The completely adorable cat who invades our kitchen on a daily basis.... really wish she/he(?) weren't so cute ... there are days where I'm almost convinced to let her/him stay.
Rio Celeste... a moment of blue shined through....So the problem with using pepper here is that you spend double the time you normally would to eat anything because you have to second guess every bite.... because you're sure that every flake is in reality a microscopic ant of the same variety that seem to have camped out within your computer.... and when you let up on the vigilance for a bit... that next bite always has a little extra crunch.
THE EXCUSE:
And the other problem is the fact that I am a massively slow blogger and my life currently is fantastic and inspiring and amazing and I am failing miserably at sharing it with you . So I will give up on trying to catch up on this past month, but do promise to attempt to DO MUCH MUCH better in the future. To very briefly illustrate here is a group photo of my food security class and some of the information I know about them:
L-R standing: Helen - journalist from Ethiopia (FANTASTIC have a very serious friend crush on this one), Aba (who is behind Helen) - Nigerian, Liz - USA, Agnes - VERY pregnant and from Uganda.... sassy... works in development projects in Uganda and Ethiopia to name a few.... upeace baby coming up!, Layla - USA, Suzanne - USA, Ramiro - Bolivian intn'l human rights lawer and B-boy.... apparently teaches hip hop dancing interventions w/gang kids and kids in prisons in Bolivia (yes he is just that cool), Martin - Switzerland, Awa - Cameroon, Tom - UK (the kid we met diving in Punta Uva), Eileen - USA (fantastic... works for the EPA organizing campaigns to clean up schools (getting lead out of schools etc) among other things), Hanada - Japan, Chera Lee - Canada, Jules - USA, me, Caroline - USA, Laura - USA, Azizi - Afghanistan ( Head of UNIDO - United Nations Industrial Development Organization- Operations in Afghanistan, occasionally has to go negotiate with rebels in mountain passes with AK-47s to get food convoys across.... you know... the usual.....), Reg- UK/Canada.... the Prof - lots of fisheries work and ag. development stuff in MalawiL-R sitting: Rachael - Canada Vday coordinator-need I say more?, Beatrice - Switzerland/Sweden/(Palestinian+Hungarian), Hannah - Canada, Amanda - Canada (more involved in EVERYTHING at UPEACE than basically everyone else put together...), Dora - Hungarian (known to be part of the coordiantion for major music festivals on islands on the danube.....), Dora's Venzuelan husband, Cristobal (not a student but came to class everyday anyways and is an overall fantastic human being), Maya - US/Jamaica - actress, playwright, singer, juliard graduate (etc.) .... and THERE were A WHOLE LOT MORE CLASSROOMS just like it. The downside is you might have noticed that NONE of these people are Costa Rican. Very luckily for me, Chela still seems to enjoy spending time with me so I've gotten some Spanish in once in a while, and I am moving in with a fantastic family in a couple of days soon so that should be much much better.
What I can share is the fact that I just came back from a truly spectacular 3-day jungle adventure up a misty mountain (read volcano) with 3 fantastic ladies from my program....(a totally separate group from the Caribbean adventure - as there are many to choose from...) Rio Celeste (when it doesn't rain) is a river that is supposed to be bright turquoise because of the sulfur running off of the volcano (or some such) but as luck would have it we spent the entire day deep in fog and pouring rain. However as we had a motley assortment of raincoats, umbrellas, dogged determination, peanut butter, banana, honey sandwiches, not enough water, many many cameras, boxed wine and plastic cups with built in straws, fantastic (just to reiterate) traveling companions, and a healthy dose of humor.... we got along spectacularly. And we got to have a slip and slide through ankle deep mud all the way down the mountain!
Arbol de la PAZ.... BIGGEST TREE IN COSTA RICA (or so they say) ... that is Eileen up against the base of it .... just for a size comparison.... please keep in mind that she and I are the same height if attempting any calculations.... also keep in mind that the top of the frame is probably not even a quarter of the way up this tree.
The oh-so remarkably dry path
The oh-so remarkably dry path
Me, Liz, Emily and the less-than turquoise waterfall
Sippy-cups.... "but they'll ony work if there is something at the very bottom...."
HOT SPRINGS and bathing beauties.
and the rest of my photos can be found:
http://picasaweb.google.com/avra.heller/RioCeleste02?authkey=Gv1sRgCK6egd-VjZWcew#
and eileen's photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/eileennaples82/RioCelesteQueRico#
and the rest of my photos can be found:
http://picasaweb.google.com/avra.heller/RioCeleste02?authkey=Gv1sRgCK6egd-VjZWcew#
and eileen's photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/eileennaples82/RioCelesteQueRico#
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