6 years in Iraq. how many more to come???

Hola my friends,
i am back in san jose. i will catch my flight back to dc on thursday. it will leave around 2 and i will be in dc around 11pm. i will stay with stream and tania for a couple nights and readjust to the northern hemisphere....:)
it is nice to be back in san jose. by now the people at the hostel know me by name. i have a dorm room for myself and the hostel is nice and quiet, not many people here. i was really exhausted when i hit san jose today around lunchtime. on sunday, diedre and judy and i we went to dominical to enjoy the beach and see a play later in the day. we had a lot of fun and the play was great. but we came back to uvita late and yesterday one of the longterm guest/workers set up a all suround system and we watched a movie. amelie. so i didn´t go to bed until ver late either cause people sat together and talked as many of us left today or will leave during this week so we wanted to hang out together and have our ´last supper´so to speak. this morning i didn´t hear my alarm clock and had 10minutes to get everythng ready as i wanted to catch the bus at 6am. so by the time we came close to san jose i was very tired. so i just git me some food and a nice book and simply hang out. i will go to bed soon. tomorrow i will do some shopping, and then iabel, the lady who runs the peace centre and hostel asked me to help her bring lunch to a indiginious community. so i might do that.
and then it is alraedy thursday. i am really happy about my trip. it has been amazing, rough, callenging, interesting, astonishing and just an incredible growing experience. i fell much more home in my own skin, much more self-confident and centered. i feel that my realtionship to my life, my purpose as well as my reationship to the devine spirit is deeper and it feels much more real and natural. i met amazing people and saw beautiful land. i heard stories and told stories and my horizon opened and widened so much. i think the most important part for me about this journey is that i really like myself the way i am. i like my body and i am immensly haoppy and grateful for the journey that i am on. life is good. i can feel that. it is only our attitude that makes life hard.
i was able to learn and actually pratice yoga on a day to day level and i feel how my body and mind and spirit appreciates that. without really been aware of it i manifested a place to live in costa rica that is really simple and that can teach my about simpliccity and being as organic as possible. well, when i arrived at the revolution project beginning of last december i didn´t really like it. no bathroom, no electricity, no privacy. but here i was send to a place and experience that i actually asked for. once i read over what i wrote down before coming to costa rica i couldn´t believe my own writings. there is said that i am looking for a place that is very simple and that i want to take those 3 months to live as simple as possible and to finally deal with the past, let go of old tings and start new. well, hek, yeah, here i was. it was intense and i cried and felt pain and heartach like i haven´t for a while. but i was able to let go and i was surounded by people who let me through it. i could reliese things and althoiugh it didn´t seem that different back then i can see the impacts of those two month at the revoplution project now that some time has passed and i changed the scenery. i am stronger. i can tell more easily what i want. and again i love myself. i am beautiful, i am holy , i am one. it is great. of course there are still ups and downs but i am more able now to deal with down times. i changed the way i write my name from jules to jewels, as i feel that this suits me very well right now. it fits me as i AM a jewel as we all are.

so i leave with gratitude. i will remember my time here in this beautiful, always green counrty. i ate so many bananas like i have never had before, tasted amazing fruits and veggies that i haven´t even known of before coming here. platains, passion fruit, commote etc... i tried different diets and learned a lot about nutrition and food and its healing effects. i was able to live and learn from a healer and i can say now that i am also a healer. a healer to be but still a healer.
i met wonderful people and was able to travel with 3 beautiful young americans. one of them, gretchen will get married this fall. her boyfriend surprised her and flew down to costa rica tiogether wirh rachelles boyfriend and here it was that he proposed to her. gretchen invited me to come to her wedding and i wam sooo excited. they are wonderful people.
i am excited to catch my flight on thursday to go back to the states. i was and am homesick to this counrty, this land i fell in love with. i will be working with heidi and micha in virginia for a month or so and maybe check out a yoga farm as well. and then a super suprise: my parents are coming to the us to visit me!!! i am so excited. i will be able to show them where i have lived most of the last 1 and a half years. they will be here for 11 days and i am curious about their impressions!!
so yeah, i feel really excited as well as satisfied with where i am at right now on my journey. i am looking forward to the next couple months!!!
i will write again once i am in the states!
lots of love,
jewels