Corriendo

Today I stared my day with a nice run. It was perfect. I woke up at 5 am and set out on my venture. The streets were quiet, while the birds called, waking the rest of the city up slowly. There were a few lonely souls on the street, waiting for the bus to pick them up, but other than that it was just me, the pavement, and my pounding heart. Perfection. It was a quick run, because I haven’t run in a while, but well worth it. I’m excited to wake up tomorrow for the same thing.

Today was my first day at my internship/volunteer placement. I couldn’t be more delighted about what I’ll be working on the next nine weeks. The agency that I’m working for is an NGO that works on various projects in the community. They bring in volunteers from other countries to help with things like building community meetinghouses or schools. They have contacts with agencies all over the community that are in need of help and so all the other girls are set up in those other sites. There is one girl at a community home for special needs, older adolescents, to help develop better “life skills”. There are group of girls in a primary school doing more clinical work.

The first project for my time here is to create a sort of manual for a seminar or workshop that is to be given to the youth in the community about sexual health. So, I want to create specific lesson plans with activities that the volunteers can present to a group of adolescent. This is something totally different than what I’m used to, but I’m soooo very excited. This is going to be a wonderful project for me to complete. I think this will help me really look at another aspect of the culture and another aspect of social work that I’m not as familiar with. I have a lot of research to do, but I find this topic so fascinating, I don’t have any problem sitting down and spending all day reading articles and searching the Internet.

A bonus about working at RJI is that there is a guy from the states doing an internship there as well. It’s always nice to meet someone from the States who can help me do some translating. He has already been here for a month, so I can ask him all my silly questions about traveling around the country.

My Spanish is improving everyday. Although it stresses me out in social situations still, I’m getting better. I’m pretty comfortable trying to speak at my home stay and with Liz my roommate. Tomorrow is my first day of Spanish lessons here in CR. Should be fun!

I love you and miss you all!!

-A

This is my bedroom :)

My field work is here at the good ol' RJI

Outside of RJI

This is the random patch of green I found on sunday... I like this place.

This is a typical view of the city... Nothing really that beautiful, but I'm enjoying it.

Although, I'm ready for the beach.