2-28-11 Leaving Roxana: Lenora

We are getting up super early tomorrow, so we can get on the 5 am bus to Guapelies so we can get the 6 am bus to San Jose. We have to get up at such an ubsurd hour because the only tunnel to San Jose will be closed for Landside research or something and if we miss that bus, our whole schedual will be thrown off. We´ll be in San Jose for like five hours, which will give us all time to restock on band-aids, before we get on our next bus to Monteverde and the cloud forest.

On to the thoughts.

Even though I am ready to leave Roxana and move on with the trip, I´m also quite sad to leave. Everyone here is so nice, the kids are so cute and it´s really pretty. I have woken up to so many pretty sunrises in the past few days that I don´t want to go on with out them. Knowing me, right when I get home I´ll resume my normal nocturnal sleeping habits, instead of my, Sam infulenced, early riser habits.

As Sam and I were walking to our homestay from Don Angel´s house after dinner, I could help but feeling like I was in some realitly TV show. You know like the ones where they send kids on some camp that´s supposed to change their life and someone gets sent home because they lost a challenge or it´s the end of the seires or something and everyone is reflecting on how they´ve changed? That´s more or less what I felt like, except minus the reflecting part, I´m not at that point in the trip yet. I could even hear the end title song in my mind as I was thinking this.

Most of us are sad to leave, but are ready to. A couple days ago, someone from Amigos came to talk to the community and Drew intoduced her to us. She said something that stuck with me, though it´s not really a big "I will live by this" kind of line. She said that it´s harder visiting someplace, whether it´s for a day or two or an intire week, instead of living there for like two months or longer. She said you don´t have long enough time to get into the swing of things and you´re constantly comparing things to how it is back home. I kind of feel like this is us.

I mean, there are couple of us who are crossing out the day until we fly home, and a few who just miss home but aren´t really in a hurry to get on that plane and eat a big mac or somthing. The ones who are crossing out the days are compàring things to home, I know this mostly because that was all they talked about for three days; Home vs Roxana. It´s their loss for not enjoying our stay more, but if they had to be here for two months, they would get used to it.

But that´s what I think.

For me, I´m getting more homesick the closer we get to the last day of the trip. It´s probably because going home is within my sight now, and I´m also tired on the rain. I actually miss Washington rain; it´s like powered sugar going through a sifter comparied to the spontaniuous downpours here that is like a bowl of uncooked rice falling to the floor. Also, it´s been raining for the last two days and I would like my shoes to have a chance to dry. All of us got soaked yesterday when walking to the other side of Roxana to have dinner at Geovanny´s house. My shirt still isn´t dry.

I don´t think I´m going to miss the bugs from here either.

And before I forget, I should tell you about one of the strangest sloth sightings we´ve had. So here in Costa Rica, there are a lot of fields with a couple of trees just hanging out in the middle for no particualr reason at all. Behind Don Angel´s house is one of these kinds of fields. A day or two ago, we were just finishing breakfast, and Drew spots this sloth that´s in this loner tree in the middle of the field. It´s not even that big of tree either, since the branch the sloth is on is bending downward with its weight. No one knows how it got there until Drew explains that Sloths can crawl in on the ground, and that´s how they get from tree to tree.

Everyone who hadn´t seen a sloth yet, wich was most everyone save Julie, Sam, Heather, Drew and myself, since we´d seen one at EARTH, walked out into the rainy morning toward the sloth. Drew warned them not to get to close, because they might scare the sloth, which is where I asked what it would do, since it was kind of in the middle of nowhere. Drew said the sloth would travel at top sloth speed, which might be a little slower than three people pushing a brocken down car, and go down the tree and make it´s way to another tree, then added they aren´tvery good at get aways.

So that´s it for now. Julie said she would write a blog soon, and I have conviced Cordeila or Starla that it would be a good idea to write one yet.

Until next time,

Lenora

2-26-11 Thoughts from Places: Lenora

Back home I watch these videos on YouTube by John and Hank Green (two brothers who basically make videos for fun now. They are Vlogbrothers on YouTube if you feel like looking them up) called “Thoughts from Places,” the title more or less explains what they´re about.

I've decided to give the style a try. It´s more to show the internal thoughts of the trip, than “this is what we've been doing” side.

Today we took two buses to get to another small town, which I forget the name of, to visit a few organic farms and hike a little bit. We had to stand on the first bus, as we had to do the last time. It´s one of the earlier ones, so it's jam packed with people going to work. Before this trip I had never really used any public bus system.

So on this particular bus ride, I was smushed between Giovanni, one of our new Costa Rican friends, and Sam. I was having an easier time standing this time, since the last time I was stumbling all over the place whenever the bus stopped or slowed down. It was a slightly overcast morning, which made me think of the time I lived in Mississippi when I was younger; actually, when I had woken up this morning, I had thought I was in Mississippi and then had to remind myself where I was. Everything always seems to be much more vivid when it´s cloudy and all of the plants and buildings we passed looking like they were newly printed photos rather than real life.

Something that tends to happen when I´m in a bus or a car, is I end up thinking way too much, or at least that's what I do when I don't fall asleep; which is another thing that happens. So here I was, standing in a bus packed like sardines, and was hanging on to yellow bar above my head for dear life, and I started thinking about adventures.

On the first day we were in Costa Rica, when I was experiencing some public bus system culture shock, I had decided that this trip was my adventure. The funny thing about adventures, is that you don´t normally know you've gone on one until you write your award winning memoir. A lot of the time adventurers aren't even the type of swash-bucking, fast paced movie adventure like you wanted. It could be as simple as getting lost in San Jose or even simpler, waking up ten minutes before you're supposed to go to breakfast.

To get back to what I was saying, I started thinking about adventures again. As you know, at this point we've all been in Costa Rica for about a week and life has been moving pretty fast. Once the initial excitement dies down and the heat and daily life begins to set in, you begin to feel rather tired. I guess this is true for life at home as well, but here it's a different type.

Something I, myself, haven´t really thought about is whether you can get tired of being on an adventure or not. Yeah, it is mentioned in books, but it never really comes up when you´re a 15 year old girl who is a tad bit tired of going to school, doing homework and having a daily schedule to worry about.

This tired is mostly a mix of exhaustion, homesickness, and just plain not being able to adjust to the heat. I've been seeing it in most everyone, to certain degrees. It´s worse with some people than others.

I began to wonder if everyone was just getting tired of their adventure, or felt like it wasn't moving forward. I don´t know, and can´t speak for any body, since I can´t read minds; but this is something I've been seeing.

I wouldn't worry too much though. We´re all doing fine, and are having a good time, when we aren't getting bitten by bugs. The bugs definitely make us wish we were home, where mosquitoes only come out during the summer.

I´ll probably chase down either Starla or Cordelia to write a blog tomorrow and Sam said she wanted to write another as well. I´m also still working out my non-fiction writing style, so bear with me.

2-25-11 Hey Ya´ll It´s Julie!

Still in the homestays. We´ll be here till Tuesday morning and its absolutely amazing here. This past week weve split up into two groups, Starla, Sam, Lenora, Cordelia and I have been working on a pair of murals for the elementary school in Roxana, they are really coming along!!! The rest have been planting trees in tires around the soccer field to get a tad more shade. Today was gorgeous… extremely hot in the morning and then pouring in the afternoon!! (Rain here is sooo much better than at home) The homestay families are extremely welcoming and put up with all of our terrible spanish :) Tomorrow we are heading to a small community about 2 hours away where we will be painting some more.

Pura Vida in case you haven´t been updated.. means Pure Life (of course) it defines the Costa Rican lifestyle (Calm, Peaceful, etc.) I know I´m going to miss Pura Vida when I come home haha

ENJOY THE SNOW!

2-22-11 Sam

I guess I´m supposed to write thoughts from Sam,

It´s really hot here, and we've been in the sun a lot, everyday! Luckily our parents packed our bags with tons of sun screen and we haven't ran out yet! Yesterday we walked around 6 miles to a collage called EARTH its an ecological school for people interested in agriculture. It sounds like a pretty amazing school, its all based around growing, and composting. the collage owns 3000 hectors, its really big! They also grow bananas there and ship them on a big zip line looking thing to  cleaning stations, we got to look around! after that we walked 3 miles in the rain forest! it was amazing! I had never seen a monkey that wasn't in the zoo before! we saw spider monkey and howler monkeys. It ended up being a long day when we finally got back to our houses. It was way worth it though! We all went to bed early!

Today we carried bamboo back from the forest so that we can start to build a green house; it should take 1 day to finish! After lunch we visited the elementary school in the village, for the next couple of days a few of us are going to work on painting a wall with the children.

Adios

2-26-11 The update that had to wait..

!Hola¡

Sorry that I haven´t been re-posting the blogs from the tumbler, I was being a little stubborn about the matter.

Anyway, there are a few more blogs to come that were written a couple of days ago and some new stuff that´ll be posted soon. There won´t be any new pictures until I solve all of the technical difficulties with the USB drives on Sam and my homestay´s computer, or find Sam´s camera cord, which is around here somewhere.

We´re all in one piece and are slowing getting used to the hot weather. Though most of us are pretty bummed that it decided to snow right when we left.

 I´ll be posting our blogs and pictures on both either way.

-Lenora

Our first days....

We arrived in Costa Rica at 6 something in the morning and one of the only things keeping us awake was probably the excitement of being in a different country. We flew though customs and immigration without any problems and proceeded to catch a bus into San Jose. This, however, is a lot more confusing than it is in the States. The buses don’t say where they are going and you have to go up and ask. It took a while to catch a bus, but we finally caught a bus and began to realize how tired we were.

Knowing this, and the great luck most of us have with directions, we got lost shortly after getting off the bus. Drew went a head in a taxi with most of our bags, gave Heather directions, and we tried to make sense of them. He had said that all we had to do was go straight and two roads would merge together and there would be a railroad and a KFC across the street. He also said it was a 15 minute walk. What we didn’t know was that it was a 15-minute walk for him. Us slow walkers take much longer to get places. After what seemed like 15 minutes, Heather began to wonder if we missed a turn or something and we asked for directions for the first time at this park outside of a gigantic church. The security guard we asked said there were not any railroads around. And so we turned around. We walked a couple more blocks, and decided that it was not that far back and asked for directions once more from a guy selling fruit on the street. He said it was two blocks in the direction of the park. The funny thing is that everyone we asked for directions said ”two blocks,” I think it might be a Costa Rica thing or they actually didn’t know what we were talking about. Eventually, we found a tourist center and asked for directions there, where we were informed that it was actually 10 blocks away.

We ran into Drew outside of the National Museum, where he told us that all we had to do was go straight, nothing else. After that, we had our first restaurant experience, which went pretty well, and then walked to the hostel.

The hostel we stayed in the first night was the nicest hostel most of us had ever stayed in. I believe it was the house of an ex-president of Costa Rica. It had a pool; a hammock and this really cool seating area outside. We hung around for a while, sun bathed and took naps until we went to exchange money, get a cell phone that worked in Costa Rica, et something to eat, and buy journals or Spanish dictionaries.

We slept like logs that night, but were completely rested. We went to this cute bakery for breakfast and enjoyed some of the best orange juice we have ever had and lot of different pastries. We went to the National Museum after that and spent about an hour there. After that we got on a bus and headed to Guapeles, which I may have spelled wrong. We went straight to our hotel after arriving, went to dinner and went to sleep.

We met Don Angel the next morning along with a couple other boys from the community. We ate breakfast with them, played charades in the restaurant and began our journey to Roxanna.

The rest of our story here will be told by the other students on the trip, since it is both late and I have written a short novel so far.

Until next time,

Lenora