Milking a cow...never though THAT would happen

PUPPIES!

Feeding sheep. It felt so cool!

Giving cows milk

The farm

I'm really bad at updating this. But my Mom has started to threaten me. So, here I am.

Today I went to a farm. Well, we all went. It was mostly a dairy farm. I wasn't especially excited at the prospect of touching cows- but I had no idea how cute baby cows were! I don't know what happens to them when they grow up...but when they're small theyre so cute! I wanted to take one home. I got to hand feed lambs and baby goats and play with tiny puppies. I also milked a cow with my bare hands and then drank fresh cow milk! Didn't I was actually going to until it was happening.

My spanish is much improving. I just need to suck it up and start talking to more people so I can practice...I just get so embarrassed.

I took this from Carlos Brenes' facebook to put on here.
The back row is Graham (with his arm up), Andy, Enrique (QuiQue), Wendy (sort of a therapist...), Andres(weekend mentor), Diane(she does all the office stuff. she's great...everyone likes diane!), and Carlos. Then Me, Steve, and Sofia (yoga)

I try to to what i say i will.

[so, i told some people i would update this tonight. I like them. So here it is :)]

Tuesday:

I don't do much of anything on Tuesdays. I tend to mostly sit in the bottom floor of my apartment (i turned it into my art 'studio'.) and do animation. I like having that space to draw and listen to music knowing that I'm not bothering anyone and they aren't bothering me either. Today i finished a drawing that I had been working on for a while. Its something I did for a friend of mine. I don't know how i feel about it, as only one person has seen the final version yet.

These are the boys i live with, two nights ago. It was VERY funny (also extremely out of character for each of them.)

I learned a new word in Spanish yesterday: alma. it means soul.

Tomorrow when the sun is out I'm going to take pictures of my room and apartment to put up.

Goodnight :)

...Wednesday?

i only update this thing when i have something worthwhile to post. but then i realized that i rarely have anything groundbreaking to report. so i decided to give the whole daily monotony thing a shot. (i don't think i spelled that word right, but apparently...)

wednesdays are pretty good for me.
gym and then time to not rush, then to gustavo's house with steve, or sometimes alone, to have painting class. i never want to go but i'm always glad i went. today it rained all day. i guess i shouldn't be surprised. this IS costa rica. there IS a tropical climate. this IS rainy season. but anyways. today was, for some reason, especially enjoyable. gustavo is finally not making me copy someone elses paintings. this new one is of my imagination, but i guess i got hung up somehow on the whole huge fruit thing. this one is a huge orange, inside of a house. and i got to try airbrushing for the first time. it was really hard to control.
i cook lunch on wednesdays. i don't mind cooking. today i baked a cake, as lunch was being grilled and i want nothing to do with that. but i recieved no complaints- and i helped with dishes and cleanup anyways.
then spanish class. i like spanish class- a lot, really. my spanish keeps getting better, and i am slowly (very slowly) learning to be less embarrassed to speak a little bit of it to people other than my spanish teacher.
then we come back home, do a house group that mostly involves in finalizing weekend plans. This weekend we're going to the movies friday, paintballing and go karts saturday, and the farmers market sunday for the amazing papusas and, in my opinion, the best juice i'd had yet in costa rica.
after group dinner is cooked, we chill, and then have a group with the doctor.

day to day isn't too terribly exciting.
oh- and today we had to throw away all of our rice because, for some reason, there are worms in it. how disgusting is that? (its also a little bit funny)

last weekend i went to vermont to see the kgs graduation. it was a fun trip. it was also very relaxing to be part of an english speaking majority. i especially liked being able to order food in english :)

Obras del Espíritu Santo Photos

three of the children (kindergarden aged)

The staff lined up the children when i asked if i could take pictures. It was very sweet of her, considering I couldn't have asked on my own.

The play room

The play room

The play room.

They have lots of toys, but almost everything is broken.

Its been a month.

waterfall we passed while rafting

Gogreous campsite

rafting gear

Joey (this was our tent)

Pacuate River

At least I never pretended to be good at updating this. :)

So last weekend was one of our 6 week trips where we go away and have an adventure of some sort for the weekend. This time it was white water rafting the the Pacuate river. I was so scared but I ended up having a great time, even though i was one of the only people who fell out of the raft and into the rapids. That just made it more...exciting. We camped by the river on Sturday night in the nicest campsite I have ever been in (and I've been in lots of campsites). Sunday we rafted more and then drove back home to San Jose.

Rafting was such a great expiriance, I woul definately do it again (despite how scared i got). It was gorgeous; the river took us through rainforest and past waterfalls and cliffs.

Every Thursday I spent my morning at Asociación Obras de Espíritu Santo (AOES), an organization stated by one catholic priest in 2000. Its a really impressive organization...they work in one of the poorer areas of San Jose (it's called Christo Rey) doing everything for the people. They give them food, have a clinic...all sorts of services. The reason I go there, though, is for the daycare/orphanage they have. Its for kids without parents, of course, but also for children of single mothers who have to work, children being raised by Aunts, Grandparents. Its fun and TIRING to go there and play with the kids, but I like it. I love playing with the kindergarden aged kids, and I like working with the babies, too. Its helping a lot with my spanish because no one there speaks english except for some of the volunteers (they get volunteers from all over), so to communicate with the kids and staff I have to use a combination of charades and Spanish. The website is http://www.obrasdelespiritusanto.org/, but of course it's in Spanish.