Catch up: April ends and on into May!

When I go for a while without blogging (in this case, over a month, gasp!) you can assume one of two things: life's been very boring, mundane, and slow and there is not much to write about OR it's been incredibly busy, go-go-go, and jam-packed with interesting things that are overflowing from my mind and I just have not had the chance to sit down and write about. Usually it is the latter. In this case, it has been mostly crazy busyness, and some days of R&R. (I'm just coming off a few days of that, and it's been GLORIOUS!) So, this update will summarize an oddly-jumbled mix of the two cases.


Since my last post marking Palm Sunday and the start of Semana Santa--in all of its holy Catholic glory--has come and gone, here is a bulleted update to guide you through happenings in life over the last (almost) month:

• Our students' biology module ended April 27, and their last two-week Core 350 class began and has  ended--focusing on topics such as policy-making and immigration. This course culminated the spring 2011 semester!
• Then we said farewell to the majority of our 20 spring semester students.

Semana Santa (Holy Week):

• 

  Part of the Viernes Santo (Good Friday)
  procession in San Rafael's central
  park where the church is located:
  Jesus (entombed) is paraded around the square.

  We held classes every day except for Good Friday, even though most of CR went on vacations, closing up shops, students were on holiday from school, and the post office was closed ALL week. (To our great displeasure!)
• We attended a couple local religious processions in honor of Good Friday and a community bonfire on Saturday night, accompanied by off-key singing and youth groups before a candlelight 

• 

  The Catholic priest delivers the Saturday
  evening Mass outside by the fogata (bonfire)
  in front of the church.
  

  service, marching and processioning around San Rafael's central park square, where the main iglesia (church) is located.
• On campus, some of our CRC familia members arose with me at dawn for a sunrise sing-along out in nature in our little capilla (chapel). Larry even joined us to take in God's glorious creation and sing with us! Thank God for life and creation- big and small!
• Then we hid the hard-boiled eggs that we'd dyed with the boys and romped around campus for an Easter egg hunt (see photos below)!

I help Ravi dye an egg.

We, the CRC familia, share our Easter traditions with
some of the Ticos who practice their English skills
in a class up at the CRC, which Lindy and our
students offered on Wednesday nights.

Ravi and I count and separate eggs that were found.

The boys and their Easter egg "baskets"...
I put cartons in grocery bags and
they wore them as backpack sacks :)

The long Easter weekend was relaxing and low-key for the most part, and I got get a good deal of pleasure-reading in as well! Sometimes it's nice just to detox from technology and read a good book!


The week after Easter:

• My easter packages from friends and family arrived! Thanks so much!

Thanks to the Dufault family and my family!
Happy Easter... with lots of sugar!

But my fave gift in the package
from home was this chapstick!

• After Easter, things picked up a bit, as we were planning to bring this semester to a close, hosting two conference groups as well as tending to academics and our students simultaneously.
• We were busy for several days making numerous airport runs picking up and dropping off members of the Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana (FTL). April 27-May 1, we hosted a group of around 25 members for several days on campus while they used our campus for their conference (on the themes of theology, music, and other forms of art). (http://www.ftl-al.org)
• On Thursday, April 28, I took a group of our students who are studying immigration in their Core 350 discussion group with Jenni Holsinger to visit an impoverished community, filled with immigrants, called La Carpio. Ask me about this experience sometime. It contains more stories and information than can be communicated via blog. (To learn about the CFCI ministry, who I got in touch with to organize our field trip: http://mycfcijourney.com/serve/costa-rica/la-carpio/)

In front of the Christ For the City International (CFCI) medical clinic
in La Carpio.

Looking out over La Carpio and over Pavas.
(where poverty and violence rates are high)

With Jenni's Core 350 discussion group, and Suzie,
CFCI co-director of the La Carpio mission that we visited.

• Friday, April 29, I took the other portion of the Core 350 class down to explore the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) base that's about five or six kilometers down the mountain from us. They're the only "Green (mission) Base" in the world, and our students learned about some of the ecological projects (gardening, goats, compost, etc.) that is going on at the base. (http://www.ywamheredia.com/pages/) We're excited to be connecting with, learning from, and partnering with some of our not-so-distant neighbors!

May (yes, I do realize we're two thirds of the way through this month already!):

• The first week in May was spent preparing details for the last week of our students' semester: host family farewell picnic party, distribution and collection of evaluations and surveys from families and students among other office work, finalizing the finals schedule, rooming, debriefing sessions, fun student life movie nights and hanging out.
• We also spent a good chunk of time in the office preparing for the CIEE and Wheaton groups (Wheaton college from Chicago is bringing down a group of students, using our facility, for about 7 weeks May 23-July 2) that we are receiving.
• On Saturday, May 7, all our students returned to us to spend the weekend on campus for debriefing. They said thank you and goodbye to the host families, and got right into leading them in debriefing sessions for the rest of the weekend.

Lindy talks to the host families and our students at the
Fiesta de Despedida (goodbye/end of the semester party)

We had a "She's the Man"/He's the Woman (cross-dressing themed)
movie night with all of our students back on campus. SO much fun!

I had 4 of our girls have a sleepover. Busy busy... late nights and early
morning 4-am airport runs during our last days together.

• Last week was spent doing nearly a dozen airport runs, sending off our spring semester students back to the States, and picking up members of the CIEE conference group. 
• Members of the CIEE group from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina (and I feel like I'm missing other countries??) spent 5 days on our campus as they had workshops and classes. We participated in sharing "our culture" with the latinoamericanos by presenting the electric slide line dance to the soundtrack of "Cotton Eyed Joe." Charming. 
• Lindy and Dinorah are both in the States (attending graduation at Whitworth North, among other things), so we 24/7s are ruling the roost.
• Once the CIEE conference ended on Sunday, and all our students had left us, we took off for a few days in the Guanacaste region. (Post to come soon detailing our little trip!) Much needed R&R!

That's the update for now. Sorry it's so general and such a long time coming! Hopefully I'll be able to break future events up into smaller, more interesting chunks!

ALSO, CHECK OUT MY UPDATED PHOTOS UNDER THE PICTURE MENU LINKS TO THE RIGHT! I'VE UPDATED THE ALBUMS FROM THE END OF OUR SPRING SEMESTER HAPPENINGS!