Agua Dulce: Vacation! Sort of...

As I wrote in the previous post, our high school students finished their exams the second week of October. This meant that we took two weeks of vacation the last two weeks of Oct. But the first week of vacation wasn't really vacation. We had ADE meetings. Every. Single. Day. All day. It was exhausting, but we hammered out some very important things such as the vision and mission of our organization, plans for a development conference in Jan 2012, plans for visiting groups for next year, plans for school next year, etc.

The good news is, the second week of vacation was really vacation! On Sunday the whole ADE team went to see our local soccer team (Alajuela) play at the National Stadium in San Jose. Alajuela won 3-0. We then checked out the park next to the stadium, which is filled with awesome rainbow eucalyptus trees. We concluded the day by eating granizados and ice cream in the plaza in Heredia.

Reading at the soccer game???

The Chinese built this stadium for Cost Rica.
As you can see, their idea of scale is a little off for such a small country.

Our current intern, Sean

Nathan, Jordan, Chelsea, Frances, Nadia

Monday, Frances and I actually worked, Frances translating ADE's vision and mission and I translating and formatting financial statements for ADE and the school for the last eight months for the ADE board to look over.

Tuesday, Frances and I took off for Playas del Coco on the northwest Pacific coast of Costa Rica. We arrived after a five hour bus ride and moved into a beautiful villa near the beach, courtesy of our friend A. Frances worked with A a few years ago in Washington, D.C. in a program called Peace Thru Culture, which helps young people learn about different cultures and leadership. A brought two PTC groups from DC to visit us here in July and learn about the local Costa Rican culture.

Just blocks from where we stayed was a beautiful little bay called Playa Ocotal. As many of you know, beaches are pretty much our favorite places to be and the sun and heat were a great change after three weeks of rain and cold in Vara Blanca. The bay has a coral reef and the beach is soft black volcanic sand. There were more shells there than I had ever seen on a beach! It was also pretty secluded and we spent most of our three days there lounging on the beach.

Frances and I decided while we were there that we both love the beach and the warm weather so much that, at some point in our lives (hopefully sooner rather than later), we want to live near the ocean in a warm climate. During this vacation we also felt the strain of living by faith and not by salary support. We have struggled with not having pay checks during the whole time we've been here and with our rather diminished savings account, but being in a place where there is wealth all around and everything is priced for wealthy tourists really emphasized how little we have. We walked a lot, told snorkeling guides that we couldn't go because we didn't have any money, and we ate microwaved oatmeal for breakfast to save money.

However, seeing the contrast in that area of the very, very rich playing leisurely in close proximity with people who have very little reminded us of why we are here and why we have chosen to live our lives in solidarity with the poor. Things may seem hard to us, but we still have so much and many people in the world, even in a relatively well-off country like CR, have so little and have no choice in the matter. We have the choice to pick up and leave at any time. So, while our vacation was a great time of relaxation and time alone together as a couple, it also reminded us that there are very real injustices in the world and that we are trying to live our lives in such a way as to challenge some of those injustices in whatever small (or large) ways possible.