Random blogging in Alajuela

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We have been welcomed into the home of Juan and Gerarda Ramirez. Juan looks after us in our cabinas and Gerarda cooks all the meals. Their english is very poor but then that is ok as our spanish is even worse. It is a wonderful conversation of charades, sounds and brief pauses to look up the word in our dictionary. In the beginning it took longer but now our spanish is improving we are able to speak in short sentences. The tree is green. The apple is red. The banana is yellow....really important things to say. All fun. Juan and Gerarda have 3 sons, John, Leonardo, and Alijandro aged 16,14 and 12. As young men or boys they are more outgoing and sociable with the guests than you would believe of teenagers. Their english is better than their parents...big help! They have 2 classes of english a week in school.

A day for us is... wake up at 6.30 or 7am, dress and go up to the house for breakfast. This can be any of the following foods. Bananas, pineapple, watermelon, strawberries. Costa Rican coffee with freshly squeezed milk (see pics), frijoles, eggs, toast or bread rolls, juice. What a feast. We finish getting ready and we walk about 1.5km to school. At 8am or near enough we start school. Our teacher is Adriana. Adriana is very beautiful. She has turned 25 last Friday (we celebrated at Hooters) she has a husband, Rico and daughter Shayler (4). Her english is very good which has helped us a lot to learn about the life of the average Costa Rican way of life. We spend 4 hours in the morning learning to conjugate our verbs. I don´t remember it being this hard to first time around in english. It is all about practise practise practise..... El arbol es verde...La manzana es roja...El platano es amarillo. You get the picture.

After class we either choose to return to the house for another large meal (frijoles are always on the menu along with rice for lunch and dinner) OR we head into Alajuela for a spot of shopping, coffee at our regular Cafe Delicios. The food here is rich and filling. Anything remotely sweet will have extra sugar added to it. Cakes, juices, coffee, icecream, lollies etc. Alajuela is very clean. The gutters are very wide along the street to cope with the huge deluge of the daily rain. We have had enough rain in the last 10 days to bring the dams in SE Qld to 100 percent. The rain is the huge tropical fat drops that can hurt a little if they land on your head. We have also had some wicked storms. Lightning very close as we are higher in altitude in the hills outside of the main town.

We bus it home around 5.30 to 6pm. Do a little homework then join the family for dinner around 7 ish. We try to talk about the day and maybe settle on a game of cards afterwards. We have danced meringue and salsa at night or sang along with John playing guitar. He´s very good.

A mention of the buses. Cars are less common here so everyone takes the bus. They run frequently and are very clean and in good order. They may look older than some but that is part of the appeal. The bus driver who drives the route to Cacao and Alajuela is starting to be accustomed to David and I. He is quite serious so we are thinking of ways to make him smile. The last comment received a half smile, Dos loco australianas to Alajuela por favor. (2 crazy australians ......) We have brief conversations with people on the bus. They are always helpful and friendly. One lady I met last week went by me on Monday and said hello. It was nice to be remembered.

Costa Rica does not have a defence force so the taxes go to health and education. Everyone has free health and free education even through university. It is considered that the private unis are not as good. Gerarda has taken Alijandro to hospital this week for tests...at no cost for 3 days and nights. Dentists charge $12 per filling. Very cheap. The medical care is considered very good here. This is also a popular place for excellent cosmetic surgery for people from all over the world. Noboby wants for anything. The people are happy and healthy. Their home may not be huge, they may not have the latest in technology for TV, Computer, electrical goods etc but they are happy with what they have. I only hope that the urge to have something better, bigger, faster does not settle here.

In the small community of Cacao, everyone helps each other. As Gerarda has been in San Jose at the hospital with her son, another lady Nuria has come in to help with the cooking and cleaning. She is a funny lady always with a smile on her face. If Adriana has been with another class, Cindy has come in to help out. Her english is not so good but it has helped us to discuss and learn.

We will venture on to Vulcan Poas this Saturday for 3 days. There we look into an active volcano, discover the La Paz Waterfalls (5 in all) and sleep under the shadow of the volcano at night. Not sure how well I´ll sleep. We will head into San Jose for the first time next Tuesday. We will meet with the organiser of the ASVOCR.org...a volunteer organisaton where we can help a community either by teaching english, help build a community centre or protect the environment and of course protect and monitor the turtles. This may lead us next to Matapalo La Player (Matapalo Beach) just north of Dominical for maybe 10 days which is the minimum length of time for volunteering. We will decide after that what to do next.

Love to all....Lynne and David xxxx
PS no pictures this time.

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