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.