SB2K12

For the last year, since I found out I would be in Costa Rica, my JV friends and I have referred to Spring Break 2012 as a potential reunion and vacation for those who are working or back in school. Last week, the first installment of FJV visitors came. My friend Emily, who lived in Casa Jean Donovan in Koreatown last year, came on Friday to spend a few days of quality time together and to see Costa Rica. She is currently in seminary at Pacific School of Religion in Berkley, CA working torward her Master's of Divinity and is on the ordination track to be a pastor in her church, (United Church of Christ). She's been working hard all year so this vacation was well-earned!

After Emily arrived on Friday and met my community mates, we took off on Saturday for three nights in Manuel Antonio, the site of the national park that I visited with my family. It was my third visit to the park and each experience has been totally unique. This time, we stayed in a really cute hostel about 2km from the park and beach, so we walked the very hilly road to and from (we certainly got our exercise, which was great since we're both used to working out pretty frequently!) the beach.

Emily and me :)

On Sunday, we took a guided tour of the park with Henry, who was awesome. He loved having us in the group because the rest of his clients were a big family with young kids, so I think we offered some comedic relief for him. Plus, I even spotted an animal that he couldn't seem to find, which later landed me a position carrying his telescope as his "assistant." Here's a video he took for us!

 After the tour we spent the rest of the day on the beach until we literally had to move because the tide came all the way up. The next day we spent the day on a pretty isolated part of the public beach where we had sun, shade, and a ton of space and great waves. Later that evening we met up with my housemate Margie and her sister Ceclia who had just flown in to visit. They stayed at the same hostel so we went out to dinner together after enjoying sunset over the ocean from the hostel patio.

monkeys!

sloth!

on the beach 

view from the hostel...nbd

On Tuesday Emily and I came back to San Jose for dinner at home. Em left on Wednesday morning. The trip was certainly a success and it was so great to see her!

And if our always is all that we gave, And we someday take that away
I'll be alright if it was just 'til St. Patrick's Day - John Mayer  

On Saturday we brought some Irish spirit to Costa Rica by throwing a St. Patrick's Day party for our gringo and tico friends. We decorated the house, made all sorts of green food, and dressed the part. The theme was a little lost on some of our Costa Rican friends but I'm pretty sure everyone thought the idea was funny (or maybe the think we're a little funny...)  Either way, we had fun and the house looked great. 

An Irish Blessing...in Spanish

Fruit salad with green jello...tasted a lot better than it looked!

Homemade Soda Bread

Me, Margie, Katherine (our co-minister), and Molly

Sorry it's sideways, but I think you get the idea :)

This week at work has been a bit different. Guiselle, the teacher I work with, got married on Saturday and had the week off. That means the students don't come so I was asked to help out in the RM department. (RM = Retardo Mental, or Mental Retardation, which makes me cringe to say since it's not the most PC term...).   I'm with a group of kids who are about 14 in the morning and older kids who are mostly around 19 in the afternoons. So far I have been claimed the novia of many of the older boys and even got this cute letter yesterday. I'll be staying with this older group 2-3 days a week when I'm done with Guilselle's group and I'm excited to build relationships with them! 

Lent Retreat

After my family took off, I went to work for one day and found out that it had been a rough week while I was gone. For the first time, all 9 students had shown up, and Guiselle and Ale said it was rough with just two of them. All the students need support to do work, and more than one needs constant vigilance to make sure there are no incidents. On top of that, a few need monitoring in the bathroom and at times need more than one set of hands. I felt badly to miss out on a tough week, but was grateful for time with my family. 

Sr. Caryn, Friar Rick, & Jordan

On Friday evening, we went to Alejuela to visit two groups of college students who were in San Jose for Alternative Spring Break trips. One of the groups was from Catholic University (the other from Duke) so Margie actually knew the chaperone and a few of the participants. We had pizza with them at the convent where we’ve had retreats. It was a lot of fun!

On Saturday, we left early for a retreat center in Heredia. The center is run by a community of cloistered nuns who originally come from Mexico. The ground were absolutely beautiful and we practically had the whole place to ourselves. We each had our own bedroom and were able to spend much of the weekend relaxing and reading. Our discussions and activities were based off a book that Friar Rick, Sister Caryn, and Jordan brought for us called Touching the Holy. In between reading and reflective discussions we enjoyed the perfect weather (though it was extremely windy…sounded like hurricane winds!), and did some fun crafty projects. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine

coffee break!

La Negrita shrine

After the retreat, we went out to dinner with the friars, Yamy, and Marta. We went to a Spanish restaurant that opened just for us. The chef made the biggest paella I’ve ever seen, invited us into the kitchen to watch him cook, and kept the sangria and appetizers flowing while he was preparing. He has a soft spot for Franciscans since he used to be a friar himself!  

Paella!!

On Tuesday, we had a final meal with Friar Rick, Jordan, and Sister Caryn before they flew back to Syracuse. Nicole's friend came into town to visit and they made a delicious meal of chicken parm for us all! Later in the evening we skyped with the crew back in Syracuse (as we try to do on the 13th of every month since we are FC13!). It was fun to have the directors/co-ministers on our side of the computer screen for a change. Below you'll see Friar Rick and Molly modeling some of the gear they brought us from the States for St. Patrick's Day!

Zippilli's Do Costa Rica!

Last week the Zippilli clan was reunited here in Costa Rica for the first installation of Spring Break 2012 visitors. Emily was on break from St. Joe's so she, Mom, and Dad flew down on Friday March 2nd. They spent one night at the friary in San Jose we had a lovely late dinner with Fray Jorge. He was such a wonderful host and told them all about life here Moravia. On Saturday morning we took off for La Fortuna, the small town near Arenal Volcano. We checked into a beautiful resort that was tucked away from the town and appropriately named The Lost Iguana. Our room was spectacular and had this breathtaking view of the volcano from our window:

View from our hotel

 On Saturday we enjoyed the pool's swim up bar for happy hour and dinner at the hotel. Sunday morning we left early for a day with a Naturalist. Jose, our tour guide, took us on a four hour tour of the hanging bridges. We saw all sorts of bird, plants and animals (though the monkeys and sloths were certainly the highlights!). He told us we must have been lucky, because we saw so many types of animals, even some that aren't usually active at that time of day!  Later he took us to hike down to La Fortuna waterfall, which was beautiful.  The hike back up the 450 steps was breath-taking in the most literal sense, but fun nonetheless.

sloth!

The next day, we made the five hour trip in van from La Fortuna to Manuel Antonio, a national park south of San Jose. (Our very first excursion in September was here but I was excited to go back and spend more time in the area since our last trip was quite short.) We arrived at the Parador Hotel, which is situated on a cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean and has a beautiful view of the park. The hotel was fantastic! We enjoyed the beach and took a walk down rather steep path to the local beach upon arrival.

made a pit-stop to see some crocs

Hotel Parador 

On Tuesday we were met early in the morning in the lobby by Andres, who was to be our tour guide for a tour of the park. With a group of tourists, we followed Andres along the parks trail to the beach, stopping along the way to see all sorts of birds and wildlife that call the park home.  There were groups of white-faced monkeys literally putting on a show for the tourists walking by (but let's be real, they were all stopped snapping pictures). After the tour, we dropped out stuff on the second beach. Apparently there were rip tide and poisonous tree warnings that we didn't heed, but we were perfectly fine...and had the entire beach to ourselves!
 

Later in the afternoon we got on board a small boat and took a tour of the mangrove. We learned all about
 a sunset catamaran tour out on the ocean. We went snorkeling, had dinner, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. Our guide was intent on providing entertainment too, so he pulled out his banjo and bag of instruments and we had a little reggae-style sing-a-long. I'll be honest - it was hilarious for the first 10 minutes and I was really into shaking that tambourine. But I got tired of it pretty quick and just wanted to enjoy the sunset! We saw the sun set and moon rise simultaneously; it was absolutely gorgeous.
 

The next day we headed back to San Jose so my family could see the city before they went home. We walked up and down Avenida Central, explored some churches and visited the artisan market. Emily went crazy buying souvenirs in her sorority colors for her friends at St. Joe's and my mom got some really beautiful artwork. Everyone was pretty exhausted from all the walking around the city so we hung out at the hotel for a bit before dinner. Funnily enough my parents booked the night at a place that shares a fence with Margie's worksite...I could practically hear the kids at the daycare screaming! Later we met up with my housemates and the directors of our program who were in town for our retreat. We met them all at a restaurant downtown and shared a very delicious meal. I had a blast and really enjoyed bringing my FrancisCorps family together with the Zippilli's.

My families!

I think once I'm back in the states, the Zippilli's will be stateside for a bit, unless Emily decided to go abroad and send us all on yet anouther cross-continental adventure :) It's been a big year, having Emily in Galway and me in San Jose, and having the four of us together here reminded me just how exciting it will be to be closer to them - and the rest of my family and friends - come July. However, before that can happen, there are still three more installments of SB2K12! My friend Emily, from JVC, comes next week; 4 of the FrancisCorps Volunteers from Syracuse come for Holy Week; and all 4 members of Casa Dorothy Kazel from my JV year in LA come in May! Have I mentioned lately, I love my life! :)

FrancisCorps Family Fun Weekend

Last weekend was the first in a month that all four of us were home in Moravia, so we scheduled some serious house bonding. We began on Friday night with homemade margaritas in our new blender, brownies, and homemade tortilla pizzas. The preparation was quite the team effort, and made dinner all that much more enjoyable. Later, we were in the mood for a chick flick (but let's be honest, when aren't we?) so we watched Leap Year to celebrate, well, the leap year!

Earlier in the week we had compiled a list of possible activties for Saturday - everything from hitting the beach to an art fest in San Jose to a picnic in the park. When we woke up to a cloudy, windy morning we opted for an indoors activity and hit the road to the San Pedro Mall. There, we treated ourselves to a double feature beginning with Beauty and the Beast (in 3D!), and followed by The Artist.  The Beauty and the Beast was dubbed in Spanish which was really fun. I didn't know anything about The Artist - more specifically, I didn't know it was a silent film - until I got there. I'm glad we saw it, especially since it won Best Picture the following night!  On our way home we stopped in a park for a quick photoshoot with some of the doves who have resided all around San Jose for the past few months; they are part of the "Peace Parade." We don't know a lot of details about Peace Parade, but we know that the doves are really cool pieces of art!

We got this very clever Valentine's Day gift from Friar Rick...as if we need a reminder ...

We wrapped up our bonding weekend with mass together at St. Francis and then a gourmet pancake and fruit brunch at home. [Sidenote: summer in Costa Rica = lots of yummy summer fruit for wicked cheap. We have had some of the sweetest, tastiest watermelon, cantelope, and pineapple I've ever tasted in my life lately.  Since it's mango season now, you can buy 4 mangos for $1.  It's delicious, local, and well within our food budget!]  After brunch we worked together to give our house a good spring (er, dry season?) cleaning which made us all feel better.

At Centeno this week, we are finally back in the swing of full days. All 9 of my students have yet to show up on the same day, but honestly I'm a bit nervous for the day they do. We have a really wide range of needs, energy levels, communication abilities, and aggression levels in our class, so I think we're all a little nervous about the new group dynamics.  In the meantime, though, I've had a blast with Guiselle and Ale and the students. Juan Gabriel is such a love; he practically won't let me talk to him in Spanish anymore...he's all about practicing his English with me.

Volcan Irazu

This week has been all about getting acquainted at school school. The students have been coming for just two hours each day so Giselle, the new teacher I will be working with, can meet with parents to learn more about each students' needs and abilities. We will have nine students in the group this year with an even wider range of ability than last year. Most are blind and visually impaired but some have perfect vision; most have limited mobility but some can walk and run faster  than me; most are nonverbal but some can hold full conversations; most are pretty calm but some are really active or aggressive. Since the days are so short, only a couple kids have been coming each day. This has given me a chance to get reacquainted with them and work one on one with them, which is always fun.

At home, it's been pretty quiet. Literally. With only four people in our fairly spacious house, it seems a bit empty. Plus, Molly has been away with her parents for most of the week so it's really only been three of us! On Tuesday night we celebrated "El Dia del amor y la amistad" at the friary. Friar Jorge, who was visiting from Rome, made a delicious dinner. He is originally from Argentina and dazzled us with all sorts of Argentinean-style BBQ.  It turns out that he is the Assistant General of Latin America, which basically means that he is responsible to the Minister General in Rome for all the Conventual Franciscans in Latin America. Big deal! We were excited to be able to share a little bit about FrancisCorps with him, since (as far as we know) we are the only Franciscan volunteers (within the Conventual order at least) in Latin America.

Volcan Irazu

Yesterday, Molly, Nicole, and I, along with two of our new student-teacher friends, took a bus trip to Volcan Irazu for the morning. It was a really easy trip from San Jose to the national park, where we spent a couple hours enjoying the view of the crater lake. We met some interesting folks - other tourists, local nuns, etc - and were really happy to finally see a volcano without a view obstructed by clouds! (Pictures below!). Hope all is well with you at home!  

Back to School

It's strange to experience the Back-to-School season in mid-February. Although the weather is reminiscent of late August back home, it is just odd to see school supplies lining shelves next to Valentine's Day gifts and decorations. During my few weeks of work in San Jose with Margie, I saw dozens of stores advertising huge sales on books, uniforms, school supplies, shoes, and other sorts of back-to-school necessities.

All the public schools in Costa Rica started on Wednesday, including Centeno Guell. Staff reported on Monday for some general meetings and re-organization of classrooms. I arrived on Monday morning to find out that the Ministerio de Educacion Publica (MEP) has still not named a department director for us. At that time, none of the teachers even knew which groups they would be working with for the school year. I was shocked. I thought back to all those years of going up to the doors of Bret Harte and Rosa to see what teacher or team I was with at the end of the summer, or waiting anxiously for my class schedule to come in the mail from Cherry Hill East.  That is just so not the case here! 

Anyway, I spent this past week at school helping get the classroom ready (which really just meant unpacking everything I'd helped box up in the same room two months ago!). I will be working with the same group of students for the next few months, but the group is growing from 6 to 9 students. Alexandra is returning as the assistant, but the teacher is new. Giselle will be in her first year at Centeno but has spent many years working at Helen Keller, a high school for blind students and integration center for adults with multiple disabilities. It sounds like many students from Centeno end up at Helen Keller after they turn 21 and end their cycle at Centeno. I'm looking forward to working with her!

At home, we've had two great weeks of co-minister dinners. Last week, Juan Gabriel joined us on the eve of his 28th birthday, so we made him a cake to celebrate. Nicole decorated it with the symbol for his favorite soccer team, La Liga. This is just a sign of how much we love him...as a house, we have become Saprissa fans, and our two teams are the biggest rivals in the country!

Liga Liga Liga!

This week, Katherine and Fray David joined us. Fray David has recently moved into the friary here in Moravia. He's about 30 and will be working with the elementary school st St. Francis. We are excited to have another friar around to get to know!

Super Bowl spread

Last weekend, as promised, Nicole, Margie and I went back to Jaco. We went just for the day, which was perfect. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate as well as last time, but that means no sunburn (always a plus!).  The following day, John joined us for a little Super Bowl celebration a la Tico. We made tortiallas and then tortilla pizzas, along with frijoles molidos and chips and such. Our watch party was pretty tranquilo but very fun. Also this week had the pleasure of having both the Connell family AND the Boyle family join us for dinner. Amanda and Molly's parents were both in town and came over for dinner (on different evenings). It was so fun to get to know them!


Finally, sadly we took Amanda to the airport this morning to head home to Spokane, WA. She's been having some pretty significant health issues here, so it's best for her to go home and recover. We will miss her terribly but all know that our experience as a community of five is not over, and that this is absolutely the best decision for her. We appreciate the support of Friar Rick, Jordan, as well as all the friars here in Moravia who have been so attentive to her (and all of us). The house will feel empty with only four of us here until July!