whoah...

sorry i have been away. our internet has been down for a few days, although i´m not sure i would have updated much anyway. the last few days have been crazy with a capital CRAZY. we started working in the hospital monday morning. we will be at five different hospital/clinical sites for 3-4 days each while we´re here. this week was (theoretically) just observation in one of costa rica´s public hospitals. they have universal health care here and it is AMAZING. and they have no army. so cool.

yesterday was one of the most incredible days of my life. yesterday i saw five new humans get born. i have never seen that before. it is crazy with a capital CRAZY.

anyway, i can´t really talk very long right now, and quite honestly i´m not entirely sure what to say right now anyway. i feel lots of things, including but not limited to a huge sense of freedom being here, away from reality and many things that suck most days. i love not having a cell phone, and again i feel a kind of freedom at being semi-unreachable. it is nice to not feel connected sometimes, as much as i long for connection. i don´t really know how to explain that, i guess. every day has something new and wonderful in it, even if it´s as simply as a new flavor of juice at breakfast or a strange new bug crawling across the floor. i am trying to figure out what to do during my incredibly long and unplanned spring break. our final classes/events keep getting moved up earlier, so i think i will get nearly a month to travel and play. if anyone wants to come on a voyage with me i could use a buddy. let me know.

time to head back for dinner now. thanks for reading all this crud. things can definitely be tough here sometimes too. when nine people are together allllll the time it can be rough, but i really think we´re doing a great job for the most part. i will definitely write again when i can. for now i am going to post this without even editing it, which is a huge deal for me. please excuse any errors....
love you friends. more soon soon.

a few pics

this is the bus stop in alajuela.























here we are in the coffee field.


















the whole 9.


















cows in the road on the way up the mountain.


















what i woke up to saturday morning.


















on the way up volcan barva.


















volcano #2: volcan poas.

pura vida

this place is like summer camp for grown-ups. seriously. i'm having so much fun...

we work really hard during the daytimes, but we also play really hard in the evenings and on weekends. i think the most striking thing to me so far (aside from the absolute physical beauty of the things around me) is how wonderfully friendly the people here are. everyone smiles and says hello to everyone and people are so willing to help with anything we need. the warmth is especially shocking when coming from a place like seattle where it feels like people never want anything to do with each other. it's tough to make eye contact there (especially in winter when it's rainy and people have their hoods up or umbrellas low) let alone converse. but here it's like the sun has turned everyone's hearts into warm sloppy balls of kindness that simply must be expressed. i like it. it's my style.

updating is really hard to do very often. things here are moving really fast already and i know we'll be home all too soon. i also have youngest child syndrome--i never want to miss out on anything. blogging takes precious time...

i took a whole bunch of photos today on our 3 hour discovery walk. we ran across a coffee plantation and walked up to the security guard to say hello and ask if we could look around. before we knew it, the manager was out there with us explaining how the place was run and how growing coffee beans works. we wandered through the rows and rows of coffee plants for a while before heading back into the city to catch our bus home. on the bus we wound up sitting beside a woman who works at the centro where we live--knowing locals in a place really makes me feel home, or like i belong or something.

hopefully a few of the pictures i took will be worth posting. i know other people have tons of good ones, but i haven't gotten them yet or i would totally show them off.

why is everything in new places so wonderfully exciting? sometimes i realize that there are places and people that are really good for me. i think this time and place are really bringing out the best in all of us and it is so fun to be a part of it.

i hope you guys are doing well too.
as the ticos say, pura vida!

first week

here are some highlights from costa rica so far:

adam met me at the airport, even though my plane was delayed and he had to wait for three hours. we took a cab to our place, but it was after midnight so the gate was closed and locked. after several minutes, much honking, and some preliminary exploring of the grounds, we called our teacher who lives about 50 yards up the road and slept at here place friday night. when we woke up at 7:15 saturday morning, bright sunshine was beaming through huge windows that overlook rolling garden-covered hills and the gentle mountains in the distance. before going to the centro where we will stay for these months, we picked two bags full of mandarin oranges from the tree in front of our professor's house.

i went to an atm to withdraw money in alajuela and decided to take out a fair bit at once in order to minimize bank fees, etc. the money here is called colones and there are about 500 colones to the dollar. i took out about $300--which translates to roughly 150,000 colones. carrying around that much of anything is pretty intimidating.

the bugs here are big. and there are lots of them.

i am in the dumb kids class for spanish. actually, i am okay with that. i am learning a lot, and in the past three days i feel much more confident and competent than i expected. and very appropriately, my teacher is actually a preschool teacher. yeah, that's about right.

so, things are going really well so far. this group of people is pretty rad and i feel lucky to be here with them. we work really well together and we get a lot done, but we also just really enjoy each other and have a lot of fun. i expect conflict to creep up on us--it is inevitable when so many people are in such close proximity for any length of time. but i think we will work through it like champs and be all the better for it.
for now i just ask that you guys would pray for my knee--it's worse than it has been in a long time and if it doesn't get better soon i will miss our group's first group trip--whitewater rafting. right now i can't even really walk too well because it's so swollen. i am feeling pretty frustrated and discouraged by this, mostly because i hate weakness and difference and i just wish i could figure out how to fix this problem and make it stop happening.
anyway, our internet connection really only works when you're outside and close to a nearby building. my butt is tired of these concrete steps and the bugs are really starting to get to me, deet and all.
thanks for being my friends and for supporting me and for reading all this b.s. to begin with... whether or not you believe me, i really do miss you, even in the midst of all the fun. hope you're all well, and i'll write more soon.

greetings

i am here and it is great! i'm just saying, i could get used to this kind of living...
hope you're all well. photos to come.

peace out

well, i'm off to the airport. it has been a crazy few days of getting ready, and i'm not entirely sure i'm there yet... but i guess we'll just have to see.
i don't know how predictable the mail is, but please send me things if you get around to it. i would love to get mail from you. the address is:

liz cooke
Curia y Centro
Diocesano de Pastoral
Diocesis del Alajuela
Apartado 943-450
Alajuela, Costa Rica

also, we mostly have the internet. i think that means we get it but then sometimes we don't. i'll update and e-mail as often as i can.
if you are the sort to do so, feel free to pray for things.
more soon, friends...

insert clever title here

it's 12:32, i leave in two days, and what am i doing? packing? sleeping? studying spanish?
no, of course i am not. i am making belated christmas presents. because that is how i am. what i am currently working on was meant to be a birthday present long ago, but then became a christmas present because it wasn't done anywhere close to said birthday. only now it's way too late for christmas too. i suck.

i was just perusing some photos from our family's christmastime. i regret not getting one of the lot of us, but here's one that makes me smile:















i certainly do love that baby.


i decided that part of my anticipation about leaving this time has to do with how things will all change again when i get back. i will graduate, take (and hopefully pass) the boards, have to find a job--which means deciding what city i'm going to live in, and return to reality after the sheltered student existence i have been able to enjoy the last couple of years. costa rica has been this milestone in my mind for months precisely because of these facts. when i get back it's all nearly finished. hooray! and oh my gosh...

i wish you could see my to do list for the next two days. actually, it's probably best that you can't... let's just say that it is long. my friend elaine always makes fun of me for thinking so much about what i will pack when i travel, especially because i have done a fair amount of it. my problem--with most things in life, really--is that i am an overthinker. no decision or thought is straightforward, but given the moment and the circumstances, anything is possible.

one of the things on the list for tomorrow is getting a new battery for this computer so that i can use it whilst away. for now it is dying and so i'm out.