Here's the most recent photo of the mural Cecilia, the English teacher, is painting in the library!! Beautiful! The kids love it.



While I was gone, we received 12 boxes of brand new student encyclopedias as a donation from a local association! Just goes to show what happens as soon as something is in place. I recently found out that the school has been in the "process" of creating a library for 8 years. Hmmm... Stamping and labeling! Fortunately with the help of a university student who has to do 24 hours of community service to keep his scholarship.




Here's the new bed I dug out for my garden this weekend. The other one has flooded so many times I finally decided to give up on it and re-locate. I spread my compost out yesterday and am anxious to plant!! I already have tomatoes and zucchini growing in containers and cilantro that's hung on in the other bed. Transplanting time!

Life rolls on in San Vito...

We had an All Volunteer Conference the last week in Sept where I presented my school library project to other interested volunteers. It went well and lots of vols from the new group are interested in spreading books and literacy as well in their own interested communities. That's exciting! ALL children and students deserve the opportunity to read and access books (in my humble opinion).

Then, Dan came for a second visit! We had a fantastic time up in the Monteverde Cloud Forest and hiking around La Fortuna and taking in Volcano Arenal. I needed that break to re-charge, see a different part of the country, and hang out with Dan. We had really unseasonable weather ironically too. October is the rainiest month of the year in Costa Rica. What we experienced would be classified as "extreme heat and humidity." This unforeseen break was very welcomed after a 4.5 hours bus trip to Monteverde turned into 11 hours after a trailer tipped over and a landslide blocked the road. This all in a torrential downpour (just outside of the capital) with no dinner and no clue what was going on. 5.5 hours at a standstill. Not a great start to the trip...




Next week I'll be going to a training put on by the Costa Rican Red Cross with two members of my community on HIV/AIDS prevention. The idea is to utilize the information we receive to replicate the same workshops back in our own communities. It's at the same hotel we stayed at for our Mid-Service Training (nice!!) so I'm looking forward to it. There is also a need to squash many myths about the virus as well with both teens and adults.

I'm excited to start on a new project tract. Already work plans are beginning to form for next year!!

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.