bits and bobs

These last few days have felt strange, but in a lovely sort of way. I didn´t think eleven days could pass so quickly. I think most of us can say that we´ve fallen into pleasant patterns with our host families and have gotten to know our way around the center of Atenas. I know I´m going to miss getting up at six to have coffee with my host mother and watch daylight creep up from behind the mountains of the valley.

We went went to a volcano on Sunday. The change in temperature was incredible-- We went from being dusty and overheated to shivering in the bus, closing our windows and appreciating our host mothers´ insistence on bringing along extra layers. Further up near the crater was covered in fog and you could feel yourself breathing it in. There were viewing platforms where you could stand up against the railing to look  at the crater but for most of our hike up all we could see was heavy, white fog and it felt a little like looking at the end of the world. But by late morning the sun came and the fog dispersed. Supposedly this is a peek into what the cloud forrest will be like, on the last strech of our trip.

The past few days we´ve been working on a project having to do with recycling in Atenas. We broke up into groups that approached the issue in different ways: a survey for our host mothers, finding key informants to interview, systematically observing people in the park. It wasn´t until we came together this afternoon that all the pieces started fitting together that we had a clearer, wholer picture of what was going on.

We´ll be leaving on Thursday for Panama. Wish us luck.