Six months living latina... and over one year since I 'met' Hojancha!

It's been a while since I updated on life in CR. Since then, I've attended/presented at a few academic meetings, brought Knute, another student, here for some summer help, visited my awesome friends and boyfriend in Colorado, and gone on adventures with wonderful visitors. 

One thing I am stopping to think about on this rainy afternoon is how much I have progressed since a year ago, when I first left for Hojancha, and even six months ago, when I started my two-year stay here. Here is a visual of one year ago v. this year:

I am clearly much cooler than I was last June.

One thing that seems different is my relationship with this place I now call home. It is really clear to me when I have visitors. I can remember how nervous I was to drive around my first visitor (Chad!) In fact, I worked really hard to figure out how to drive my car (a manual) before he got here. I even remember trying to figure out routes to the airport/beach/bus. When my sis came to visit, I was already a lot more comfortable driving and getting around. We went to Volcan Arenal and I even dropped her off at the San Jose airport!!!! Those of you who have ever seen me drive in the city understand how important that is.

Since my last post, my friends Joe, Katie and Audrey have visited. I felt like I could give them the real Costa Rica experience. Joe still talks about how much he misses Hojancha and the great people here. I thought it was really interesting to travel with Audrey, who lived in Guatamela for two years in the Peace Corps. She speaks better Spanish then me, and had a really different perspective of Costa Rica after just passing through on a tour a few years ago. A lot of people see the well-polished tourism side of Costa Rica and don't get to experience the "real" tico culture. I love that a few days in Hojancha can completely change how people see Costa Rica. 

In other Hojancha news, it is harvest time for all sorts of fruits and vegetables and I'm having a lot of fun exploring local eating in Costa Rica! Here is a picture of a guayaba (?) that I picked in the field, and Simon harvesting bananas from the back yard. We also have sweet corn, basil, mint, oregano, mangos, guava, and limon all ready/almost ready to harvest! It almost makes me less homesick for strawberry season in Wisconsin...

Speaking of which, I get to go home in four weeks! I can't wait. And, to make it even better, Chad is coming with me, then taking me to his home in Michigan. His family owns an apple orchard! On this beautiful fourth of July in Costa Rica, I can't help but daydream about spending a few days on the lake, drinking gin and tonics and teaching Chad the ways of Scrabble/Boggle/Bananagrams with the whole family, and playing with/yelling at Sheila... heaven!!!