Monkey in the Middle

It’s official; I’ve been living in Costa Rica for over a year now. I flew into the San Jose airport October 5th, 2010. It is hard to imagine that a year ago I didn’t know any of the people who now I feel closest to. A year ago I had never even heard of Chimurria, I had no idea what a rainy season would be like, and I only had the vaguest idea of what I was about to get myself into. But here I am, one year later, in the thick of things. I’m smack in the middle of the time-line of my Peace Corps experience. It’s fun for me to think back on what I’ve experienced, and impossible to guess what lies ahead of me.

For example, last night, I almost walked straight into a giant spider that was dangling from the ceiling—impossible to guess that that was going to happen.
Or last week when I was traveling on the bus from San Jose, I sat next to an organic chocolate bean farmer who gave some free organic chocolate made by a women’s association in my region. Impossible to guess.
Or two days ago when no one showed up to my English class because everyone was at church for a special mass for the patron saint of Chimurria. Impossible to guess.
Actually, that last one would have been easy to guess if I went to the Catholic church.

In honor of our 1-year anniversary in-country, some Peace Corps friends and I got together to celebrate. We went to a fellow North Carolinian PCV’s apartment in the Los Santos region of Costa Rica. Los Santos is in the mountains, and it is a different world from Chimurria. It’s cold, hilly, coffee plantations everywhere. It is a sneeze away from San Jose, so the communities have more resources and people tend to be more open with each other. Costa Rica is a tiny country, but it never ceases to amaze me how diverse it is.
All of us PCVs have become obsessed with food (one of the side effects of only ever eating rice and beans) and our get together was centered around the most amazing cake I have ever seen/eaten. It was a 4 layer cake with cream cheese icing, and sprinkles! There was a red velvet layers, a carrot cake layer, and 2 German chocolate layers. It was delicious and we completely devoured it.


So here’s to year one, it’s gone by faster than I would have imagined. And here’s to year two, and all the adventures that lie ahead.

*The people in the picture are some of my PC friends- Nicole, Bryson, Brian, and Angela*