I landed in San Jose at 5 am. Surprisingly my plane was super full, especially with families and kids. Costa Rica is the place to be.
I met my host family, my Mamatica is named Lily. She's really nice and makes delicious food. Her nieto, grandson, is 5 and stays with them often. I love listening to little kids when they are speaking a different language. It is just so cute. They let me sleep and I had my orientation at noon.
The program that I signed up with is called International Volunteer Headquarters *ivhq.org* They work through another company, Maximo Nivel, here in Costa Rica.
I went to the Maximo Nivel Headquarters...by bus with Alejandra, Lily's daughter. I have yet to replicate the route or take it back...we'll see how successful I am at that. As we were driving through the city, all of the houses are smashed together and they have gates out front. *I'm telling you...a photographer's paradise*
This is in the middle of the jungle so it's pretty humid and the moss is growing where most people don't walk. I look out and instead of seeing the Rocky Mountains, I see green mountains. That's awesome :)
Orientation was good. Learning a little bit more about their money system *I'm super nervous about that* and what's smart to do and not smart.
Then Mom got to the office. It was good to get a hug from someone you know. I like adventures and I was trying to get to know a lot of the people around me. It's hard though when you work at a different location than they do and you don't live with anyone else. But I get to hug my mom whenever I want.
We were told that someone else was going to take us back to the house when Mom was done with her orientation. And then...the Costa Rica World Cup game started.
We had been taking a walking tour and all of the sudden the cars started honking like cccrrraaazzzzyyy...apparently, Costa Rica scored. You know how you can be in a spot and just feel the tension and the excitement in the air? The streets of San Pedro *a neighborhood of San Jose* permeated with that tense excited feeling. It.was.awesome. I think I thrive on that feeling. I finished watching the game and it didn't help when Greece scored and then we went into overtime, and then we went into a shootout...It was a little bit stressful to say the least....and then they missed their shot, and then we made our shot. DONE AND DONE...the streets flooded with people in Red, White and Blue. Horns kept honking to the beat of their national anthem. People were on top of their cars waving flags like it was a parade. They even handed out paper flags to people. I loved experiencing the happiness, excitement, and pride that these people showed for their country...we don't have anything like that in the United States. And I don't know if it's safe to say or not, but I think the last time something was like that was after WWII ended. Kind of sad, don't you think?
Eventually we made it back to our homestay and slept :)
Today we walked and stumbled upon the church, that was a happy find. Then we traveled to our placement. We are going to be in a childcare up in a spot called Purral that is a lower income area. The children were so excited to see us. Some even spoke English to us. A little boy asked how we were. I said good, how are you? Then he said fine, how are you? I said Great! And he looked confused. We'll work on it.
A lot more walking and exploring for the day. Tomorrow we start helping out at the childcare. Hopefully we don't get lost and confused amongst the bus system and the missing street signs. I'm starting to understand more and more their hakuna matata...Pura Vida!
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