Adios tortugas, hola san jose

Well, I've left Ostional and made my (long and torturous) way back to San Jose! The trip was hellish - I woke up at 4:30 for the first bus, while waiting for my bus connection in Santa Cruz I went to get out some cash and the machine ate my credit card, while dealing with the bank I missed my connection and had to wait three and a half more hours in the horrible hot bus station, and on my final leg the immigration police boarded our bus and were not pleased that I only had a copy of my passport so I had to get out and undergo questioning (angry fast questioning in Spanish by scary police with giant guns), and everyone on the bus hated me because they had to wait over half an hour in the sweltering heat until the police decided I was, in fact, legally in the country. Gahh!! But I eventually made it safely back to my host family and was surprised at how glad I was to be back; I thought that I hated San Jose but it's nice and cold here and my host family was very happy to see me. They've decided that I got too thin during my stay in Ostional (psshh) and are trying their very best to fatten me back up, so I'm being fed nearly every hour. Looking back on my stay in Ostional, I'm extremely pleased with the way that my experience turned out: despite a lack of support for the MINAE staff (they never seemed to care one single whit that I was there or had any interest whatsoever in the library), I reorganized and made a record of all of the books, got kids coming into the library for homework help, English lessons and craft projects, I more than doubled the number of Spanish novels in the library (thanks to help from Scott Drucker's donation) and I co-organized a successful read-a-thon! I don't remember how much I told you all about that - I made a bunch of signs and put them around town advertising a read-a-thon every day from 3-5 in the school, so I showed up with a bunch of books everyday and kept track of how many hours kids kids were reading over the two week span of the read-a-thon, and the three kids that logged in the most hours won skateboards! Kids were very enthusiastic, though I suspect that they came more out of hopes in winning a skateboard than a love for reading, but I was still happy - kids were reading! The read-a-thon also gave me an excellent excuse to spend a solid two hour block of time every afternoon reading; I promised myself that I'd read in Spanish to improve my language skills and tried to read an Isabel Allende's "Cuentos de eva luna" and gave up in despair after a single day, but Harry Potter proved to be much easier. Hmm, I just read over what I wrote, and it makes it sound like I was a busy worker bee (and a bit of a braggart, sorry), so I must admit that I also got to spend quite a bit of time lolling on the beach, reading in hammocks and playing with sea turtles. Doesn't get much better than that! I was sad to leave my beachside paradise and host family in Ostional, but I'm also really looking forward to everything that's coming up in the next couple of weeks. This week, I get to hear everyone else's presentation about their internship, which should be extremely interesting because everyone was doing really different stuff. Then, Charlie comes and we get to travel around here for ten days or so, and then I come home for Christmas!! Hurrrrah! I'll see lots of you in less than twenty days! Love you! The first picture is the three read-a-thon champions, the second is the classroom I held the read-a-thon in and the third is some of the new books that I was able to get with donation money.

ARRIBADA!

Remember when I said that I didn't take that picture of the arribada, but I probably would?? Well, I did! The arribada finally came! YAAAY!! And it's every bit as cool as promised! It's just the first day, and apparently more and more will come for the next couple of days. Everyone here is really excited, but also a bit stressed because they're all working from 8pm-4am. Since I technically work at the library, I am exempt from this work and get to roam about taking pictures instead. Great deal!! My trip to Santa Cruz, however, was fairly disastrous: since the arribada came this morning, none of the volunteers could come with me and I had to fly solo, which was a bit lonely, and then once I got there (a two hour bus ride) I learned that the town didn't actually sell any books at all! I had asked several people if there were any librerías in town, and was told that there were four, so I thought that surely I would be in luck. However, all the stupid librerías sold was office supplies, like paper and pens and stuff. Very frustrating. People seemed confused when I said I wanted to buy books and said that perhaps at the supermarket I could find some. And I could - Harlequin romances. Gah! And I put up signs yesterday for the big read-a-thon that starts tomorrow at 3pm, with new books promised, so I'm a bit stressed about that. I'm going to Guiones (another nearby town) tomorrow morning with some of the volunteers, I heard there were some bookstores there. We'll see if they actually sell books. Cross your fingers for me! The two other American volunteers are coming with me to buy some Thanksgiving food supplies, we're planning on preparing a Thanksgiving meal. We don't have an oven, though, so it should be interesting. Anyway, check my facebook for more pictures of the arribada (YAAAAY!) and I'll let you know if I'm able to find any books. Love you all!

Hello all! Time is going so fast, I can't believe that I only have two weeks left here in Ostional! They're going to be very busy. I'm going tomorrow to Santa Cruz to buy new books for the library and Scott Drucker and I are going to put together a reading rewards program in the afternoons. He brought four skateboards with him that we're going to give away for the final prizes, but we only have ten days or so for the readathon to take place, so it's all going to be very fast. I've been spending my days here working on art projects for kids with Domenica (one of the biologists) in the mornings and contacting International Book Donation places in the afternoon (so far I've gotten in touch with five, but none have emailed me back yet...sigh) and teaching classes and such. This weekend I had a good time going with Scott and his film crew to film some of the local guys here surfing in Guiones, they're really good! I didn't surf, I just bobbed about in the waves and generally got in everyone's way. But it was very fun. Yesterday, I went with my host family (sans Pablo, who had a big meeting here at MINAE) to Junquillal, a small town outside of Santa Cruz, to watch a game of soccer. The bus ride was wild! Two soccer teams (mens and womens) along with fans crammed onto this creaky old schoolbus and we bounced around for two hours through rivers and over mountains to get to the town. First we watched the men's game and had a picnic, arroz con pollo. They were very impressive! Ostional won, 3-1. Then came time for the women's game, and Merylin informed me that I would have to be playing, since some of the women couldn't come to the game. I tried to explain that I would almost certainly be detrimental to the team effort, but she thrust a uniform upon me and herded me to the bathroom to change. It was quite an experience! We played at 1 in the afternoon - 95 degrees and humid, and there were no subs! I thought I was going to have heat stroke. For some inexplicable reason, the coach put me as their center offensive player, so I was forced into a good deal of action. Good grief! Mostly I just ran (huffed and puffed) back and forth and tried to look like I was doing something useful. I don't think anyone was fooled.
But I did get two shots on goal! Close,ish. I was very proud. Unfortunately, about half an hour into the second half, one of our players had a disastrous crash with their goalie. Our player was rolling around on the ground screaming bloody murder (something about her knee), and their goalie's head was bleeding! Someone conked out our player with chloroform or something right on the field and hauled her off. Everyone was screaming and children were crying and everyone was too traumatized to continue, so they called the game. After everyone calmed down a bit, people were very nice to me, telling me that I did a great job and all. I think it's because they were concerned about the purple hue of my face and wanted to make sure that I wasn't about to pass out or something. I didn't get any pictures, so you'll have to imagine it. On the way back, we had to wait for our player to get treated at the only hospital in the region, so we didn't get back to Ostional until around 10 at night. Whew! Quite a day. They've invited me to play again next Sunday, but I don't know if my heart can take it. We'll see. I'll probably post soon about how my book-finding adventure in Santa Cruz goes. Love to all! The photos are of the film crew in Guiones, my host mom Merylin and Alvaro at the soccer game, and Brisle watching the game. More on facebook!

Hello everyone! Hope all is well up north. My daily routine has settled into the following: I wake up at around 4 with the roosters and turkeys, grumble, fall back asleep, wake up again around 7 and have breakfast, go to the Refuge and work on researching book donation organizations around the world and help the biologists here with English (I'm editing someone's thesis for English mistakes and translating their tourist brochure into English), then I go home for lunch, and then I come back and teach English classes to the various students who come in. It's been really interesting to teach, and I've discovered that the English classes at the high school here are completely sub-par. The kids that I'm teaching have been supposedly taking English for three or four years and are still struggling with "How are you?" and simple vocabulary. Their homework is also completely ridiculous - things like "Read this paragraph on computer programming and answer the following questions" and the questions are like "In what ways does a computer differentiate from a mechanical calculator?" Absurd!! They can't even remember what "read" means!! It's clear that they're just supposed to look for similar words in the paragraph and copy the answers without understanding them. How on earth is that even useful!? So they come here to learn the basics so that they could actually try to communicate with someone rather than talking about mechanical calculators and blade accessories in blenders (another assignment). There are a few older students who have a pretty high level of English thanks to their own hard work at home and I've been struggling to teach them, because I am woefully ill-prepared to teach and don't really know what I'm doing, but we make it work. Then I go home for dinner around 6 and either go back to the Refuge from 8-12 for turtle patrol or watch TV with my family here and fall asleep by 9. Of course, that is a very productive day that leaves out all of my reading for fun and swimming that happens most days. Hurrah! Also, exciting news! Scott Drucker, the ICADS student from five years ago who set up the foundation for this little library during his internship, came back to Ostional this week because he wants to make a documentary about Ostional and he brought with him a $200 donation that he's giving to me for the library! So I get to take the bus into Santa Cruz soon and visit bookshops to buy new books and games for the library!! I'm very excited. In less exciting news, I'm going completely bonkers with my rice-and-beans three meals a day for five weeks menu. I've also been feeling a bit nostalgic for some other things at home, namely a comfortable bed sans bugs and clean, dry clothing. And of course all of you! I don't think that I could ever live here permanently, everything is covered in sand and bugs and nothing ever dries and everything smells a bit like mold. Ahh! But of course on the flip side, there is a gorgeous ocean and monkeys and turtles and iguanas and fruit trees galore, so I shouldn't complain. Love you all!! Oh, and I'm still waiting on the arribada - they've been telling me that it will arrive any day now since I got here five weeks ago, I'm beginning to think it's all a myth.

Tortuguitas!

Hello all! This week I posted signs at the school and made an awkward announcement to all of the students to invite them to come to the library. Something like, "Hello everyone, I am working at the library at the Turtle Refuge and love visitors and can help with English homework and I have games and I have books and on Saturdays there are art projects and a movie and I hope that everyone comes because the library is fun and I like people visiting and I can help with homework and English." They looked dubious that anyone as grammatically challenged as I could help with any sort of homework, but I assured them that my English was better than my Spanish. And now kids come, almost every day! After school gets out at 3, there is a group of high school kids that comes for English lessons; just lessons, not homework. We've been working on the basics, like the alphabet, simple sentences, animals, body parts - a big group of awkward teenage boys sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" on Thursday, it was great! Also, last night something wonderful happened! I was on turtle patrol as usual with some other guys that work here (Greddy, Fran and McDonald) and we found a nest of hatchlings just starting to come up out of the sand. We were all excited, and then we looked around with our flashlights and found...HUNDREDS of hatchlings! Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds! We counted over thirty nests just in a small portion of the beach, with 50+ babies from each nets. It was incredible! It was all of the hatchlings from the September arribada, and Greddy said that I was lucky because it was the largest number of hatchlings that they've seen all year! We stayed there for over five hours, chasing off vultures, crabs, and one ENORMOUS toad that was hopping about and gobbling up baby turtles as fast as he could. The only problem was that we stayed on the far end of the beach for too long and the tide came up, which meant that the river that we have to cross to get back to the Refuge (usually knee high during low tide) was over chest high and we had to swim across, clothes and all. And there are CROCODILES in that river!! Not going to lie, I was completely petrified. Then, this morning, things were pretty slow at the library because kids won't show up until later this afternoon for the movie, so I decided to go for a walk down the beach. And I found MORE babies hatching out of a nest on the beach! Nobody was there and the vultures were going to town, so I had to run around wildly throwing sticks and shouting to get them to go away. Eventually someone saw me prancing around like a lunatic and came over to help me. The turtles must have been partially dug up by the vultures or something, because they hardly ever come out to hatch in the middle of the day because it is way too hot for them, so the babies were having a lot of trouble making it to the ocean because the sand was boiling hot. So I gathered them up and sprinted back and forth to the wet, cooler sand to help them make it. I hope that they're ok! It certainly is an uphill battle for the poor little things. Since these babies hatched during the day, I finally got to take some pictures! Hope you enjoy them. More on facebook! Love you all! Happy Halloween!

Hey everyone! Just a quick update to say that everything went really well yesterday - almost 20 kids showed up! The power went out (not unusual, the power's usually out one out of every three days), so we couldn't show the movie and the kids were forced to be creative. Yay! We did puzzles, drew pictures, played some games, and read books! Well, really, they just looked at the pictures, but hey, books were open. The cook for the Refuge even made everyone crepey things with delicious delicious jelly! Also, more kids showed up today, so we've been doing more drawing and games. I told the kids that they could come in here anytime to get help with English homework and lots sounded interested, so I may be doing some tutoring as well. Hurrah!

DINOSAUR

Hey everybody! Everything is going well - I'm manning the library by day, turtle wrangling by night. Last week I took a little vacation to Nosara with the other girls that are working here, and I took a surfing lesson! And I wasn't even eaten by a shark! Success! We also went to a rodeo, but I didn't really like it. I felt bad for the bulls the whole time, though at least they don't kill them or anything here. Still, they just seemed bored and irritated. It was quite an experience, though - the whole arena was built out of this horribly rickety wood and everyone was quite intoxicated and hanging off of the sides and falling into the arena. Anyone was allowed to charge on in, so all sorts of drunk people kept stumbling in and shouting at the bull and then running like mad. On the home front, not a soul comes into the library here (well, once two Australian tourists came in) so I've been reorganizing all the books. Fascinating, right!? I've also been composing letters begging for more novels to send to various libraries and universities around the country, because right now all of the books in Spanish are educational books on turtles and legislation. So I don't really blame the youth for not leaping at the chance to read the "Manual de Procedimientos para la ejecución de Plan de Manejo." Bleh. Also, today, I've set up a movie day (I wanted a reading day but the woman who supervises me here says that if I advertise it as a reading day not one person will show up) and I put up a poster in town, so I hope someone shows up. I tried to go announce it at the school, but apparently the teacher had decided to take a vacation this week, so classes were off. Hint hint, Mom! I'm hoping to ambush whoever comes with books after the movie ends. We'll see how it goes! But, the big news is that last night there was a LEATHERBACK TURTLE on the beach laying eggs!!! It was completely incredible! We were all sitting around waiting to go out on our normal turtle duty when we got a call from André, who was already out patrolling, and he said that a tortuga baula had come up on the far end of the beach. We all ran literally over a mile down the beach to see it, because they're really rare and endangered. I couldn't BELIEVE IT when I saw it! It was absolutely enormous! It was one of the top ten coolest things I've ever seen in my whole life. I wish I could've taken a picture to show you, but it was laying eggs and we're not allowed to take pictures because it might bother them. It was over six feet long and like four feet across, and its head was much bigger than mine. It grunted like a dinosaur, too. I asked how much it weighed, but to understand the answer I would've had to understand some horrible conversion and also numbers in Spanish, so I can't tell you how much it weighed. I'd estimate ten billion pounds. It dug a mammoth hole for its eggs (I could've fit in there with room to spare), but we caught all of its eggs in a plastic bag, because a lot of people had come out on the beach to see it and they're very worried about poaching, because again, tortuga baulas are endangered and their eggs are valuable. After it lay the eggs and everyone was marveling at the turtle, André pulled me aside and asked if I'd like to go on a secret mission, and of course I said yes - I am nothing if not a queen of espionage. He had hidden the bag of eggs under his coat and we walked a long ways down the beach (making sure that no one was following us) and then dug a hole and I got to put all of the eggs (68) into the hole. We covered it back up and camouflaged the hole and sauntered back all casual like in time to see the behemoth working her way back to the sea. The tracks that she left looked like a tractor had driven up on the beach. Whew! It was absolutely epic, even the weather - it was clear with trillions of stars right above the beach, but farther out on the ocean it was really stormy, so there was tons of flashing lightning. Amazing! It felt unreal. Anyway, I'm still pretty pumped about it. I hope that you're all doing well! Love you! Oh, the pictures are of me looking dorky with our surfboards and then someone else's picture of a leatherback so that you can get a sense of it.