Mystery

“With every step you take, remember that your footsteps fall where the presence of God has already gone before you, so you can step forward with confidence and faith. Even though we are miles apart, we are united in the oneness of God´s Spirit.”

That is from an email my grandma sent me a couple months ago that was from a daily devotional. I had written it down because I thought it was very beautiful and I just came across it in my notebook, and it gives me hope. Although I may be in a different place far away, it has been such a blessing to keep in contact with some great people that I am so fortunate to know and have in my life that live back home.

As many people may already know, I began thinking about the Peace Corps around March 2006, over a year before eventually getting invited to Costa Rica and actually leaving for the Peace Corps. That whole year I was in constant debate whether to go or not to go, what to do after graduation, where life and God may be taking me. Anyways, as I had a feeling I´d be going abroad for a while, I began preparing mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

This is all to say that I think I was more or less ready for this experience when the time finally came to leave. One thing people I respect and trust taught me was this experience would be very difficult (and super rewarding), so I had been preparing for this. I knew this would be difficult. So why is it so hard to accept that it is difficult now?

I suppose one reason is that although I knew it would be difficult here, being away from the comforts of family friends and living with complete strangers and trying to help them, is that I never knew how the difficulties would present themselves. I just thought, oh this will be difficult and stretch me and teach me much, but I never thought what that would look like exactly.

My idea for being here, among many, is to help people. I´m trying to learn service to others, following an example of a radical dude named Jesus. Maybe really I´m not serving, I don´t know. In any case, I feel like I´m here to learn service and to help people here in San José de Upala. What has been so difficult is people (okay really just one person, maybe a couple others) who don´t accept my work. They don´t agree with the way I do things, or want me to do things their way (maybe be their personal volunteer?). Without going into too much detail, this has been SO hard. I had some really rough days because after getting critiqued for “not working enough,” I was also laughed at for not understanding somebody’s Spanish. I can´t say who because people here do know some English and have internet—but it´s a daily battle against negative people who don´t understand the U.S., me, or learning a new language.

I know why I´m here. And it hurts so much when I´m told to my face that the reason I´m here is to avoid the war in Iraq. As if I´m not here to help, to serve, to learn, to share experiences, to grow.

Okay time to step down from that soap box (is that what it´s called?). Maybe I´ll describe the town a bit, where I spend all my days and nights.

I did have to walk everywhere, but Peace Corps is lending me a bike to use while I´m here. The problem is that it´s a very nice bike and everyone in town seems to be eyeing it. I have to be careful where I ride it, so sometimes I still walk. I still walk to the high school because the high school is full of kids and there is no good place to lock my bike. The roads are all a mixture of mud and rocks, except for a main highway running through the center of town, which is paved. This highway is about 15 kilometers (I don´t know, 9-10 miles?) from the next big town. I go to this next town in bus or catch a ride to use internet (where I´m at now) and go to the post office to send letters and check my P.O. box for letters (thanks for all the letters!). Because the bus stops everywhere and drives slow, it takes almost a half hour to get there, so I like going in car where it takes about 15 minutes—but this means I have to wait for a ride.

The animals I see are little lizards, birds, sometimes monkeys, and rarely snakes. Most of the day and during the night I can hear lots of birds singing and enjoying. Also there are a ton of chickens all around town, and sometimes they think it´s time to start making noise around 1am. Crazy chickens! The high school is doing a study on sloths and has a couple that remain there at the school, up in a big tree. This town has lots of fields of rice and beans, as well as some corn and farms with cows. The fields make me sad because there is a lot of deforestation to clear room for crops and animals. I´m very bad at describing things so when I have my own camera again I will hopefully keep posting pictures so you can see for yourself!

A few days ago I was returning from one of the elementary schools. I was riding my bike along the road, which parallels the river, and so I found a little spot to sit down and enjoy. I sat long enough that in the corner of my eye I saw something moving and I saw a sloth moving up the tree! I thought they mostly only moved during the night, and so this was really cool to see it move in seeming slow motion to a different part of the tree to do who knows what. Sleep?

Some things are so difficult to describe. Living in the country for the first time, in a small town, is very different for me. This is especially true in a different country. Being a volunteer is crazy crazy. I am meeting some truly great people, and some people that honestly, I can´t stand.

Life! What a mystery.

Here are some pictures that Howie and Diane were nice enough to send me of their visit to Costa Rica a couple weeks ago!

http://community.webshots.com/album/561499218hetTHc