Dear readers:

My name is Alon and I'm one of two staff advisers on our ASB. It's been quite a trip so far, and we just completed one of our busier days -- here's a quick recap:


- It was our third day at the Manos de Jesus nursing home. At this point our amazing team knows pretty much every one of the 38 residents by name, and many close connections have been made. I think it will be tough to say goodbye to these folks, and I'm sure they'll be very sad to see us go on Friday afternoon. We spent much of our day cleaning but also interacted with the residents as usual. Towards the end of the day we found out that we'll get the opportunity to paint a mural. The space is a small but centrally located utility structure with two bare concrete walls. It's an interesting space with lots of potential -- I'm curious to see how this turns out.

- We came back and had an amazing lunch (described by many as our "strongest" of the trip), then had about 15 minutes to recover before jumping into two vans and travelling to Volcan Irazu, the highest volcano in Costa Rica and the only place in America from which it's possible to see both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans at the same time (but only on completely clear days, which we weren't lucky enough to have). The drive was gorgeous and there were some great views from the rim of the crater when clouds weren't enveloping the place (which they did most of the time). Also: lots of pictures silly picture-taking, including of midair jumps and rapid-fire wheelcarts. Good times.

- We came back to Homa Base, went almost straight to reflections immediately followed by dinner. 10 minutes after *that* we all took a walk down to Estadio José Rafael Fello Meza Ivankovich stadium, home of Cartago's soccer team: Club Sport Cartaginés. I've been to many sporting events -- this one was completely unique. The 13,000+ seat stadium was full to capacity and the place was electric. The crowd was singing, chanting and durmming the way you only get to see on TV. "We" (that's Team Cartago) scored a fluke goal early and held onto the 1-0 lead for the next 70 minutes before San Jose tied the game. To beat the rush we left early (not before buying lots of jerseys) and don't actually know how the game ended :P Very fun experience nonetheless.

We've got a more relaxed day planned for tomorrow before our grand finale on Friday. Until that time: mahalo.