In Santo Domingo

I´m in an internet cafe in Santo Domingo right now. It´s about a 30 minute ride in a pickup truck to Santo Domingo and we generally go as a group every weekend to check on internet and eat food that doesnt include plantains. I have officially tried every different way to cook plantains and there is not one that is any good, but Zach and I dutifully clean our plates every morning and every night. The work has been hard, we are right on the equator and it gets wicked hot here. We took yesterday off to go visit this rainforest preserve which was pretty cool, got to see some sweet flaura and fauna up close. Santo Domingo is a pretty busy city, it´s got about 350,000 people but the community we are living in, Bua, is very quiet and laid back which is great. Tomorrow in Ecuador they are voting on a new, more socialist, constitution supported by the president (Correa) so there are all sorts of rallies and stuff going on to support the different sides (Sí and No). On Monday we all went to a rally for the Sí side where the president of Ecuador was speaking. At the rally he recognized us as foreigners in the crowd and spoke directly to our group briefly in english and talked about how we about to witness a revolution of ideals in the country, it was sweet. After the rally was over I asked one of the people if they were using the huge banners again, and he said they werent so now I have a huge green banner with the outline of Correa´s face and in big block lettering ¨Seguridad para Todos¨which means Security for All. I´m going to try to send it home and hang it up in my room, hopefully it doesnt get lost in the mail. Hopefully I´ll check in next week, but we might be going on a group trip to the coast so who knows.
-Dave

Bua, Homestay

I´m in an internet cafe in Santo Domingo right now, we took a pickup truck ride into the city from Bua. My homestay is pretty crazy, they dont speak a word of english, btu my spanish is getting better. Our (Zach Toetman and my) homestay parents are a little older and dont have any kids our age but their older kids live really near and they have a couple of grandchildren that we hang out with. My homestay dad is called Don Herman and he is kind of the man, but it´s really hard to understand what he is saying. We bathe in a little river every day after work, which is about a 45 minute walk away. At the school we are building ecological toilets for the 250 kids in the school. The food is plantain and rice heavy, but good most of the time. Zach and I spend most of our free time hanging out with Don Herman´s 8 year old son Kevin, who is the man. I gave him the soccer ball, and we play all the time. The Tsa´chila culture is really interesting, ive only been here 4 days and it´s already been really eye opening. Hopefully ill get back to a computer soon, but if not, dont worry. Later, Dave

I´m in Quito right now, about to leave for the rural town of Bua about 3 hours away. The flight from Costa Rica was easy and the last two days in Quito have been fun. Im definitely ready to get down to some real work and starting tomorrow we will be building sustainable toilets for the school in Bua. I´m loving life right now, havent gotten sick yet (knock on wood). I´m pyched to stay with my host family, we are meeting them later today. I´ll probably be out of touch for a little while, they dont really have internet in the town I´m going to, but Santo Domingo is pretty close, about a 30 minute bus ride so I´ll go there when I can to update. My Spanish is getting pretty good and of the guys im probably the most confident speaker, hopefully it will be great by the end of my homestay.
Over and out,
Dave

Costa Rica Part II

Hey everyone, im in costa rica still, sorry I havent been able to update but this wek or so has been awesome and I havent really gotten a chance to get to the internet. A couple of us just walked about a mile and a half to get to the main town and go to an internet cafe. This week has been nuts, a lot of group bonding, a trip to a waterfall in the middle of the jungle, lots of surfing, swimming, hanging out, team bonding. We are heading back to San Jose today and we're leaving for Ecuador tomorrow. I dont know how much internet access we're going to have in Ecuador, as it will be our first homestay, so this could be the last post for a while. All the kids are great and I'm loving life right now. Hopefully I'll update again soon though, until then, Pura Vida.

We arrived in Costa Rica about an hour and a half ago. It´s been a pretty long day of travel, first we got held up in philly for two hours then we couldnt land in San Juan because of ground fog, we didnt have enough fuel to keep circling so we had to make a detour in panama city for some gas for the plane. The real adventure starts tomorrow

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