Penguins?

Although I have had tons of changes lately, it feels as if the big one is to come. Or at least one of many big ones. On Saturday I leave for Cano Negro, a little town in the north central province of Costa Rica. It is very close to Nicaragua in about the far north central part of Costa Rica. I will be there from Saturday (whenever I arrive) until Tuesday. I am not looking forward to the bus trips, where I will change buses three times and it will take about 6-7 hours to get there. I heard it is really beautiful there (okay where isnt it beautiful in Costa Rica?). A few other volunteers have been there and they said there is a big river and lake, where you can swim and take boat rides. Apparently alligators are in the water so I doubt I will be getting in, but we will see.

All 35 of us trainees are going to different places, alone, so I just happened to get assigned this site. We are each visiting a current volunteer who has been here at least a year. I think mine has been here two years. We get to hang out with them for a few days, see their work and projects, meet the people they live with and around, and ask any questions we want. It should be really cool to see another volunteer hands on and ask some questions of an actual volunteer, as opposed to the Peace Corps staff here.

But this is not the big change I am talking about. I am still waiting to find out where I will be living, starting September 15. I get back Tuesday from the trip to Cano Negro, then have a couple interviews with the business staff, and on Friday, we all find out where we are going. I am super anxious and excited to find out where I will be. Probably by my next post I will know where I will be for two years! My stomach is kind of churning thinking about it.

It feels weird to think that the school year and all that comes with that will be starting soon. For the first time in my life I am not going back to school in August (first time since before pre-school?) but yet it does not feel like work to me here. But this is good, to me, because I still feel like I can make a difference, so I hope that it continues to feel like a great, mysteriously awesome thing where it is a "job" but does not feel like one, if that makes sense.

From the other posts you probably know I have been reading much. I am even going back through some books I have read in the past couple years that were my favorites and I always wanted to go back and read them, but never took the chance. I am now going through "Blue Like Jazz" by a guy named Donald Miller, and I love it the second time around too.

In one of the chapters he talks about how he saw (on public television or something like it) a program on penguins. He explains to his friend, over coffee, that the penguins have this big pilgramage (spelling?) to far away from their homes, and they start making these noises. The noises are to find a mate. So, they find their mate and have their penguin sex (this is the title of the chapter) and then the mom lays the eggs and leaves. I guess she just leaves for a while and the men stay and take care of the eggs, their kids.

The crazy part, he goes on to explain, is that a few months later the mom randomly comes back, right before the eggs are hatched. So they take this long hike to this place, mate, the mom leaves, and then finds her way back miraculously right before her kiddies are born. What a good mom (and dad).

So Miller talks about this internal radar the penguins have to just get there and back, a radar that cannot really be explained. Earlier in the book he talked about love, and light, and beauty, which are all rational things people believe and feel, but cannot be proved scientifically. But they are real. He used this to describe his faith, and I really like how he talks about it. He says that these penguins have this radar to mate and find their kids, so maybe he (or we?) have this radar towards our Creator, to God, that many times we cannot explain.

I really like that.

Before I go I wanted to say how awesome it has been to hear from you. Yesterday was the influx of mail (the first time in a week and a half--so sorry if it takes so long!) that Peace Corps brought us. So you can send a letter, two weeks later it gets here, and a week later Peace Corps gets it to me. But I still love letters. Again thanks so much for the support. I will talk to you soon!

Also, my camera is dead, I think. I had it in my backpack during a downpour of rain (which happens practically daily) and it got wet, so it does not turn on anymore. This is to say that I hope you enjoy the pictures that I have posted here and on the webshots.com because it may be a while before we get anymore. At least over 100 are on webshots!

I miss you guys and I hope to talk to you soon. Until after the trip, Nick.