Aug 10-16: An Atypical Week at Schools + Deep Dish and Costa Rican Mother's Day

"Roll with the punches" and "expect the unexpected" are pretty common mantras for Peace Corps volunteers, particularly those of us who work within the school setting. I cant't tell you how many times during my two years of service that classes have unexpectedly been canceled or students/teachers didn't show up to something without warning. This week had a little bit of all of that. I went to the high school on Monday to work on my community service; however, from Wednesday through Friday, no one was at the colegio due to teachers' union meetings. Simiilarly, at the escuela, students weren't in class on Tuesday because of a math workshop elsewhere, and on Thursday, students left early due to water shortages in the community. This meant that I was only able to host one PE class this week, on Wednesday. However, I was able to use the extra free time during the week to get ahead on some closing documentation for Peace Corps and also ran and went to the gym.

The weekend was much more eventful than the work week. My girlfriend Keily and I try to do something nice to celebrate our "monthsary" every month, and on Friday, we celebrated 11 months. To mark the occasion, we went to a pizzeria (we both love pizza) where we ate some delicious Chicago-style deep dish. Although our Mother's Day in the States takes place on the second Sunday in May, Costa Rican Mother's Day always takes place on August 15th, regardless of the day of the week. So, on Saturday, Keily's family celebrated Mother's Day, and they invited me to join, where we ate one of Costa Rica's national dishes, "Chifrijo", as well as some cake and ice cream too. 





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