Ok, so I am just going to link you into my Picasa web album for right now when it comes to pictures, because it will take me way too long to figure out anything else new while I am sitting here paying for every minute of internet use and in need of a clean restroom – soon! This is my best fix for the moment. Once we have this at home life will be much easier. This internet cafe is nice to have, but I am really uncomfortable here.

FOR PICTURES: http://picasaweb.google.com/c4inpitt/ForSamara2008SummerBlog

So, here is a post that I wrote a few days ago and saved to Word:

For each picture we have taken there a hundred more that I wish I had taken. Photo ops are everywhere constantly, and I am learning to always be ready with the camera. I am also trying to learn how to use the camera! I am really enjoying life here now that we have settled in and it has cooled off. How amazing is it that we can just go down to the beach and wait until we see a boat come in and buy the fish that they just caught for like two dollars? And there are all types of wildlife everywhere you turn. I am getting better and better at spotting monkeys when I hear them. There are horse pastures directly in front of and behind our condo (Hey Kristin – you would love it! hint hint). Currently I can hear all kinds of birds singing, cows mooing, horses naying (isn’t that what they do?), and monkeys howling (actually, grunting is more like it). Oh yeah, and soon the geckos will come out – I love them. I have discovered that most Ticos do not like geckos or crabs, and there seems to be some misinformation about most animals that are common like that being poisonous. Maybe they are, I can’t say that I know for sure, but I have picked them up here (frogs too) and I didn’t have any adverse reactions that I know of.

I was also under the misconception that Costa Rican’s do not like cats and dogs because they are everywhere and most don’t seem to be taken care of too well (not to mention that they carry some bad stuff), but I was wrong. Most of the dogs here have a collar, which means that they have an owner. Most of the cats loosely belong to someone as well and shooing them off can offend their owners. They are all also part of an important process – getting rid of leftovers and all of the other bits of food that accumulate when you cook. You can’t just put food in the trash. It will get maggots and attract all sorts of other undesirable creatures. So you have two options (and usually you have to do a combo of both) – feed your bits of food and leftovers to the dogs, cats, vultures, rabbits, horses, etc. OR keep a compost bucket and dig a hole to put its contents in every day and then cover it up with dirt and let mother nature do the rest. Trash pick-up is something that I used to take for granted, but not anymore. You really are forced to think about where it all goes and how much of it is actually recyclable or reusable in some way. We are learning to be much more minimalist than we were. It is really a lesson we needed. We all have way to much stuff and way too much waste.

One last thing, I can’t go without mentioning Jamie’s recent injury. Of course he has cut up his fingers cooking and scaling fish plenty of times, but now he has broken his second toe! Poor guy! That is one of the many disadvantages of wearing flip flops and having slick wet surfaces everywhere. I didn’t even believe him and I made a few jokes about a toe bouquet when he told me he did it, but as it swelled and turned dark purple and red there was no doubt. We went through the ice routine and we know that there really isn’t much else you can do for it, besides duct taping it to its neighbor toes. Hopefully it heals as fast as most things seem to do here. My poor baby…

I’ll be back in a few – gotta go home for a sec – c4