I arrived on Monday on a plane from Buffalo through Charlotte. I was met at the airport by one of my fellow employees, Tatiana. We took a bus 3 hours to the town of Bagaces where I work. The bus ride was interesting to say the least, especially when the driver would pass cars on the two lane road with oncoming traffic. Usually other cars would slow down to avoid the bus, but sometimes the bus had to swerve back into the correct lane.

I spent the first two nights in the owner of the company's house. He and his wife have a fancy ranch house with a pool and a great view. Its the middle of the dry season so every day is hot with barely a cloud in the sky. There are a lot of cattle in the pastures and iguanas hang around like squirrels.

I started work right away on Tuesday. There are about 30 workers and there are 4 other interns. They are from the Bahamas, Spain, Russia and the US. I am working on making a program to run a vision test for people. This company makes the vision equipment you use when they check your eyes at the driver's licence issuers. Most employees speak at least a little bit of English and I haven't been bored at work yet.

The family has three sons ages 12,13, and 15, but the father died recently of cancer and the family moved here from the capital. The family is very friendly and speaks very little english. They live right next to the factory where I work but it's about a fifteen minute walk to the town so it's somewhat isolated. I have a large room and my own bathroom, at least temporarily. The mother cooks my meals and the food is excellent. Soccer is extremely popular here and I played with my family as well as watched some on the TV. The weather is so dry that last night a tree caught on fire by the river next to the house and I was woken at 5 in the morning by a fire engine driving up the driveway. Luckily there was no wind and the fire didn't spread. I was also woken up occasionally by an annoying howler monkey but the rest of the time I could sleep.

It is a nice paradise here, so nice in fact that the two previous intern programmers that worked here now live here permanently, having gotten full time jobs in internet related work. I can't upload any pictures to my photo site from work, so I might have to find a good internet cafe to do it later.