From Here to There

With the whole transition for the move, I stayed in Santa Ana in what seemed like a mansion condominium. My bedroom had a whole wall of mirrors:

 My suitcases waiting transport.

 My closet of ''treasures''.

 A sweet painting in the living room.

 The lady I stayed with, Rocio, is an artist and is a divorced mom whose teenage daughters decided to live with their dad. She's doing her best to ''start over'' in life, and I could tell that right now she's going through a lot. Here's a photo of her and her daughters when the girls were little:

 And then last weekend, I moved to Escazú officially, to live with a tico family for the next 7 months (That's the plan for now!). Honestly, this family is great. I am excited to get to know them more. Here's my bedroom:

 And my dresser:

 And my closet:

 And my bathroom::

 This showerhead is the kind they call ''widowmakers'' because the showerhead is literally what heats up the water with hot wires inside. Electric shock is ... well, possible.

 And the view from my window.

The family is Marilyn (mom), Natalie (daughter), Steve (husband to Natalie), and Santiago (grandson). I'll post photos soon of them!

Nicaragua vs. Costa Rica

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/11/05/nicaragua.raid.google.maps/index.html?iref=allsearch

There's a big debate right now about who owns what here in Central America. The root of the issue is the Google Maps incorrectly drew the northern boundary of Costa Rica, so Nicaragua moved its army into the area to claim the land. Costa Rica hasn't had an army for more than 50 years and is quite prideful about their pacifist stance. But now that Nicaraguan troops occupy Costa Rican land, the political debate continues.

Photo Shoot

This past weekend I had the privilege of ''chaperoning'' a high school senior class trip, but it fel more like ''accompanying'' as I almost forgot that I wasn't a real high schooler! ha. It was just Lindsay, Savannah, and I and after the beach trip idea had been cancelled due to landslides and flooding, we stayed in a really nice hotel for two nights and ate pizza and chocolate ice cream, watched Gilmore Girls, and ... oh yeah, we had a photo shoot! Lindsay will be attending Judson University next fall (where I graduated from :)) and is looking forward to studying art and photography. She mentioned that no one will ever model for her to experiment with photography and I offered to model! :) All three of us got involved as we all modeled and all took photos. Here's some results.

 Lindsay

Savannah

Mudslide Day

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/11/04/costa.rica.fatal.mudslides/index.html?hpt=T2

In Costa Rica, we don't have snow days, we have mudslide days! It might sound fun, but it's actually kind of a downer as a river built up water pressure and broke through the mountain to wash away homes and a whole section of the suburb I'm now living in. It's not just in Escazú, though, it's also in Patari and Aserri, other parts of the city...

Today was the first day back to school after Thursday and Friday off due to excessive rain. Every time it starts raining right now, it's not good news as homes and streets continue to flood and landslides continue. Don't worry, Mom, I'm alive! :)

Science Fair = An Excuse to Explode Things

Of the 11 5th grade projects, the most popular are the explosion projects. Here's some photos of the daily fiery happenings!

I'm Here!!!

Okay, so life is crazy right now. That's my classic one-liner these days :). But no really, life is crazy.

I moved from San Francisco de Dos Ríos to Santa Ana this week. It's like an automatic upgrade in social class here as I went from a barred apartment to a gated community complete with guards, expensive cars, no bars on windows, and open-door policy between neighbors. Quite the change! I don't have Internet or phone though, so I'm instead enjoying the big bed and TV and full wall of mirrors in my bedroom :).

There has been a lot of flooding here on the west side of the city due to the rainy season, so in the last 24 hours, there have been multiple landslides that have killed several people and cut the water pipes coming into the city. Schools were cancelled today, so I worked at school for a while, then hitched a ride back to ''my condo'' (hitched a ride with another Lighthouse staff member, of course :)), took a nap, and now I'm mooching off a neighbor's Internet :). Sweet deal.

So instead of snow days, we have landslide days :).

I am hopefully going to the beach this weekend still as the Sojourn senior girls asked me to chaperone their senior trip. I'll post photos as soon as I can! :)

Old People Day

This week is ''Homecoming Week'' kind of as we have random dress-up days every day... So today was Old People/Baby Day. In other words, students dressed as an elderly person or as a baby. I had 7 old people, 1 baby, and 2 I wasn´t sure what they were :)

 He said his mustache smelled funny and that he fought in World War II when he was a youngster.

 Wow! Her hair was awesome :)

 Our only baby

 He claimed he was an old person, but I told him he looked an awful lot like a skater/emo kid from our 5th grade class...

 Her hair is naturally really dark brown so she loaded that baby powder into her hair for this effect!

 She had stage makeup for wrinkles and old stockings :)

 His cane was too short... He said that added to his ''humpback''.

 She confessed at lunch that she just wanted to wear pajamas... that she wasn´t really an old person or baby.

He was so proud to have a real cane. At one point in the day, he told me he was thinking ''about the good ol´ days!'' When you're in 5th grade, does that mean when you were a toddler? :)