My Community

Saturday we moved to our training communities. Since there are 3 programs in my group, they put us in clusters based on our program, and then on our language proficiency. There are 4 other people in my town, we are all in the Community Economic Development program and at an intermediate Spanish level. 3 days a week we have Spanish classes in our town, 1 day a week we travel to a nearby town for program training with everyone in our program, and 1 day a week we travel to San Jose for training with the entire group. I really like the training setup. I especially love my Spanish classes. For part of the day we have class in the classroom and for the other part of the day we go around town or to nearby towns to do activities related to what we learned in the morning.

For training I am living in a town in the county of Aserri. I think the population is around 4000. Its only 24 km from San Jose, but about an hour and a half bus ride to get there. My homestay mom and dad are Rosiris and Saul. There are also 4 kids at the house; Nancy, Arnold, Raquel, and Felipe. The family is great and I really enjoy spending time with them. I have a double bed in my bedroom and Nancy, Raquel, and Felipe like to come sit on my bed and hang out when Im in my room, its nice. Another sweet thing was when I first arrived, Nancy, Arnold, and Raquel picked me up because their mom and dad were working. I had a really heavy duffel bag which Nancy and Raquel insisted on carrying by each holding a handle and walking on either side of it. The family is extremely nice. A lot of their extended family live in the community, we live next to an uncle, grandparents, an aunt, some cousins, and more. I am gone every day from 7 or 8 am depending on the day to around 5 or 6 at night. Usually after classes I hang out for a bit in the centro with some people, do some homework, then eat dinner and play cards, watch tv, or talk with my family.

Another thing, my community is absolutely beautiful. We are surrounded by mountains and the scenery is wonderful from every direction. I feel lucky to be in such a wonderful town.

There is lots more to say, but Ill have to stop here for now.

As always, miss and love everyone back home!