Last week, on Thursday, we had a field trip in Spanish class to a tobacco factory just outside of town. It was really big and we got a tour about the whole process. It was really interesting. We watched the whole process and learned a lot. The place smelled really strongly of cigars, though. I think my favorite part was seeing all the pretty wooden boxes they get sent out in. After the factory, we went to this woman’s house were she makes vino del café, or coffee wine. I didn’t understand what it was until we went and tasted it. It actually tastes like a mixture of coffee and wine, it’s a strange combination, I prefer the two separate, but it wasn’t bad. She explained the process of how she ferments the café, it really is a unique idea. This woman also makes wonderful cakes with coffee. We had some, and it was so moist and chocolately, with a taste of coffee. It was definitely some of the best cake I’ve ever had. It was a really fun day.

Monday we had cultural day, so we each made a typical dish with our families and then we all got together with the families and had a little party. We each had to explain in Spanish the recipe of what we made. All the volunteers had to come up with games to play, like we had pin the tail on the donkey, the hokey pokey, and pictionary. It was really nice. We had it in the evening, and the house we had it at has a big patio with lots of plants, and it reminded me of Lord of the Rings in Hobbiton, with the mossy trees and the lanterns. It was so peaceful. Some students performed some traditional dancing for us. We only have five more days here, and I’m really sad about it. I’m going to miss my buddy Brayan. I plan on coming back to visit, if possible. I really like my family here and the town.

We had our third technical interviews Monday with the project directors and they gave me some clues about my site. I’ll be in a small site, near a city, and after my two month home stay, I can move to the city if I want. My counterpart is working in developing the municipality, and his wife is working with a group of women who want to start micro enterprises, so I’ll have lots of project options. They told me that my counterpart called Sunday to check when to come pick me up and he´s really excited to have a volunteer, so that’s exciting. My counterpart will also be my homestay family, and they actually just built me a room, so they’re really getting ready to have me. I found out I’m replacing a volunteer, which makes me a little nervous because I won’t be blazing my own path, I’ll be following their projects and expectations the community already has. But it will make integration easier and it should give me more freedom to start and expand projects, hopefully there will be less setbacks. We will have three months overlapping, of working together, so I really hope we get along well. I meet my conterpart in less than a week. We find out our sites on Monday and we meet our counterparts on Wednesday. It’s so crazy. I’m getting nervous, Peace Corps is really about to begin. So far it’s been pretty easy going, just going to Spanish class and working together on little projects, but in a few weeks we’ll be all alone and responsible for integrating into our communities and starting our projects. I’m excited though.

Tuesday and Wednesday we had our rural tourism field trip to Los Llanos and it was a lot of fun. We slept in this big room which used to be a restaurant and the property was really big and there was an empty swimming pool and a fire pit. Tuesday we rode horses to a farm and learned about cows and pigs, and we went to a sugar cane farm and got to cut down the cane with a machete and then we ground it to make this sugar cane drink. Riding horses was really fun and it was exciting getting to use the machete. In the afternoon we made hand-made fishing poles out of sticks and fishing line and used screws as weights and we went fishing in this pond out in the countryside. A couple people caught fish but they were about the size of your little finger. It was really pretty and relaxing. When we got back, we played soccer in the empty swimming pool. Then we all sat around the empty pool and talked and it was really nice. Saturday night we had a campfire, which took a while to get started since all the wood was wet, and we roasted marshmallows. We couldn’t find normal ones, we could only find the colored tropical flavored kind, but they were still really good. We have a really fun group. I really hope I get stationed near some of them.

Wednesday we went to a different cow farm and a saw a fish project in Las Manos, on the Nicaraguan border. The farmer was a good speaker and explained things well and had good insights about the environment and the importance of agriculture. Jorge, our project director, gave us a speech about how people are malnourished from lack of knowledge or change of thought, and we have to show them how they can start fish projects and things like that. He’s so motivational. Then we went to a café finca and learned about the café harvest, which really begins in December. Then we picked some corn and roasted it, and it was excellent. That was pretty much it, I love field trips. We leave El Paraiso on Tuesday to go back to Santa Lucia, where we started off. I can’t believe we’re almost done with FBT!