Sabado

My day of rest began at 6 am, meaning a full hour later than usual. Got up, tried very hard to skip breakfast, but Odette stopped me at the door. No tienes hambre?? Talbes un poco de piña? How can I say no to piña, even when running late for my tour. The piña, or pineapple here is the best I´ve ever had in my life. Everything here is more colorful, more sweet, more fresh, more wet, more odorous... and just more. I hopped over an earthworm today on my walk to the school that I swear to you was the size of a large snake. I swear. HUGE. I´ve never seen anything like it. The giant earthworms we ordered for my bio class last year were nothing in comparison to this monster.

This morning´s adventure was rafting along a river (two, to be exact): Rio de Piño Blanco feeding into Rio San Carlos. We spotted two sloths, several different kinds of birds, two crocodiles, howler monkeys, snakes, several iguanas and Jesus Christ lizards (named for the fact that they run so fast, it looks like they walk on the water -- I can vouche for this, they really do look like they´re running across the water)... and my favorite, the Blue-Jean frog, which yours truly caught with her own two hands. It´s this tiny little poisonous red frog with blue legs. Really cute. I took a few pictures, maybe I´ll post one later.

Yesterday, I went with Sergei, the doctor in charge of my medical Spanish classes (which are privado, by the way, because I´m the only one at my level), to an orphanage in La Fortuna (the tiny town in Arenal, where I´m located). I wasn´t halfway through the locked gate before tiny hands were reaching up to me, hugging my legs, and tugging at my skirt. The kids were so sweet and so trusting. Sort of astonding to me, since I learned that most of them are not exactly orphans, but victims of physical or sexual abuse over whom the government had taken custody. The oldest one there was ten, the youngest ten months, and it was amazing to see how they were literally raising each other while overseen by a few incredibly devoted adults. A three year old girl was trying to help the ten month old walk. She could hardly support him, he weighed almost as much as she did.

The Spanish language class I took this past week was with two other women whom I´ve grown to love. One´s a teacher from Kansas, the other a secretary at a junior high in Texas. Both extraordinary women, and both a lot of fun. (The teacher reminds me so much of Stacey, I can´t get over it.) Yesterday, our teacher had us role playing doctor-patient situations for my benefit as we were going over parts of the body. Louis came in with a foot problem -- terrible smelling feet regardless of how much she washed them: I prescribed perfuma. Fran came in with a pain in her ass (her husband): I told her to tell him "bese mi culo." All in all, I think I proved a pretty worthy doctor.

I don´t know what´s in store for me this afternoon. I´m doing something with the family, but thanks to my Spanish, I didn´t really pick up on what exactly. It will be a surprise.