"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