So, I am pretty much the worst blogger ever! I apologize to all my readers (I sound so important when I say that) for being so inconsistant in my posting. It is that some days the Habitat webfiltering blocks blogger, but today it let me get on, so I am goign to aprovechar, and I will try to make up for my previous blogging deficiencies with a long, detailed blog today. I will try to keep it from being boring though.

Examenes- This week was exam week for my adult English class in the noches. Actually, they were scheduled for last week, but there were such aguaceros (torrential rain) that one night 0 people showed up for class, and the other night only a few could come. So, we postponed the tests. on Friday they took the written and listening portions, and on Monday they did short presentations as an oral exam. On Monday, I baked apple pie and brought it so that we could eat while they were doing their presentations. We have recently been learning food vocabulary, and they had mentioned that they wanted some typical American food. I figured apple pie was about as comida tipica as you get. I am so proud of my students! Most of them got As and Bs, and the lowest grade was a 65% (but she admitted outright that she hadn't studied at all). The high schoolers have their tests tomorrow and Monday, and I hope that they do as well.

Teaching-Yeah, um, my 6th graders made me cry on Tuesday. Its not even as if they were any worse than usual (they are ALWAYS awful), but if just got to me more that day. I was tryign to explain to them how I had a fun day planned, where we were going to have like a little ? words olympics (they'll be learning words like "How much" "Who" and "How long"). However, they wouldn't stop talking long enough for me to explain it! There are 3 girls in particular who give me nothing but attitude, it is a serious falta de respeto. Anyway, I let my emotions get the best of me, and I started crying, then, I was embarrassed to be crying, and that made me cry more. It was awful. I am going to try and meet with the principal tomorrow and talk to her about how we can make these rude kids obey.

First communions- On Sunday, we celebrated the first communions in Santa Rosa. There were two celebrations in my extended host family: Frander and Gerard, my host nephews. Eric (the volunteer who I replaced) arrived in Santa Rosa last year on the day that they were celebrating the third graders' first communions- he told me that it was craziness; he arrived to meet our whole host family all at once (there must be like 50 of them) at a big party in Gaudy and Hilbert's house. Our family is definitely escandolosa (loud!) and I can understand how hard and overwhelming it must have been for him to be instroduced to the community in that way. At least I have three months of family under my belt already, so I was a little bit more prepared, but it was still a LONG day! We went to mass in the morning, and most of the family sat together. I woke up with an awful cold and was sneezing all through the service. I was pretty miserable, and Marta kept looking at me and giving me this look that seemed to convey "Mikey, you look miserable, but its kind of funny". From the misa we headed to Wilma's house to celebrate. On the table were two beautiful cakes, one for each boy. One was shaped like a Bible, the other said ¡Felicidades!. There were a ton of people there, but it was probably one of the most successfully executed parties I have ever been to, in any country. When we arrived, there were chairs set up, and there were actually enough! Then, Margoth and Silvana brought around little cups of rompope (a lot like Eggnog- with alcohol for the adults, virgin Rompope for the kids) for everyone. Padre Pablo then led us in a prayer, and we toasted the two young men with our rompope. Then, everyone immediately had a bowl of delicious posole (a soup of hominy, pork, and other delicousness). As soon as we finished the posole, someone took the bowl, and replaced it with a plate of rice, some tasty pork, and a potato salad. Plus, a homeade refresco of kas. But wait, there is more! After this main course came desert: individualized dishes of something that they called crema alemana which was kind of like pudding, but fluffier, and with graham cracker crumbles on top. Then, there was a short respite, and out came a HUGE container of icecream, which was spooned into cones and given to everyone who could manage to stuff something else into their stomachs. By this point, it was about 3pm, which is the traditional time for the Costa Rican cafecito. Out came the coffee, accompanied by a variety of pastries, crousants, and cakes. There were also tacos. Throughout all of this, the two huge cakes sat on the table, and I kept thinking"they can't possibly expect us to eat the cakes!I will explode!" As it turned out, the cakes were for the next day, (but they brought me a piece at my house!). By the time Marta, Patri, and I left, it was 5 pm, and I was exhausted. My cold definitely hadn't improved. I went home, took a sudafed, and fell asleep until about 6:30. When I woke up and wandered back over to Marta's house, she informed me that we were going back to Wilma's. I tagged along, and there were still about 20 people sitting around chatting and drinking and eating. I couldn't believe it. I apparently don't have the party stamina that Santa Rosans do. I probably gained like 20 pounds, but I didn't even care. It was a really fun day, and I was glad that I was able to celebrate it with my familia tica.

Centro Infantil- Dustin (the other international volunteer, who lives in Alajuela) has been a huge help with our childcare center project! He got in touch with some architects, and it looks like he found one that is willing to draw us a building plan, for free! This is awesome, because once we have plans, we can estimate costs, and once we know about how much it would cost to build the building, I can start fundraising and grant writing and searching for that amount. So, Dustin came up to the village last weekend to take pictures and measure the lot that has already been donated. I am super excited about these developments, and hope that things keep going smoothly. Also, I am applying for a grant of like 8000 Euros from the German Embassy- it will be totally awesome if we get it! However, there are a lot of hoops I have to jump through first, so we'll see.

That's probably good for now- a little update on how I have been doing. Tuanis-