Amureci and my big old face!

For the rest of the week I have been helping at Amureci which is the women´s group which make recycled products and are trying to relaunch their business in this tougher economic climate. Having finished re-furbishing the shop I spent my days here this week helping to make jewellery for them to sell. Now, I dont mean to blow my own trumpet but my range of bracelet was pretty damn good! I´d have bought on, I might even do that next week. They loved them and I was really proud as if they seel them it´ll be much more profit for them. One of the ladies named Myra asked meto make one for her, which I did on Friday and she loved it and I now feel really happy to think she will be wearing that in the future.
The work there is so relaxed and is like a family atmosphere and the ladies children and husbands come in and out, visiting and to have coffee or lunch. Although they all work hard at Amureci their husbands and children come everyday for a proper lunch and they dash around from eleven cooking full meals to be on the table by 11.30, when the children break at school for lunch. This thursday I got to join them in their lunch as myra had made a big amount of arroz con pollo, and she handed me this plate heaped with rice!
They are very friendly women and just busy around me, chatting ang laughing, and fighting! Its a totally different glimpse at Costa Rican women and I love the sense of community and warmth. Family is at the heart of everything here and coming from my family it is really familiar and comforting.

So for part two of the heading of this post ´my big old face´. On Wednesday night I was happily sleeping in my room when I woke up to a load buzzing noise which seemed preety noisy considering I had ear plugs in. Recognising what I though was a mosquito I thrashed my arms around and pulled the sheet up over my face and promptly went back to sleep thinking nothing more of it. Well, as you know I am very short sighted so once up and showered I went to look in the mirror before breakfast and was greeted by my GIANT swollen eyes and eyebrows! Not funny at all. There was a big bite on my left cheek under my eye and my eyes were so swollen I cpould bearly see my eye lashes. I quickly grabbed my dictionary and run downstairs to Mery, the cook and tried to explain. She took one look at me and said it was probably a strong reaction to some kind of mosquito, and told me it was because I sleep with my window open! Aparently there are mosquitos at the back of the house which come from the more open sewage system back there and ater 9 weeks of my window being open they had decided to feast on my face. Raffa took me to the pharamacy where they gave me some strong anti-histamine to take over the next few days and then I just had to wait for my face to go down. I looked like I had had a really bad eyebrow lift. Not a hot look at all. Thankfully by today my eyes are more or less back to normal, but that was not one of my favourite costa rican experiences.