Rest of week at Santa Elena

Sorry I havent posted anything in a while and I apologize for the bad spelling so forgive me. On Wednesday instead of work we gathered at the school and we began our trek up the mountain towards the quaker school on Monte Verde. The walk was about 40 minutes and all up hill. We were tired at the top but it was well worth it. The school is K--12 and the student population is about 100 +. It reminded me of my old school Plymouth a little. The school was pretty and had some fields behind it, a playground and a basketball court, all set against the jungle. We gathered along with AFS and Robin Nourie, and the amigos de monteverdes, in meeting for worship. The weather was perfect, and the atmosphere was peaceful. Some people stood up and voiced their thoughts. Afterwards we went to the cheese factory, and we took a break and had some milkshakes, and choco-cheese--weird stuff kinda gross in my opinion--but then we walked down the mountain and met for lunch in the central of Santa Elena at a pizza place called Natshas. Then we mwt at school and worked for the rest of the day.

THURSDAY
Today we worked in the morning and at this point we were getting ready to be finished with the work and get ready for the relaxing. We finished varnishing the wooden house classroom on top of the hill, the varnish which stuck to my hands for the rest of the day, and took a step closer, to finishing the steps. Later in the day we went to the Ranario--froggery?--and then i went home quickly to run so i could then meet people at the synthetic indoor soccer field and play some futbol. Davis a student at the colegio picked me up in a red honda motorcycle, and then I went for the ride of my life. It was fun granted but also terrifying, and yes mom I wore a helment. We played 5v5 soccer indoors and it was incredibly fun, someone had brought Jerseys for us to play in and we played until 7 or so. Then a group of us walked to where Davis had a job at a high class restaraunt and I had a mini beef mignons covered in a delicious onion sauce. After all that walking Reiss and I took a taxi, and the taxi dropped reiss off, and then the taxi took me back to my house, and I collapsed into bed-

FRIDAY
Today would be our last work day at Santa Elena, and we only worked for two hours today. We finished up our respective jobs, and when we were getting to go to the reserve to take a tour through the jungle, I was walking along the trail at the colegio (school) and I cam across a group of kids, their teacher, and then hanging upside down from a tree branch at about eye level, was a mother sloth and its baby. Right there in front of me, and so I ran back and grabbed my camera and took plenty of pictures of it. The poor baby though was sick and kept falling off the branch, and the teacher kept putting it back up. It was really cool. Then at the reserve we walked an walked for 2 hours and hardly saw anything, only a couple of birds and another sloth but much farther away. So later I ran again, hanged with my family, played music with my younger bros, and joked with my host dad, and then went to sleep.

SATURDAY
Today we got to sleep late!! To 8 or so. Today would be our last day in Santa Elena, the beautiful little mountain town. Matt T and I took some last pictures with the family at the house and then the whol family piled into the car to meet at school to get ready to go. It was sad, but nice-- we thanked our family many times, and exchanged addresses. It was nice, adn we packed up said goodbye and set of on the road again. It took us four hours to get to Arenal (only about 30 miles or so from Santa Elena yeah do the math) and the bus driver kept slowing down to take pictures! Its his job to drive the bus, if he wants to be a tourist let him hire a bus! anyways, the volcano approached closer and closer and appeared more ominous. You could see the slighest tinge of red at the top and it was cool. Our hotel we are at now is very nice. It has like 5 pools and some jacuzis. We just had dinner out, and I need to go to bed-- ok thanks,

Eddie