include here...have a look! The 1st set of pix are from a 4th of July BBQ I went to with a bunch of ex-pats. There was a chocolate cake contest as well and I was an official judge. Tough job.

Today is the first day of the "mid-year" break for all school kids and I'm relaaaaxing. Made some whole wheat pancakes with a fruit salad for breakfast, and am now enjoying NOT hand-washing clothes, doing chores, or frantically trying to organize this or that at the school or in town.

Last weekend I randomly decided to take a box of chalk and head over to "the projects" to do an "hora de arte" with the kiddos. They loved it! The idea is to eventually do a legitimate mural with paint but, this is a start.





Hmmm, what else. We've officially elected the "coordinadores" for the book club (they were soooo excited when they found out) and are having a "coordinator's activity only" over break to beautify the library. Whiiiich in this case, without money or resources at this time, means de-cou-paging a book shelf with colorful wrapping paper and a glue/water solution without paintbrushes. I'll also throw in a little q&a about leadership, setting good examples, project ideas, etc etc. The first official project of the book club is to start a story hour for the kids in pre-school and kindergarten. They came up with the idea and will essentially be in charge of coordinating the whole thing! Yay kid power.

The school board has now officially given it's support to the library project!! This is big news for it's future. Along with the President, we're hoping to get a group of interested parents involved because "other logical sources" (cough teachers) are "unable" to do so. This is just the news I wanted to hear as the first half of the year came to a close....

Finally! The much anticipated lip sync contest happened. After 26 classroom presentations, 13 posters, and 4 date changes, it happened. And the kids loved it. WHY were there 4 date changes?

Weeeeeeell, after planning and proposing the idea to the school director, she approved the dates. Two weeks before this approved date she named me on a committee planning an "art festival" for the exact two dates she approved, which hung on 13 posters throughout the school, and resonated in the brains of approximately 280 children and 25 staff.

"What? What contest?" Was the response I received when I mentioned this during a meeting in front of 4 other personnel.
"Oh no, there's time for both."
"No there isn't."
"Yes there is. Ok well we'll just do it on Friday." (this is exactly what I had wanted to avoid which is why I planned for 2 days)
Date change #1.

Another week passes and I hear in passing that Friday is the day for the all-day all-school assembly celebrating "National Day of the Environment." (this had been in the works for weeks as well)

Date change #2.

After approaching the director with my new-found information: "Oooook Liiiiindsay. Let's do it next Thursday. The 10th. That ok?"
"Alright, I'd prefer it to be 2 days as originally planned, so how about thursday and friday?"
"Ok." She writes it down.

Date change #3.

Two days later, after having changed all 13 posters and visiting all 13 classrooms of confused children, she "realizes" there are no classes on Thursday. Nope. There's a teacher training and no children will be coming to school. (this has been in the works for weeks as well)

Date change #4.

Irate. Poster change, confused children, the godforsaken lip sync that I no longer have interest in carrying out is on FRIDAY the 11th.

Due to all the changes, many children forgot, forgot their music, or forgot their costumes. But many others did not and it was a riot. There WAS a "Billie Jean" act complete with costume, attempted moon-walking, and classic MJ moves. A group of 6th grade boys brought in their drums and did an original number. Two kindergarten girls dressed as cowgirls and preformed their own choreographed dance. Some children improvised and sang the songs that they meant to play on a disc and others did traditional Costa Rican dance in full costume. All the students and teachers alike got in to and it ended up being a success. I'm glad I persevered. I'm not sure I will repeat that format ever again. (didn't I say this after Earth Day??)





June 14th-18th was Mid-Service training. It was a time for information sharing, camaraderie, and lounging in a sweet hotel with all the amenities. Unfortunately, I became very ill mid-week with a virus mimicking dengue fever. I have never had such horrible body and joint pain in my life. Coupled with a high fever, pain behind my eyes, and chills, I spent a fair amount of time in bed longing for sleep. So I had to make a couple trips to the hospital and stayed in the capital a few extra days to ensure everything was alright. Today is the first day I'm really feeling better. Dang you virus.

So now I'm back in action. Getting ready to watch the U.S./Ghana soccer game, having just finished a few hours of laundry. But I feel re-inspired to continue with the library project-the club has officially formed and we have started meeting!!-and forge ahead with new projects and new groups as well.

Oh yeah...the rain is taking it's toll on the roads around here... Look what happened walking to school.