oh god how i miss my lazy days of internet and food

for lack of time, here is a copy and paste of the email that I just sent my brother.


Hey Daniel,

I´m fine, I´m in Liberia, Costa Rica. I arrived safely and there was a girl standing there with a sign for me and two other girls so don´t worry! It´s just hard to find the free time to run to an internet cafe and get online every day, we´re always in meetings and doing training stuff so I won´t be online very much.

My phone card that I bought for 2 dollars only had like 7 minutes on it, and I think I used 2 yesterday to call Umma and Appa. So I´ll try to call once a week for a minute or two, just to say a quick "hi!". And also I´ll hopefully be able to go online at least once a week and write an email or something.

Last night it rained really hard, and it was thundering outside for a good hour or two before the rain poured down. Apparently this is their winter, or their rainy season. It can get pretty hot! But it´s not AS hot as I feared- I think the heat wave in Philly prepared me well for Costa Rica. Anything less than 90 degrees and I´m like, wow it´s nice and cool. Also when it was raining yesterday the power went out for an hour or so. So our flashlights that we brought came in handy, tell Umma that.

We´re staying at a dorm for the University of Costa Rica. It´s okay, we have showers with cold water and bathrooms and a kitchen we can use and even a TV attached to the wall in Spanish. I was a bit surprised at how shabby the dorm was though. I guess Mount Holyoke´s dorms are really nice. These aren´t... as nice.

I know this could be difficult but please try to translate this to Umma and Appa. If there are words that you don´t know you can google "korean english dictionary" and find the right word- that´s what I always do. Anyway, I think that they might be worrying and tell them not to. We´re continuing with the orientation/training until tomorrow, and then we have training until Saturday. Sunday we´re going on a field trip, I don´t know where yet. And next week is when we start going to schools and teaching little kids!

I´ll try to keep you guys updated,

Noona


So

1) I have 5 minutes left on this computer before I have to go and powerwalk back to our dorm because lunch is at 2 and I am hungry and also, we can´t be late.

2) I miss the internet so so so so so much. I miss having a phone. Every time I see a local volunteer with a phone pressed to their head, presumably calling someone, I get a wave of longing- I used to have a working phone once! I did that too... once. I was also CONNECTED TO THE WORLD.

3) Free times are really brief and sporadic. I never know when we will get it. So I never know when I will be able to go online.

4) The food is ok, considering that it´s food bought cheap and locally to feed 21 hungry volunteers. On the upside, I don´t really get enough to eat. Um. I suppose that´s not really a positive point. I don´t want to take too much food when I think we don´t have enough and there are like 3 guys standing in line behind me.

So I´m hungry like an hour or two after we eat and to bear I keep telling myself to think about all the weight I´ll be losing. Losing weight = always good, right!

5) Now I really have to go. Kathy, I´m sorry I couldn´t see the world cup. it was on the TV and there were costa rican boys who REALLLYYY wanted to watch it but we had a meeting during. i heard the announcement though. we won!! and be we I mean spain.