So lucky to have la gripe!

First and foremost, Edvaard is doing great. He made so many friends last week and was so sad to see them leave so soon! But there will be plenty of pictures of him as soon as those friends post them on Facebook and I can relay them to here. I would post pictures but my camera is no longer mine!

Biggest adventure of the week:
After bragging about being completely healthy, I came down with a horrible case of the gripe, AKA Montezuma's revenge, or any other euphemism for stomach problems which cause lots of pain, cramps, and an inability to keep food inside my body. I spent all night awake in the bathroom. How fortunate was I, though, because while awake, I heard some creaking.. And then the doorknob into my room turning. I was pretty sure that I had just heard my roommate rolling around in her bed but then I heard the door creak open. I got up to see why in the hell my roommate would be leaving the room at 4:30 in the morning. It was pitch black in my room so I tried to get my bearings. I walked to the door and sure enough it was open! I looked out the door and thought I saw a figure running away. I scrambled for the lightswitch, hoping to confirm that it was just my roommate who had opened the door and that my brain had just imagined the figure running away. I switched on the light only to find my roommate in her bed, confused as to why I had turned the light on. Someone really did try to break into our room but was scared off! I was trembling and freaked out, but my stomach pains had completely gone away! If I hadn't have been sick, maybe all of our stuff would have been stolen! ¡Qué suerte! We make sure to lock our door every night now.

There is so much wildlife here, it is amazing! Last night I was enjoying the moonlight on the beach when a herd of cows scampered past! The dogs chased after them, barking, which scared the cows into picking up their pace. Also, I have seen so many baby animals, baby cows, baby chickens, baby geckos! And the other day I was walking on the beach when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a lot of scurrying. I looked over my shoulder to find hundreds of red crabs. They stopped in my presence. I took a few steps towards them and with each step more and more crabs would dive sideways into their holes. So funny!

There are a lot of very itchy things here though and my skin looks like a warzone of mosquito bites, sun allergy, blisters, and scabs from scratching so much! I cut my nails all the way off so I won't scratch so much while sleeping!

The project is going well. So far we have done landscaping, painting, stucco-ing and cleaning cleaning cleaning! It feels good to be productive!

I have been eating pretty well- not as good as Cecilia's cooking, and WAY more rice and beans, but I still really enjoy all the food I eat. My two new favorite foods are plátanos (plantains) and papaya!

We play pool every night as it is the sole form of entertainment at the volunteer center (the volunteer center IS the restaurant and the music school and the community hangout place). The other night this little Costa Rican kid taught me how to play and I won because of him! He was pretty much a Costa Rican version of Indiana Jones' Short Round (You call him Docta Jones!)

I love all the comments and e-mails, they really help with the homesickness! Thank you so much for all the love and I will do my best to respond as quickly as I can! I miss you all but I have really found a good groove here and it won't be hard to stay at this project for another 10 weeks! The best part about it is being able to ditch out on at least ONE Illinois winter!