This extended family does volunteer work in a foreign country for a week, and spends a second week traveling around with the help of a local kid serving as translator. Nearly five years later, the local kid comes to America, and he's going to hang out with the family for a couple of weeks.
I'm not sure it'll become the latest reality show this Fall, but that's what's going on with us. Christmas time 2004, Kathy and I went with her parents, her sister and sister's then boyfriend, her sister's three kids, and her aunt to Costa Rica, where we volunteered on a coffee farm near Monte Verde for a week before traveling around the country. We met Wilfreddy during our stay at the coffee farm, where he and his family live. He then accompanied us for the second week, serving as translator and taking in some of his country with us.Currently, Wilfreddy is taking an ESL program in Pennsylvania, and when that finishes up at the end of next week, he'll be heading to DC to stay with us. Also coming down will be everyone who took the trip with us except Kathy's sister and her sister's now-ex-boyfriend. The plan is for everyone to stay with us, something that should be both fun and challenging. The plan right now is to put Wilfreddy and Kathy's sister's kids upstairs in our loft, put the folks in our guest room, put the aunt in Emelia's room, and put Emelia on a blow-up mattress on the floor in our room (hopefully, Nora and Junebug don't become too territorial of our floor).
I'm not sure what the itinerary is -- there was talk earlier of a couple of overnight trips to nearby regions, but if those plans have evolved, I know nothing about them. I figure I'll see people when they're here and when I'm not working. My boss will be out of the country then, so I need to mind the shop -- it'll be difficult for me to take off during the visit. Regardless, I'm expecting that I'll get to do things with them, and that things will be a little crazy for duration. Fun too.
Photo of Wilfreddy and me right before we went ziplining, January 2005.
