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Beyond our travels to the various parts of the country, lots of other stuff has been happening in our lives.
School: The boys continue to enjoy Pinewoods. They did quite well on their first trimester midterms (yes, they have midterms and finals in 7 different subjects every trimester!!). Their finals are coming up next week, so there will be lots of studying at our house.
The school put on skits and songs for the celebration of the Battle of Rivas, where Costa Rica turned back a mercenary army led by an American named William Walker back around 1850. The dramatic point in the battle involves a young boy (Juan Santamaria) setting fire to the fort where Walker and his buddies were but then being shot and killed as he ran off. He is such a beloved figure that the main airport is named after him. While Sam's class did a song, Kyle's class was asked to stage a re-enactment of the battle. And guess who was asked to play the villainous gringo William Walker??? Kyle of course - and he did a great job, earning lots of laughs for his "he he he he" snicker.
Clinic: Things continue
to go smoothly at the clinic. We had a few weeks with no volunteers, so it was just the two of us plus Christian and Dayan seeing an average of 15 patients a morning. When Steve returned home to the Twin Cities for 2 weeks to do some consulting work for his former colleague at Public Strategies Group, who is now president of a large regional foundation, Nancy had to bite the bullet and drive into the clinic - she passed with flying colors! Another benefit of Steve's returning home was that he was able to bring back a bunch of donations from our neighbors and our colleagues at Nancy's clinic and Steve's firm. Thank you again to everyone for your generosity; the families at the clinic really appreciate it.
While Nancy continues to build great relationships with her patients, Steve has been working at digitizing the clinic's patient records. Thanks to a large group of volunteers from Brandeis University, we were able to get over 1200 records initially set up. When the system is fully up and running, the FIMRC organization will be able to better analyze the volume of patients and the types of diseases they are
presenting.
Futbol: Kyle is still enjoying playing on the local team. They earned their first victory (along with several ties and 1 loss), which included Kyle scoring his first goal of the season.
Arts: The city of San Jose held a Cow Parade in which they had dozens of artists paint and decorate life-sized plastic cows and then had them placed all over downtown. This is similar to the Peanuts statues that St Paul did a few years ago. One of our friends from England got to do one. We went to check them out one afternoon with Christian. It was a lot of fun - some of them had clever play-on-word titles. Sam's favorite was of a cow dressed as a bride called "Vacasarse"; vaca is the Spanish word for cow and casarse means to get married. Get it??
We also attended the big annual arts festival in San Jose's equivalent to Central Park. They had puppet shows, parading clowns, live music, as well as lots of paintings and other artwork on display.
Our own little town of Ciudad Colon had a cultural festival. Nothing fancy but nice to go to the town square and
listen to music. One of the really neat things was the blessings of the oxcarts. People from all over brought their beautifully decorated oxcarts (a big tradition in Costa Rica), drawn by oxen, for a parade that included going by the big Catholic church and receiving a blessing.
Passover: We were invited by some American friends of ours to join them for a traditional (though abbreviated!) Passover Seder dinner. The house they are renting has a deck with a beautiful view of the valley, so despite the winds, it was very nice. As it turned out, most of the people attending (Ticos and Americans) were not Jewish; so there was lots of explaining about the history and traditions of Passover. And the food was fantastic!
Daytrip: Like most countries in the world other than the US, Costa Rica celebrates May 1 as Labor Day (Dia del Trabajo). So, the clinic and school were closed for the day. We decided to take a family drive out to the Route of the Saints - so named because almost all of the towns are named after saints. It is amazing countryside - deep valleys, huge coffee plantations, little towns with picturesque
churches and town squares.
California Visitors: Our friends Adam & Kerrie and their 2 children (Samantha and Rory) came down for a friend's wedding and stopped by to see us at the start and end of their trip. It was great to see them and they surprised us with the Guitar Hero game for the Wii, complete with a guitar-shaped controller. While not quite as "athletic" as some of the other games on the Wii, it has produced lots of fun for everyone.
Animal Visitors: In addition to our landlords' 3 dogs and 2 cats running around the property, we were also surprised one day to find a stray cow and her calf wandering around our yard. They eventually re-located the gate and walked on down the road (no owner in sight) - and fortunately did not leave any "presents" on the lawn! More exciting has been the pair of keel-billed toucans that have flown into our yard on 3 different occasions. They don't exactly sit still for photos but it has been fun to watch them hop up the trees and then fly off.
Finally, this week represents the start of the rainy season here in
Costa Rica. This means that the mornings are beautiful and the afternoons - starting around 2 or 3 - are filled with downpours. It keeps things so green, though you have to remember to keep an umbrella with you at all times.
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