New Address! (and sickness)

I just opened up a P.O. box here in the next town over from where I will be living. Another volunteer and I opened it together and we´re hoping that Peace Corps will reimburse us. What do we look like, rich gringos? Anyways, this town is about 15-20 minutes away from my town, so I hope to come in once a week (maybe a little less than that, we´ll see) to check my P.O. box and to use the internet. Unfortunately, there are no landline phones in San Jose de Upala where I will be living. There are three payphones and the people have cell phones, so I will have to figure out what I´m going to do. Here is my new address where you can send me letters and packages from now on-

Nick Norton
Upala apartado postal 33-5707
Upala, Upala, Alajuela 21301
Costa Rica
Centro America

Today finishes up my site visit. Tomorrow I will take the six hour long bus back to the capitol city and from there catch the other bus to my training town, another hour and a half. Buses, buses, buses. Some things I am getting used to, like cold showers. Somehow, they aren´t so bad anymore and I can handle them. But as far as waiting an hour for a bus that drives slow and is hot and stops all the time and half the time there are no seats so I have to stand—that will take some getting used to.

My new family is very nice. The parents are almost 40 and they have three daughters. The daughters are also very nice and I have been playing some with the five year old as she is home during the day, while the mom takes care of the three month old baby. My room is like an apartment and is off to the side of the house in a different building. The family has four other bedrooms that they rent out to people. I met my neighbor, who is a 22 year old school teacher and he´s really cool.

Most people in San Jose de Upala are school teachers or they are farmers. Of the school teachers, most only leave there during the week in rented houses and they return to other towns hours away on the weekends.

It has been a bit overwhelming since last Thursday when I started counterpart day and then came here to my site. Two high school teachers showed up for counterpart day, where Peace Corps drilled them on the rules (I can´t ever be caught on a motorcycle or Peace Corps sends me home!) and what our roles are in the community.

We arrived here Friday night where I met my family. Saturday morning, the town priest (who is also the principal of the school) brought me to a meeting and introduced me. Sunday I went to church with him where he introduced me and I had to stand up in front of the church and stumble through in Spanish who I am and why I´m here.

Yesterday and today I have visited the high school a couple times and I visited two elementary schools. The people here have huge ideas and keep introducing me as an economist. It´s crazy. The good thing is that they have great visions and there are big opportunities for me. The bad thing is that they are looking to me to do some huge stuff, so that´s why I feel overwhelmed.

At the high school, one of the teachers is really pushing some big agriculture projects. He wants to produce most of their food there for the cafeteria, like rice, fruits, and veggies and eventually, he wants that the students start a cooperative and business to sell to the community.

Also at this high school there is a high dropout rate. The kids, so I´m told, aren´t very motivated and don´t have visions for the future so we may be working on that.

In one of the elementary schools we already have a meeting set up for the week I move here, the week of September 17. There is a women´s group that is interested in starting a small business so we are meeting to talk about options and what they would like to do.

Crazy huh? I am very excited for all this but hopefully I won´t get too overwhelmed. The weather is very hot here and I am sweating like crazy most of the time. The town is very beautiful with the view of two volcanoes in the background and a river runs through the town also. The people have been very nice to me!

The day after I arrived here I starting coming down with a sickness, and they are saying it´s because of the climate changes. Whatever the cause, I have been feeling like crap because of my throat, head, and my body has been hurting, so I hope when I return here September 16 I don´t get sick again. Where I have been living these past two months is a bit colder because it´s in the mountains, but here in San Jose de Upala is it much hotter and very humid.

I would love to write more but I´m not feeling too good. I can´t express enough how awesome you guys have been in encouraging me. Things here are very up and down here and all the support, letters, encouragement, and prayers have given me so many boosts and it´s been great to here from you. I miss you and look forward to talking to you soon!