It has been a VERY eventful past couple of days. I feel like I have so much to write about now because every experience I´m having is completely new, and it´s weird to think that in a few months this is all going to be routine and I might actually be bored...
So on Wednesday each current trainee was assigned a current volunteer to go visit in some part of the country for four days starting on Saturday. My assignment was to Allyson Hatchet, who is living in Cedral, Montes de Oro in the mountainous region of Puntarenas. Because there is only one bus a day that can get you there and it leaves at 7 am, I was one of the lucky 8 people who got to sleep at a hotel in San Jose on Friday night after training. The best part of that night was discovering Pops, a REAL ice cream chain they have all over San Jose. I got coffee and brownie dynamite, and yes it was as good as it sounds...That night we met up with some current volunteers who were in San Jose for different reasons, so it was fun to hear about what they are all doing at their sites and where they go in San Jose to have fun.
But the REAL fun began on Saturday morning when I caught the 7 am bus to Miramar, after some guy tried to scam me and told me it had already left and I would have to take a taxi there. What, do I look like a tourist or something! About two and a half hours into the bus ride, the bus just kind of stopped and some people got off and some people stayed on and no announcement was made whatsoever. A nice old man saw me looking confused and explained that the bus had broken down and another one would be coming in about ten minutes to pick us up. I asked him how far we were from the last stop and he said about a kilometer, so I said I would just walk and he said it would take me an hour and forty minutes. Something must have been lost in communication, but I decided to trust him with this one and wait around. About 15 minutes later a sketchy looking bus did indeed show up and took us to downtwon Miramar, where I met Allyson at an English language school where she had some friends.
The bus to Cedral did not leave until 3, so we met up with another volunteer, Melissa, who was hosting another trainee, Jen, in Miramar and took a bus to a nearby beach called Dona Ana. Unfortunately I had no idea we were going to be near a beach and did not come prepared, but it was really nice to just sit out and at least feel the water, which was insanely warm. The beach was totally deserted and made of black sand, which was pretty cool. Then we got lunch at this little hotel where the family who runs it was sitting around playing cards and reading magazines until we showed up. The mother asked us what we wanted for lunch based on the ingredients she had in her kitchen and then whipped it up for us, no menus necessary. There were some fried bananas that I avoided, but other than that VERY delicious.
We finally made it up to Cedral (literally an hour and a half bus ride straight up) a little before 5, and Allyson gave me a tour of the town, which much like Tarbaca consists of a church, school, and pulperia, though Cedral also has a soccer field and bakery. We met my host family where I would be staying for the next three nights. They live in a centrally located home with four kids, a dog, a cow, two roosters (who I subsequently learned are enemies and like to fight every morning at 5 am) and a BUNCH of chickens. Laly, the mother, is the cook for the high school, so I was VERY well fed. Allyson and I were both exhausted after an early morning and long day in the sun, so we ate dinner and watched Ice Age with the kids (I realized that Spanish cartoons are the way to go for me because they speak slowly and use my level vocab words) before passing out.
Sunday was Allyson´s birthday, and an eventful day it was. After a breakfast of homemade tortillas and natilla (basically milk fat that they put on everything...mmmmm), we set off for the community garden she started, which is a half acre of vegetables from corn to broccoli to peppers to every kind of seasoning. It is really amazing and a LOT of work. Because it had been so dry recently, they were trying to set up an irrigation system to divert water from the nearby river through a hose to the garden. Given my nonexistent knowledge of agriculture but desire to be productive and useful, they found a perfect task for me, weeding. For about two hours I just got to sit there and pick weeds out of the ground and found it extremely satisfying! After the garden we walked around town and visited with some interesting characters, including a 98 year old abuela who had FOUR generations of women in her house for afternoon cafecito. Most of the conversation was dedicated to counting her grandchildren. We came up with 35. We also visited with some gringo biologists who are living at the top of the hill and have been in Cedral for the past four months studying birds and trees. PLENTY of both around here...After lunch we went with Laly´s family and the gringos and a few other people from the community on a hike to an awesome river and waterfall and this time I got over not having a bathing suit and just swam in my clothers. It was so refreshing and beautiful there, I couldn´t believe she lived so close to it, but I guess that´s more common in Costa Rica than NYC. For Allyson´s bday dinner the gringo scientists drove us to this pizza place about a half hour down the hill. It was really nice to have a meal without rice and to eat real cheese, though I know it´s way too early to be getting sick of the food.
Monday morning I got up and went for a run at sunrise, which was AMAZING. It was so quiet and beautiful up there I hardly even noticed the hills! Then we headed back out to the garden with Allyson´s counterpart, the agricultural officer in Cedral. He and his assistant helped us set up the irrigation sprinkler system, which was a LOT of work and looked like it would be a lot of work to maintain. But it was really cool to learn all this stuff about sustainable agriculture, and the people here are so resourceful. All the water came from the river, all the fertilizer was homemade, all the vegetables are grown and sold locally, and any holes in the hoses were patched up with rubber from used boots. Allyson works really closely in the garden with the awesome 72 year old guy Calichon who is very handy with a machete...That afternoon we took it easy and watched the high school kids play soccer all day in honor of Dia de Deportes, which is apparently a national holiday here. Tomorrow they all start finals though. In the evening we watched the sunset and then went to the community microfinance bank meeting. Allyson had been working with them to set it up over the past 6 months or so, and they just finally had their inauguration last week, so it´s all very new. I couldn´t understand much of what was said but it was really interesting to observe how she facilitated the meeting without running it, which is what our job as Peace Corps volunteers is supposed to be, in order to make our projects sustainable once we´re gone. Anyways at the end they kept all walking in and out of the room and I didn´t get what was going on until they came in with brownies and arroz con leche and sang feliz cumpleanos to Allyson! They had organized a little surprise party and it was so cute and they clearly all love her and appreciate her so much and kept talking about how much they were going to miss her in 5 months when she leaves. It was really cool to see how much a volunteer like Allyson who really integrated herself into her community can make an impact.
This morning I got up at 5, appreciating the dueling roosters for the first time, and said goodbye to Laly and Allison and was on my way. I´m now two bus rides down in San Jose at an internet cafe before making the final leg of my journey back to Tarbaca and back to school...ugh. It was really great to get away this weekend and see what a real volunteer is up to and it got me really excited about my next two years of service. I don´t think I want to be in a site as rural and isolated as Allyson´s, but it was inspiring to see all the cool work she is doing with SO few resources and humbling to see how simply people can live and be totally happy. Now I am going to get Pops again before returning to rural life...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A Fisherman Story
Some food for thought for us 20-somethings pondering our futures…
A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
“Not very long,” replied the Mexican.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take siesta with my wife. In the evenings I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar and sing a few songs…I have a full life.”
The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra income, you can buy a bigger boat.”
“And after that?” asked the Mexican.
“With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”
“How long would that take?” asked the Mexican.
“Twenty, perhaps 25 years,” replied the American.
“And afterwards? That’s when it really gets interesting,” he continued, laughing. “When you business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions.”
“Millions? Really? And after that?” asked the Mexican.
“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with you wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.”
A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
“Not very long,” replied the Mexican.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take siesta with my wife. In the evenings I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar and sing a few songs…I have a full life.”
The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra income, you can buy a bigger boat.”
“And after that?” asked the Mexican.
“With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”
“How long would that take?” asked the Mexican.
“Twenty, perhaps 25 years,” replied the American.
“And afterwards? That’s when it really gets interesting,” he continued, laughing. “When you business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions.”
“Millions? Really? And after that?” asked the Mexican.
“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with you wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.”
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
An afternoon to Remember (3/23/09)
After class today, we decided to explore the finca (countryside) behind Mark and Jake's houses. They live on a huge pice of property, where everyone is somehow related. Upon my arrival, I was greeted by a grandfather, father, two sons and two daughters ages 3-12, and the two newest additions to the family, Mark and Jake. The grandfather, who must be in his 70's, brought out a flat soccer ball and insisted that we get a game going "in the street," which is actually a hilly dirt road with lost of slippery rocks. So we set up some goals with sticks and had a full-fledged game going, barbed wire being one of the boundaries and bushes the other, and abuelo turned out to be the MVP!
When we had had enough, he suggested that we go for our hike, which we thought was just going to be the four gringos, but the whole family came along, with grandpa leading the way. We hiked up a ways until we came upon a jungle gym made out of tree trunks, which included a see saw, "monkey bar," and a place to hang a swing, which conveniently grandpa had brought with him. Brigette and I were pressured into doing the see saw as part of our initiation. It was literally a tree trunk balancing on another tree trunk that had a split in it, with no seats of any sort or safety net. Fortunately she is an engineer and figured out how to balance our weight and not die. Then we all took our turn on the swing, and the whole apparatus creaked with every back and forth. Then the father rolled the dog down the hill. My description is not doing justice to the absurdity/amazingness of the situation, but trust me on this one.
We hiked up a bit more until we got to another dirt road, which of course meant we had to play another soccer game. This road was more level but was more like a dust bowl, and after two minutes in action all or our clothes were the same shade of brown, I was partially blinded, and my lungs were full of dirt. No one else seemed to be phased, so I tried to hang in there. Finally Brigette and I said we had to head home because it was getting dark, and grandpa wanted us to come meet his wife, but we promised this would happen next time. I can only imagine what else next time might entail...
3/24/09
Today:
- I passed by two cows and an old man with a machete on my morning run
- I had to act out constipation and diarrea in Spanish charades
- Ate banana potato chips!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Big City Livin'
Since I last posted, I have made TWO big trips into San jose, the capital of the province where I am living and of the country. On Friday we caught the 6:30 am bus to Plaza Vizquez, where we met our group of 48 other gringos and inconspicuously made the 15 minute walk to the PANI facilities, where we are having our core training. After a long day of talking about safety and security, health and what not to do, we went in search of pizza and beer and unfortunately could not find the combination so we opted for pizza. I think we were kind of on the outskirts of the city but were advised to stay around there because there are some not so nice parts of San jose, so there wasn't much going on. Thursday we are going to explore the whole city so hopefully I will have a better sense of it then. We bused home to Tarbaca only to turn around 10 hours later and go back to San Jose for our teaching English training. We learned to teach English to Spanish speakers by being taught Hawaiian during the course, which was somehow effective. We got some useful tools and now I am feeling more confident about crafting a lesson plan, which I am going to have to do next week to teach English to a group of three or more people in Tarbaca by myself...ahhh.
After another long day we opted for beer this time and found a kind of sketchy saloon-like bar restaurant near PANI. We headed back on the bus around 6 but went past Tarbaca to Vuelta de Jorco, a town 15 minutes away where 6 other CED volunteers live. Carmet had us over for a fiesta on her lovely porch where homemade salsa and chili cone carne were served along with many cold beers and my new favorite food group, butter cookies with chocolate. We danced some salsa and merengue (or at least attempted to) and I have some amusing pictures to prove it, but my Internet is pretty spotty right now, so I might now be able to upload them.
Today was finally a day off, in which I slept until 6:30, only to be awoken by a man outside my window who was apparently selling dogs at 6:30 in the morning. I guess it was really the dogs that woke me up...But I went for a great walk/hike during which many cars stopped and asked me where I was going and offered me a ride and i had to explain with my limited Spanish vocabulary that I was just talking for the sake of walking and not really going anywhere. After breakfast I went with my host sister to Acosta, a nearby town with more amenities than Tarbaca, and she showed me her high school and I had my first real Costa Rican ice cream, chocomenta, which was heavenly. Then we came home and did some homework outside while listening to Spanish ska, her favorite kind of music.
Now I'm in my newly discovered favorite place, an Organic Cafe up the hill from my house that has delicious beverages and treats for non-coffee drinkers as well as wireless, although it's not working so well for me right now. Tomorrow Spanish class begins again and next weekend I am going on my PCV visit, where each trainee is assigned a site to go visit a current volunteer and spend three nights observing their life and work, which should be pretty cool and helpful for me to get a better idea of what kind of site I am most interested in working in. I will attempt to post some pictures before then if my connection improves, and I promise to write to/call you all as soon as I get my bearings (ie figure out where to buy a cheap phone card and get better Internet).
Pure Vida,
Katie
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Back to School 3/17/09
I am two days into my new life in Tarbaca and already feel very removed from life in the fast lane. Yesterday was my first Spanish class, which goes from 8 am to 3pm-ish with an hour lunch break. I got up at 6 to go for a run and soon found that since we live on the top of the mountain ridge, there is no way to go but down, meaning the way back is all up. We are also at 1800 meters above sea level, and I felt it with every breath. So it was a shorter run that usual, but BEAUTIFUL views all along. There are no sidewalks here, so you have to be really careful with traffic while also watching your footing, since the sewers in some parts are deep and open. Just a few new obstacles to keep things interesting.
We met our teacher, Carina, who is also 24 and has a gringo husband from Minnessotta. She is really fun and expressive, speaks slowly and clearly, so I’m a big fan. Yesterday we spent the morning introducing ourselves in Spanish and then wandering around Tarbaca and mapping out the “places of interest,” which include the church, the school, two restaurants, two pulperias, and an organic café. There are no doctors offices, police stations, post offices, supermarkets, or internet cafes in Tarbaca, so for any of this you have to take a bus to the nearest town, Acerri. The best part of our exploration was stopping at one of the pulperias and talking to Hugo, the owner. He let us try all sorts of sweets and spent about a half hour welcoming us to Tarbaca and describing the town and its history and its people. So far, everyone here who we have stopped to ask a question ends up giving us a tour or offering us coffee or just chatting forever. I have this inclination to want to move on more quickly because I imagine they are busy or we are bothering them, but that’s not how it works here. Everyone has time, or makes time, to help.
On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays my host mother teaches at night at the high school in Acerri, so my host father cooked us dinner. Last night was spaghetti, and tonight was omelets and rice. There is also always an afternoon snack waiting for me after school, which is coffee or tea and some kind of pastry. I don’t think the low-carb diet will ever be adopted in Costa Rica.
This afternoon we took the bus to Acerri to use the bank, post office and Internet. It is more of a town than Tarbaca, with a plaza in the center and a high school. We went to the high school to introduce ourselves because next week, our assignment is to observe an English class and a computer class at a nearby high school, and what do you know we get a tour of the entire school as well as an exclusive view of some of the class projects going on. A lot of the projects are around the environment, either recycling or growing things or harvesting butterflies, which is pretty cool. After that the director of the school took us to meet a woman who works for the health department in Acerri who oversees some micro-enterprise initiatives in the area, and they were both so excited that we were interested in their projects that they started talking very fast about all that they were working on and it sounded really interesting but between the four of us, we probably only caught every other word. Speaking and listening in Spanish all day is EXHAUSTING when it doesn’t come terribly easy, so afterwards we took a coffee/fruit juice break and spent an hour reading and writing in English on the Internet.
Tomorrow is our first technical training class with the entire CED group. We are convening in Tarbaca so our group gets to sleep the latest. I look forward to exchanging stories of our new homes and host families and struggles with Spanish, cold showers and hill-running,
We met our teacher, Carina, who is also 24 and has a gringo husband from Minnessotta. She is really fun and expressive, speaks slowly and clearly, so I’m a big fan. Yesterday we spent the morning introducing ourselves in Spanish and then wandering around Tarbaca and mapping out the “places of interest,” which include the church, the school, two restaurants, two pulperias, and an organic café. There are no doctors offices, police stations, post offices, supermarkets, or internet cafes in Tarbaca, so for any of this you have to take a bus to the nearest town, Acerri. The best part of our exploration was stopping at one of the pulperias and talking to Hugo, the owner. He let us try all sorts of sweets and spent about a half hour welcoming us to Tarbaca and describing the town and its history and its people. So far, everyone here who we have stopped to ask a question ends up giving us a tour or offering us coffee or just chatting forever. I have this inclination to want to move on more quickly because I imagine they are busy or we are bothering them, but that’s not how it works here. Everyone has time, or makes time, to help.
On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays my host mother teaches at night at the high school in Acerri, so my host father cooked us dinner. Last night was spaghetti, and tonight was omelets and rice. There is also always an afternoon snack waiting for me after school, which is coffee or tea and some kind of pastry. I don’t think the low-carb diet will ever be adopted in Costa Rica.
This afternoon we took the bus to Acerri to use the bank, post office and Internet. It is more of a town than Tarbaca, with a plaza in the center and a high school. We went to the high school to introduce ourselves because next week, our assignment is to observe an English class and a computer class at a nearby high school, and what do you know we get a tour of the entire school as well as an exclusive view of some of the class projects going on. A lot of the projects are around the environment, either recycling or growing things or harvesting butterflies, which is pretty cool. After that the director of the school took us to meet a woman who works for the health department in Acerri who oversees some micro-enterprise initiatives in the area, and they were both so excited that we were interested in their projects that they started talking very fast about all that they were working on and it sounded really interesting but between the four of us, we probably only caught every other word. Speaking and listening in Spanish all day is EXHAUSTING when it doesn’t come terribly easy, so afterwards we took a coffee/fruit juice break and spent an hour reading and writing in English on the Internet.
Tomorrow is our first technical training class with the entire CED group. We are convening in Tarbaca so our group gets to sleep the latest. I look forward to exchanging stories of our new homes and host families and struggles with Spanish, cold showers and hill-running,
Tarbaca: Donde La Vida Nace (3/15/09)
Now the real adventure begins. After one more day of information overload, we were finally let lose to our host communities. I was assigned to Tarbaca with three other CED volunteers at my same language level. There are four CED communities clustered together in the mountains between 20 and 26 kilometers from San Jose, though it takes about an hour by bus because of the roads and how many stops they make. Tarbaca is the closest, followed by San Gabriel, Vuelta de Jorco, and Acosta. Acosta is the only community with amenities such as a bank, phone cards, and the Internet, so I am writing these entries in Word on my laptop and will post them all next time I have access to wireless. So yes, this is the beginning of my disconnectedness, and so far it feels okay. Let’s just hope that feeling can last for the next two years…
So Mark, James, Brigette and I were dropped off first in Tarbaca around 12:30 this afternoon and greeted by a bunch of really cute little kids waiting for us on the steps of the church. The church and the school are the center of town, so all addresses are based around these landmarks. Mine, for example, is 200 mts north of the church. We are right next door to the pulperia, which sells every kind of packaged food you can imagine and more. The town also has two restaurants and an organic coffee shop and that’s about it.
I was soon greeted by Vanessa, my host mother, and Yazmin, my 15-year-old host sister. They wore big smiles and we immediately embraced and they insisted on lugging my embarrassingly large suitcases all the way home, which was fortunately only 200 meters away. Back at the house I also met Jorge, my host father, and Eduardo, my 8-year-old host brother. That sums up the nuclear family, although I later discovered through a photo-sharing session that the extended family is literally infinite. Jorge also has a son who does not live at home but came by to say hello with his 11-month-old son as well.
I was shown to my room in the front of the house, which is probably about the same size as my NYC apartment, except there is a twin bed so there is room for a giant bookshelf. Vanessa is a teacher of primary and secondary school, so she has a TON of books, some of which may be at my reading level. After a very filling and delicious lunch of rice, beans, salad, chicken, and some sort of potato and cheese casserole, I finally got to unpack my belongings, which felt great after living out of a backpack for the past five nights. Their home is very warm and comfortable and they immediately made me feel at ease and emphasized that their home is my home, and I really felt like they meant it. They have hosted two Peace Corps volunteers before, so it is clearly an experience they enjoy and have been successful at, which is comforting.
After unpacking, Jorge and Yazmin gave me a tour of Tarbaca, which really meant driving up the street. We ended at the giant sod soccer field, and then on our way back we stopped at one of their neighbors’ homes. The woman is a dressmaker, and Yazmin’s confirmation is this Saturday, so she needed to get her dress fitted. They have a beautiful home and two adorable daughters and a great-grandmother who spent time in California and speaks English. The daughters showed me their backyard, where they grow lots of their own fruits and vegetables and have a host of farm animals, including chickens, geese, cows, rabbits and a pet dog. Pretty cool. So far, it seems that the people here (at least in this town) love to eat lots of different types of fruits and vegetables, which I am very excited about, even if they are always served with rice and beans. I tried a sweet lemon this afternoon, which tasted like watered-down lemonade, in a good way. We spent about 45 minutes talking with the neighbors and then came back and Vanessa showed me a little more around the house and told me how everything works, and then we exchanged photo albums and stories, of which Vanessa had MANY more.
Before I knew it it was time to eat AGAIN (Vanessa has emphasized this is a major activity in their household and Costa Rican culture in general), but dinner is a smaller, lighter meal, thankfully. Now it is 9:20 and everyone is getting ready for bed, my kind of schedule! I am going to get up in the morning and go for a run and explore a bit. Unfortunately we are in the mountains so it seems there is no way to avoid hilliness, so we’ll see how long I last. After that begins the next 11 weeks of intensive training, starting with ALL DAY Spanish class tomorrow at 8. I am going to have homework again! And yes, to me this is very exciting…
So Mark, James, Brigette and I were dropped off first in Tarbaca around 12:30 this afternoon and greeted by a bunch of really cute little kids waiting for us on the steps of the church. The church and the school are the center of town, so all addresses are based around these landmarks. Mine, for example, is 200 mts north of the church. We are right next door to the pulperia, which sells every kind of packaged food you can imagine and more. The town also has two restaurants and an organic coffee shop and that’s about it.
I was soon greeted by Vanessa, my host mother, and Yazmin, my 15-year-old host sister. They wore big smiles and we immediately embraced and they insisted on lugging my embarrassingly large suitcases all the way home, which was fortunately only 200 meters away. Back at the house I also met Jorge, my host father, and Eduardo, my 8-year-old host brother. That sums up the nuclear family, although I later discovered through a photo-sharing session that the extended family is literally infinite. Jorge also has a son who does not live at home but came by to say hello with his 11-month-old son as well.
I was shown to my room in the front of the house, which is probably about the same size as my NYC apartment, except there is a twin bed so there is room for a giant bookshelf. Vanessa is a teacher of primary and secondary school, so she has a TON of books, some of which may be at my reading level. After a very filling and delicious lunch of rice, beans, salad, chicken, and some sort of potato and cheese casserole, I finally got to unpack my belongings, which felt great after living out of a backpack for the past five nights. Their home is very warm and comfortable and they immediately made me feel at ease and emphasized that their home is my home, and I really felt like they meant it. They have hosted two Peace Corps volunteers before, so it is clearly an experience they enjoy and have been successful at, which is comforting.
After unpacking, Jorge and Yazmin gave me a tour of Tarbaca, which really meant driving up the street. We ended at the giant sod soccer field, and then on our way back we stopped at one of their neighbors’ homes. The woman is a dressmaker, and Yazmin’s confirmation is this Saturday, so she needed to get her dress fitted. They have a beautiful home and two adorable daughters and a great-grandmother who spent time in California and speaks English. The daughters showed me their backyard, where they grow lots of their own fruits and vegetables and have a host of farm animals, including chickens, geese, cows, rabbits and a pet dog. Pretty cool. So far, it seems that the people here (at least in this town) love to eat lots of different types of fruits and vegetables, which I am very excited about, even if they are always served with rice and beans. I tried a sweet lemon this afternoon, which tasted like watered-down lemonade, in a good way. We spent about 45 minutes talking with the neighbors and then came back and Vanessa showed me a little more around the house and told me how everything works, and then we exchanged photo albums and stories, of which Vanessa had MANY more.
Before I knew it it was time to eat AGAIN (Vanessa has emphasized this is a major activity in their household and Costa Rican culture in general), but dinner is a smaller, lighter meal, thankfully. Now it is 9:20 and everyone is getting ready for bed, my kind of schedule! I am going to get up in the morning and go for a run and explore a bit. Unfortunately we are in the mountains so it seems there is no way to avoid hilliness, so we’ll see how long I last. After that begins the next 11 weeks of intensive training, starting with ALL DAY Spanish class tomorrow at 8. I am going to have homework again! And yes, to me this is very exciting…
Friday, March 13, 2009
In full swing
The past two days have been a blur of acronyms, signatures and orientation sessions. We have now pretty much met our whole staff, including medical, administrative, safety and security, and our individual program directors ad support staff. Highlights of today included meeting the US ambassador to Costa Rica, Peter Cianchette, who came by to introduce himself and have lunch with us and meeting our program counterparts who we will be working with on our various projects. For the Community Economic Development program, our three partners are FINCA, a rural microfinance organization, MAG, an agricultural organization, and Junior Achievement. We also got our language placements after yesterday's oral exam. I am smack in the middle, intermediate - medio, which is just where I think belong, so that's good. This is going to determine which training village we will be located in for the next 11 weeks, which we'll find out tomorrow.
At 7 pm this evening, when I was already ready to go to bed, we got on two buses and drove to neighboring communities for our first venture out of the retreat center for dinner. We were each given 3,000 colones, which is equivalent to less than 6 dollar, and our "challenge" was to feel ourselves sufficiently in an hour and a half. I stored up on snacks beforehand just in case, but it turns out we were pretty high rollers. I consumed: chicken fajitas (1400 colones), a beer (850 colones), and ice cream (700 colones) with 300 colones to spare! But the best part of the night was that this meal was consumed in a karaoke bar, where we made many friends by singing a variety of American classics, including Oops I Did It Again, Spice Up Your Life, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and Sweet Caroline. Pictures to prove it below. NOW I am ready to go to sleep...
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Estoy en Costa Rica!
After many sleepless hours and lugging of baggage, we arrived in San Jose today at 11. As Group Leader of team #1, I am happy to say we all made it with our baggage. We were met at the airport by Terry Grumley, the director of Peace Corps Costa Rica, and drove about 45 minutes to Tres Rios, just east of San Jose. We are staying the next four nights at a retreat center here where we will be getting many shots, taking an oral Spanish exam, and getting prepared for our 11-week pre-service training. So you could say that Staging was orientation for the retreat, the retreat is orientation for pre-service training, and pre-service training is orientation for the next two years...oh man.
Anyway so far life in the Peace Corps is pretty posh. This place has hot water, wireless Internet, good food, and best of all, a game room and sports fields. We played some soccer and ping pong today, tomorrow is Spanish Scrabble.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
A Glory(ous) Day
Hello readers -
This is my first blog post EVER, so I am still working on my opening line. I depart for Costa Rica in less than 6 hours and from my hotel in less than 2, so there is no way I am going to sleep tonight. Instead I will attempt this semi-lucid blog post.
Today was my first official Peace Corps activity, "staging" at the Holiday Inn in Georgetown. We had to fill out a lot of forms and sit in a conference room for a lot of hours, but I got to meet the 51 other volunteers I will be going down to Costa Rica with, which was pretty exciting. It seems to be a diverse group in background and experience, but everyone seems thrilled that they got assigned to Costa Rica and ready for the adventure to begin. We didn't do official introductions yet, so I just met the people at my table and in my activity groups. I also vo
lunteered to be a group leader for our departure, meaning I have to help with logistics getting everybody's bags to the airport, handing out passports, etc. My first big test as a Peace Corps volunteer
...
Tonight I went to dinner with friends at the most American place we could find in Georgetown, called Old Glory. I had a Bud Light, chili fries and a burger, followed by Haagen Daazs ice cream for dessert. I am feeling very satisfied as I brace myself for two years of rice and beans.
Pictures to follow when I figure out how to upload them. I suppose I should start signing off in the spirit of my soon to be new home.
Pura Vida,
Katie
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