Barbacoas Church in our community center

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Our House In The Middle Of The.......Jungle
















(Tony talking) Greetings to all! Last week we had the pleasure of moving into our new home. It’s a one bedroom apartment on our host family’s compound. We have found it quite spacious and it came with a futon. We have room to accommodate family and friends. We are a mere 100 feet from the beach, therefore feel free to visit whenever you’d like. Check out the pics below of our new place. We have been very happy being able to cook for ourselves and not having to worry about eating in a restaurant surrounded by tourists. Since we live in a tourist-based community it has made the Peace Corps volunteer process a little difficult. All that this means is that we must try a little harder to fit in and gain the trust of the locals. It will not be easy, but that is what being a volunteer is all about……doing things that others might not want to do.

On the flip side, Patty and I seem to be on a two year marriage retreat. In the states most people spend their first 2 years of marriage learning to get to know each others ways of living. One spouse might work outside the home getting home after an 8,10, or 12+ hour workday while the other is a stay at home spouse or now days it is more common for both to work outside of the home. My point is that you get home and haven’t seen your spouse all day and you are excited to tell your partner about your day.
Let me tell you a little bit of our first month here on this ¾ island. We were living in a little cabina or as we call it, “motel room”. The room had a small bathroom and a bed. Our days consisted of interviewing people/organizations/businesses, going to the schools, getting insight on the community. All of this that I just mentioned didn’t take long at all. We would try to do all of this together since we had to introduce ourselves to everyone as a couple, therefore we couldn’t go back and tell each other how our day was because we were together all day. We might be able to go to the school or the high school for a couple hours, take a walk on the beach alone, carry out a workshop alone, but the reality of it is that this work doesn’t take up a typical 8 hour day/ 5 days a week. Hence the “2 year marriage retreat”. It’s just her and I. Our conversations are interesting, we haven’t any friends (except a dog that loves hanging out with us, maybe because we feed him, but we won’t tell the owners that). We are in for quite a ride, but I couldn’t imagine sitting on this rollercoaster with anyone else.

We finally got a P.O. Box:

Antonio Casillas or Miriam Schutter-Casillas
Apartado Postal 85
Limon Pococi Cariari
70205
Costa Rica

Feel free to send us any goodies we are volunteers and are always accepting donations ;) Need some ideas of what to send??? You are in luck we have a list!! And will add to it as time goes by....
Tapatio
corn nuts
sunflower seeds
beef jerky
sour candies
magazines...glamour, us weekly, ok, marie claire, allure....yes Patty has an addiction and she is working on it
We also work with kids and would be more than happy to get stuff for them..pencils, erasers, things you can get at the 99 cent store or dollar tree (which Patty misses ALOT)
Of course we would love to get letters, pictures , drawings by you or your kids, cards....we will take it all and put it up in our new place, we are in need of artwork for the place!!! Thank you for your love and support!!!





No comments:

Post a Comment