Winter break, new town/year...

Um it has been about a month since I last wrote, sorry but no one has complained yet. Anyways the holidays here were pretty good and I have a bunch of pictures however they are on other people´s camaras in different parts of the country so slowly but surely the images will come together.

To kick off my vacations I went with Habitat on their year end employee outing to hot springs in La Fortuna. It was really relaxing and the best part was that I was doing tourist stuff with the locals. I don´t think I would have enjoyed it as much had it been a group of foreigners. There were about 15 of us and we all had a good time. After the hot springs I got dropped off where I used to live three years ago to spend Christmas. The big thing here is to make a whole bunch of tamales and give them out as food gifts. The Costa Rican tamale is different from the Mexican tamale because they use banana leaves to wrap them and they put pork and pepper and other ingredients into them. I made tamales with different families for three days (the process takes the whole day) leading up to Christmas. The actual day of Christmas Eve was pretty laid back for being in the country. I was with my original host family and at night the whole family got together and we opened gifts and had a family dinner. It wasn´t anything over the top but I was really glad that I was able to spend Christmas with my families in Costa Rica for once.

Christmas Day I went back to Alajuela to spend time with my Alajuela family. There I was able to call and talk to my family in the US for which was really great to catch up with them. Alajuela didn´t have a whole lot going on and I don´t know how I did it but I managed to spend a whole week there without going crazy. I thought for sure I would go back and stay with my old families for a bit, but I managed to get hooked on computer games and running to help pass the time in Alajuela. One day was super exciting as I was able to watch the final week of the NFL all day in my room with a TV that my family borrowed from the neighbor. They made me pizza too, so I had a pretty North American day. Maybe not super exciting for most, but it is fun to have a day like that once in a while.

On Dec. 31st I said goodbye to my Alajuela host family and got on the bus to head to my new town of San Ramón. My current living arrangement is me watching a house for a family who is currently vacationing in Peru and they invited me to come on the 31st to get acquainted for a few days before they left. The cool thing about being in San Ramón for New Years is they have a really good dance club. I was there at midnight and they had a balloon drop and a mini-carnaval. All I know is that ill have to practice a little more for the real carnaval in February in Panama. The music is really fast and a lot more tiring than the other Latin dances that I am familiar with. On the New Years day I went to the family’s farm and ¨adopted¨ some cattle. I hadn´t planned on it but some of the young bulls were so friendly that I now call them mine (the pictures will explain this a lot better). The next day I went to the Costa Rica equivalent of Six Flags. I have to say if you have ever been to Six Flags, don´t get your hopes up for Costa Rica. They had one decent rollercoaster where you went upside down twice, but you only went around once and it was like a quarter of the size of the average US roller coaster. The place had more carnival games than actual roller coasters. Go-karts, bumper cars, Ferris wheel, spinning apples etc. They had giant drop which was about half as high as a typical giant drop and they had two pretty un-exciting water rides. It was a lot cheaper than in the US, but I wouldn’t get my hopes for any rides that might make you puke. The family left the 4th so since then I have been land locked in San Ramón watching their house and work started again the 5th.

San Ramón is only about 45min from Alajuela and I will probably be here until the end in May. We have a housing project going on right now so I am onsite tracking the daily progress and I am hosting brigades when they come to the site. We have one right now, 14 people all Canadians. I have to say Canadian brigades are my favorite. They are all laid back and chill and when things don’t always go as planned they don’t panic as much as the US brigades and go with the flow a lot better. They are funny too, most are at least fifty years old but there has been probably a group of 5-6 that are always asking me where to go out at night. Asking me questions like what time do people go out at to eat or party and where the party spots are. Kind of baffling for me because San Ramón has there own bar zone, but every night I walk around there it is a ghost town so I don’t know what to tell them. I´m fairly new to the town but am miffed as to why things are so quiet most nights. San Ramón gives the impression as being a bigger town but in reality is still a town with a lot of farming families. They have a nice shopping and market area but farming I think is still the majority of the occupations.

That is basically the last month for me in Costa Rica. I did get to go to a wedding over Christmas which was pretty fun as I was able to get a lot of dancing practice. Other super exciting news is my parents and brother are coming to visit in less than two weeks! Should be a good month… PS Go Cardinals! PPS stay warm Midwest. I know I will.