Kayla and the Sea Turtles: Realizing There is Only a Month Left

The week back from Nicaragua has been a tough one. One week ago I had to say good by to my family and get back into the swing of work and not being on vacation. Even though I only was away for three days it felt much longer, which made falling back into the rhythm of things around the house a little harder. Like for instance, the right after saying goodbye to Mom and Dad, I walked into the house to find a new volunteer!

Lauren, Ryan, Caroline, and Corinna watching our weekend volunteers take their beach pictures

So know our house consists of two Germans, Caroline and Corinna, and Ryan, Lauren, and myself (The American/German house).

Caroline came right before I left for my visa run, maybe two days before, so I have only really gotten to know her this past week and I don't want her to leave! She is 25 and has her masters in architecture. I knew that she studied architecture, but only learned the other day that she had her masters! With her program she spend a month in Guatemala at language school and then came to Costa Rica to work with turtles. She has three weeks in Costa Rica after she leaves us and started planning on what she was going to travel and do during this time. I looked at the calendar and realized that she only has two weeks left, time in flying!

Our other new volunteer in Corinna, she is 19 and also from Germany. She decided to take a year off before going to University and came to Costa Rica. She spend two weeks in language school in Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, and then came here to work with the turtles. Corinna, is awesome to have around the house she is funny and always asking what she can do to help out! I have been so lucky with volunteers this year!!!

The group of girls that visited us for the weekend

I feel like life here has been a constant whirl wind and I have had something going on 24/7 and have not really had time to rest. This weekend we hosted twenty Costa Rican girls, three professors, and two of their daughters. They were on an adventure for their survival course and they might have got more than they bargained for since they were camping. The weather has been rainy every day this month, and this weekend was no different. We had a huge storm come in and it rained almost the whole weekend. There was little bit of time from where we were able to do a trash pick up with the girls and take a sunny group picture this morning before they left.

The girls got smart and slept here and the rancho the second night

The girls were awesome, except for the part where they were teenage girls and thought they should get a choice about what they got to eat instead of eating a planned out meal. But I had a lot of fun hanging out with them and speaking spanglish with the girls, mostly Spanish but with and English word thrown in when I did not know the right word for it. But, I also had fun hanging out with the little girls that were here as well, so if high school doesn't work out for me I can always go to elementary school!

How Costa Rican girls make snowmen

Also this weekend was Santos' birthday! Yes, I was not joking it was not stop going the whole weekend. So during a down part on the days activities I ran away real quick to go say happy birthday. I assumed that they had already eaten and ran home because all of Santos' children were there and I needed to take pictures! But oh was I wrong! It was almost like they were waiting for the camera to arrive because as soon as I got back with it we ate arroz con pollo y ensalda (rice and chicken with salad), gelatina y leche condensada (jello with condensed milk), y (cake); their meals go really quickly too, not everyone was done eating arroz con pollo when others started on the gelatina! Of course I still asked the kids where the new puppy was and told everyone that I was going to take the puppy back to the United States with me. I had a ton of fun hanging out with everyone over there which then made me sad that I am leaving in a month!

The birthday decorations

Santos grabbing the huge pot of arroz con pollo

Look at the tub of jello!

The birthday cake

Just the other day, after having my family leave me, I started feeling home sick. Then, after having a "family" birthday celebration I started to get sad thinking that I was going to be leaving such amazing wonderful people, again! So, today when everyone was busy or napping I ran away for a little bit to go and hang out with Don Victor and his family (remember they all live on the same property). It was so much fun to just sit their listen to them talk, talk every once and a while, eat amazing coconut cookies the Josephine made, and drink coffee. But then I had to get home and back to work with an exhumation.