Change is here.

Laura leaves today - in about an hour she will board her bus to Panama City, the first stage of her week long journey home to Greece (she'll spend a few days in England visiting friends). We had a good time at the beach - the food was indeed very good. The waves unfortunately were not ideal. The sea was quite flat until, few and far between, really big swells came but still only the really experienced were able to ride them. I, weakling that I am, did not even try the second day. The sun was too hot and also I knew if Laura and others were having difficulty there was no way I would really succeed... so I just watched and learned. Perhaps next time (after some serious training or something) I'll be able to go in and be a pro.

A friend who's been traveling around Costa Rica came down for a day from San Jose.. which is a long enough journey as it is.. and he came on his motorcycle. Wow. And he had a rough journey as well - the long hours, getting soaked by the rain - twice, the clutch on his bike fell off. Poor guy. But we all had fun and hopefully that made up for it all. We did some surfing, biking, walking, ping-pong, saw 'wild' horses running on the beach, met some new people from Holand, Norway and Costa Rica and had some good food and good conversation.

It will be so strange going home today. I'll get back to the house and everything will seem normal - Doña Delsa will be there waiting for us to return, I'll go in a get a drink of water, then I'll head up to my place and it will be empty. Only a few of my things will be there. I'll take all the time I want showering because no one will be waiting. After dinner I'll go up alone, I won't hear anyone else zipping and unzipping their tents, in the morning I'll start my day without anyone there. It's so interesting - one of the hardest parts about my year of service was accustoming myself to never being alone and now at the end I'm alone again and not really looking forward to it. But really, it's only at the beginning and the ends of the day that I think I will feel it. Inbetween I will be with friends from the community or they will come to the house to visit. I'll have to prepare and give all of the classes that previously we were all doing. And besides, soon a large group of youth will arrive and I certainly won't feel alone :). I wonder what they'll be doing - I've heard quite a few different versions, but I don't know what will turn out... I think tonight I will try to get out the plans from Anne.

Well, farewell to Laura and Linda, it's been a pleasure. We'll keep in touch - you guys need to start that process 'cause I'll still have little internet access for a while - and I can't wait to visit you people in Iceland and Greece!