One month, mates!

In a month, yours truly will be jetting off to Costa Rica. Lordy, am I excited! Well technically, bus to Sydney, flight to NZ, then stopover at LAX... but you know. Technical-schmenical. We got our travel manuals by mail and received an email telling us what projects we were assigned to yesterday. And boy, am I in love with my project.

ASOCUENCA Community Development Project
Basically, ASOCUENCA is a farmers' association comprising representatives of the Community Development Associations of five communities: Santa Elena, Quizarra, San Francisco, Santa Marta, and MonteCarlo. The mission statement: to protect the watershed of the Penas Blancas River and to aid in the development of the Alexander Skutch Biological Corridor. The corridor will help in the recuperation of the remaining tracts of evergreen tropical rain forest in the country, in specific, the Los Cusingos Sanctuary for Neotropical Birds and Las Nubes Biological Reserve.

What will I be doing?

• Reforestation of farmland located in the corridor
• Maintainence at the school (Teaching English!)
• Construction, maintenence, and painting of public facilities in cooperation with Santa Elena Community Association, the Health Committee, the Sports Committee and the Church Committee.
• Supporting the work at Los Cusingos Reserve, eg. trail construction, planting fruit trees and bushes as food sources for birds and other wildlife, and maintenence of the Historical Alexander F. Skutch Museum
  

It sounds exactly like what I hoped I would get. On my face was plastered a shit-eating grin until I came to a snag. In the daily timetable, it says 6 am: Breakfast. Good lord. That means I actually have to wake up before 6 am. Holy...

I'm still psyched though.

Then, I saw the departure date for the flight. I'll be leaving LAX on Feb 2nd and arriving at Sydney on Feb 4th. Blah. Birthday-Schmirthday. (You'd think this sch-thing business would get old, but it really doesn't).

Yeap.

Still pretty darn psyched.