Monday, December 21, 2009

Mucha Fiesta (12/20/09)


Lila and I in our new aprons

Naomy: 13 year old hair stylist/makeup artist

Birthday festivites

English class party

Flour fight!

Well it’s officially summer break in Quebradas, meaning nooooooooooo work is to be done until about mid-January. But it’s actually been more fun and lively than I expected and given me an opportunity to spend time with people socially without thinking or talking at all about projects. Tuesday was our end of the year party with the youth group at FUDEBIOL. Everyone brought food (I made more latkes from the leftover potatoes) and we played musical chairs and piñata, which I learned has a twist in Costa Rica. In addition to candy, they put flour inside, so whoever ends up hitting it open gets covered in flour. And then all the other kids run and cover themselves in it too! I decided to keep my distance and just take pictures…

Thursday was my English class end of the year party, after our final exam on Monday, which went pretty well. Again, we all brought food and did a Yankee swap gift exchange, which they had never done and was pretty fun. Then a few of the of-age students took me out to the next door bar (yes, NEXT to the school) to have a beer for my birthday. Friday, to mark my quarter century, I got up early and met Jared and Morgan to catch the 7am bus from San Isidro to Dominical, where we spent the morning lounging on the beach. The highlight of the trip, as I’m pretty sure I’ve already told everyone I’ve spoken to, was the discovery of a new homemade ice cream shop run by a couple that just moved out there from Brooklyn. REAL chocolate and homemade cones – enough said.

Friday night I went out with four friends from Quebradas to their favorite Friday night bar, which has dancing and karaoke. I don’t know where I found it in me, but I sang the Titanic song after only one beer! Maybe I’ve just become that much of a lightweight…The nice thing about the way they do karaoke here is that people just stay seated at their table instead of standing in front of everyone, so you don’t always know who’s singing. Then again I was the only gringa at the bar and the only person that sang in English, so they probably made the connection. So it was a pretty fun birthday and it was also of course wonderful to receive many calls and emails from home making me feel special and loved.

This weekend may have been my most social so far within the community. Saturday I went to two graduations, high school in the morning and elementary school in the afternoon. They were pretty similar to what I recall of mine at home, but there were no robes or mortar boards, just sashes and all the kids dressed in their uniforms. Also nobody smiles for pictures here, which is kind of weird. Then Saturday night was the annual Christmas dinner at FUDEBIOL, a fancy event with 80 guests, a caterer and live music. The whole place was decorated with candlelight and the room where I teach classes was completely transformed with elegant round tables and centerpieces and stars painted on the windows and material hanging from the ceilings. It was really beautiful. I didn’t know that many people there, but it was nice to be part of the event (and to be comped the 10mil ticket) and the members of the Board of Directors seemed very happy with the turnout. Also, I wore a nice dress and a friend straightened my hair and did my makeup, and every single person I did know made the joke that they didn’t recognize me so – feminine. I guess I’ll take that as a compliment…

And today was the Christmas party for AQUA, the artisan group I have been working with. More delicious food and another gift exchange, but this time everyone had to bring a handmade piece of artwork. So I had to come up with something quick and with few resources. I found instructions on how.com for a pop bottle bracelet that seemed pretty easy, so I went to the school where we store the recycling and took 20 caps off the tops of beer cans and wove them together with some ribbon I had and it turned out all right. Everyone appreciated the effort since I was the only non-artisan at the party. I on the other hand received a very lovely and professionally sewn apron, which I can hopefully make use of now that I am sort of learning how to cook.

In the evening I was invited to two family posadas, one at 6 and one at 7. I guess it’s the equivalent of Christmas caroling in the US, but, as to be expected, much more religious. A group from the church picks a different family to visit every night for the nine nights leading up to Christmas, and they do a half hour performance which includes singing, discussing a theme from the Bible, praying, more singing, and then, of course, coffee and bread. So I sang, prayed and ate twice in a row tonight, which was more than enough, but it was fun to be a part of.

And tomorrow I begin my real vacation when I leave for San Jose to pick up Dan at the airport and we head north to Arenal. But I’m really glad I was around the community this week and got to participate in some traditional celebrations. It felt good to be invited and included into so many different families here who understand how hard it is to be away from my own family during the holidays and want to make me feel welcome. After just over six months in Quebradas, it is starting to feel something like home.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Living la Vida Sola


The big spenders

Local artisans examining their goods

The outdoor cocina típica

Ready for the pools

The Pérez Girls

So far, SO good. I have only broken one glass and slightly burned my pointer finger, and I have already prepared such fine dishes for myself as coconut whole wheat rice with steamed green beans and my classic chicken stir-fry. There are more bugs and a less functional pipe system in my new place, but the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. I love coming home to a quiet place where I can do what I want when I want without feeling awkward. And I’ve managed to keep myself busy enough that I haven’t had time to feel too lonely yet.

I’m in the midst of tying up a lot of projects before the end of the year. This included our second recycling campaign last weekend, which had a decent turnout and generated 11 mil from selling the material. I also went to my first professional Costa Rican soccer game at the stadium in San Isidro on Sunday, which was awesome. It was the Guerreros del Sur versus Saprissa, the most popular team from San José, and it ended in a tie, which knocked Saprissa out of the playoffs! Also, we had paid the extra colones for seats in the shade because it has been so hot lately, and turns out in mid-day that’s a really subjective term. So I got back to my community totally sweaty and gross and had to go straight to an assembly of a community group that had invited me to observe. So I figured I would just slip quietly in and sit in the back, but as soon as I sat down the president called my name and pointed me to a table in front of everyone that say “Invitados” and was completely empty. Apparently I was the only special guest who showed up, and my punishment was to have to sit up there the whole two hour meeting by myself. As if that weren’t enough, they then asked me to come up and say a few words before getting started. I had terribly sweat stains, but everyone was nice and smiled and clapped.

On Thursday, I did a trip with my Chicas Super-Poderosas group and two moms and a few of their siblings to a “water park” about 45 minutes away that has a few pools and slides, but they were SO excited and spent every second in the water even though it started to rain and obviously didn’t want to leave when it was time to go, but it was fun to see them having so much fun and getting out of the community and doing something different for a day.

Then this weekend was jam-packed and exhausting but great. The artisan expo we have been planning for was on Sunday, so all of Saturday was set aside for cooking. I offered to help with the tamales, figuring I would just stop by for a couple hours in the morning and be home for lunch. SIX hours later, I finally retreated with a sore back from standing and cleaning banana leaves to wrap the tamales. That is HARD work! But it ended up being a really fun experience because tamales over Christmas are a really big deal here, and every woman has her secret recipe (think matzah ball soup and Jewish grandmothers), and there were seven of us all working on a different task and lots of talk about how to make them just right.

Then I rushed home to greet Morgan, Jared, Chamisa, Adrienne and Nicole, who were all coming up to Quebradas for my housewarming/Chanukah/early birthday party. I had bought two kilos of potatoes at the feria but was very disappointed that I could not find apple sauce or real sour cream (they eat something called natilla which is kind of similar but not as good), nor did I have a menorah to light. But my ever-resourceful Peace Corps friends more than pulled through. Chamisa brought a bag of apples and made her mom’s homemade apple sauce, and Jared and Morgan brought me a handmade iron menorah that an artisan in their community crafted based on pictures they had printed from the Internet. It was a true Chanukah miracle.

Anyways we had a delicious feast and lit the candles and said the prayers and played charades, and as many of you know, these are the kinds of nights I love most wherever I am (especially because my team obviously dominated). Then we all hiked with our stuff up to Roger’s ranch, where we spent the night in the two upstairs bedrooms and were woken at 7:30 by the tamale ladies who were back to start preparing the olla de carne, picadillos and helote. My friends all stayed the morning and helped set up and ate and shopped, and I’m pretty sure they were the big spenders of the day. But more people started arriving in the afternoon and there was a moon-bounce and snow cones, which were big hits with the little kids and select adults, where I categorize myself now that I am nearly 25…It was a beautiful afternoon and lots of people bought food and not as many bought art but every single artisan sold at least something, and it was really cool to just see everyone’s work displayed and how talented people in the community are, and I hope that even the window-shoppers appreciated that.

Coming up this week are many more Christmas parties (I think I may have to watch a pig or two get killed) and preparing for my upcoming visitors!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Back to Quebradas


Where the magic happens...

The "living room"

A hammock with a view

Just like home

Me and some Junior Achievers

Recycle Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease

Vacation pics


A rice and bean-less gourmet meal

Playa Grande (BIG beach)

MONKEYS!

Potential Christmas card

The Thanksgiving crew

The Robin Russell treatment (12/3/09)

It all started when I showed up at her hotel in San José before she got there on the evening of the 25th and treated myself to ceviche, a glass of white wine, and strawberries and cream for dessert. And if you can believe it, it only got better from there!

It was my mom’s first time visiting since I’ve been down here, and she came to keep me company for Thanksgiving and to help me make my big move into my new apartment. So we started off our adventure in San José the day before and then made our way to Playa Tamarindo on Thanksgiving morning via tiny 12-person plane, which took about an hour instead of a 6-hour bus ride, Peace Corps style. Tamarindo is one of the more developed touristy areas in Costa Rica, located on the Pacific Coast of the Nicoya Peninsula in the province of Guanacaste. It used to be a total hippy town and still holds remnants of that with lots of tiny surfer hostels and hammocks everywhere, but there are also some fancy resorts and housing developments and LOTS of construction going on. I kind of thought I was going to resent the place after my more “authentic” Costa Rica experiences, but it is really beautiful and the development is not too obnoxious or gaudy and I have no complaints about the variety of food offerings beyond comida típica.

Anyways on Thursday afternoon, three volunteer friends who live in the area, John, Brianna and Brigitte, came and hung out at our lovely hotel pool and then the five of us shared a real turkey dinner, with gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie for dessert. There was not going back for seconds since we were at a restaurant, but we all managed to stuff ourselves and have a great time. The next day we checked out a beautiful nearby beach called Conchal, because the sand is made entirely of white shells, and the water was super clear and blue. That night Brigitte and I got a little taste of Tamarindo nightlife and Monkey Bar, which had a live salsa band AND a dj playing reggae(ton), gringos AND local ticos, AND it was ladies night so we drank for free. Really fun, and I even managed to pull out a few of my salsa moves and not feel embarrassed for the first time because there were plenty of gringos there with even less rhythm.

The next morning we took a mangrove tour up an estuary off the ocean and saw lots of wildlife, including herons, crocodiles, land crabs (who knew?), lizards, flying fish, and monkeys! They were pretty fun. We spent the afternoon shopping in town and eating gelato and then had an adventurous swim out to a nearby island. My mom freaked out halfway through and thought we were going to get swept to sea and tried to hail a boat to come pick us up but to no avail. Fortunately, we all lived to laugh about it.

Feeling very relaxed and removed from rural Costa Rican life, it was finally time to head back to Quebradas for a little taste of something different. We got in Sunday evening and had dinner with the Tico family. It was Nazareth’s birthday so everyone was in good spirits and my mom brought them some fun gifts, including much Michael Jackson paraphernalia and Eclipse, the third book in the Twilight series, for Sylvia, so everyone went to bed happy.

The next morning began the big move. We rolled my suitcases down the hill about 200 meters to my new apartment, directly across from the soccer field with the river running just behind it. My mom was pleasantly surprised after I’d managed to lower her expectations significantly in terms of cleanliness and functionality of appliances. And of course she had brought me an entire suitcase of everything I could possibly need and more, so it was just a matter of cleaning and arranging. The only casualty of the long trip was the toaster oven, which sadly now only cooks but lost its ability to toast…

Anyways we spent two days scrubbing and sweeping and mopping and making multiple trips into town for 409 and electric tape and plastic dishes and managed to fit in English class, a hike up to FUDEBIOL for Junior Achievement class and a brief tour, and a meeting with the local artisan group at their ranch. And fortunately for everyone, Kenny Chesney cancelled his meeting with Sony so instead of rushing out on Tuesday evening my mom was able to stay two extra days. So we were able to really put the place together AND even snuck in another beach trip to Dominical for one last hurrah.

So it was very sad to say goodbye to her this afternoon, but she left me in great shape: a full fridge, lots of cleaning supplies, my perfect hammock perfectly hung, and even a few cooking tips. This is my first time ever living alone, but I think I am ready and felt pretty happy to come home tonight to my own place, just the way I left it. It is definitely going to be a lot of extra time and energy keeping the place clean and preparing food for myself, and unlike in NYC, I don’t have the option to just pick up some take-out next door if I don’t feel like cooking or call a cleaning service if things get really bad, but I was fully aware of that much at least when I joined the Peace Corps and I think I’ll manage just fine. If nothing else, I will return from my experience here an EXCELLENT sweepstress…

12/4
La Voz Quebradeña, segunda edición, was finally ready to distribute today. This time the cover and back cover and two inside pages are in color, so we are making progress poco a poco. Still can't figure out how to post PDF's on this blog but will email it to anyone who is intersted!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Work, work, work

While everyone around me seems to be winding down for the end of the year (since Costa Ricans don’t celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving, they start decorating for Christmas and acting like it’s Christmas toward the end of October…), I have been running around like crazy for the past couple weeks, to the point where my host father joked it must be a holiday when I sat down with them for a meal for the first time in days.

Things filling my time:

Recycling - We are doing one last push before school gets out, which includes a big campaign at the school on December 5 with an art exposition of Christmas decorations made out of recycled materials that the kids are working on in class. Yesterday some of the women from the committee went over to the house of another woman in the community who is very artsy and has an amazing workshop with every kind of craft material you could imagine. She also makes her own costumes and is often seen dressed as a clown in various parts of the Zona Sur spreading the word of God to children, but hey. Anyways we made this gigantic yellow banner that says: Recycle, Dec. 5, the Earth needs it, except in Spanish. So our publicity is looking much better than the last campaign.

Artisan group – Roger, the president of the Quebradas Artisan Association who came with me to the Peace Corps PDM workshop, and I presented our vision and work plan to the group last week, and they were generally receptive and excited, so we chose a date for the art exposition, December 13, and started assigning tasks and deadlines. In every group I’ve worked with, it is incredible, no one will have any ideas, and then as soon as we start talking about the food portion of the event, EVERYone pitches in at once. So needless to say, the kitchen committee is overflowing and we’re a little light on logistics and publicity, but the exciting thing is that we have an event planned where the artists will have an opportunity to exhibit and hopefully sell some of their work.

Other artisan group – We finally got all the forms and receipts and photocopies turned in for the $8000 donation the women’s recycled paper group is applying for. At the last minute, when we thought we had everything together, DINADECO, the government agency that oversees the donations, told us all the receipts we had gathered had to be in the name of the local development association instead of the women’s group, and the book containing the official act where our community approved the project had to be revised as well. Oh bureaucracy…So it was a last minute push but we got it in and now we just have to keep our fingers crossed!

Greenhouse – So after spending weeks asking businesses for free stuff and helping chop and lug bamboo down to the school, I showed up on Sunday morning at 7am when a few father’s from the community were supposed to help build the greenhouse, and only one guy showed up to tell me that the others had been partying all night and were probably really hung over. Awesome. So he said he would try to find another time but it would be a lot better if we could just pay someone to do it because that is the only way to guarantee they’ll show up. I had already been shut down by the school director multiple times, as she has made it clear that they are low in funds, and anything they do raise is not going to go to environmental education since there are many other priorities. Then today she told me to make sure to take pictures of our recycling banner to send in to the Ministry of Education to show them what good work we’re doing, but that’s an aside. Anyways today I was making angels out of toilet paper rolls and wire hangers with the 6th grade girls when an American woman I had met once at the Internet Café came into the classroom and told me that every year, her nieces and nephews like to make a joint donation to different charities, and this year they had decided to give it to the environmental education program at the school. And just like that she handed me an envelope with 50.000 colones, which is about $100! God bless those wealthy gringas…Anyways this was obviously very uplifting and hopefully the solution to the greenhouse dilemma, but we’ll see.

Community Newspaper – After about 15 hours of sitting with Javier at his very slow and old computer that took 10 minutes every time it saved a version of the publication, we finished the design and I think it looks great. The cover and back cover and first page and last page are going to be in color this time, and we have more ads and more articles from more community members. The paper was sent to print yesterday, so hopefully it will be ready by some time next week.

I’m also still going strong with English classes, Chicas Super-Poderosas, technology for old ladies, and Junior Achievement with the kids that live up by FUDEBIOL. And there has been some time for fun, including going to visit Adrienne for a night in her Canaan. It was cool to meet her host family and see how she relates to her community, which is way smaller than mine, only 150 people! So she literally knows everyone and I kind of feel like I know everyone after my visit. We also took a walk down to Monte Azul, the hotel where my dad and Lynne and Liza stayed when they visited, and were fed fresh-baked English muffins with herbed goat cheese and sent home with a bag of home made cookies. Just like visiting family!

And now I am in store for even more fun and TLC. Am about to get on a bus to San José and meet my mom, and then we will head to Tamarindo, for Thanksgiving and a weekend at the beach, with visits from a few other Peace Corps Volunteers. I am yet to see a turkey dead or alive in this country, but apparently they’re out there, and it should be delicious!

Friday, November 13, 2009

AVC and PDM


Well-fed and cultured in San José

Just like being a freshman girl all over again...

Proud Peace Corps representatives

Tica'd Out


These are two of the many Peace Corps acronyms that have filled my past two weeks to the brim. It’s been super fun but super exhausting. Last week was our annual All Volunteer Conference, the only time when every single Peace Corps Volunteer in the country is in the same place at the same time. The conference is organized by volunteers but staff are there also. This year we spent three nights at a campsite/recreation center in Cartago, right outside San José. Activities ranged from project fairs and committee presentations to trivia night, a Ropa Americana (sober) dance party, talent show, and staff-performed operetta composed by our new Country Director. The food was disappointing and the weather was a little cold and rainy, but it was a really well-organized and much-needed event to bring us all together, give us a break from our sites, and inspire us with stories of all the cool and creative things other volunteers are doing. For me it was especially interesting to get to know more of the Tico 18 Volunteers, who have been here for a year longer than me, and see how they have approached their service and hear their advice and how they are feeling now that they are almost done and thinking about their next steps.

I spent Saturday night in San José with some other volunteer friends, and it was the most positive experience I’d had yet in the capital city. Previously, I really only knew the touristy area downtown and the part around the Peace Corps office. But thanks to a fantastic recommendation, we found a cute and cheap bed and breakfast in a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of downtown with lots of park space, beautiful colonial architecture, cool restaurants and a zoo! THIS is what I had been looking/hoping for and thinking had to exist somewhere in a big city with a somewhat sophisticated population. Anyways we indulged in just about everything: saw the Michael Jackson movie at the mall, found hummus and pita, frozen yogurt, South African wine, a jazz café, and bagels. It was pretty awesome and for the first time left me wanting to come back and explore San José more.

Two days after getting back to my site, I packed my backpack again and headed to a three-day INTENSE Project Design and Management Workshop. Fortunately for me, the workshop for the Zona Sur was being held at FUDEBIOL in my community, so I didn’t have to go far. Eight volunteers from my area attended with counterparts from their community as well as four Peace Corps staff members. The idea of the workshop is to introduce Peace Corps Volunteers and someone they are working with on a project in their community the Peace Corps methodology for developing, monitoring and evaluating projects. This is where we got super acronym heavy, so I’ll spare you most of the details, but it was actually the most useful and productive training I have experienced with Peace Corps so far, partly because I was with someone from my community, and partly because it was very focused and well-run and applicable to what I am working on.
It was also really fun and interesting to see my peers interacting with their counterparts and get to know people from their communities and hear about projects they are working on. There was definitely a good amount of awkwardness in that we were all staying together in bunk beds in the lodge and trying to speak Spanish to be polite but slipping into English because that’s what we’re used to speaking together. The days were jam-packed with sessions from 8am-6pm, but there were good meals and snacks in between and fun activities in the evening, including seriously competitive games of Banana-grams and a viewing of El Ultimo de los Mohicanos…

I decided to bring the president of the artisan group I am working with, and the project we focused on was their much talked about but never acted upon dream of having their own workshop to do trainings for the community and sell their products. He gets very excited about things and was fun to work with though sometimes dominated the sessions and conversations a bit, but I much preferred that over someone who would have been too shy to participate. Anyways we came out of the workshop with a vision, mission, objectives and work plan that we feel really good about. The hard part, as always, will be getting the rest of the group committed and involved. But we are going to present our work to them on Tuesday and solicit feedback and hope it gets them motivated.

Now I am finally back in my site, doing LOTS of laundry and trying to get organized and think about what I want to get done by the end of the year, which is sneaking up fast, and how I might want to reevaluate and rethink my priorities and work for next year. I am almost at my six month in community mark, and I think I have a better sense now of what I most enjoy doing and where I can have the most impact.

I also have many exciting countdowns going, including less than two weeks until my mom’s Thanksgiving visit followed by a big move to my own apartment! Now we just have to scour this country for a turkey…

Monday, November 2, 2009

High/Low-lights of the Week

Since my last blog post, I:

- Got a project approved by the Development Association, meaning enough people showed up to have a quorum, a rare occasion…
- Met up with some Peace Corps friends at a newly discovered “lounge” in San Isidro that played house music and had couches and served scallops in pesto
- Painted Christmas-themed recycled paper products with the women’s group. Unfortunately everything I touched is not sellable.
- Started and finished Season 1 of Mad Men (it’s not as bad as it sounds I had already seen the first 6 episodes)
- Planted trees with the 4th, 5th and 6th graders
- Attended a cooking class with women from my community and an eccentric chef who thought it was adorable that I am helpless in the kitchen and therefore let me be the official taster, which I was very good at
- “Lost” my digital camera
- Received my long-awaited shiny blue bike from Peace Corps
- Gave my first English test and subsequently used LOTS of red pen to correct it
- Had an excuse to by a sequined dress for a “Ropa Americana”-themed Peace Corps dance next week
- Made pad thai and hummus at the house of a nearby Peace Corps friend and then watched old episodes of Sex in the City and got my toes painted
- Went on my first ride with the new bike and lost a pedal an hour and a half up into the mountains
- Attempted to reattach the pedal with barbed wire from a local mechanic
- Cruised 5 km downhill with only one pedal, left my bike in a shop in town, and showed up at home disheartened on foot
- Spent Halloween afternoon/night in an 8-hour strategic planning session that included roasted chicken, wine, and philosophizing about the definition of “problem” but no costumes or candy
- Woke up to an ant-infested room this morning, literally the floor and walls were black with ants. Still have no idea where they were coming from or where they were going, but it was really gross...

Friday, October 23, 2009


My sheets are soapy

Today I learned a major lesson in domesticity. The regular washing machine wasn’t working (I’m not really convinced that it ever works based on the stains on my closed but this time it wouldn’t even turn on), so she introduced me to her old-school washing machine and how to wash like a “real woman.” Basically you dump your laundry and soap in a container, and then some water drips in and it swishes around for 5-10 minutes, and then you have to take each individual soaked item to the sink and wash all the soap out and wring out the water, which with sheets and towels was a serious arm workout and took me about an hour. Anyways moral of the story is I’m pretty sure my sheets still have soap in them, but at least they smell good for once and I can now say I do my laundry like a real woman.
It’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks. Last weekend I went to Uvita, a beach about two hours away, with three Peace Corps Volunteer friends who live nearby. We stayed in this $10/night hostel with colorful hammocks and a communal kitchen and an owner that talked really, really slow. There were lots of surfer/dreadlock types and some German backpackers and a Saturday night jam session accompanied by pork and beans. The beaches were beautiful and pretty deserted since it is off season, but we got lucky and had two sunny days. We hiked and biked and walked out to the “whale’s tail,” where two beaches meet and form a jetty in the shape of a whale’s tail, which was pretty awesome. Kind of exactly how I pictured traveling in Costa Rica.
But I am working hard too, really. I am in week two of my new English class, which is through a program called Centro Cultural that Peace Corps hooks us up with cheap textbooks. It’s nice to actually have a lesson plan to follow and something for students to refer to, and I think they are enjoying it. Classes are two nights a week for two hours, so it can be exhausting but I have a really good group and the great thing about English class is they really want to be there because they think it is really important, rather than some of my other projects where I feel like I am begging people to show up at the meetings.
I also just started a project called Chicas Súper Poderosas, which is 10 workshops that some Peace Corps Volunteers designed for 5th and 6th grade girls that focuses on self-esteem and leadership issues. I get along really well with the girls in the school of that age and feel like they could use a strong female role model, so I decided to give it a try and 16 girls showed up and the first two sessions have been really fun. They are still at an age where they are not too cool to do silly activities, but they sure do giggle a lot.
I’m also trying to start a greenhouse project at the school to teach the kids to plant and eat more vegetables (you think I need to learn how to plant before I teach other people how to do it? Hmmm we’ll get there…). Someone from the Ministry of Agriculture came last week to give a talk on organic gardens, and the students and teachers seemed pretty interested. The problem is that school is not willing to put any of its budget into building the greenhouse, so I am on a mission to find free stuff in San Isidro. I have written letters (they really like formality here) and personally delivered them to the managers of a few hardware and agriculture stores, and so far we have actually had a good response. I have one guy donating the transparent plastic, another the screws and metal bars, and another organic fertilizer and seedlings. Now I’m just searching for four sacks of cement if anyone has any ideas…
Not much on tap for the weekend except a development association project approval meeting and maybe playing some soccer on Sunday. Am occupying much of my free time with thinking about and planning for the many visitors I will be receiving at the end of the year, which is definitely something to look forward to!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Read all about it! (10/10/09)

It’s been a pretty eventful past week, the most exciting part being that the first issue of La Voz Quebradeña came out last Friday. We had paid for 200 copies but the printer printed 300, so there were plenty to go around. I was thrilled when I saw the first copy, both because it was very satisfying to see a tangible outcome of one of my projects, but mostly because they guy who designed it did a fantastic job and it looks really professional. I have a PDF version but I can’t find a way to post it on my blog so if anyone wants me to e-mail them a copy let me know.
Anyways I distributed the copies at all the local pulperías, the Internet Café, the mini-supers, and the bar, and I also tried to hand them out personally to everyone who had bought an ad or written an article and thanked them for their support. It was really well-received and so cool to see people reading it in the street and getting excited to see their names, photos, or ads. I even got a phone call from a woman I had never met congratulating me and saying she couldn’t wait for the next one! So all the feedback has been very encouraging and I hope it leads to more people wanting to contribute in one way or another to the next publication, which will come out in December.
Last weekend was packed with various meetings and activities, including movie and sleepover with Peace Corps friends Adrienne and Liz, the annual assembly of the local artisans group, for which I am proud to say I actually helped prepare the arroz con pollo, spending the night at FUDEBIOL hanging out with some university students over chicharrones (basically pig fat…mmmmmm) and beer, and then an all-day strategic planning session with the university students about FUDEBIOL and it’s future goals. It was actually a pretty productive session and people shared a lot of good ideas, but the frustrating part is that it is much harder to get people to act on them, especially since everything requires time and money, neither of which the leaders of this organization seem to have to offer.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I started an “Exploring the Internet” class with six women from the women’s group in Quebradas that runs the volunteer exchange program. They want to be able to connect with more tourism and volunteer organization to expand their clientele, but none of them have any idea how to manage their web page or check their email address, both of which Porter, the volunteer before me, helped set up for them. So I am starting the class once a week at the Internet Café for those of them that are interested in learning. During the first class, after going over the VERY basics of how to turn on the computer and use the mouse, I taught them how to Google things. First they googled their own web page to see how a client would find it, and I had them do whatever they were interested in and they came up with recipes, love advice, images of volcanoes and waterfalls etc. and they were SO excited to realize how much is available out there. So although it’s a SLOW process, and even tougher because the Internet at the Café is pretty spotty, I think they are really motivated by all the things they could do on the Internet and by seeing their kids know how to use it so well. Last week we set up personal email accounts for all of them and I am thinking that this week we might try gchat. Anyways, I think I’m enjoying it both because of how much they’re enjoying it and because it makes me feel like a technological whiz, which is a rare occasion.
Then on Wednesday through Friday I was in San José to help edit another newspaper, though this time in English. La Cadena is the countrywide Peace Corps publication that comes out three times a year with articles from volunteers and staff. A spot was open for an editor that left so I am the newest member, and the other two are girls in Tico 18 who have already been here a year and a half. So the big perk is that we get three paid work days in San José to do the editing and layout, so we spent the days in the Peace Corps office working but got to stay in a hotel and hang out and try new restaurants (which we then reviewed for the paper) at night. It was fun to get to know some volunteers from the previous generation and also see all the staff in the office and become a little more familiar with San José. My main takeaway from my urban explorations is that there were no crosswalks to be found. I actually had to run across two highways and a divider at one point to get to the supermarket (my sincere apologies Connie if you are reading this). So not the most charming city, but we did find some good restaurants and a nice park to run in.
I got back super late last night and then had to get up bright and early for our first recycling campaign. The name really makes it sound more exciting than it was, but we basically advertised and spread the word all week that the school would be open from
8-12 for anyone who has been storing material in their houses and can bring it by. It got off to a slow start and I was a little worried that everyone would get discouraged, but then people started coming by and other people saw people coming by and remembered they had material in their house too, and by 11 we were pretty booming and had the whole committee and a few kids helping clean and separate. We collected 532 glass bottles, and when we get to 5,000 Coca Cola will build us a real Centro de Acopio where we can separate and store our recycling, so we’re one tenth of the way there! The only problem is where we’re going to store all those bottles in the mean time, since right now the bags of recycled goods are going under a tin roof next to the school cafeteria, which is neither very clean nor very large.
Anyways I thought it was a successful first campaign and hope that more and more people will catch on every time. The best part was definitely the kids who are in my environmental education classes who came with their parents to drop off their recycling and were really proud that they had gotten their parents involved.
So now I am totally exhausted and will probably go to sleep before 9. Another wild Saturday night in Quebradas!

10-11
So it turns out after high hopes for finally going to bed early some friends called to go watch the Costa Rica-Trinidad and Tobago game so I got out of my pajamas, which I had been wearing since 4pm, and went out with them which ended up being really fun because both Costa Rica AND thus US won, so everyone was happy!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Jewish in Quebradas

Below is an article I wrote for the upcoming issue of La Cadena, the countrywide Peace Corps publication (of which I am now one of the editors) that I thought you might enjoy...

Well, let’s just say it was different than past High Holiday celebrations. Honestly, I didn’t even remember it was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, until I got a call from my dad in a rare spot with cell phone coverage in my community and answered it to the sound of the shofar playing in our synagogue in Los Angeles.

To many of you, some of the above Jewish jargon may not mean much, but trust me they mean less to Ticos in Quebradas. At least most of you probably got a day or two off each fall during high school thanks to the Jews, so you know we’re busy celebrating our new year and repenting for our sins around that time. But in a small rural community in a 98% Catholic country, even I almost forgot it was a holiday. Here are all the ways I did NOT celebrate Yom Kippur this year: I ate. I ate pork. I said grace before eating pork. I worked. I did not go to temple. I did not think about going to temple. Fortunately, my Jewish mother is very forgiving.

This is just one of many situations that have made me think about how I identify with my own religion and think about religion in general since I arrived in Costa Rica in March. I think it is safe to say that in the past six months, I have spent more time in church than I have spent in synagogue in the past 10 years. Almost every piece of art in my current family home is a representation of a church, a cross, or Jesus Christ. I now know the Santa Maria prayer in Spanish better than any prayer in Hebrew due, unfortunately, to two recent deaths in my community and the ensuing nine day rosary.

I would call myself a cultural Jew. For me, being Jewish is less about my beliefs and more about the family traditions, sense of humor, and of course, the food. But I have found myself having to explain my religion to many Ticos in my community who, including the priest, have never met a Jew and do not have a clue what it means. At first I was a little uneasy about it and felt like I had to be on the defensive even though I do not feel that strongly about Jewish doctrine. But to my pleasant surprise, I have found that I have not once been judged for being different or for not believing in you know who, but rather that people are genuinely curious about what kinds of holidays we celebrate and how we celebrate them. And I have been able to draw some apt analogies to relate Jewish tradition to daily life in Quebradas, such as Bar-Mitzvahs and Quincineras, sitting shivah and rosaries, Yom Kippur and – oh wait, the sin here would be to go a day without rice and beans.

In all seriousness, it has been far more interesting and comfortable learning about and participating in another religion than I had imagined. I never envisioned myself being able to relate to people for whom God is such an integral part of their daily existence that they will only show up to my English class or recycling meeting if He wills it. But now these people are my family and friends, and I respect and appreciate how Catholicism guides their charitable deeds, family values, and faith in the face of challenges and disappointments. I feel blessed that they have welcomed me, an outsider in so many ways, into their blessed community.

Now if only I could get them to start eating bagels and lox…

Friday, October 2, 2009

Two VERY different worlds...




Back in action (10/1/09)

Hello dear readers! It has, indeed been a while, which generally means things are either so great and busy that I don’t have time to write or so tough that I don’t really feel like writing about it. In this case, it’s been a little bit of both. So I went back to the US on September 11th for 10 days with the main purpose of being a bridesmaid in my cousin Ryann’s wedding in LA, but I stopped by New York City and got to see many friends and hang out in some of my favorite neighborhoods and take the subway and experience the incredible water pressure in Dan’s apartment. Then in LA I got to see more friends and my entire mom’s side of the family and much of my dad’s and eat brisket and noodle kugel and ride my bike on the beach in Santa Monica. The wedding and all of its related events were really beautiful and I couldn’t have been happier to see my cousin so happy and to get to be a part of the event. So all in all, it was a pretty perfect trip home.

Which of course, made coming back pretty difficult. It really hit me for the first time that I have now these two entirely separate existences and worlds that I am a part of. I hardly thought about Costa Rica or the Peace Corps or my projects while I was home, and the first few days I was back in Quebradas it just felt totally out of context. It was nice because everyone noticed I was gone and asked how my trip was so I felt missed, but nobody here really has any idea what my life was/is like back in the US, so it made it harder to share exactly how wonderful it was to be home. Anyways it took a few days to snap back into things, and let’s just say a few tears were shed at inopportune moments, BUT then last Sunday was our river clean-up day, and that’s when things finally turned around for me…

So I really didn’t know this about myself before I got here, but apparently I really enjoy picking up other people’s trash. I have become somewhat of the recycling police in Quebradas; little kids come up to me with coke cans and milk cartons and ask me what they can recycle, and I find myself eying a plastic bottle in somebody’s trash can and being very tempted to go dig it out. Anyways on Sunday about 80 volunteers from the Red Cross, the Cerveceria de Costa Rica, and from the community met at the school and we broke up into groups and picked up trash from FUDEBIOL all the way to San Isidro along the river, and we ended at this big sports complex in town with an arroz con pollo picnic. It was just really fun because people were enthusiastic about cleaning up and recycling and it’s always better when you’re working with a motivated group rather than on your own, which I have found myself doing too often.

So from there I’ve gotten back into a rhythm. Last night I had my first “Exploring the Internet” class with six women from the local women’s group that hosts volunteers who want to learn how to maintain their web page and communicate with clients via email. So we have to start with the VERY basic, like how to turn a computer on, use a mouse, etc. But they started googling stuff by the end of class and were so excited when they found bread recipes, pictures of waterfalls, and love advice. So I’m hoping that continuing to show them how much is out there will keep them motivated. We also had our first sale of recycled materials to the Cerveceria de Costa Rica today and made – wait for it - $12! Yeah, that’s six weeks of separating trash and cleaning the ants off the inside of milk cartons. So clearly we have to be in this for the good of helping the environment and not the cash, but it was still exciting to get paid! The sixth grade teacher said she would photocopy the receipt and frame it in her classroom…

Tonight is my final conversational English class, so we are all bringing food (I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies) and are going to play trivia and listen to American music. In two weeks I am going to start a more formal class with textbooks from an organization called Centro Cultural that has a relationship with Peace Corps so we get them for much cheaper than any student could in a city where the classes are offered. And tomorrow, si Dios quiere, our community newspaper is going to be all ready to distribute! I did all the final edits the day I got back from the US, and the guy who designed it did a really good job, so I am hoping next blogpost I have good news about how it was received in the community, or at least that it was received. Until then, it’s good to be back!

Monday, September 7, 2009

Back to where it all began…

(9/5/09)

I just returned from 5 days of In-Service Training, a Peace Corps sponsored event with all the Tico 19ers after our first three months in our sites. We all met up at the Peace Corps office on Monday afternoon, and a bunch of people went in early to stay with their old host families from training, but Monday morning I had agreed to meet up with some women on the recycling committee to organize an area next to the school cafeteria where we are going to keep our recycling. I don’t know how to describe it other than that it was a BIG mess with dusty old desks, random pieces of metal and glass, rotting wood, etc. I didn’t really see how we were going to make it work for our needs but I showed up at 7am and soon enough six moms showed up in their rubber boots and gloves and we got to work. And these ladies went at it! They were moving heavy, dirty stuff and chopping away at weeds and building walls out of the random pieces of metal and we were done within an hour. I was very impressed and happy with the first group effort of the recycling committee and left Quebradas feeling good about things, which has made it easier to come back after a fun week with good friends and good food.
So we all met up Monday afternoon and it was like seeing your high school friends after summer break. Some guys had big bushy beards, various people have lost or gained weight from eating too many rice and beans or refusing to eat them, and a lot of girls had new Tica haircuts, some of whom claim something was lost in translation. But it was really fun to see all the people I haven’t seen in three months after spending almost every day together during training, and I think everyone was relieved to be out of their sites for a while. But for the most part people are seeming upbeat though not without frustrations, which was comforting to hear because of course I have been feeling the same way.
We spent four nights at Tres Rios in Cartago, the retreat center where we spent our first four days in country in March. We played soccer every morning at 6am and then had classes/activities from 8 to 5:30, which was super exhausting but there were plenty of coffee/pastry breaks. And because we knew it was only four days instead of three months like before, the training was more bearable and also felt a lot more pertinent now that we have all been at our sites so had questions to ask and much more of an idea of why what we were learning was important and how we could use it.
Friday afternoon we went into San Jose for our last training and then Peace Corps put us up in a hotel downtown which was pretty nice, so we got to enjoy one night out together before heading in our various directions Saturday morning. We went for sushi and sake, which was fun while it lasted but the feeling the following morning while driving back to Quebradas over the Mountain of Death on the back of the bus was another story…

9/6/09

I just returned from the rosario of one of my neighbors whose father died last week. For those of you who are as clueless as I was about Latin American Catholic tradition, this happens for nine evenings straight after someone dies and consists of about half an hour of praying followed by food and coffee for everyone who shows up. And unlike my previous experiences sitting Shiva, it is not just close friends and family who show up. It is the WHOLE community. Well maybe that wasn’t worded correctly since in my community and most small rural communities down here almost everyone is somehow related.
Anyways this whole thing is incredibly sad, because the grandma died only three weeks ago and now the father died pretty unexpectedly, so it has been really rough on this family. But they were both clearly very known and loved by the community, judging by the overflowing church for both funerals and the masses of neighbors that show up every single night to pray for this family.
I have the good fortune of not having too much experience with funerals and mourning, and I know that every family in the US has its own way of going about this, but it is generally a relatively private affair (though most Ticos don’t believe this since their exposure to US funerals is the raffling of tickets for Michael Jackson’s). People understandably don’t want to talk about or share their grief with too many others. But there is something really beautiful and healthy to me about the communal mourning process and openness to discuss the recently deceased here.

In lighter news, today was day three of a four day “turno” in Quebradas that the development association holds twice a year to raise money for community projects. They had karaoke and a dance on Friday and Saturday, and today was indoor soccer all morning and then a talent show in the afternoon. It basically consisted of 4th to 6th grade girls wearing entirely inappropriate clothes and dancing to American songs such as Poker Face, which they have no idea what the words mean. There was a lot of bootie-shaking and hair-flipping and it reminded me very much of some of my elementary school dances to classics such as Ace of Base’s I Saw the Sign, which to this day I don’t know what the words mean. Anyways all I have to say about that is to mom, dad, Lynne, and all my friends’ parents who we used to make sit and watch us perform these moves (and sometimes even charge 10 cents for a ticket) – I’m really sorry.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Visuals


Family dinner!

Potential Christmas card

Liza and I at the feria

Thursday night English class

My typical rain gear to and from Thursday night English class...

School recycling bins with Liza's artful signs

Happy students after planting lettuce seeds in recycled plastic. Woohoo!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Okay, where to begin. LOTS has been going on in the past couple weeks, most notably a visit from my family! But before we get to those details, I actually have been productive and gotten moving on some projects. At the escuela, we painted the recycling bins and they are now lined up outside two classrooms and being used...somewhat correctly. I also hosted a charla for parents after sending home flyers with every single of the 150 students at the school, and 8 women showed up, one of which was my host mom and another a high school girl I convinced to come when I was on my way up. Still, it's enough of a group to start working, but people are not that optimistic because they've tried to form a recycling committee in the past and apparently didn't do much. It's pretty tough here because nothings is organized on the municipal or national level, so it all has to come from grassroots volunteer projects, which generally lack funding and commitment. But I figure starting with little kids who HAVE to be in school anyways is the way to go, so we'll see.

I am also starting a community newsletter project with some of the students in my English class, and I went to sell ads to micro-enterprises in Quebradas last week with another girl and really had no idea what to suspect since this is a new concept and a lot of the businesses don't currently do advertising or have a logo or anything, but people were really receptive and excited about it and more than 20 businesses have bought ads. I didn't even know there were more than 20 businesses in Quebradas until now! So that was very exciting but now that people have really invested in the project, we have to deliver a good product for not that much money, which is getting a little complicated. If anyone has a really good printer at home maybe I can just send it home to print? No, I kid, we will figure something out and it WILL be sustainable...

Okay now to the fun part. I met Dad, Lynne and Liza in front of the church in San Isidro last Thursday after they drove down from San Jose. We went to lunch and I gave them a mini-tour of the town and the giant farmers' market before bringing Liza back to Quebradas for the evening. She met the fam and helped me with my English class and watched me stop and talk to many neighbors, and she learned is the norm in small communities unlike LA and NYC, and then mid-day we headed to Chimirol, where Dad and Lynne were waiting for us at Monte Azul, a beautiful hotel/lodge/bed and breakfast where we spent the next three nights. I will refrain from describing every delicious meal we ate there, but some of the highlights included fresh-squeezed pineapple juice, organic coffee, homemade feta cheese, and, of course, chocolate cake. We spent our first afternoon exploring the trails and waterfall at the hotel, our second day we took a day trip to Matapalo, a quiet and peaceful beach on the Southern Pacific Coast, and our third day included massages and a cooking class at the hotel. REALLY rough life, I know. A really fun part was getting to know the staff there. There are four partners who run the place, one Tico who grew up in Berkeley, CA, and three gringos. The rest of the guys are local and were all very fun. For half the time we were the only guests there, making the staff to guest ratio at least 2 to 1. Anyways it was a wonderful hidden treasure to know about for future visitors, and I have a feeling Dad, Lynne and Liza will be back...

Monday I brought the fam back to Quebradas, where we spent the day with my Tico fam. Duglass took the afternoon off of work and Sylvia prepared a big feast of olla de carne, then after a tour of "downtown Quebradas" where Lynne got her hair washed at the new salon, we came back to the house for cafecito and ended up just staying in and hanging out and ordering in pizza for dinner because it was pouring rain. Everyone was in their pajamas and joking around and seemed to get along really well, despite the language barriers. Liza spend the night again and on Tuesday we made the trek up to FUDEBIOL, with a stop at the women's recycling paper group for a meeting. Then we met Dad and Lynne for a picnic at the reserve and in the afternoon, the group of neighbors I am working with on a bilingual nature guide course took them on guided tours of FUDEBIOL that they had prepared the week before. Then I accompanied the family back into town for more coffee and bread before saying goodbye.

It was a really nice mix of getting to take a mini vacation with my family and introducing them to my community and my new life here. And of course it was very sad to say goodbye, especially because Liza is off to college next week and I don't know when I'll see here next, but I feel so lucky that I've already had visitors and have more to come. It definitely helps me get through days when I'm feeling kind of lonely and wondering exactly why I'm here again. But now things are very busy and I have a trip back to the states to look forward to in three weeks! Hope to see some of my dutiful blog-readers on both coasts!

Friday, August 7, 2009

This week, I...



- Said a sad goodbye to Richi and Ines as they returned to their respective home countries, but enjoyed fun goodbye celebrations that included sangria, a live dj, and lots of arroz con pollo.
- Had my first beginner's Latina dance class in San Isidro. We warmed up to the Black-Eyed Peas.
- Got to do some green networking at two rural eco-tourism events, which harkened back to my NYCEDC days.
- Sat through a FOUR HOUR meeting of the Board of Directors of FUDEBIOL and thought to myself, "okay, only 20 more of these during my Peace Corps service...
- Finished a draft of my 40-page community assessment report in Spanish!
- Spent two and a half hours scraping tape off of and washing old garbage cans at the school to use for recycling as all the students and teachers watched (a few played the drums on the tops of the bins) and no one offered to help.
- Fell on my face in front of my whole English class as I was entering the school in the rain and didn't see the step. Ironically, we had learned about body parts in the last class and the homework assignment was to write about a time when you hurt yourself or got sick. So I had the perfect anecdote to start things off on a humorous note...
- Count down less than a week until Dad, Lynne and Liza come visit!!!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Back to School

So after another week of soccer camp, I was keeping my fingers crossed that the swine flu scare would pass, school would reopen, and peace and order would be brought back to Quebradas. And when the good news was announced at home, I was definitely more thrilled than my two host siblings. After a quiet weekend at home (the family was at a retreat for Duglass' office) and a fun but sad going away party for Richie and Ines with their host families, I set off nervously for my first day of environmental education classes Monday morning. It didn't much help that the night before, I watched Episode 3 of Season 4 of the Wire, where Prez has his first day teaching math at an inner city high school, resulting in one kid stealing all the bathroom passes and a girl bleeding from the face...Okay my day wasn't THAT bad, but it was tough! I got there and the school director invited me for coffee with the other teachers, which was a nice gesture so I had to drink it of course even though I had just had a cup at home. Then they told me my schedule: start with first graders, then second, then sixth, then third. Thirty minutes for lunch. Then fourth grade, then another section of third, then fifth, then sixth. Forty minutes each. That took me from 8:40 am to 5pm! And the teachers didn't stay in the classroom with me, they just kind of handed off their kids to me so they could go grade papers or drink more coffee. So being new, not speaking great Spanish, and teaching a class that isn't graded gave me very little leverage. Luckily I had made some friends during soccer camp and just from being around the community, but even the kids that were nice to me refused to pay attention for 40 minutes straight! Anyways it was an exhausting day but I definitely learned a lot about how to cater my lesson plans in the future and that we should spend as much time outside doing activities as possible. I also have a newfound utmost respect for elementary school teachers...

Today was a first mini-success at the school: I got 8 cans donated from the municipality of San Isidro that we're going to use as recycling bins. I say cans and not trash cans because they are currently sealed shut with metal tops, so we need to find some man with a saw in town to take care of that issue. And I say mini because, as I learn more every day, everything here is poco a poco. I also went into the high school for the first time today, which isn't located in my community but about 3 km south, and introduced myself to the Assistant Director and met a teacher and some students who are working on a school newspaper project, which I am hoping I can tap into for a newspaper project I want to start in Quebradas. They were very receptive, respectful, and motivated, which both impressed and relieved me after tough times at elementary school.

Another highlight from last week was when the electricity went out during my evening English class. After all the girls stopped screaming, we continued the class in the dark, with everyone sharing cell phone lights to read their notes. That's the kind of resourcefulness that every Peace Corps volunteer needs!

Up later this week is more talking in circles with the local artisan group, an eco-tourism network meeting at FUDEBIOL, the opening ceremony of FOUR news shops in Quebradas (we might as well call it a mini-mall), and a surprise 73rd birthday party with a live band. Should provide for more entertaining stories next post!

Sunday, July 19, 2009


Team pic

Making the big kids run

At the mansion

Winter break in CR

The past two weeks have left me sun burnt and bug-bitten but content. After Dan left, I decided to try to focus more seriously on my CAT (Community Assessment Tool), our principal assignment from Peace Corps in our first three months of service. It’s basically a report we have to do on the history of our communities, demographics, health, social institutions, social problems, education, productive activities, etc., all leading up to our work plan for the next door years based on opportunities for development identified. So we are supposed to do formal interviews, surveys, document research, FODA’s, and general observation to write the report. It kind of feels like I’m doing my senior thesis all over again, except this time it all has to be in Spanish. Anyways it is kind of intimidating to start but it provides a good excuse to talk to people and explain a little more about my role as a Peace Corps volunteer, and I ended up having some really useful interviews and getting some good ideas for projects. The frustrating part is that I’m yet to identify anyone who’s really willing and able to work with me on those projects. Everyone says, “we need a youth group” or “FUDEBIOL needs to do more for the community,” but no one wants to be the one to lead the charge. So I can tell a big part of my task here is going to be as a motivator, slowly but surely…

Then this week was the beginning of soccer camp, an idea I had proposed to Ritchie, the Spanish volunteer who was a soccer coach in Spain, to do together during the kids’ “winter” vacation. I had made flyers two weeks before and a bunch of kids signed up, but come Monday we had zero equipment. So I went on a mission to the house of a man I had heard used to coach some of the kids in the neighborhood and to another house where the coach of the current men’s team lives and came up with three balls, three cones, and a whistle, which was a good start. The camp was Tuesday through Friday, from 7 to 11. Kids 9 and under were from 7 to 9 am and 10 and up were 9 to 11 am. No one was there at 7, and I was worried that everyone had forgotten about it, but Ritchie reminded me that we were on Tico time and they’d make it eventually. Sure enough, we had about 10 little tykes in the first session and 20 in the second! I was a little intimidated by the older group at first because it was mostly boys, many of whom were bigger and better than me at soccer, but they were all well-behaved for the most part and all seemed to want to be there and to like the organized nature of the camp, as otherwise they would probably be watching tv at home or just kicking the ball around with no real purpose. So we tried to do a mix of teaching technique and conditioning and discipline and playing games, and I think it went pretty well. Ritchie ended up only being able to come the first day, but some of the other volunteers helped the other days and Adrienne, another Peace Corps volunteer friend who lives nearby, came and helped on Friday, which was really fun. Anyways being out in the sun on my feet for four hours straight four days in a row was super exhausting, and I definitely got frustrated with the kids and spent a lot of time screaming with my voice which I think gets even squeakier in Spanish, but I was really happy with the turnout and enthusiasm, and it turns out that school in all of Costa Rica got canceled next week because there were a few more cases of the H1N1 virus, so we are going to do the camp again! Oh man. But today when I was running I passed a couple houses where some of the players were and they all screamed my name and waved, so I was excited to know that I had at least made some new friends.

This weekend was the VAC (Volunteer Activity Committee) reunion for all the Peace Corps volunteers in the Southern Zone. Every three months, we get a free night out of site and reimbursement for travel and one meal to have a “meeting” with all the volunteers in our region to discuss projects and go over Peace Corps-related news and announcements. But it’s also just an excuse to get together in a cool place and have fun for a weekend, which is definitely where the focus was. We all met up at this mansion in the mountains on the road to Dominical that a gringo rents out to groups, and it was pretty ridiculous. There were 25 of us, a pool, a Jacuzzi, a home theater, and a human-sized chess court. Enough said. It was cool to meet some of the older Peace Corps volunteers and hear about their communities as well as to see the other Tico 19ers from my group and hear about their first month and a half in their sites. And yesterday afternoon we had brownies fresh out of the oven! It wouldn’t be a complete blog entry without at least one food reference…

Monday, July 6, 2009


Steak and potatoes on July 4th

Dolphin viewing

Queen of the rainforest

Our friend the kitchen frog

The town parade