tropical stormy

a tropical storm stopped by for a few days, and did some pretty serious damage in costa rica. im fine, but there were some mudslides that caused some trouble. the road to san jose has been blocked for a few days, and class has been canceled because of it. there were some mudslides in my community and a few houses are seriously damaged, but there were bigger mudslides and floods in other parts of the country. im not sure if this is news in the states or not, but its shaken up a lot of people here. my house came out of the storm basically unscathed. the water and electiricty went out for the good part of a day, but that was it.
we had about 4 days of constant rain, there wasnt much to do besides read and eat. i finished a novel that i had started a few weeks ago. i also wrote some letters. thats about it.

a list of firsts

Things that I have never done/seen/experienced/etc until I joined the Peace Corps

1) felt an earthquake

We had a bbq the last day of orientation week. It was the night before we moved into our host families houses and we were celebratating being PCTs. There was good food and good dancing (you can guess who started the party...) In the middle of dinner the ground started shaking. It wasnt a very strong movement, but we could tell something was strange. For the first 5 seconds or so, I had no idea what it was. It took a bit, but I slowly realized that it was the earth that was moving. It wasnt a strong earthquake, but it shook us around. we all cheered when it was over. not only had we finished our first week in the peace corps, but we had also experienced our first costa rican earthquake.

2) seen a scorpion

I went to visit a current volunteer in Guanacaste, CR. This is part of our training so that we can get a better idea of what volunteer life is like. Kristen, my volunteer, had told me about an experience she had had with a scorpion under her pillow. it only happened to her once, but she reccommened that i shake out my sheets before i went to bed.

later that night we decided to watch a movie. the lights were out and we could only see by the light of the tv, but, sure enough, in comes a scorpion. it was about the size of my hand and was headed straight towards my room. its dead now. rip scorpi!

3) seen a bot fly

similar story. kristen and I were watching a movie, and Kristens tico boyfriend spots the insect that gives you bot-flies. its dead now, too. rip botie!

4) ive eaten so many new kinds of fruits i cant even remember all their names. a few are

jacote

guanabana

guava

chinese guava

and i really forgot at least 5 others

5) eaten an avacado straight off the tree

avacados will never be the same for me. theres no turning back now.