I know, I know, I´ll post more pics later.

Goal 2 of Peace Corps: Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.... We had an impromptu beauty shop session on Black hair with my host parents kiddos. :)
These are the puppies I helped deliver...read end of blog to see how it ended.

Written June 16th:

My counterpart who works at a local community agency took me to a nearby beach one Sunday. It was beautiful. I didn’t swim this time, but walked up the beach and into the beach’s park where I experienced different sand, beautiful shells, monkeys in the trees, and lots of sea creatures on the rocks. I feel so lucky to be so close to the beach. This beach we went to was only 45 minutes away on the bus. I can tell I am beginning to integrate into my community because now when I see “foreigners” they stick out like a sore thumb and almost get on my nerves because of how touristy and stereotypical American they act.

I learned that most of the beautiful land in the beach towns has now been bought out by non-Costa Ricans (mostly Americans and Europeans) and the land the Costa Ricans once owned, they now work for. There are two very different worlds going on in these touristy beach towns. One is the tourist life and the other is the behind the scenes/locals life. They are like night and day. Peace Corps would like for me to consider working in a few of these nearby touristy towns to work with locals dealing with child sexual exploitation, drug abuse of minors, domestic violence, drop out rate, and other issues. How about Costa Rica ranks waaaay up there on countries with the most child sexual exploitation?!? And who are their biggest customers? You guessed it --- USA and Europeans. It makes me sick to see old ass American men toting around CHILDREN as their “girlfriends”. I wish I could punch them in their face and take the young people away from there... but I know it doesn’t work like that. Right now, awareness is key. I talk to Costa Ricans all the time who are unaware of child sexual abuse, particularly commercial exploitation, being an issue in their own neighborhoods. So, that’s where we’ll start because it is right under their noses.

I am reading my 5th book now. So far I’ve read: Good in Bed, Songs Without Words, Three Cups of Tea, and The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. I am currently reading Cornel West’s Democracy Matters.

Two nights ago, my host family’s Rottweiler went into labor. It killed it’s first pup (very sad to see). So my host dad and his wife, along with me observing, helped deliver the next two puppies to make sure their dog wouldn’t eat her own puppies. After about two hours we thought she was done having puppies, so they went sleep and I kept the puppies in a box in my room. The dog stayed on the patio right outside my window... then it happened: I heard her howl then she had another puppy! I ran out, yelled for help, but had to take action because the dog was determined to do some damage to the puppy. I pulled the pup out of its sac, cleaned it up, cut the umbilical cord and put it with the rest of the puppies. I stayed up the rest of the night and did it over again two more times by myself! I helped that dog deliver three puppies! That’s wild isn’t it?!?!?! I felt like I was on an Animal Planet show delivering pups with my bare hands in the middle of the night. :)

I am learning a little bit of the Bribri language. Not many speak Bribri in the town of Bribri, but they do up in the indigenous communities. An old man who is really involved in the community and is Bribri taught me a few phrases:

To greet someone: Iz besh que nah
I’m fine : Gesh que nah bway
Thank you : Chi chi cratz ka
Come here, I’d like to talk with you: Jue kapa co kan beta


UPDATE on June 18, 2010

Sadly, all of the puppies died. Apparently they were all born premature and since the mama dog didn´t want them, they weren´t able to thrive. Poor things.