Zapotal

Hello! I have finally reached my first placement in Zapotal, which is small agricultural village in the "Montes de Oro" which translates as Mountain of Gold. I have been here for two nights, and I started my first day this past Sunday. The family I am staying with, the Chavez family, are very nice and have been very kind to me. The family is: Betty (the project coordinator), and Chichi (Betty's husband). They have two kids, one who I met for the first time today but I sadly cannot remember his name, and a daughter Margie who lives in Miramar (about 1 hour away, where I am currently writing from).

The trip up to Zapotal was a very interesting one to put it mildly, it took a total of 9 1/2 hours to get here, 5 of which were spent waiting for my second bus here in Miramar. The buses here are pretty old, and they get very hot, very fast. However, that is not the worst part. The worst part is the roads here, which are very narrow and twisty turny because we are in the mountains here. The drive from San Jose to Miramar was nothing compared to the second bus ride, which was like riding on a rusty old roller coaster that never ceases to stop bumping up and down. Luckily, I am not prone to car sickness, or else I would have been in big trouble. Waiting in Miramar was pretty boring, because I had to much stuff to carry to really be able to venture around town much. So the majority of the 5 hours here I spent sitting in the shade (which didn't prevent me from getting a bad sun burn on the back on my arms), reading, and writing in my journal.

Once I made it to my stop at the entrance to Zapotal, Chichi was there waiting for me, and we drove for about 20 minutes until we reached the Chavez house. Zapotal is quite high up in the mountains so it is not very warm here, and for the past few days has been cloudy and very windy. The wind is so strong here I wear ear plugs at night to block out the sound (and the dogs barking at it), and once and a while you get a huge gust and it shakes the entire house. I live in a nice sized room above the garage which is just beside the main house. It is bright and clean, and the bonus is I have my own bathroom.

My first day of work mostly consisted of feeding the animals (cows, pigs, and chickens), helping to spray down the animal pens, and cutting down sugar cane and alfalfa which is ground into feed for the cows and pigs. I also stopped by the community cheese factory (although calling it a factory is a bit of a stretch), where I worked with a man named Frankie who runs it. They use the milk from the cows to make the cheese, and it is a pretty tasty soft cheese that they eat at breakfast and dinner in grilled sandwhiches, or just on its own. Everyone here is very nice, and tries to converse with me as much as possible.

I eat all of my meals with Betty and Chichi, which are pretty tasty. In the morning they usually eat fruit (melon, pinapple, and papaya), and for lunch a salad with tomato and cucumber, and dinner is usually chicken, potatoes, and salad. There is always rice and beans served with every meal, which is a Costa Rican staple.

Overall things are going really well, and I am starting to adjust to it here. I will probably be here for about two weeks, and then head back to San Jose and go on to another project from there. I will try to post some pictures this weekend if I come back to Miramar.

Hopefully I will write again soon!
xoxo Amira.