Just because it´s been a weird week doesn't mean it wasn't a good one.

My sister in the United States is buying me tee-shirts from H&M tonight.  I hope I don't cry for joy in the post office when they arrive because that would probably be embarrassing.  But when you weigh personal embarrassment against your favorite tee-shirts and the love of a sister...well.  Things might get emotional no matter how much I try to keep a lid on it.  Especially if she includes peanut butter in the package.

This week, I reached a really good place mentally.  I realized that I can't imagine not being in my town for two years.  So much of my time has been dedicated to telling myself that it will be okay, that one day I'll feel comfortable and like I belong and like I don't want to leave.  I don't want to say that I've completely achieved that – in my mind, there's usually always something I can do better, some other way that I should be attaching myself to this place (“Will I ever know silence without mental violence?...” The Avett Brothers).  And there are some things that still challenge me – no matter where a person goes in this world, things will happen that push buttons and envelopes and boundaries.  But I feel at home.  I'm comfortable in the knowledge that I'm making friends, that my host mom thinks of me as one of her children.  I'm confident that there'll be work to do when I hear the people in my town talk about the projects they want to do.  I'm adding certain qualities to myself and expanding on others, putting some things on hold and cutting some bullshit out completely.

My dad says that you have to grow where you're planted.  I feel green, young in this scheme of things.  But every day my roots push deeper.  It's impossible to unsuccessfully plant things in Costa Rica, haha.  Everything grows here.

And on that note, 56 little trees arrived at my doorstep yesterday, a gift of MINAE (the national something-or-other agency for environmental something-or-other...I'm pretty sure they're the head honchos for everything nature-related in the country.  Which is a lot of stuff.).  My local development organization said, “Maybe you can reforest or something.”  And I asked for more details and they said, “Nope, whatever you want to do is good.”  Cool.  Where exactly do you put that many trees considering that you want them to one day be tree-sized?  You can't just plant them next to each other.  And someone's gotta be responsible for taking care of them once they're spread out all over creation.  But anyway, it's green, so it's good I suppose.

So today I went to the school and talked to the kids about how to create organic compost in a soda bottle...Holla at m'boy Aaron, the resident abono orgánico expert!  It's a regular, empty two liter bottle and I poked holes in the cap so that air can get in and aid the decomposition.  Every day for 21 days, any non-citric food item can copped into tiny pieces and put inside.  The first day you add a dollop of honey or a spoonful of sugar (I hope that sugar thing's right, because that's what I told them).  After 21 days there's a rank, dark liquid in the bottle that is perfect for...you guessed it, fertilizing 56 little trees!

The kids are going to do this during their 24 day vacation which starts tomorrow, I'm taking care of the trees in my backyard and at some point I'll call them and we'll prepare a small orchard at the school.  The trees are still small so we have to till a make-shift nursery until they're big enough to stick somewhere else in the community.  Woohoo, reforestation.