Dia de Acción de Gracias (or better known as Miah's Favorite Holiday)

Sorry we are so delayed getting this posted. We know your curiosity is killing you as to how Thanksgiving in Costa Rica played out. It was quite an ordeal that began 6 months ago when we realized that turkeys were very difficult, and expensive, to come by here. No matter what part of the world we've been in, we have always made sure to make a Thanksgiving feast, so this hurdle wasn't about to stop us now.

Thankfully, our coworker's mom has a farm about an hour away and was willing to raise a turkey for us. We named our turkey Mr. Gobble and he had a very happy life until November when it was our job to get him oven-ready. The drive to the farm was absolutely beautiful. Once there, one of the farmers helped us catch Mr. Gobble and have it drink cheap liquor until it was good and drunk. We let him stumble around for awhile before hanging him up to kill. We weren't sure we would be up to the challenge, so someone helped us out. Then, it had to be plucked before we could take it home.

Mr. Gobble was quite a substantial turkey by Costa Rican standards, but only 10 pounds which was not quite enough for the 20+ people we had for Thanksgiving the next day. We had a very cross-cultural feast combining friends from the US and Costa Rica, with traditional Thanksgiving dishes as well as typical fare from here. Keeping with the tradition though, there was more than enough for all and we were happily stuffed and sleepy after eating.

All in all, Thanksgiving was quite a success and certainly a learning experience for us as well. Next we'll have to teach the art of southern BBQ when Mrs. Oink is ready...



Back to the US tomorrow,
Team Wander

Club de yates de los campesinos (redneck yacht club)

We thought we were finally getting a handle on all the surprises that Costa Rica had in store for us, but boy were we mistaken. See, we had some grandiose plans for a Thanksgiving dinner (a family friend has been raising us a turkey for the past 6 months - that we will soon have to go butcher), but then we got wind of something new and exciting that was going to fall on the same day as said Thanksgiving. A little social maneuvering and a couple of emails later, we had everything reorganized and were on our way to Raft-Up.

Turns out that Raft-Up is really like the Costa Rican redneck yacht club. Erm... correction: it's like the Costa Rican Expat Community's redneck yacht club. At 9 am Sunday morning, we caught a surfboat (complete with deckhand Golden Retriever) out to a hidden bay along with some 300 other expats and the occasional fortunate tourist. The boat showed up in the bay and dropped anchor along-side fifteen other boats and we caught a dinghy to shore (well, Miah jumped ship and swam, but he was pretty excited to get off the boat).

From there we had a day of beach volleyball, grilling out, snorkeling, body surfing and live music. It was great! But it has inspired us to hold our own redneck yacht club sometime after we get back in North Carolina. You should come.

The one heartbreak about raft-up is that it was going to be the kickoff event for our week with the most recent group of visitors, Graham and Julie. Julie is in school at C.I.A (Culinary Institute of America) so her timing for a visit was pretty much perfect! Unfortunately, there was a little bit of a passport finding fiasco that caused them to spend the day they were supposed to be flying down here driving over 20 hours hunting down passports, so they ended up missing raft-up (insert emoticon super sad face here).

They did manage to make it down the next day, however, and we had a fantastic, food and adventure filled week with them. We went and worked on the houses together, cooked up a storm, golfed, played some Killer Bunnies and generally had a great time. We miss you guys already!




Anybody watch the Wolfpack beat Carolina last weekend?
TeamWander

House Photos

En el trabajo

Things have really picked up here as we find ourselves in the last month or so of our first neighborhood of houses. It has been extremely exciting to see them come together and they have turned out nicer than we could have ever imagined. We have floors, ceilings, electrical, stucco, etc. on half of our houses (photos to come). In early November, Miah put in a lot of hours at the worksite installing everything electrical and learning the true inner workings of our construction team. It´s still a toss-up as to whether this helped or hurt his Spanish, since 10 hours a day is plenty of time to practice, but most of the Spanish he´s learned can not be repeated outside a small group of local guys (think crude surfer guy speak).

There is never a lack of interesting stories from the worksite, but here´s one we want to share. We had stopped by for a quick update from the construction foreman and to check on the delivery of some additional materials., but when we arrived, everyone was crowded around one of the holes that had been dug for a septic tank. Slightly confused, we walked over to see what was going on, and upon peering down in the hole saw a cow´s head with horns. At some point that morning, it had managed to fall in the hole and so the guys were trying use bars and ropes to get it out. The poor cow was absolutely terrified, but just watching the entire situation play out, it was quite comical. Fifteen guys were heaving with all their might to haul this cow out and it was doing everything in its power to stay right where it was. We were worried it might have broken a leg or something in the fall, but when they finally did manage to get the cow out, he was perfectly fine as far as we could tell. Needless to say, we were late for our next meeting, but we couldn´t walk away until the rescue operation was complete.

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving feast,
Team Wander

Dientes Limpios

Thankfully, we´ve been super lucky so far on our travels not need any sort of medical care. We were long overdue for a good teeth cleaning though, so we decided to try our luck at a local dental clinic. We had seen one situated in a small town about 15 minutes from us, next to our favorite pizza place, so that seemed as good a sign as any to choose that clinic.

We walked in for our appointment and as usual, things are running on Tico time so we had plenty of time to strike up a conversation with the receptionist. She was a Nicaraguan who had moved to Costa Rica with the hope of making more money to send back to her children who were living with her mother. Not five minutes into the conversation, she was baring her soul to us. It was great to have a truly candid conversation with someone from such a different background, not only to learn about her life, but to get a different perspective on the project we are working on here. If she could bring her family down here to live with her, these are exactly the type of hard working families that we would like to be helping. She brought up some interesting questions and concerns though that can be used help us to improve before our next project.

The other patient then came out of the exam room, in one piece and looking happy enough, so we figured things couldn´t go too bad. The dentist was super nice and started the cleaning innocently enough. Next thing we know, he had placed a towel over our face and chest and proceeded to start sand-blasting our mouths with baking soda. If you have ever been out on the beach when a huge gust of wind picks up and you feel the sting of the sand against your legs, you can begin to imagine this, but then transfer that feeling to your tongue and lips instead. When he finished, despite the best intentions of the towel, our faces were covered in a thin-film of baking soda. Certainly an interesting experience, but short-lived enough and well-worth the sparkling clean teeth afterward.

Big smiles,
Team Wander

Los Estados Unidos

Sorry, apparently we forgot to post this when returned, but here it is now...


Whew, we made it back to the land of rice and beans after a whirlwind of a trip to the US. As some of you might have heard, Leslie´s grandmother died suddenly on September 30th so she had to make a quick trip to Florida that weekend for the funeral. Traveling started by leaving the house at 3am to catch a bus to San Jose airport. Everything went smoothly until arriving in the US where the custom´s officers played 20 questions about anything from being out of the country too much to not having enough luggage. It was all worth it though because the service went really well and it was fantastic to have all our family together.

Leslie flew back to Costa Rica the following Wednesday only to fly back out on Thursday morning. We spent Wednesday night with some friends who live near San Jose (Jessica, they may be our toughest Boggle competition yet). We left our car at one of their friend´s houses whose German shephard had puppies about 3 months ago. Three of the were quickly growing as you would expect, but the runt of the litter had barely changed size at all. She was a tiny ball of fur and the cutest thing ever. We´re not sure if she´s ever going to grow, but it took every ounce of our strength to walk away empty-handed when he offered her to us.

Next we made it to DC to spend some time with Miah´s mom and for him to take the GRE. Our first day there was a blast, we took a bike tour around the Mall (the best way to see the sights), visited the Smithsonian, and ended the day with a night-time boat ride up the Potomac. In between test taking and essay writing the rest of the weekend, we managed to cram in tons of good food.

One of the most interesting things we saw in DC was the solar decathalon taking place on the Mall (http://www.solardecathlon.org/). There were 20 universities competing for the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house. All the houses were less than 800 square feet, so not only was the environmental impact of the houses amazing, but so was there innovative use of space. We learned so many neat things, we´re ready to build our own house now. Here are a couple pictures of the houses:









Love to all,
Team Wander

Muchas Aventuras de Comida (entre otras cosas)

Kiddies, we've got a lot of ground to cover, so I'd recommend before getting started on this post you make up some hot chocolate and grab the comfiest chair in the house. The past few weeks here have been wonderful: progress on the houses is coming along extremely well, we should be finishing on schedule; we've made quite a bit of progress beginning the permitting process for the next lot as well. We have also been fortunate enough to take part in a couple of awesome adventures over the past few weeks and those are the experiences we'd like to share with you all.

First off, two weekends ago us and a few of the people who work for the foundation decided to have a road trip. The two of us don't travel too much within Costa Rica because we're living on the traveler budget, and focusing a lot on developing our relationships with the folks around here, but we're sure glad we were a part of this trip. Seven of us took the hour drive down to the very tip of the Nicoya Peninsula to a town called Mal Pais.

We spent the weekend relaxing, hanging out at the beach and hiking to some neat waterfalls. Oh yeah, and eating. You'll quickly notice that food is very much the central theme of this post. As we spent the majority of our time less than a quarter mile from the ocean, the seafood was wonderful, so we made sure to concentrate our consumptive energy on that cuisine. One of the neatest parts about the weekend, however, was the cultural mix that we had within the group. There were three Ticos and four of us from the US and it's fair to say that the weekend was completely bi-lingual; it was perfectly acceptable to speak to someone in either of the two languages (irrespective of what their native language was and even in what language they had just spoken to you).

That was a really neat experience, it made for some neat polylingual conversations, and of course, the everpresent meta-conversation about languages. All of us non-spanish speakers took advantage of having three friendly, walking dictionaries at our disposal and worked hard to pick up as much spanish as we could during the weekend. We even spent a few hours one night playing Catchphrase in Spanish. For the silly little gringos that we are, I think we did pretty well.

Here's a picture of the lovely little bungalows that we stayed in (close enough that the sound of the surf rocked you to sleep at night). What a great weekend (Thanks Yanith!)

Next on the docket of fun things to talk about is one of the culinary adventures that we've been having here at home lately. We've been experimenting with food a lot lately and are absolutely loving it. Produce is cheaper here than it will ever be again in our life (at least that what my mom hopes for, because cheap produce would imply another transcontinental adventure) and so we're making the most of it by cooking at home lots and lots.

We've decided a fun thing to do in the blog is to start posting more and more of the recipes that we're currently trying to let the foodies in all of you give it a try at home.

This past week we made a loaf of bread that was absolutely spectacular. Miah has gotten in to breadmaking (he's still pushing to open up a bakery / B&B somewhere in the south of Italy - sorry mom) and decided to hunt down and try out a recipe for fresh thyme bread. Here's the result of some of the experimentation:

Thyme Garlic Bread
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tsp sugar
4 cloves minced garlic
2 tsp yeast (more colloquially known as yeasty beasties)
2 tsp salt
2 Tb finely chopped fresh thyme

Dissolve yeast in warm water, let sit for 10 minutes. In a large bowl, mix 2 cups flour, sugar and salt. Add yeast mixture and mix together well, scraping the sides of the bowl. Slowly add as much of the rest of the flour as you can stopping at a medium dough. Turn out the mixture on to a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 minutes. Flatten out the dough and spread the thyme and garlic evenly throughout. Knead for 2 minutes more to distribute the spices. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a moist cloth. Let rise in a warm place until doubled (roughly two hours). Turn out dough on to a lightly floured surface and knead for two more minutes. Put in to a bread pan or form in to a loaf on a baking sheet and let sit, covered, for 10 more minutes. Bake on 250 for about 50 minutes. Enjoy

A word to the intrepid about our baking temperatures and times: our oven is loco. Our cooking temperatures seem to run pretty low, so you might want to consider bumping up to 300 or something. I look cooking this bread so low because of the way the crust turns out (not too thick, not too tough), but you can experiment and see what you like best.

We made grilled cheese, avocado and tomato sandwiches out of this bread and they were absolutely incredible. We highly recommend (5 gold stars for you little buddy), and we have included a salivation inducing photo.

Lastly, let's talk about football (and food). For those of you who live on the moon, both college and pro football are now a few weeks in and possibly the most exciting thing currently happening on the face of the planet. This last weekend was sort-of devoted to that end. We spent the weekend with our buddies Zach (yes sir, you made it in to the blog) and Eric, bouncing around from house to house watching obscene amounts of football. The true trump-card of the weekend however was not the 10 hours of football we watched over the course of two days, but instead the meal we cooked on friday night. If anybody from 1410 is reading this, they'll be proud to know that this meal was brought to you by the letter bacon, and worth every artery-clogging calorie.

The menu in brief: NY strip wrapped in bacon, portabella mushrooom slices wrapped in bacon, pinapple wrapped in bacon and banana stuffed jalapeño peppers (we ran out of bacon). We cooked it all up on the grill and feasted. Hooray.

As for now, we're back to the grind, trying to get some houses built and write some grad school admissions essays,


We hope everyone is doing well, we love and miss you,
Go Pack! Go Chargers!
TeamWander

Fiestas de Santa Rosa

Wow! I don't even know where to begin. From roughly our first week here in Costa Rica, we've been hearing many tales about the fiestas that can be found throughout Guanacaste. However, there's really one festival that is touted and bragged about more than any other: Santa Rosa Last week, we were sucked in to the tornado of Guanacastecan debauchery that is la fiesta de Santa Rosa.



Imagine a cross between a full-on rodeo, a NC State Homecoming tailgate, and the biggest house party the local authorities would let slide. All of these events combined make up this fiesta. We started out at 8 am, wandering up and down the dirt streets of Santa Rosa looking for someone to rent horses from (why do we need horses? to go get the bulls of course). Fortunately we had a nice Tica friend to help us negotiate the cost of horse rental down by 30 percent.


We got our trusty steeds rented and set of for what, unbeknownst to us, was going to be the longest (and best populated) horse ride of our lives. I say best populated because joining us to go collect the bulls were about 1000 of our closest costa rican friends; on horseback, on fourwheelers, on dirtbikes, even hanging out the back of shabby pickup trucks. Us and this motley crew traveled for about 3 hours on horseback, stopping of course to buy beer from the roadside beer trucks, and hitch our horses for a drink or two at the local establishments that we happened to pass by. The road ended for us at a giant hacienda with a brass band playing, a team of ladies selling fried chicken out of plastic tubs, and reliably, requisite beer stands. After a few hours of this, the throng of people (somehow without receiving any sort of perceivable signal) all hopped back on their horse (or whatever, we did meet one guy riding a donkey) and started traveling back the way we came. However this time, this crew of people was herding the bulls that would be used for the bull-fights of the evening.

So to rewind the first three hours of the trip, we took the same 3 hour ride back, stopping again at the local watering hole along the way. On the way back however, our horses (read: Miah's horse) must have discovered her love for a good chase because we did a lot more galloping than anything else. Nothing like racing an 8 year old costa rican on horseback down a dirt road full of people all traveling a different pace.

Once we got back and got our horses returned apparently we had completed the prelude to the day as it was time for the real fiesta to start. There were purportedly hours more of parties and bullfights (we had friends who came home well after midnight) however we didn't have the steam to stay in the running, so we headed home to cook a yummy dinner.

Unfortunately for them, two passers-by (Jessica and Hugo, down from California) happened to be pulled in to this adventure as well. Little did they know when they were planning their visit that this would be how they spent their saturday. It wasn't till sunday morning that we all collectively groaned and whimpered our way out of our respective beds that we realized how sore an 8 hour horseback adventure could really make you.

What are you doing on thursday night?
Team Wander

La langosta, como prometida

Per Ryan and Shannon's request, here's a pic of the lobster that our tico friend spent over an hour digging out of the bottom of the ocean for us. It must have been a heck of a battle, because the tico came up bleeding and the lobster came up missing a claw. But it sure tasted good!

La vida se acelera

Life has really picked up the pace here in Costa Rica this month. As soon as the volunteers left, we started our first week of teaching. Two days a week Leslie is teaching first through third graders reading, writing, grammar, and phonics. Miah is subsitute teaching for a month, filling in for the math teacher. It is hard work, but very rewarding. The students are kids from all over the world whose parents do not want them to attend Costa Rica public schools but cannot afford the big private school in this area. Therefore, most of the kids speak two if not three or more languages which makes us so jealous! It is especially difficult teaching the first graders though because a few of them are still struggling to grasp the English language, much less handle classes reading, spelling, writing, etc.

We also had another set of visitors, the newlyweds, Ryan and Shannon who were in Costa Rica for their honeymoon (congrats, you two!). They spent the first half visiting the Arenal volcano and then came to Guanacaste for some beaches and sunshine. Luckily, the rainy season is very late in starting this year so the weather has remained beautiful. As usual, the highlight of their stay was the sailing/snorkeling trip which we caught the very last day before the boat is dry-docked for the next few months. The water was the clearest we had ever seen it (the guides said the same thing). We found a giant manta ray and plenty of fish. We spent most of our time trying to catch a puffer fish, but to no avail. Our guide was able to catch a large lobster though and afterwards we took it to our favorite restaurant in Tamarindo for them to cook for us. Delicious!

We also went to a going away/birthday party for our Costan Rican sister before she left for the Foundation's scholarship program at LaGrange college in Georgia. It was our first proper Costa Rican party and they certainly do things right. They had a chef in from San Jose who cooked amazing appetizers and dinner. We also played Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Musical Chairs, and other such games that had been off our radar for too long. They had made a homemade piñata as well as balloons full of flour for the end of the night farewell. Our moment of glory came when we were able to win the married couples "guess your partner's answers" in Spanish. We were handsomely rewarded for our efforts with a blue duck butter dish.

The rest of the month looks like it will stay just as hectic. Three more sets of friends are coming to visit, but only two will be staying with us. A last hoorah before Chez Wander is empty for awhile. We are counting down the days until football begins!!

Go Pack!
Team Wander

Que semana más loca!

What a week! We just wrapped up a week-long adventure with a volunteer group of 15 some-odd folks who came down from various parts of the southeastern US. Descriptions can't really do this week justice. We were dirty, soaked in sweat, hot as Hades and happy as we could imagine with how the week went. The volunteers (thank you all so much!) worked like troopers all week, mixing concrete, laying block, painting roof members and making friends. It was a beautiful sight to see the 10 local members of the construction crew working hand in hand with the 15 volunteers and everyone seemed to be having a great time of it. We went back to the worksite yesterday it just wasn't the same without the gringos.

Seeing the houses become a reality is an amazing experience for us. They're really coming up now (see the pictures) but two of the houses have roof members welded on, four more are in some state of block being laid and that leaves two more foundations to dig and pour.

Having the opportunity to work out there last week really took the two of us back to the days of Habitat work trips at NC State and it was a great feeling. The sense of exhausted completeness at the end of the day is a really wonderful sensation. And getting to learn all the new skills (in spanish, yikes!) is a lot of fun too!

At any rate, words can only say so much, so here's a few pictures to put you guys on the worksite with us!
The crew and one of the houses








Siesta, and well deserved at that








Viktor (his spanish name), our resident masonry expert









Aaaaand... Leslie O being a rock star.

Middle School Fun

Last night turned out to be too amusing not to share with everyone. It
began quite ordinarily when we were invited to dinner with our Costa
Rican family (Quick side note, dinner was a cross between lasagna
and chicken pot pie, which, as fate would have it, is an amazing combination).
After dinner, our sister suggested that we go to the town center because
there was a roller skating rink in town for the month. What?!? Not
wanting to pass up a trip down memory lane (think prime middle school
story material) we quickly agreed.

Turns out we were exactly right; the two of us were older than
everyone there by at least five years and the only two non-Ticos.
Apparently roller skating is not like riding a bike, you cannot just
pick it back up a decade later. Well, at least I couldn't, Miah still
had a few tricks up his sleeve from his rollerblading days. One lap
around and he was convinced that I was capable of skating on my own.
Clearly not the case and one of Stephanie's friends quickly came to my
rescue to keep me on my feet and not cause a disastrous pile-up
on the floor (quite a few of which we saw). Slowly it all started
coming back to me though, and all of us had a blast.

We came home and went to bed and about 2 hours later I was awakened by
a huge crashing noise. I wasn't sure if it was just part of a dream or
something outside, but a few minutes later I heard another smaller crash followed by metal scraping metal. I attempted to rouse Miah but he wasn't waking up for anything, so I bravely peeked out the window to see who was trying to break into our house. Turns out, it was a bull on our back patio who had pushed over the grill and was ramming it with his horns. I ran into the
living room and turned on the patio light, trying to scare him away, and he just stared at me, not a foot away. Then, he just went back to eating the charcoal (don't ask me why). Finally, after banging on the door for awhile, he sauntered away. Needless to say, our grill has a few dents in it this morning and is missing one of the legs...

Los Toros

Apparently all of this talk about rainy season is just hype (we'll regret these words later). The month of July has been beautiful here, we have hardly seen any rain at all. Even better, it is slightly cooler with the clouds, so it is even better for outdoor activities. Nick came to visit for a week and may be more accustomed to the heat than we are since he´s been in Texas for the past few years. The first night we took him to a friend´s house where we decided to get a poker game going. Three sets of pocket kings later (one of which matched extra nicely with the pair of kings that appeared during the flop), Nick had put everyone to shame and raked in about $60. Great way to start a vacation!

During the week it was really busy here because we also had one of the foundation's administrators from Georgia visiting. She was so excited to see the progress on the houses (we now have all the walls done for four houses and a partial roof on one). As always, she was a great sounding board for us to really figure out what is the best way to maximize the benefits for the future homeowners.

One of the highlights of Nick´s week was to get in a dose of culture at a local fiesta. We ate lots of meat on a stick and drank beer as we watched the bullriding festivities. Not only does someone ride the bull, but there are also about 50 people in the ring trying to run from the bull once he throws the rider off. Thankfully no one was gored in the process, but at least three people were rushed to the first aid center on one edge of the bull-ring when they were unsuccessful in running from the bull. Also in the ring were the town drunks who were getting as many cheers from the crowd for their performance as the bullriders were. Afterward, we went dancing where Nick proceeded to put the rest of us Gringos to shame with his dancing abilities.

After Nick left, the fun times continued as we celebrated Leslie´s birthday. It was a fantastic weekend (and following week!) Miah was full of excellent surprises and gave an awesome sweatshirt he had designed. The slogan matches an old recipe box from Leslie´s grandmother.

Starting next week, we're having the equivalent of a Costa Rican blitz build. A group of nearly two dozen folks is coming down from the states to help us put together two more houses at the Chircó site. We can't wait to get these houses finished and to get some families in to them. We'll have lots of pictures and I'm sure some exciting stories to share when the week's over. Check back soon!

Love you all,
TeamWander

Family Time

We apologize that we are getting worse and worse about keeping everyone up-to-date with what is happening in our lives. At the end of June, we had to make another trip out of the country to renew our visas and the timing perfectly coincided with Mama Wander moving from Greensboro to DC, so we headed back to the States to help her move. She got a new job working at American University, so we packed a trailer and a truck and fit what we could to move her into temporary housing until she finds a permanent place. Our first request upon returning to the US was Indian food (followed by Japanese food, BBQ, Lebanese food, Thai food, etc). Since we had no kitchen while we were moving, we spent our first week frantically scrambling from restaurant to restaurant trying to catch up on all the cuisines we've missed here in Costa Rica. There are really two types of food here, the typical rice & beans cuisine or pizza (with the occasional Chinese restaurant thrown in for good measure). Especially after our trek through Asia, we miss the other cuisines.

From DC, we made a quick stop to see Leslie's uncle outside of DC and then down to Boone to visit Mama O and Luna. It was fantastic to be back in the mountains - we went hiking and tried to get in as much time with the dogs as we could. Thankfully Luna still remembers us, hopefully she still will by the end of our stay here. After a short weekend in Boone, we flew down to Mobile, AL to see Leslie's grandparents and on to Panama City, FL to visit Miah's dad. We were able to catch our breath down there, plenty of time for playing cards, doing puzzles, running errands, etc. It was fantastic to have so much time to spend with our families.

There was certainly a bit of culture shock as adjusted to our time in the States and then once again returning to Costa Rica. One of the biggest differences you see is the number of choices (which also translates to opportunities) available in the US is so much more than in Costa Rica. This is true for simple things like brands of food and radio stations, all the way up to larger choices such as education and career. We walked through the aisles of Target just trying to imagine what our friends in Costa Rica would think if they saw such a mammoth store where you could buy almost anything you *need*. Those type of places just do not exist here.

We made it back to Costa Rica just in time for our friends' wedding. Although the rain tried to ruin the event, and the wedding had to be moved under the tent instead of out on the beach, it turned out to be a fantastic night. A rainbow cut across the entire sky just after the ceremony and a beautiful sunset followed.




As for the houses, they are coming along great so far. The walls are finished for two houses and the foundations are finished for two others. The construction crew is amazing - we're not sure how well we would fare working in 95 degree heat, 100% humidity, digging foundations by hand, hauling double-size cinderblocks for the walls, mixing the cement by hand, etc. We will get a taste of it the first week of August as we lead a crew of volunteers to began building our next four houses.



Mixing Cement


















Happy Birthday to Papa Wander!!!

Love,
Team Wander

The South comes to Costa Rica

The past two weeks have been rather exciting (aka super busy) but wonderful. First we had 180 people from Georgia come to Costa Rica for this Leadership Georgia conference. They were staying at the nearby resort listening to speakers ranging from alumni of the program to the President of Costa Rica. They also wanted to volunteer in nearby schools and see how our Habitat projects were coming along. While they were here, Jane and Daniel were also coming to visit, but their original flight got canceled and the trip was pushed back a day. Unfortunately that means their flight arrived at the same time that we were supposed to be taking the Leadership Georgia people around to our worksite and the other Habitat neighborhood.As usual, it all worked out in the end though, the Leadership Georgia people were two hours late arriving for the tour so we had plenty of time to pick up our visitors and drag them around on our tour to the Habitat houses as well. They also got a taste of our weekly English class to the first graders in 27 de Abril. The cutest students ever, but with little understanding of order in a classroom which is typical for many students here. A few games of duck, duck goose managed to get some of their energy out though and at the same time, drain all of ours.

Jane and Daniel got the full Costa Rican experience, from monsoons to sunburns, but it was a great trip. We started with a Sabenero show, which is the typical dancing and horseback riding of the Guanacaste region. Afterward there was dinner and drinks on the beach, where we began a proper celebration. Over the weeekend we went hiking at a nearby volcano (Blair, does Rincon de laVieja ring a bell?), whose crater is no longer active, but there are tons of bubbling mud pits, hot water pools, fumaroles, and waterfalls around the mountain. It was a beautiful hike through an amazing forest with the largest leaf-cutter ant mounds that we've ever seen. Those ants were always focused on their task and left people alone, but as we found out the hard way some others do not. We were swimming (well the boys were swimming, and the girls were wading) in this crystal clear, freezing-cold river when we noticed a black army swarming all over our stuff on the rocks. We quickly hopped out to grab our stuff and move it away, but the ants just kept coming and coming and apparently could follow our scent wherever we took our stuff. Yikes! For the more relaxing vacation type of things, we also went sailing/snorkeling, ziplining through the jungle, golfing, laying on the beach, etc. Even better we ate tons of good food, probably topped by our homemade sushi that was swimming just hours before we ate it.

During all the fun we were also trying to get the construction crews everything they needed to start building. As always there are last minute fees and complications trying to hinder progress, but we managed to overcome all of them (that we know of). The foundations have been dug and you can see the outline of each room of the house. The construction crew is amazing - after 30 minutes of being on the worksite we're tired and drenched in sweat, and they are out there 10 hours a day in the ridiculous heat, digging the foundations, mixing concrete, etc. We can't describe how fantastic it is to finally be building though. Even better, the crew is also working to clear the second lot so we can begin the permit process on that land and hopefully build there as soon as this neighborhood is done.

Hope everyone had a great Father's Day weekend. Huge hugs to all you dads out there.

Love,
Team Wander

Éxito!

A foreigner who has been working in Costa Rica for many years gave us some advice this week. In order to get anything done here, it requires ¨slight but constant pressure.¨ We think that is the best description we’ve heard yet. We’re walking this tightrope between trying to accomplish things in a reasonable amount of time and not bugging people to the point they won’t help us again. We’re slowly learning how to keep this delicate balance and it is paying off....we’re picking up our construction permits TOMORROW!!!! Yes, six months later, we have success. Tomorrow the construction crew will be out there cleaning the lots, marking the houses, and building a shed for the materials. Next week, we’ll have our materials and they can start building.

This morning we had to tie up the last loose ends and the process was comical to say the least. We went to the main offices in Santa Cruz because they were missing one piece of paper to approve the permits. A quick description, this building is divided into little windows, almost like bank tellers, where you can apply for all types of permits, pay taxes, declare land, etc. The final papers we needed for the permits were all in this one building, mere feet from each other. Apparently, plastic dividers are enough to cease all (work-related) conversations between these offices so we had to run between each one to obtain the last requirement. The person at the permit window told us to go to the next window to get a stamp on another piece of paper so she could give us what we needed. Well, the lady at the second window asked us to go to a third window for yet another sheet of paper. The third lady needed us to go upstairs to pick up another piece of paper so she could give us the other paper to take to the second window to get another paper to take to the first window and so on. Absolutely ridiculous. It’s no wonder people get so confused here, keeping up with so many pieces of paper for the same thing. While waiting at each window, we amused ourselves by people watching. A personal favorite, the man who walked in carrying a pigeon on a leash and each time he needed to talk to someone he would step on the leash and the bird would try to pull free. Pigeons? As pets? In government buildings? Like we said, extremely amusing.

All that matters now though is that we’ve made it through our first set of permits and learned a lot in navigating the Costa Rican legal system. Hopefully the subsequent permits will be quicker and easier now that we know where to get each of the requirements (and the five requirements needed for each of those). Two more visitors were supposed to fly in today, but their flight was cancelled, so well have more fun stories to tell next week of our adventures with them.

Huge hugs,
Team Wander

El Hermano y la Llanta

The first day of Eric and Trevor´s visit to Costa Rica, started out innocently enough. A day at the beach, cooking a great dinner, etc. Then, rumor spread of a Bingo night at a nearby bar that was a fundraiser for the beach clean-up crew. Always willing to do our part to help, we quickly rushed over to Bingo night and threw our money down for a lucky card. There were 9 prizes to be won that night, and somehow our group managed to win five of them. It was absolutely ridiculous and more than one of the more experienced Bingo players was ready to take us out at the knees. We ended the night with two sailing trips, dinner for two, a month membership at the tennis club, a 30 minute massage, and two whole pies from Nogui´s. Needless to say, we had our work cut out for us to add all this fun into an already fun-packed week, but we somehow managed.


The rest of the week included golfing, a trip to a nearby village that specializes in traditional pottery making, lots of game playing, and of course great food. Our boat trip was rained out the first day, but we came back the following day to perfect blue skies and more coconut daiquiris than anyone should ever drink. While snorkeling we once again found a blowfish (this time an extremely spiky one that we couldn´t hold on to), starfish, eels, and lots of fish. The sunset was beautiful and after dinner, we stayed on the beach for hours.

For the weekend, we decided to head to Tenorio Volcano National Park. We had heard great things about Rio Celeste, a river in the park that is a spectacular blue color due to the volcanic minerals. The only problem is no one could tell us how to get there besides look for the dirt road near Bijagua. The drive started out easy enough, but soon the car started shaking violently. We made it to the next gas station only to find 3 large holes in our tire where you could see the metal weave of the tire breaking. They didn´t have any tires that were the right size so they sent us to the next tire place down the road. We stopped at three or four more places who all said they didn´t have any tires to fit, but by this time we were being told that if we kept driving on the tire we were going to die. Problem was, our spare tire also had a few holes (in true Costa Rica style, it was patched again and again without ever being replaced) and was almost entirely deflated. At the sixth stop, we refused to go any farther and said they had to help us figure out something. He blew up the spare tire as much as he could and said we could make it about 5 miles and hope for the best at the next shop. Thankfully, we were lucky at the next stop and he had a new tire to sell us, although the spare is still deflated in the back.

We made it to the tiny town of Bijagua and drove around forever looking for a place to stay. Unfortunately, our little low-riding Hyundai hatchback was no match for the dirt roads full of potholes and boulders. When we finally found a place to stay, they informed us that there was no way our car could make it the 11km to the National Park entrance. As always, he knew a guy who knew a guy who could give us a ride the next day. The trip out there was exciting to say the least, and our driver stopped along the way for us to try water apples. They are a bell-shaped fruit that have the texture of a pear, but taste like a flower (have you ever tried that fruit, Jessica?). We were greeted at the park office by an entire wall of jars full of the dangerous species of snakes, lizards, scorpions, and bugs that you might encounter in the park. We signed in and began our hike into a Jurassic Park like jungle, surrounded only by the sounds of the bugs, and a heavy mist that had settled in the trees. The first view of the river was at a spectacular waterfall ending in a bright turquoise pool, unlike anything we had seen before. There were no people anywhere and we felt as if we had discovered our own private paradise. We continued our hike, finding the point where the two rivers meet and the water turns blue, and ending up at a set of hot springs. Careful placement of rocks had made a perfect pool that allowed enough cold river water in to mix with the hot springs to make a great place to sit. We stayed there for awhile and had a picnic lunch before hiking back.

A great week overall and now back to the office to finish the quest for our construction permits. Looks like we can have them by the end of the week and if the construction crew is ready, begin the houses next week! Very exciting news for us. We hope all is well in the US and we miss you all!

Hugs,
Team Wander

Las mamás (don't forget the accent)

We finally had our first visitors in Costa Rica. Both our moms and Hank came the last week of April and were able to stay in this beautiful house on the beach in the nearby resort. Even better, the house had a chef that we are now teaching English to, so we got to eat lots of great food while they were here. They were fantastic and each brought down an extra suitcase of stuff we had forgotten in the US or couldn't find here so now we're set here.

The first few days we just showed them around our life here in Costa Rica, our job, our old house/town, our friends, etc. We gave them a true Tico experience by taking them to the festival in 27 de Abril with bullriding, greasy food, and plenty of crazy drunks to top things off. Needless to say, they were happy we had moved to a new town.

We all took a horseback tour through Hacienda Pinilla – through the fields, up a mountain to have a great view of the ocean, through the mangroves, and finally emerging on the beach. The next day we split up, Miah and his mom taking a canopy tour through the jungle and the others going on a snorkeling/sailing trip. The canopy tour was quite a new adventure for mama wander, and though she didn't go racing through the trees hanging upside down from the cable (like Miah did), she seemed to have a fantastic time.

The sailing trip was a blast. It was a huge boat that our friend is the captain of and it's all you can eat/drink. It can hold about 75 people, but there were only nine of us that day so we had the boat practically to ourselves. Halfway through the tour we all went snorkeling and the guide was able to catch a blowfish. We got to hold it as well, which felt like a giant soft water balloon. We finished the trip at sunset at a new beach to the north and were shuttled back to Tamarindo to end the evening.

We also took everyone to our favorite restaurant here, a little thatched-roof fishing shack called Pedro's. They go fishing everyday and serve whatever they catch. The restaurant doesn't even bother serving drinks – you have to walk to the bar next door to order what you need. It is the best fish and shrimp you can find in Tamarindo eat though.

For all of you adventurous chefs out there.....

....an amazing new dessert that you should try to make. We have been performing "scientific experiments¨ here to find the best Tres Leches in Guanacaste and here it is. If you are brave enough to try to make it, let us know how it turns out.

Tres Leches (Three Milks)

Ingredients:
6 Separated Eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour

1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
8 oz. of whipping cream
1tsp. vanilla
2 capfulls of guaro (or white rum will work fine)

1/2 cup sugar
scant 1/4 cup water
3 egg whites

Using a mixer, beat the 6 egg whites until they form medium peaks. Slowly add the yolks while continuing to beat. Slowly add 3/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp vanilla (still beating). Once everything is thoroughly mixed, fold in 1 cup flour a bit at a time. Pour in a greased 9x13 baking dish and bake at 350degrees for about 20 min. or until a toothpick comes out clean. When the cake is finished, poke about 100 holes in the top of it to allow the milk mixture to penetrate. Also separate the edge of the cake from the dish.

In a blender, combine the three milks, vanilla, and liquor. Slowly pour mixture over the entire cake, allowing it to soak through to the bottom. Place in the fridge until cool.

In a small saucepan, combine water and 1/2 cup sugar and heat until mixture becomes thick. Beat the 3 egg whites until stiff peaks form. Slowly pour the sugar mixture into the whites while mixing then spread over the top of the cake.

Enjoy!! Stays well in the fridge (although the icing begins to deflate).
In the name of science,
Team Wander

A New Hobby

We had a nice, relaxing Semana Santa (Holy Week) here in Costa Rica. We did have to suffer through that terrible NCAA Tournament National Championship Game, but otherwise we had a few days to spend time with friends and get hooked on a new hobby....golf. Yes, you may laugh (we are hilarious to watch at this point), but it is a blast.

Back at work we met with a new engineer who is now going to be in charge of our first project. He seemed great and is able to get all the approvals we need in the next two weeks. If all goes as planned we may get to begin building in early June. Just in the nick of time too, because the president of Costa Rica will be here in the middle of June to see the progress of the project. We´ve learned a ton over the past few months though, and we should be able to acquire the next set of permits quicker, although we will always have to battle the pura vida mindset.

Over the weekend we went back to try golf some more, but halfway through playing we got a message that we needed to go on a horseback ride with our boss (meetings are a little different around here!). Sounds like a great idea if you´re prepared, unfortunately we were not, and riding in a skirt is not recommended. We were able to get to the top of the mountain just before sunset though and caught a beautiful view before trying to ride back in the dark.

Sorry this post is late being published, but next update we´ll catch you up on our adventures with our first guests here in Costa Rica.

Love to all,
Team Wander

Nicaragua

Home early.... if one thing can chase us out of a country quickly, it´s bad food. Unfortunately Nicaragua could not compare to the cuisine of Costa Rica (or any other country we´ve been to for that matter) and we decided we were just as happy coming back early.

We caught the bus to Managua, Nicaragua on the side of the road in Liberia, Costa Rica. We were told we had about five hours of driving, and an undisclosed amount of time to wait at the border. We were exactly at our 90 day limit here in Costa Rica, but thankfully the border guards did not seem to care at all. It was absolute chaos once we crossed into Nicaragua and had to go through customs. The bus driver took everyone´s passport and so we sat there waiting outside the bus for an hour while he went to get them all stamped. Meanwhile, everyone around us was selling food, hammocks, illegal movies or changing money. Then everyone scrambled to get their bags from under the bus and take them over to another mass of people who supposedly check them and send you back. The entire process was a joke, and seemed to take the maximum amount of time possible. A couple hours later we were back on the road and headed to Managua.

As soon as we arrived, everyone began telling us how dangerous the city was and to be careful. We walked around for awhile and as it got dark figured that we were safest just to watch a movie at the nearby mall. However, the movies now showing in the theater in Nicaragua are the same ones we were watching as Redbox rentals last summer. It was still worth the $3 of entertainment and was the coldest we have been since arriving in Central America. The next morning we decided to head south to Granada, since everything we´ve seen and heard is that it´s a gorgeous city. As the bus pulled into town, it reminded us so much of Peru. The city center is full of old churches and convents and the city is situated on Lake Nicaragua (which is so big it looks more like an ocean and even has sharks).

While walking around the city, we happened to run into another American couple we had met on the bus ride to Nicaragua. We joined them for the rest of the day and cooked a great dinner at their hostel with some of the other guests. This was the best meal we had in Nicaragua. The next day we took a bus to Masaya to see the huge markets there and a nearby volcano. Volcán Masaya was amazing because it is still active and gas was rising from the crater as we looked over the edge. It feels as if you have left Earth and have been dropped on some remote planet. Our plan was to hike back down the mountain and flag down a bus heading to Granada. However, the park officials offered us a ride back to the main road and it was all down hill from there. Another couple also waiting for the bus managed to flag down a truck and we all climbed in the back. About half an hour later, we figured out that they were not headed to Granada at all so we hopped out and waited for another bus to pass. This bus could take us to a town that had a road leading to Granada, so once we got off we tried hitchiking again. It took longer to find a ride this time, but finally another truck full of ladders in the back stopped and the four of us managed to squeeze in around them and finally make it back to Granada. Just in time too, we were able to catch tip-off for the Final Four Games. The outcome of the games was definitely not what we were hoping for, but we were able to drown our sorrows in $1 mojitos and beers.

The next day we were going to head to another nearby volcano to hike, but we were awokened at 5:30 to church bells, drums, gunshots, and a parade going through the streets. Samana Santa (Holy Week) had begun and everyone was up early to begin the celebration. We had been teetering on the edge of coming home and the promise of a week of 5:30 am wake up calls was enough for us to call an end to our time in Nicaraga, and catch an 8am bus back to Costa Rica. Eight hours later we managed to make it back to our apartment, thankful to be back. We will certainly give Nicaragua another chance in three months, but for now it is nice to know that Costa Rica is starting to feel more like home.

Eat lots of Cadburry Cream Eggs for us,
Team Wander

Moving Day!

To ease any worried minds at home, we now have a new place to live that is much more secure. The complex where our office is also has about 20 apartments and houses for the employees of Hacienda Pinilla, so we are moving to one of the apartments. It is a definite step back towards life in the US from our simple life in 27 de Abril, so we have mixed thoughts about moving, but overall the pros far surpass than cons. The place is much smaller, but super nice. We´ll be back to a world of kitchen appliances, washing machines, and TV. Most of our friends live nearby and we don´t have to make the 20km trek on a dirt road to and from work each day. It is amazing to be able to pack and move all our belongings in an afternoon, a testament to reducing the amount of "stuff" that accumulates as you live in one place. This week is hectic with visitors from the US, moving, and heading to Nicaragua for a new visa on Thursday, but hopefully when we return after Easter we will have time to write more.

We hope all of you have a wonderful Easter!
Team Wander

The mother of all blog posts

So, it would be safe to say that the past week has been exciting. Not necessarily exciting in a good way, but exciting nonetheless. Last Thursday night, Miah got invited out to play futbol-cinco with some of our Tico friends (and Zack). After the sweaty, hard-fought tie, we all decided a pit stop at the local bull-riding festival was in order. We stayed there most of the night and didn't make it home till about midnight, at which point we set about our typical going to bed tasks... toothbrushing and the like. It wasn't until Leslie walked in to the bedroom and said "Miah, come take a look at this" that we knew something was amiss.

There was glass strewn all over our bedroom floor and the curtains for the window were flapping about wildly even though the window was closed. Immediately, we walked through the house only to discover (much to our dismay) that the guitar, the laptop, and both of our IPods were gone. We began cleaning up the glass in shocked silence, waiting for our emotions to kick in to what had just happened. We both felt an overwhelming sadness, not anger and not fear, and spent the next few hours talking and re-evaluating the world around us, since sleep was not going to find us anytime soon. The next morning we went to the office to talk to our boss and then into Santa Cruz to talk to the judicial office to open an investigation. Thankfully the lawyer who works for our organization was a great help to us and walked us through a process that we would have never known exisited otherwise. This was especially helpful because everytime we went to the local police office, it was closed, and therefore not much help at all.

We spent the remainder of the day around the house, in sort of a weird mood that we couldn't break. All our entertainment had been taken, so we read and read and read (which also continued for the rest of the weekend). That night, two investigators showed up and questioned Miah about what happened for a second time. Then they began CSI 27 de Abril, dusting for fingerprints and conducting a full search around our house. The rest of the weekend was uneventful (although we did get to watch some of the basketball tournament, extremely happy to see college sports again).

Monday morning we finally got a new pane of glass to fix the window and two members of the Foundation's construction crew started welding metal bars for our doors and windows. A friend in town came by to tell us that he found out who the thief was and to return the IPod speakers that had been stolen. He suggested we go talk to the thief in person and see if we could get him to return the stuff without police involvement.

The suspect's house was not 100 meters down the street from us, but when we got there, only his parents were around. We began the toughest Spanish conversation we've had yet, explaining the situation and that his son's name had been given to us. They did not even question what we said and offered that we could wait until he returned, so wait we did.....for two awkward hours we sat at the thief's house with his parents glancing over at us every so often and the mother trying to be hospitable by giving us each an orange. When he finally arrived, we showed him the speakers and said we were told he was the one selling the stolen items. He quickly got defensive and kept demanding to know who had told us. We said if we could just get our stuff back, the issue would end there, but he refused to cooperate. So we contacted the police again, and are just hoping that they act quick enough to recover our things.

Apparently he is having trouble selling the items, because everyone in our town and the neighboring town know that they are ours. It is extremely frustrating because our stuff seems so close, but there is nothing else we can personally do to get it back. It is very encouraging that so many people have been willing to help us though, and their kindness just reinforces our belief that we are doing the right thing by helping the people here. We'll keep you posted as to what happens, and hopefully this story will have a happy ending.

Love,
Team Wander

Trabajadores

We had a very rewarding, but very tough week last week with 20 high school students here from Atlanta to help volunteer. They were hoping to build houses, but since there are no permits yet and the only Habitat project in the area just finished, we had them help in some of the local communities. We painted three schools and repaired houses that had suffered severe damage from the floods last fall. The kids got a quick introduction into the dry heat of Costa Rica and the rock hard soil when they were trying to build a ditch for the water and electric lines to the houses.

The schools we worked in were 1st – 6th grade, typically with one teacher for all the students. In some of the more remote towns, we were told that only 1-2 students will graduate high school from a class of 30 and many of them just stop school after 6th grade. The schools looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in a decade, so it took a lot of scrubbing before we could even begin painting inside and out. We were quite a spectacle to the children, and they loved running over to say hello or any other word they knew in English (usually 'I love you') and run away again giggling. Best of all though, the volunteers had each brought an extra suitcase of stuff to give away, and we got to hand out gifts to each of the students. You should have seen the children’s eyes when we told them that they could each pick a toy from the piles we had at the front of the room. Stuffed animals, jump ropes, hats, balls, books…they were thrilled. We even sang songs with the children and tried playing a few games.

We also got the Costa Rican high school students that are in the Foundation’s Scholarship program to join us for a couple days. It was great for them to interact with American students and practice their English. Some of them may even being going to the same colleges next year in Georgia so they could get some great advice for what to expect. This week, we are working in the same locations to finish up the last details with two other guys. No rest for the weary, but it is great to be doing some construction work again.

Hope everyone had a great St. Patrick’s Day last night!

Team Wander

Trabajadores, Agua y Perritos

Ok, here´s a testament to our dedication to writing in the blog. In order to get to the internet tonight, we had to break into our office since we don´t have a key. Picture Miah lifting Leslie above his head to slide into a tiny window above the shower in the office bathroom. Besides a few scrapes and bruises, our recon mission was successful and here we are. It´s been quite a week here, since we´ve been hosting a volunteer group from the US. We´ll provide a full account of that next week though when we return to the office.

Great news, we can finally take hot showers. This is definitely one of the blessings of home that we always took for granted. After $150, a few days of work, and a very Tico style of running wires out the bathroom window (it looks awesome leslie, hush), across the house, and into the breaker box, our shower head now runs a current through the water to heat it instantaneously. As soon as we got the shower head installed, however, our water was shut off for four days becuase the bill is apparently delivered to a neighboring house that no one lives in and so it wasn´t paid for the last two months. It is all taken care of now though, and we return to having water during the week, except from 6 to 8 in the evenings, and only in the mornings on the weekend. As we continue farther into the dry season, the two rivers in our town have dried up and the soil is hard as a rock. It is interesting to only have two seasons, dry and wet, and never need a weather report.

We almost became dog owners once again this week. A tiny puppy found its way to our front porch and was so adorable we could not turn her away. After giving her dinner and a few pets, she permanently attached herself to us. Wherever we would go, she would follow, and if she couldn´t be directly in contact with us, she would crawl into our shoes, a purse or backpack, or just curl up on our socks so she could feel close. It was absolutely adorable. Unfortunately she had fleas, so she had to sleep outside. She whined the entire night, only to stop from exhaustion for short breaks, before starting up again. Needless to say, we didn´t get much sleep, but as soon as we opened the door in the morning she was happy as could be. After work the next day, however, she was gone, which is a blessing and a curse. We would not make very good owners here, since we work so far from home and are not around enough, but it was so happy to have a dog again.

Well hopefully you are all watching the Wolfpack play as we write this... we have to be satisfied with ESPN updates since we can´t watch the ACC tournament here. We miss you all (and college sports as well).

Team Wander

La Guerra con Los Animales (parte dos)

Turns out, even after burying the garrobo hole when he/she wasn't home, the problem of his/her existence wasn't eliminated. We had a pair of watermelon plants that made it through the initial onslaught of the garrobo only to be nibbled off a week later. Sounds like most things are going to grow inside now until they're old enough to stand on their own too feet.

A fence is also in the works to help defend the plans, but nothing has been finalized yet. It feels a little silly to sink fenceposts to surround a 2 square yard plot of land, but we'll see if we can't "engineer" something tico style.

In other news, we received our first piece of actual mail. Carol O'Loughlin is the winner for first piece actually delivered. And the successful address (the most important part for you guys taking notes at home, because this is how you can actually send stuff to us in the future):

800 oeste del cruce a Playa Avellanas
Villas San Francisco, Casa #16
Hernandez de Santa Cruz, Guanacaste
Costa Rica

For those of you who might have used other addresses, or who have sent stuff that hasn't yet arrived, we still hold out hope that it will make it through the maze of the costa rican mail system. If it shows up, nay... when it shows up, we'll be sure and let you know.

Only one more thing to report: we've been adopted. There's a family of angels here in costa rica that has taken it upon themselves to make sure that we don't get skinny during our time down here and every week they do their best to prevent our emaciation. They also give us some spanish lessons over dinner in exchange for some english lessons going back the other way. It's nice to have a local ma and pa.

That's about it for today, we mostly wanted to report on the winner of the mail race,
Hope everything is going well up north,
Team Wander

Los Animales

This week we have been introduced to more of the crazy animal kingdom living here in Costa Rica. Some of these introductions have been nicer than others.....

First, Miah has declared war on the garrobo that lives in our backyard. What is a garrobo you may ask? Well, it looks like a giant iguana and apparently tastes like chicken (we don´t know from experience, although the battle may come to that). We have been working on a garden the past couple weeks and finally got our first watermelon plants to sprout. They lasted about two days before Miah found the garrobo in the garden and no more plants. Since then, Miah has been trying to chase him from his home and has finally filled it with concrete blocks and dirt. It is yet to be known the garrobo´s next plan of attack.....

Second, we had a very interesting Valentine´s Day that included a mother turtle. Our friends took us on these crazy ¨roads¨ (more like 4-wheeler trails) to a secluded beach and we built a huge bonfire. As the guys were looking for more firewood, they found a sea turtle coming on shore to lay her eggs. We watched her slowly make her way up the beach and dig a large hole. Another group of people showed up who wanted to steal the eggs after she laid them (unfortunately, turtle eggs are popular down here). One of the girls in our group tried to convince them that this turtle was sick and the eggs would be bad, but we´re not sure if they listened or not. We left around 1am before she had finished laying all the eggs, and the others were camping nearby. It was surreal to watch the entire process though and we will definitely go during the height of turtle season at the end of the year to watch hundreds of turtles lay their eggs.

The next day we went to another nearby beach for Miah to get another try at surfing. Besides, not realizing the tide was coming in and it sweeping away all our stuff, we had a great day. As we were leaving however, Miah was stung by a bee. His foot quickly started swelling and continued to grow for the next couple days. We found a clinic that gave him a shot and some medicated cream and slowly his foot has been returning to normal. It is still a size or so large than the other foot though.

Last night, we saw our first armadillo rumaging around the yard. They look a lot like giant, armored rats and are suprisingly agile. We don´t know if he plans to make a home nearby as well, but hopefully he makes a better neighbor than the garrobo....


Team Wander

"Vacanejos"

Day to day life here is not too exciting, but we do have a few stories that may be of interest to you. First, we got a real taste of Guanacaste last week when we went horseback riding and to a typical horse show, called a Sabanero. Horseback riding was a lot of fun but the guys with us kept hitting the trees with their machetes to piss of the monkeys and make them yell at us. Apparently the next step is the monkeys throw poo at you from the treetops so we headed out of there as quick as possible. The show was the cowboys of the area showing off their talents and people in crazy giant costumes running around in circles trying to hit people with their long, flapping arms. It ended in a fantastic dinner though and we had our first great steak here.

Since we're in a holding pattern at work waiting for the permits, we have been helping some with the education part of the foundation. There are about a dozen students being tutored to pass the TOEFL and ACT so that they can be given scholarships to universities in the US. We have quickly become attached to these kids and they made this huge presentation for their parents last week that was fantastic. It is amazing how great their English is now; they even wrote and performed songs in English. If only our Spanish could be that good.... We have convinced one of the girls to trade Spanish classes for Math classes each week so hopefully that will help us out some.

Miah got a new best friend and a lawn mower in the same day. His name is Oscar and we have attached a picture of him below. The horses in our backyard and all the cows in the area never cease to amuse us. We have renamed the cows here "vacanejos" (a combination between cow and rabbit in Spanish) because their ears are so big. Getting caught in a traffic jam of cows in the road is not a rare occurrence and it's always funny when one of them rump bumps the side of the car.














We had dinner with some friends and their parents this week at a beautiful restaurant overlooking the ocean in Tamarindo. We drank wine and ate Italian food while watching the sunset. It was beautiful! Afterwards, they introduced us to this bar that apparently makes the best pie around. We had coconut pie, banana pie, and a new one, pineapple pie, that were all fantastic. Ice cream may have a new rival for choice dessert here.

We hope all of you have a great Valentine's Day weekend!
Love,
TeamWander