Back from the dead

I'm baaaaaaccckkkkk
Some of you might be wondering if I'm still alive here in CR, but most likely I've talked to the mjority of you and that's not the case. I started writing this post last week, but after re-reading it just now I decided to erase it. So now I'm starting fresh, and I don't plan on leaving this spot until I finish this post!

I last wrote to you after going to the beach with my family. Only a week after that we went to Nicaragua. Nicaragua was a two week trip that required each one of us to stay individually with host families. There were a few assignments while we there, but the point was simply to live with them. It was a really really hard trip, but also eye-opening both politically and socially. Although my family and the community I lived in was one of the poorest in Managua, the hospitality I received was out of this world. I went to church everyday, sometimes twice a day, and even had the privilege of giving a sermon in Spanish. Yaaaa, didn't really think of it like that at the time, but looking back it was a good excercise. The two most frustrating things while I was there were the fact that my spanish was horrible, and I got really sick. I think I hit a wall with spanish, as well as the fact that Nicaraguans have a craaazzzyyyy accent. Being sick was definitely not fun either, and made me a bit homesick, but now that I'm better all is good :)

After Nicaragua school got a little more intense with papers and presentations, but of course it all got done in the end. I have now officially graduated from Spanish after 80 hours of class and 60 hours on the bus to get there everyday, and it feels sooooo good. Yesterday was the last day of my program classes and it really helped me sum up a lot of what I've learned here so far, which is...
What I do in my daily life, how I consume, and how I live as an individual in my community really does affect others around me, and in other parts of the world. (I know many of you are thinking "duh," but putting it into practice here has been meaningful to me).

Besides school, I've just been trying to live it up. Two weekends ago a few of us took a beach trip to Tamarindo in the province of Guanacaste. It was beautiful, of course, and gave me a lot of energy to finish my semester here. The area was really touristy, and all the shops and businesses are owned by people from all over the world, but being around so many foreigners reminded me how much I love traveling. I also finally went salsa dancing this last weekend, and now feel complete. I thought I would be doing dancing all the time here, but until now hadn't found a place. Oh well, I'm happy to have done it once.

Anyways, tomorrow starts our fall break. It's a five day break the program gives us between classes and our concentration, which I'm so thankful for. A bunch of us are planning on going to... try and guess... yes the beach! I'm excited to not think about school and kick it with amigos.

That's about it for now. I'm really going to try and make a conscious effort to write more over the next week and a half before I jet out to Limon. But I did find out that there is internet close by the reservation, so now I can update you periodically while I'm there! Until then, I love you and miss you, and hope the majority of you receieved my postcards! ciaochowwww

Carli