A picture depiction of a day in my life in Costa Rica:
not pictured: the cute little children because we aren't allowed to post pictures including their faces because of safety/ government regulations.
^ in the morning Maren and I would sit out here to read our scriptures and write in our journals and do whatever else we wanted, it was very pleasant ^
^Then I got ready in the bathroom with a mirror so low I couldn't see my face unless I bent down, & even then the light was pretty dim normally ^
^ walked up the street to the bus stop ^
^ more of our street ^
^ while sitting at the bus stop we would sometimes see this man and his cows in the middle of the road, he would smile and say buenos dias ^
^ we took a 30 minute bus ride from Barrio Jesús to Heredia^
^ this graffiti meant we were close and for some reason I was always very intrigued by it. It means: here before there was a house. ^
^ this is a block away from our bus stop, we would walk another 5-6 blocks to another bus stop from Heredia to Guarari where our center was located ^
^ Guarari ^
^ picture taken from bus, lots of people live here ^
^ that fence is the one around the center, Cen Cenai ^
^ the center is a gov't run facility, there was a body guard and we had to check in everyday with our passport number. We were the only ones who spoke English in the center and there were around 100 kids throughout the day ^
^ naptime, Maren worked with the babies 4 & under I worked with the escolares, 8-12^
^ Playtime! ^
^ at the end of the day we were all combined and this little guy decided to be my friend^
^ After 6 hours at the center we headed back to Heredia, this is what a street there looks like. Also cars do not yield to pedestrians so I learned how to be an aggressive pedestrian for sure!^
^ We often went to Parque Central because there was an ice cream shop on the corner (mmmm!) & it is very beautiful. I do wish we had squares like this in Utah. ^
^ Post office, Parque Central ^
^ post office (right) & possibly a museum or school on the left, I can't remember ^
^Heredia, Ciudad de Las Flores, Parque Central^
^ rad statue of a heart, there were statues or organs scattered around the area of the city ^
^ after an hour or so in the city we would head back to our home in Barrio Jesús, this is one of the few street signs (nobody knows the streets that have names so it's fairly useless) & I don't know who this is but we generally called him the spiderweb man because to the right of his head there are an insane amount of cobwebs^
^ top of our street ^
^ there are small bars and shops all over, they mostly sell necessities ^
^ my bedroom ^
^ colones, we had to make sure we had 1000 colones for bus fair everyday ^
^ this wasn't a daily part of our routine, in fact it only happened twice the whole trip forcing us to go buy underwear the second to last day..haha! but that is a story for another day. I did think it was interesting though, there was no lid and you fill it up with a hose, then in the humid air and rainy season it takes several days for the clothes to dry ^
^ in the evening we would sit on the porch again until it was dark because our lights would attract giant flying beetle things and sometimes HUGE spiders like this one, but our host mom killed it, the next morning when there was one across the wall from us at breakfast though nobody said a word and I tried to pretend I had not seen it there...we really hate spiders^
^ Maria Paulette (8) took this picture of us and a ton of others that night :) ^
^Our cute host family! Rosemary (mom), Jose Isaac (10), and Maria Paulette(not spelled like that but I don't know how she spells it, 8), now you know why the mirror was so low ^
^ beautiful sunset, barbed wire & all ^
some of these pictures I took & some Maren took, thanks Maren! :)