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!