Una Semana Down

I have almost an entire week here in Concepción with my host family, but it feels like so much longer, and I mean that in a good way. We are already into a very nice routine, and we get along super well. My favorite part of my new family here is that I get to play with 5 adorable little kids all the time. The one I spend the most time with is named Jordan (they call him Jorditan affectionately). He is pretty much obsessed with me and runs up and hugs me every five minutes, not just when I first get home. He loves to play cards (I taught them how to play war, aka, Guerra haha) and snuggle and the other day he asked me if I could take him to the US one day after school hahaha. I explained that it takes a long time to get to the US and he should come visit me there someday. We are pretty much best friends haha.

My most exciting piece of news right now is that I am starting a girls' group at the school here, Escuela Concepción. There is a lot of machismo here in CR, so we are going to work on empowering the girls, having them think about what they want to be when they grow up, helping them figure out what interests them, working on helping them develop strong female friendships (kind of like what I did with SARA in Gettysburg), and also we are planning to talk to them about domestic violence, which is on the rise here in CR. We have a group of about twenty girls lined up, in grades three and five. I went to the school to talk to the director today and plan out all the details, and I also got to introduce myself to the girls. They all seemed very excited about the idea, and my little host sister Cristal is in the group, yay! :) This is going to be my main project here in Concepción, in addition of course to teaching English two days a week at the school and going to all the training classes. I will be a busy girl! But that's okay, that's how I like it.

In other news, I am doing my best not to get fat here. At each meal, they give us HUGE amounts of food that I would eat over the course of three meals back in the US. I've been explaining to my family, as graciously as possible, that I just can't eat that much. They think that's really weird. They also think it's weird that I like to drink plain water all the time. And that I workout every day. But they are very nice and let me do my thing haha.

The other day on my way to class, I had a run-in with a very large, very scary cow. With giant horns. Just walking down the street, nibbling at a bush. Completely loose. Yep, that happens here. He was staring at me, and I had a brief flashback to the time I was chased by cows as a kid, but thank goodness he just kept on munching.

I also had my first run-in with a very large Costa Rican spider. During the night, I use a bathroom that is kind of like an outhouse in the back of our house, because the normal bathroom is in my host mom's bedroom. There, I found a giant spider, with huge eyes, staring at me. I didn't go back for a couple of days, and now I make a very close and careful inspection when I do.

All is well here. Much love!

Rachel