April flew. It was a month filled with work, friends and the tedious things that are required in order to leave Peace Corps. We once again have found ourselves questioning where the time went. Then I looked through our journal and saw that we were just using every last minute to its fullest (well, almost every last minute...).
If you're curious what we were up to last month, stick around. Here is comes.
April 1
We left Orlando and Alejandra's shortly thereafter and headed to Recreo Verde. While we didn't do the zip line we did enjoy plenty of time in the aguas termales (hot springs).
April 2
Chris went into town to get some basics. He ran into Billy and Rebecca. He also met a tico that wanted to make sure he knew where he was going (most gringos don't come to La Colonia).
April 3
Exercise class was quiet. Only Ania showed up. That's Semana Santa for you.
April 4
I got gifts packed and mailed. Billy was at the post office and Rebecca was at the bank so we ended up hanging out for a while. Then Tressa came into town so the four of us decided to lunch together. How wonderful to see friends!
April 5
We moved deeper into the pasture, ultimately running to the next pair of guava trees when we heard the aguacero (downpour) rapidly approaching.
April 6
As I settled in to read Maria called over asking for some food containers. She filled them with fresh rice and crema de mariscos (seafood soup). Nothing like a delicious lunch from next door!
April 7
While we were in our room reading Chris looked up and saw Grevin (our 2 year old neighbor) wandering though the house. His mom called for him and he explained that he was looking at the gringo's house.
April 8
We both worked on teaching applications for a bit and contacted potential references.
April 9
Classes got out early today as a result of only three profes showing up. That meant no charlas for us. We'll see if anyone shows up tomorrow.
April 10
Only three profes showed up again. Chris went out to the cole anyway. No charlas, but he did break up a fight. What a day.
April 11
Chris left home shortly after five this morning in hopes of getting a long run in.
Noel and Luis were in search of some help. They have a mission group coming in tomorrow to help build a new church, but no translators. This should be an interesting project for the next couple of days.
April 12
The whole translating thing was interesting. We both felt comfortable switching back and forth between English and Spanish, so that went well.
We met people who seemed shocked to learn that we have lived here for two years; to us this is just home.
We had our final site visit this afternoon. It was nice to see Carolina and Kyle. We chatted for a long time and probably would have just kept on talking if I hadn't remembered that I had stored some meat for the mission team in our fridge and had told them I would get it to them in time to make dinner.
April 13
We had story hour today and more time translating. We've been trying to share some bits of the culture here as well though conversation. Chris took a couple of guys out to the cole to see the different style of construction out there.
April 14
Up bright and early and COLD! It was really chilly this morning.
We met Alejandra in Puerto shortly before seven and got on the bus to San Jose. Orlando picked us up in the city and we went out to Cartago for Erik's soccer practice. After practice we dropped Erik off at one of his aunts and then we went to Atenas.
We had some birthday cake and then wandered through the coffee fields. It was a beautiful walk. We found some delicious baby cherry tomatoes. Back at the house Alejandra's mom taught me how to make chorreadas. So much good food in such a short time!
April 15
We got up around six this morning and stuffed ourselves with chorreadas, tortillas de queso and platano. Then we hiked to Vulture Rock. After a mango break we hiked back to the house for showers and lunch.
April 16
Up early and headed back to San Jose. We spent the day in and out of medical appointments so that we can get our clearance to leave Costa Rica. We also managed to spend about $70 on Costa Rican literature (sales only work if you don't use them as an excuse to keep buying more).
April 17
Medical appointments were wrapped up this morning. We also turned in a bunch of Peace Corps property and had our final LPIs (Language Proficiency Interviews). We think we did pretty well on our LPIs, time will tell.
We finished up at the office early and as a result were able to squeeze in another lunchtime performance at Teatro Nacional. It was another excellent dance performance.
April 18
Today was Lend A Hand's last day in town. Our big project was translating the thank you/good-bye ceremony. The church put on a slideshow of photos from the week and presented each member of the mission team with a t-shirt. They even gave us t-shirts for our help.
It has been such a wonderful experience to work alongside a new group of people in our community. I wish we had gotten to know some of the people sooner in our service.
April 19
Chris took final photos of the cole for CRUSA. He turned in receipts on Tuesday. It's officially done.
We've both wrapped up our teaching applications. Now we just need to get up the courage to hit send.
April 20
Story hour, laundry, work outs. Tomorrow we'll finalize materials to take to Limon for our Dia del Libro activities.
April 21
Happy 30th to me! I started the decade in England and have ended it in Costa Rica. The years in between took me to some pretty cool places as well.
Chris made me a carrot cake/flan type treat. We also had tres leches after dinner. Then Maria brought over some gelatina con helado. So many sweet treats, so little time.
In other news, we'll be home one month from today. CRAZY!
April 22
This is such a beautiful place. It seems super quiet and tranquilo. I'm so glad that we were able to come.
April 23
The walk was beautiful, included stream crossings and got us out and about.
We had an amazing fish dinner. Some of the best fish to date!
April 24
Today was an intense one. We taught all day long. Chris and I both had the same thought - what are we going to do next year when it is only one of us with a whole classroom and a full day of teaching a variety of topics. We'll make it work, we always do.
April 25
We ate pork stew (mine was minus the pork) out of banana leaf boats. We ate with our hands and were a bit of a spectacle for the Cabecar people.
[Read more about April 22 - 25 here.]
April 26
I'm glad I stuck around because Guicho was in town! He came into Juice House with a big smile on his face and gave me a big hug. It's been so long! It made my day. Of course when I tried telling Rebecca who he was I started tearing up. Leaving is going to be much harder than I ever imagined.
April 27
I mumbled a sleepy 'Happy Birthday" to Chris before he left to catch the 4:30 bus out of town. Maria brought him some birthday pinto, but since he had already left I enjoyed it instead. Twice, since Emma and I ate some for dinner as well.
April 28
Emma and I walked through town, saying hi to a couple of people that I hadn't talked to in a while. She played with the kiddos while I talked to some moms. It was a good morning.
Kennedys came over to see her one more time before she leaves town in the morning. He brought his whole family! We sat around talking for a while and then finished watching a moving when they left for the night.
April 29
Chris and Henley's trip went well. They ran up Chirripo and then some.
April 30
Another one bites the dust. April has come to a close and with it most projects. It's happened naturally with exams starting next week and a holiday tomorrow. I was worried about how things would come to a close, but it seems that I didn't need to.
I played with Liseth for a while this morning. We played the mini marimba, danced and did gymnastics. Sucking up as much time together as we can at this point.
We submitted our teaching applications today. A couple of days away allowed us to review them somewhat objectively. Another step in the process complete.
*****
And now we're into May. We have so little time left here and so much that we're still trying to squeeze in. We'll do what we can and that's the best we can do at this point. It's hard to believe how far we've come in these past two years. It may be harder to believe how far we still have to go in this adventure that we call life. We're looking forward to it all.
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