A New Career in Art...I Think Not!

 Sunday afternoon, my host family hosted a watercolor painting class that was free to the public at their gallery.  I have not taken an art class since I was required to in middle school so it was an interesting experience for me to say the least.  We were supposed to draw the vase in the background but try to use our imagination and not just copy down the colors, so needless to say I went a little bit crazy I think.  About half way through the dad told me that I better quit for the day because I had used so much water to paint with that all my colors were starting to run together.  So I finished up for the day and the project now awaits me at the studio whenever I have some time to finish it up.  By the end I had a good time and learned a lot more about painting but concluded that I am no artist although the family assured me it looked good (I think they were just saying that though).

This morning I left the house bright and early to head up the hill to the Cloud Forest School.  Although I have been to the school before this was the first day that I had to walk up the hill and let me tell you it is a hill indeed.  It is 400m straight uphill and just when you think you have gotten there you realize you haven't.  I will have to take a picture in the morning on my way back up.  It is very good exercise though which is something that I really need but am getting plenty of walking everywhere here in the mountains. 

Today I volunteered with an organization called Costa Rica Conservation Foundation.  This organization has a very nice nursery where they grow thousands of trees that they plant every year.  Today we had a group of high school students that had come in to plant trees for the morning.  It was very interesting to work with so many different students, half the group was really excited about it and wanted to work hard, while the other half showed up in shorts, tank tops, and flip flops and didn't want to get dirt under their nails.  I don't know what exactly they were expecting to do but I think it was a lot harder work than they ever imagined.  We had a good time though and by the time it was all said and done we had 400 trees planted on a hillside.  Tomorrow comes another group double the size so I will be very interested to see how many trees we can get planted!

 This is the hill that we planted trees on.  Before we could even plant trees though we had to clear away all of the tall grass that was cut down yesterday.  We finally figured out it was easier to start at the top and started rolling all the grass together to get it to the bottom of the hill.  By the time we finished this entire hill was planted in trees and we  had moved farther to the left of this photo.  Tomorrow I hope to have pictures of the entire hillside planted with trees.

 This is a picture looking down into the valley where the trees were planted.  The weather was perfect for tree planting today.  The sun was out but there was a constant breeze and mist that kept us very cool (sometimes too cool) but we all had a great time.  Tomorrow will bring yet another trek up the hill as well as about 50 more high school students who I hope will be as excited as I am to plant some more trees!