First few days

Hello!

I am here in La Guacima, Costa Rica. My host family gave me my own room in the house where the younger daughter and the parents sleep. Out back above the garage area are a few apartment rooms I think (I haven"t seen them) where the older daughter and son live, as well as the family of the niece of my host mother.

My plan in coming was to volunteer at a young women"s home, Casa Luz. It is literally right down the street from my house. Eight young women, all 16 to 18 years old, live and study there, along with 9 children (one has 2 little girls, all the rest have one child each). The eldest child is only 4, so they are very little kids. The schedule they"ve decided on for me is to play with the children from 9 until lunch, when i eat there along with everyone else, including the faculty of la directora and the psychologists who hold sessions with the women during the day. Then in the afternoon until 3pm, I teach English to the muchachas. This will vary, for example today they had a meeting so I just played with the kids all day. But yesterday we had our first class, and we went over the alphabet, the verb "to be", the numbers up to one hundred, and colors. I plan on starting on small phrases, like "My name is..." and greetings in our next class, which should be tomorrow.

The program I coordinated with in the US set me up with a local program called Rancho Espanol. It is like a spanish school for English speaking tourists who want to take classes but also just visit Costa Rica. Even though I am not a student with them, I guess I am working for them as a volunteer and so can use their pool and internet.

The best news I have heard while being here is that the water is potable! Brushing your teeth with bottled water isnt all that bad, but I wasnt too excited to do it for another 3 months after Bolivia.

We"ll see how well I keep up with this, but for now, hasta luego!
chloe