Monday- the last day I was caught up on readings for class.
Tuesday- International Day of Peace! Great success, excellent participation from our class, I helped teach and lead the singing of a peace song in Spanish. Also attended a career workshop in resumé/CV writing.
Wednesday- finished writing a paper in time to attend Cultural Dance event sponsored by a bunch of embassies in Costa Rica. About 30 UPEACE students piled into a mini-bus and headed to Escazu to see our classmate represent Bolivia with some energetic dancing. While there, we sampled food from the nations represented (Nicaragua's chocolate drink was my favorite) and the man at the Russian table failed to be impressed that I spoke to him in Russian. Granted, it was only three words but he had know way of knowing I didn't have more where those came from.
Thursday- my first Spanish class and my Spanish nickname is now "gringa en las botas" because of my striped rain boots. Another career workshop in finding internships.
Friday- in class my group turned our summary of the plight of landless farmers in the Philippines, analysis of the underlying causes and recommendations for action into a 3 verse song set to the tune of "Memory" from Cats and performed for the class. Peace Ed is WAY more fun than International Law and the Settlement of Disputes, and this is why there are those who do not take us seriously. I totally meant to be social and join people for a drink at Oscar's but a guitar came to my house! So instead I stayed in, tuned Por's new guitar and when my landlord heard, he brought down his guitar. I tuned that too and he said I could borrow it since he's never actually learned how to play. One of these days I'll learn not to fall out of practice on the guitar because re-acquiring those fingertip calluses is painful.
Saturday- a trip to San José with Diana (not Ugandan Diana, Canadian in my programme Diana) to check out one of the San José markets where I find avocados at 2/$1 and we split a couple bunches of enormous rosemary leaves. I hacked away at the reading, trying to get caught up. In the evening many of us went into town to see our classmate Midori play the piano with a violoncellist at the local performance hall. Beautiful, world class classical music and quite a treat.
Sunday- reading all day. All. Day. Still not completely caught up but getting close. And I discovered what you do with cheese that doesn't melt. You cut it into small cubes and fry it and it's just like the baked cheese they have at the Andersonville farmer's market. Delicious with my beans, rice, tomato & red pepper concoction for dinner.
Tomorrow- I've been asked to read a poem at the memorial service for Robert Mueller who was one of the founding benefactors of UPEACE. And people who like to sing are gather for the first time to see if we want to form a group! I'm very happy about this. Now, back to reading.
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