alan test blog

We went to a couple of volcanoes over the weekend.  Lots of fun.  Videos coming soon, including some dancing action.

Sometimes, natural beauty can be ruined by tourism.

Other times, natural beauty is left untouched.
We saw a few animals...
...and acted like animals ourselves.
Don't forget the plants and waterfalls.
Even the cows too.

 

Judith and the crew of Peruvian medical students sift through stacks of medical charts. We are doing a retrospective study on malnutrition, looking at the age, height, and weight of children less than 5 years old.

As Dr. Schnuth commented to me, the clouds are low! Or, depending on your perspective, you could say that we´re just really high up! Many days we could see the clouds hanging in the valleys much lower than where we are now at the top!!! There´s no experience similar to walking through a cloud, as it spits rain in your face ;)

Here is another family we interviewed from La Florida. You can see the adobe house in the background. And the layers of clothing are necessary, as it´s equally cold inside as outside.... especially when in the clouds and at night! Brrrrrrr.......

On a beautifully sunny day this is a normal scene.... impresionante!

Sometimes we had to hide from the rain. Even with umbrellas the wind could easily soak you from the side, especially as you ascend the mountains up serious inclines! We would just camp out and chat until the floodgates again closed :)

Hey, everybody.  Alan, Boramee, Josh, Sara, and Sukhi here.  It's been a while since our last update, so I'll share a few more things than I originally planned.  Here we go...

Saturday we arrived in San Jose, CR.  The area is much more developed than Limon, Nicaragua, where we were previously.  The city is much bigger than say, Lansing, Michigan, and it has all the amenities of a big city, like good public transit, city tours, plenty of restaurants, etc.

We are each staying with host families in nearby Santa Ana.  The hospitality of the people here is incredible and living with a family has been a great way to immerse ourselves in the culture here.

On Sunday, along with my host mom, we toured around the city, using a "train" that goes around the city.

There were lots of beautiful churches...
...and beautiful parks.
But perhaps the most exciting thing was that Sunday was also the day of the Costa Rican general elections.  The air was filled with the sounds of car horns and people everywhere were proud to display their political affiliations.
Even kids were into it.
Many people were crowded around the central part of the city, supporting their favorite candidate.
And if you didn't support their candidate, expect a little talk.
By the way, Laura won.  She is the first female president in Costa Rica's history.

Monday, we arrived at the clinic.

Tuesday, we worked in the clinic and attended Spanish class in San Jose.  Here, we receive 4 hours of Spanish class each week.

Today at clinic we prepared for our first charla, which we will give tomorrow.  It's going to be great.  More in our next update.

Also in the next update, Dr. Schnuth introduces us to the clinic.

Adios!

We have been in sunny El Salvador for 1 week now and it has been wonderful!