Settling into a New Day-to-Day

I like to go new places to shake up routines and see what I uncover. We shook things up by leaving Oakland for a year and getting here. Now we play with finding a balance, between the excitement of daily new discoveries and the new day-to-day routines of school, work, play, friendships, feeding ourselves, listening to what’s around us…

Alia’s new school, the Escuela de los Amigos de Monteverde, deserves a post of its own. With 120 students pre-K – 12, the little kids feel like a part of something bigger. They have a beautiful room all their own.

They share the playground with grades 1 – 12, so they step around older kids who are reading together and playing soccer.

Back at home, Ed and I have set aside corners of the house as offices, where we connect to California while looking outside at the trees and the coatis and monkeys. This is my office space.

And Ed’s.

And a monkey who came by to say hello.

We’ve started cooking and inviting friends to dinner. Sometimes we get creative, and often we rely on delicious Costa Rican staples of rice, tortillas, black beans, lots of vegetables, and bananas.

I have Spanish classes two days a week and teach a small English class two days a week to some parents from the school.

We get our groceries by walking a few kilometres into Santa Elena… and either walking or taking a taxi back with our bags loaded down with pineapples, mangos, papayas and a few other things. Here’s our author friend Katie on her way back from shopping in town.

When the big storm arrives — very many days around 2pm — it invites relaxation at home.