April Showers Bring.... Jules and Justin!

I am ECSTATIC.

My cousin Julie, one of my biggest supporters throughout the last 15 months I have spent here in Nica, arrives on FRIDAY with the ever so marvelous Justin :) They're coming almost exclusively to see what life's like here in Cusmapa, to meet my friends and family and students here, to know my loved ones and to bear witness to the hardship and joys people in my pueblo live every day. I am so blessed to have these two in my life, and cannot wait to watch the sunset and drink tea and manifesto and learn and love and live with them until May!

I had an incredible journey through Costa Rica for nearly two weeks with Kayla, Marcy, Jessica, and Harley (all Missoula buddies of mine)- we frolicked the beaches on the Pacific side and the rainforests in the Carribean. Activities included- beach tours by microbus (aka: party-bus), boogie boarding at sundown, watching baby sloths clamber in branches right at head-level, hooting and howling at monkeys at sunrise, ribbiting at tree frogs, marveling at flowers of all shapes sizes and colors, pirating a snorkel trip (poor other tourists didn't know what was coming), reggae sing-alongs with taxi drivers, blowing fireballs, meeting a wide array of some of the craziest and kindest people I've ever met traveling (Manfred the Austrian scuba diver/dead fish collector/short-shorts wearing drunkard being the main event), looooong busrides over mountain passes through driving rainstorms at night, watching smoke rise from the mouth of an active volcano, lots of Flor de Caña (Nicaragua's specialty rum), bike rides through the rainforest interrupted by pizza and beer pit-stops along the way, galloping down the beach on my misbehaved horse, Rubio, eating LOBSTERS, salsa dancing with waiters, hanging with the rhastas... the memories go on and on and on. Needless to say I am suddenly afflicted with both a dire need to get the heck out of dodge and see more of the world and it's many marvels yet with one side of my heart stuck here in a place where one word from one student or one "Adioooos Pues" from a teetering old man on the street makes my heart melt.

Life continues to overflow with such goodness, that I am often left breathless.