Kevin and I shared a little bit of Halloween with our community English students on Friday. We taught them how to carve pumpkins! Well, not actually pumpkins – ayotes . They’re the Costa Rican equivalent of a pumpkin. Same shape, size, smell, and taste, but green instead of orange. The best part about doing a fun cultural activity like this one was that we could actually consider it work. We met Peace Corps goal No. 2 of “promoting a better understanding of the United States on behalf of the Costa Ricans.” So sharing our holiday traditions with our students is always time well spent. We’ve discovered over the last few weeks that ayotes are simply not that popular around here. You can find small ones at the store. But with the exception of our training host mom, Esterlina, we haven’t met anyone who likes to cook or eat them. So you can imagine the fruit and vegetable vendor’s surprise when I ordered ten soccer ball-sized ayotes from her. Her jaw literally dropped. After I explaine...