Earthquake!

First of all, if you happened to hear about it on the news, I just wanted to let everyone know I´m ok! Now for the story...

Yesterday was my first day in Costa Rica. It was supposed to just be lots of visa stuff and meetings about health and safety, but Mother Nature had other plans. We were on the 4th floor of the hospital meeting with an English speaking doctor when the whole room started to shake. After a few seconds, we were told to get out of the building and started going downstairs with lots of Ticos (Costa Ricans) who all seemed pretty calm. We stood around in the street waiting for the aftershocks that never came. I was a little shaken, as this was my first earthquake but there was no damage where we were. It was a 6.2 quake and I did hear that there were some injuries and deaths and lots of damage about 30 miles north of us, near the epicenter. After about 30 min, we were able to resume our meeting but this time we had it outside. Needless to say, it was an exciting first few hours in Costa Rica.

Then we took the bus to Orosi where we met our host families for the month of orientation. My host parents are Sergio and Yessenia. Sergio is a security guard at a bank. There are 3 kids in the family: Jose-10, Yeselyn-6, and Antony-4. They are very nice and very patient with my wobbly Spanish. I spent most of the night with the two younger kids, messing around with the Flip Video. They LOVE seeing themselves on tape. (Thanks Aunt Laura and Uncle Joe!) They also enjoy going through my bags and asking me what things are. Antony thinks he is spiderman so I spent some time making a ¨web¨out of a jump rope with him.

Today I went on a scavenger hunt to some of the other volunteers houses. It was good practice with Spanish and I think our group (of about 20) is bonding well.

Sorry for the randomness of this entry. Hopefully I´ll be able to update again soon, when I have a little more time. Miss you all!