Team Quebradas! Champions of the Día Contra la SIDA soccer tournament

At the FUDEBIOL Cena de Navidad

The crew

The spread

Celebrating the 5th night

Dolled up to fit in with the Ticos

Me and the 6th graders at Gabriela Charter School

Getting back in the groove

It was a wonderful and rejuvenating trip home for Thanksgiving. Ten days of family and friends, good food, warm water, my own bed, and getting to wear scarves and boots for the first time in 20 months sent me back to Costa Rica sad as always to say goodbye but also re-enthused to enjoy the final months of my service.

It is still not full-fledged summer like it should be here in December, but the major rains have halted and the roads are no longer a muddy mess, though there are a lot of new potholes. I received a warm welcome back from community members, especially those who I brought special-requested items from the United States, which included bird-watching binoculars, trail mix and Victoria’s Secret scented lotion. They were not, however, as enthusiastic about my new haircut (10 inches off my ponytail to make the upcoming summer heat more bearable), as long hair is kind of a rule for young women here, no matter what the weather is like.

Of course when I went to the school for what was supposed to be my last day of environmental education of the year, it turned out students were already out for winter break, even though it was the end of November and school doesn’t officially close until December 17. So Jacqueline, a British volunteer in Quebradas for a few months, and I ended up closing up the garden ourselves and bringing home some good-looking organic tomatoes and radishes. I was mostly disappointed because while I was home in the U.S., I had a chance to visit the Quebradas 5th graders pen pals at the Gabriela Charter School, and they sent them some great letters and made a video that I know the Quebradas kids will love, but it will just have to wait until their end of the year party next week.

Last Saturday, I spend the morning going door to door with the Scouts collecting money for the Children’s Hospital in San José through their annual Teleton, and I was pleasantly surprised by how generous people were. I think the Scouts doing a visual community service activity was good PR for the group, as we got lots of parents asking how their kids could participate. That afternoon, I went over to my friend Glenda’s house for a Tica makeover before her brother Bryan’s wedding. She went all out, straightening my hair and giving me a little poof in front, lip liner and heavy gloss, shimmery eye shadow and blush. Not exactly my style, but I got the surprised looks I was hoping for from people who have only seen me in my workout clothes and jeans, and people don’t me I didn’t look gringa, which I guess was a compliment.

The wedding was at a church in San Isidro, but it turned out to just be a regular mass, during which the priest married two couples, one of which was Bryan and Dayanna, who was in a full-out bridal gown. It was basically just their close family and friends and then a bunch of people there for regular Saturday mass, which I wasn’t expecting, but it was a nice ceremony and afterwards everyone went back to Bryan’s family’s house for a small party. The musical entertainment was the Quebradas school music teacher, and food was cooked and served by the family. Some new traditions I observed/participated in included: before the bride and groom exchange rings, they exchange a packet of 13 coins to symbolize a prosperous marriage; everyone threw rice at the bride and groom when they entered the party; after the bride and groom do their dance and their dance with their parents, it is a free-for-all but anyone who wants to dance with the bride or groom has to pin a 1000-colones or higher bill on their suit/dress.

On Sunday evening, I had my second annual Quebradas Chanukah party with some local PCV’s, where I got to use the beautiful menorah that Jarred and Morgan had gotten welded for me last year from a local artisan in their community. It was a fun time, and I think the latkes were better than last year. We had Chamisa’s homemade applesauce and natilla (kind of a watery sour cream) as garnish, and I couldn’t find a dreidle but we did play travel Scattergories.

This week since there were no classes and the kids are all just watching TV at home, I decided to offer a mini Junior Achievement course designed for 5th graders that goes over the basics of how to organize a business. I got 10 kids to sign up, and the great thing is that they are all kids I know and who actually want to be there, so the class has been fun to teach and easy to manage. They all seemed to enjoy the course, and it was a good thing to get me back in the rhythm of work here.

I also gave a more adult-themed charla this week to some teenagers in Quebradas. In honor of National AIDS day on December 1, Morgan organized a presentation on AIDS awareness and prevention. Through a grant she secured for six PCV communities in the region, the deal is that if we could get six or more kids to listen to the charla, they get to play in a soccer tournament next week at the Polideportivo in San Isidro, lunch, ball and uniforms included. I got seven kids to show up, two guys and five girls, and they actually behaved more maturely than I expected and asked questions and seemed curious about the theme. The highlight was getting to do the condom on the banana demonstration, which until then I had only seen in movies. Of course that entailed having to buy condoms from the local pulpería owner who is also a student in my English class. I awkwardly explained to him the reason, but I think he bought it, as he even offered to be the model if we needed one…

This weekend there are big community parties and a family ranch off the main road in Quebradas, and the Scouts are in charge of preparing and selling food, which is a big deal because we could make a lot of money from it, but it’s also a big responsibility. Since I have nowhere near what it takes to actually work the kitchen under such pressure (a job only for the very experienced housewives), I will be helping out with the bingo and general logistics of setup and cleanup. On Saturday night is the annual FUDEBIOL Christmas dinner, another rare chance to dress up in Quebradas, but I think I will do my own makeup this time…

P.S. Pìctures to come when I have a faster Internet connection

Blah

After my triumphant blogpost last month, I have been hesitant to post again, as little of note has happened since then, hence the stark contrast in titles. I guess I knew my high point wouldn’t last forever, but while I’m up I tend to forget about all those times I’ve been down during this roller coaster experience, and then I am harshly reminded.

The past few weeks have been kind of a bummer, due mostly to the horrible weather. I have not really minded the seven-month long rainy season in Costa Rica because, at least where I live, it tends to be gloriously sunny and hot every morning, so by 2pm it’s not that big of a deal when it starts to rain. BUT, due to a “cold front,” it began to rain first thing in the morning two Tuesdays ago and has hardly stopped since.

Fortunately, the rains caused no serious damage in Quebradas. Everyone’s homes are still in one piece and nobody was hurt. But community life as I know it pretty much came to a halt. All meetings and activities were cancelled (except for my English class, the only thing I had control over…). School was out for three days, even though most of the students and teachers live in the community. Homes whose doors were shut tight and neighbors who would always greet me in the street were closed up inside. Peace Corps Volunteers across the country were put on emergency alert and were not allowed to leave our communities, which most Volunteers couldn’t do even if they wanted to because roads everywhere were closed due to landslides. There was really NOTHING to do.

Not seeing the sun or being able to go outside or socialize for so many days straight got me pretty down, and I finally cracked and went for a run one morning in the pouring rain. Now all the bus drivers think I’m officially crazy. Other than that, I did lots of reading and dvd-watching, which was nice for a couple of days, but the novelty wore off fast.

The most disappointing part of all was that this week, a group of new Peace Corps trainees were scheduled to visit Quebradas for five days for Tech Week, just like I visited Derek’s site in Guanacaste during my Tech Week when I was but a wee trainee. All the ladies in Quebradas were really excited to host them in their homes, and I had lots of fun activities planned and was looking forward to getting to know them and show off my work. Even though the roads had reopened, the trip was cancelled for security reasons.

Things have started to clear up the past few days, and the sun has even peaked out from behind the clouds the past few mornings. The Scouts meetings were back on this weekend, and I had my final Junior Achievement class at FUDEBIOL, where I invited all the participants for a pot-luck lunch. Despite the less-than-ideal weather, it was really fun. Some of the female students brought their kids, who ran around and got muddy on the trails. Everyone shared something about their experience in the course, and my heart was warmed, if not my shivering exterior, by all the positive things they had to say. More than any group I have worked with in my time here, these guys really took advantage of what I was offering and worked super hard and I think that’s why they got so much out of it. Some of them are talking about continuing with the business at least through Christmas to sell gift packages for the holidays. Unfortunately, the final awards ceremony was rescheduled for when I will already be back in the US, but I have a good feeling that they may win something.

And yes, the most exciting news is that I will be back in the US in three days! It has been 14 months, and I am SO ready to go home and sleep in my own bed and hang out with family and friends and eat turkey and all sorts of other delicious foods that I have missed. This trip couldn’t have come at a better time, and I hope that I return refreshed and inspired to enjoy my last five months here and that summer finally comes!

Euphoria (10/22)

Team Eco-Animos

The PCV's and our products

Mother-daughter dance group (don't get any ideas, mom...)

Swearing-in of the socios

Beautiful view, beautiful people

It is 10:40 pm and I have to get up in less than five hours to take a bus to San José, but I want to remember one of my biggest highs since I’ve been here. Tonight we inaugurated the Quebradas Community Credit Enterprise, and after six months of trainings and a few weeks of planning, during all of which I was unsure we could really pull this off, it was a beautiful event. Everything came together at the last minute, as things tend to do here, and we made it work. There was no stereo, so we put the microphone up to my computer as three ladies performed a folk dance with their children. Don Gilberth’s motivational video wouldn’t function, so he just decided to wing it and began drawing fantastic metaphors between the construction of the first road in Pérez Zeledón and building our CCE in Quebradas. A very well-known and loved man in the community died on Wednesday and his funeral fell at the same time as our activity, as well as the school’s bingo fundraiser, so there was the most traffic I’ve ever seen in the center of Quebradas. But everyone still showed up, and afterwards they went to pray, play bingo, or next door to the bar, in my case. There were tamales and gallos for all, we had a lovely passing of the torch ceremony accompanied by Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the violin by a nine-year-old investor, and somehow we were able to clean up in less than half an hour and everyone went home content. It is these rare moments in my Peace Corps experience that make me so happy and so sure I am in the right place.

10/24

I was not as happy when my alarm went off at 3:30 am the next morning, or when the taxi I was sharing with one of my students showed up at 3:31 and I had about four minutes to get ready. But before 4 am I was on a bus with 22 Junior Achievers on our way to San José for the product fair. We spent the entire day at the Plaza del Sol mall selling our shampoo, bath gel and aromatic candle packages amongst many other stands of students participating in the program throughout the country selling everything from candy to computer cases to car servicing in the parking lot. It was a pretty impressive production and of course I am biased but I think my group did great. Their stand looked really good and they were very professional in explaining and selling our product. There were eight judges walking around doing interviews and taking notes, and then just people passing through the mall whose attention they caught. They didn’t sell as much as they were hoping, and it was a very long and exhausting day that involved a lot of standing around, but I think it was a really good learning experience and everyone left seeming motivated and satisfied. We have four more weeks of the course, which entails selling all our leftover product, liquidating the company, and going to the closing ceremony where prizes are awarded to the best micro-enterprises and entrepreneurs.

Workwise, this was definitely one of my most fulfilling 24 hours as a Peace Corps Volunteers. Two of my big projects came to a head at once, and it was a bit overwhelming but people’s positive reactions to both our ECC inauguration and the project fair made me feel very satisfied and proud of what I have accomplished and helped other people accomplish in the past few months.

Rewinding a week, I had a wonderful visit from my mom and aunt Carrie for five days. The rented a car together and drove down to San José and despite getting seriously lost they made it over the Mountain of Death just in time to catch my Scouts meeting on Friday and give out chocolate to all the kids, followed by coffee and gallo pinto (which we forced my mom to try and she actually enjoyed it) at the home of a local artisan. On Saturday they came and bought some products from my Junior Achievers, helped make tamales with all the women from the ECC, ate lunch on Gilberth’s balcony overlooking all of San Isidro, and then had coffee and some mysterious sandwiches with the Board of Directors of FUDEBIOL before we headed down into San Isidro, picked up Chamisa and Adrienne, and drove to the coast for a lovely and relaxing weekend in Uvita. We stayed at a beautiful hotel in the mountains with a view of the national park and the ocean, ate and slept really well, and had lots of laughs. Aunt Carrie always brings life to the party.

My mom came back with me for one more day in Quebradas, came to my English class and talked a little about her job, which was really exciting for my students, came and watched the school kids plant and dig in our greenhouse, and spent a good chunk of time seriously cleaning my apartment. It looks better than it has since she helped move me in a year ago so I’m just hoping everything will hold up for my last six months.

Now I have less than a month before coming home for Thanksgiving, and things should be a little more low-key. Thanks to all who have donated to my renewable energy project so far and I will keep you updated on my progress!

Fun in the Rain

And then things got messy...

Breakfast of champions

Setting up camp in the rain

Pre-camping trip

All sorted out

Pre-Rubiks Cube Rumble

Bingo for kids of all ages

Eco-Animos: Lo natural lo siento y el ánimo me luce

Despite the endless rain that is September and October in Costa Rica, it has been a busy and productive few weeks. Our Junior Achievement product launch in San José was a big success. Although, in characteristic Tico planning, there was not enough room in the theater for all the groups that had been invited and half of my group got stuck outside until it was their turn to get onstage, they pulled it off and were all giddy with excitement about the trip. We are now in the production phase and facing some unanticipated obstacles, as the bath gel they are producing is too liquidy and the candles aren’t turning out the right color, two areas in which I am not at all useful, but they are working hard to get it together before the Product Fair back in San José in two weeks.
We organized a fun and successful Bingo Infantil to raise money for the Scouts group two weeks ago. I was pleasantly surprised at how many people showed up, and I think it had to do with a number of factors: First, we planned it right after church, so a lot of people stopped by on their way home to buy some food; Second, as it was a bingo specifically for kids with kids’ prizes and games in between each round, lots of parents showed up to help their kids win, as they take their bingos very seriously here. We had sack races, musical chairs, face-painting and balloon animals, good food, and fun prizes including some Karate Kids t-shirts courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which were a big hit.
Then I headed off to our Peace Corps three-day All Volunteer Conference in Tres Ríos, the only time of the year where every single volunteer in the country from both generations get together. It is all organized by volunteers, so it’s not as rigid and boring as our regular trainings, and there were lots of fun activities including a two-hour Tico 19 v. Tico 20 soccer game (I don’t think I even need to mention who obviously dominated), a staff bake sale and crafts fair, trivia night, a talent show, and our annual dance, whose theme this year was Rubiks Cube Rumble – you have to show up wearing all six colors of the Rubiks Cube and end the night wearing only one. So lots of good, wholesome Peace Corps fun, and it’s always nice to catch up with other volunteers and meet new ones.
This week marked the official end of my first English class, in which only four people remained of the 20-plus who I started with last July. That also meant it was my first free Thursday evening since last July, so I celebrated by going out dancing with some volunteer friends, which was a blast. Then on Friday night I hosted our final class party in my apartment. We ate nachos and buffalo wings and drank Imperial and sang a little bit of karaoke from my computer and then played bi-lingual Scrabble. The final four students were a really good group, and some of the people I have spent the most time consistently with since I got here, so I hope we will continue to be friends without English class. I am still going with my newer course that started in May, as we have 10 people right now, which isn’t so bad after six months.
This weekend was our first camping trip with the Scouts, appropriately planned at the peak of the rainy season. Eleven kids went, then José, Luis Carlos and me as dirigentes, and Ligia, Orlando, their daughter Angie and her baby, the official Scouts family of Quebradas. Por dicha, it was a sunny morning in Quebradas, so we made it to our campsite in the mountains dry and actually sweating. As soon as we starting setting up our tents the rain began, and from there things got messy. Unsurprisingly, all the boys began sliding around and fighting in the mud, only to tell us after that those were the only clothes they had brought. Somehow we made it through the evening with everyone clean, dry and accounted for and the rain let up for a fun campfire at night. I taught the kids how to make s’mores, which was a big hit except they were too impatient to roast their marshmallows so they would just burn them or eat them cold.
I was woken up at 4:40 am by all the girls who all had to go to the bathroom at once, and the day began from there. After a nice hike and some games and songs, someone suggested tug-of-war in the mud, which soon evolved into everyone throwing mud at each other, which soon evolved into throwing anyone who looked remotely clean into a mud bath, hence the pictures. We somehow managed to take down the campsite in our mud-caked state and made it back to Quebradas at 11am, as promised to all the worried mothers, who had their days’ worth of laundry to do. All in all it was a really fun trip and the first time a lot of the kids had slept away from home without their parents, and they all did really well. Next up will be a two-night trip and then the national Scouts camp in January, which is three nights, so we’ll see how they hold up.
Finally, many of you received my email that my renewable energy project at with FUDEBIOL was recently approved. I am very excited about having the chance to raise money back at home for an important cause that I have become increasingly interested in during my time working in New York City and now in Costa Rica, where the wealth of natural resources to produce renewable energy is immense. To learn more about the project and donate, check out this link: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=515-181

Madrugando

In Spanish, that is the verb for waking up super early, in the madrugada. It seems an appropriate title for my past couple weeks. The first instance was two Sundays ago, when we had a Scouts activity up at FUDEBIOL to plant trees as their buena acción of the week. At 7 am, about 30 of us headed up in the backs of various pick-up trucks and spent the morning planting on the side of a steep mountain where it probably wasn’t that safe to take 7-year-olds, receiving a charla about water from the directors of FUDEBIOL, eating cookies and playing orgolla de india, the official sport of the Scouts that is kind of a combination of soccer and ultimate frisbee. It was a super fun morning and totally worth getting up early for on a Sunday. Derek from the Peace Corps office was also visiting me that weekend for a special session he was leading in the community on how to improve the Peace Corps program in Costa Rica to better meet their needs. So we went straight down from FUDEBIOL, got soaked in the back of the pickup trucks as the afternoon downpour began, and shifted gears from getting to play with and act like kids to our roles as meeting facilitators. But it was a pretty insightful session and everyone I invited actually showed up, which is a rare occasion and made me happy that they must see Peace Corps as a valuable program that they would like to continue in Quebradas (or they just wanted free snacks).




The next instance was this past weekend, first on Friday morning to undertake the looooooooong trip almost across the entire country to the hot, dry region of Guanacaste, where 14 volunteers were meeting up to run the Tamarindo Beach Marathon, or some shorter version. The four other Zona Sur residents and me actually got a ride up the coast from Dominical in a buseta, which made the trip shorter, prettier and more comfortable. We got into Tamarindo around 7pm, got our free t-shirts at the race check-in, met up with the rest of our group at the house we had rented, and headed out for the all-you-can-eat pasta special at the Hotel officially sponsoring the race. Everyone passed out early after an exhausting travel day and knowing that we had to wake up at 4am the next morning for a 5am start time. It seemed crazy at the time, but when by 7am that sun was beating down hard and we were on our way to the beach instead of to the finish line, I was very glad my race was already over. I ran the 21k, or half-marathon, and it was my first competitive race since the NYC marathon in 2008. I felt really good considering my lackluster training schedule and ended up coming in 5th place among women in my race, which was pretty exciting. We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at the beach, eating good food and playing games at the house. It was really fun to spend time with all the other volunteers and get a little break from community life.







Now this week is back to work…kind of. It turns out that Costa Rica Independence Day, which is on September 15, is celebrated on the 14th too, so it has made for a very short work week. Yesterday there was an activity where the 6th graders from Quebradas go to the nearest school in Morazán and pick up the antorcha, which they run up through Quebradas to the school, where it is picked up by the next group of kids from the Quebradas Arriba school and so on. Apparently it is a tradition that the independence torch has to be run throughout Costa Rica. At night, there was a parade of faroles, which I guess would be translated as homemade lanterns on a stick or fishing pole, from the school to the soccer field. Some kids had pretty creative ones, but it was pretty obvious that it had been their mothers putting in the effort. The next morning at 5am in the madrugada another parade began at the soccer field and headed up toward the school. This activity is called la Diana and the idea is that you make as much noise as you can to wake up everyone who is still in bed, in theory reenacting the delivery of the news of independence from Spain, although that really only happened in Guatemala, and Costa Rica found out about six weeks later. I went with the Scouts and brought a pan and spoon to make noise, and other kids brought tins full of rocks, recorders, tambourines, etc. Everyone ended at the school with a big breakfast and acto cívico by the students that included a typical dance group and a lot of hymn-singing. The rest of the day entails hanging out at home or going back to sleep, which is what I am about to attempt. All in all it was a fun cultural experience, but it doesn’t beat the 4th of July.



Finally, I have one more anticipated madrugada on Saturday. I am going with my Junior Achievement group from San Isidro to San José for our product launch. It starts at 9am so we have to leave at 5am and we come back that same afternoon. It will be another long trip, but the group is really excited and they have been doing a lot of preparing on their own, which is awesome. Their company is called Eco-Animos, and their product is a package of shampoo, liquid soap and a candle all with the same scent that represent an estado de ánimo, or mood. So there is lavender for enamorada (in love), green apple for feliz (happy), and mint for tranquilo (relaxed/peaceful). And it is all packaged in a recycled paper box. They have to do a Power Point presentation and then a creative presentation of the product, and the plan is to do a miming of the three moods and products. I think it is pretty creative and am excited to see how it turns out, even if it does mean getting up before light…again.

(Home)sick

Well, after more than a year of go-go-going and raving about how the clean air and proximity to nature in Quebradas has kept me healthy and energetic, I came down with a terrible flu this week, and all I wanted was to be back at home. Being sick definitely makes the unexpected twists of daily life here less entertaining, my open-air tree house apartment less glamorous, and cooking every meal for myself less fun.
For example, on my way back up to Quebradas from the grocery store on Monday, the bus just stopped about 3km (and many hills) away from my apartment and the bus driver said he wouldn’t be going any further today because of some construction up ahead. But, we could walk a kilometer and then wait two and a half hours for the next bus to come down from Quebradas. Great. Fortunately, as I started my journey, some friendly neighbors with an already overflowing car made room for me in the back.
Then, on Tuesday morning I want to take a shower but unfortunately there is no water in my bathroom. I call my landlady and she goes on about how she has never had this problem until I moved in and it is because the bathroom is on the second floor and it’s not her fault and I can move out if I don’t like it. Then she let me take a shower in her apartment. This on-and-off lack of water has also prevented me from being able to make comfort foods such as soup or tea, so I have been living off mostly cereal and sandwiches.
By yesterday I finally got the sense to cancel some of my classes and meetings to get myself better, and then this morning I had high hopes of sleeping in and taking it easy when a neighbor called at 6:30 and laughed when he realized I had been sleeping. Phone calls after 6am here are pretty much fair game.
Don’t get me wrong, people have been nice and sympathetic here and offered helpful suggestions such as rubbing butter and honey on my back or drinking milk with oregano, but this is all just to say that not feeling my best has made me miss and appreciate the comforts and conveniences of home more than I have in a while.
In other news, I am training for a half-marathon (though that was obviously put on hold this week) in Tamarindo in September, so have been doing some fun long runs with friends in the Zona Sur, including a beautiful run all the way from Adrienne’s community to San Isidro, followed by brunch at Bazooka’s. Kind of like my old routine in NYC, but very different scenery.
I also recently started a Junior Achievement course in San Isidro for students at the Casa de Juventud, an alternative education institution for people who did not/cannot attend regular high school for various reasons. Having learned much from what went wrong with my last attempt at the course in Quebradas, it is going really well so far. The group is more mature and very motivated and has a pretty wide variety of talents. So far we have a name, a vaguely defined product, and a market study in development. Will fill you in when we are ready to release the details…
And I am currently filling my downtime with beginning the grad school application process, which is not nearly as fun as reading on my hammock, but if there’s anywhere/time to have to reflect on my life path and achievements, this ain’t so bad. The lack of constant internet connection makes things more challenging, but I suppose it also gives me a better story to tell.
Finally, I am helping develop a renewable energy project at FUDEBIOL that could be really exciting and may involve me hitting you all up for some funding when the time comes, so stay posted.
Okay off to chug another Emergen-C and continue on the road to recovery…

Katie D's B&B

July brought a revolving door of visitors, from which I realized in retrospect I could have made some good money if I charged for room and board (except for the visitor who had to bring his own bed, so I guess it wouldn’t be fair…). Andrew and Maddie showed up in Quebradas the day of our big launch of the Scouts group, which was a lot of fun, and all the ladies of Quebradas thought Andrew was very handsome. The launch consisted of a short presentation from the regional directors and then an introduction of all the leaders and the board of directors in Quebradas and then all the kids split up into their age groups and did activities with another group that is already formed in a nearby community that came to help out. That was really cool because our kids could see the other kids in their uniforms with their patches and all the songs and games they know, which was a good motivator. The next day we all headed to Dominical for 4th of July, and we stumbled on probably the most gringo-ized celebration you can find in Costa Rica. It was a bbq and fundraiser for the lifeguards of Dominical, with a bunch of drunk Americans, hot dogs, a giant American flag and homemade ice cream. Unfortunately the fireworks were canceled due to the rain, but we got the idea. Then Andrew and Maddie came back to hang out and help out in Quebradas for a few days (I put them to work in the school garden and English class) before continuing on their travels up north.
Two days later, Dan arrived, queen-sized blow-up mattress in hand, for his 2-and-a-half week stay at Casa de Katie. It was so wonderful to have him down for a longer than usual period of time and to have some downtime at “home” together. He learned to do dishes and sweep like a true Quebradeñan, to stuff newspaper in his shoes after we got totally soaked and muddy on a hike with the Scouts in the pouring rain, and to kind of almost appreciate cold showers on a hot, humid day. He also helped up lay out the fifth version of La Voz Quebradeña, which came out in mid-July, got to watch some quality women’s indoor soccer, and figured out how to navigate the big city of San Isidro on his own, although he asked someone how to get to Korea before they finally figured out he needed a post office (correo).
We also got some fun weekend trips in and quality time with Liza. We went one day to visit her on the organic farm she was working at, and her philosopher-farmer host father took us on a longer-than-expected tour of the grounds, stopping to reflect and teach us life lessons regarding the environment, spirituality and the chicken and the egg. He was a very interesting man with a very different perspective than most of the people I have come across in rural Costa Rica.
Liza, Dan and I spent another weekend in Manuel Antonio, where we saw MANY monkeys, a sloth, went kayaking, swam at a beautiful beach inside the national park, enjoyed happy hour looking out over the pacific coast on a beautiful sunset, and ate really, really well.
On our final weekend all together, two more visitors were added to the mix. We met dad and Lynne in San José last Friday, where we went searching for a little culture in the big city and were pleasantly surprised to find a cool little art gallery, and even better, an amazing gift shop and café with lots of recycle-art products and incredible desserts. But the highlight of the night would have to be when we got back to the hotel and dad took us in to see the casino, which was basically what you would expect of a Best Western casino in San José, and as we quickly turned and made our way for the exit, who do we run into entering the building but the rabbi and his wife from the Pacific Palisades! They had just come from doing a wedding on the beach in Guanacaste and were just hitting up one of their favorite late-night spots in town. WOW. That’s a small world…
The next morning we headed out on our weekend excursion to Tortuguero National Park. It was a four hour bus ride through banana country and then an hour and a half boat ride to our river lodge. We stopped at the Del Monte factory to observe the process, and it looks like miserably hard and tedious work, especially for the guys who are in the fields hauling bundles of bananas in the oppressive heat through a system that looks like the guys who train for football by doing sprints with a string attached to a giant weight. The boat ride was beautiful and felt Amazonian, which is the way many people describe Tortuguero. Our jungle lodge was right on the river and can only be reached by boat, as can all the other lodges and even the community of Tortuguero, which is made up of walking paths and has no cars. It was pretty hot and buggy there, but it was a lovely setting and there was a ping pong table and many hammocks, so I was happy. The next morning we did a “jungle cruise” boat tour and saw beautiful birds, more monkeys, some cayman, and got rained on, which seemed only appropriate.
But that night was the really special experience that people make the long trip out to Tortuguero for. We took a night hike down the beach to where the green sea turtles come and lay their eggs every year from July to November. We saw various parts of the process, from the giant turtle shells floating in from the sea to make their trek up the shore, to one turtle actually in the process of laying her 50-plus eggs in the giant hole she had dug for herself in the sand, to another turtle who had finished the process, and, exhausted and slow, was making her way back to the sea. The whole process takes about two and a half hours, and the mama turtles never see their babies hatch, and only 1-2 of each group of eggs that is laid actually yields a surviving baby because of all the predators that lie between where they are hidden in the sand and the ocean they have to get to, unprotected. It was pretty amazing to get to see and to think that all of this is instinctive for these animals, and they do it without any help or anyone telling them what to do, and they do it six times in a row, with only 15 days in between! And they know exactly where to go. Definitely made me wish I had paid more attention in biology class…
On Monday morning we flew back to San José from Tortuguero, which only lasted about 30 minutes but was a great way to get a better sense of the geography of where we were and had some beautiful views, including the smoking Turrialba Volcano. Then we bid a sad farewell to Dan and dad, Lynne, Liza and I headed back down south. Liza went back for her final week on the farm, and dad and Lynne hung out with me until Tuesday, when they went to visit Liza and get to know her host families for a few days. So it was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I had a great time having them visit and sharing in my experiences down here and having adventures of their own.
Now I have a pretty quiet month ahead of me, which I am looking forward to. I just attended ANOTHER training for Junior Achievement, so I am going to attempt that project again but with an organization in San Isidro and more support, and I am keeping busy with the Scouts and our micro-credit project AND I am (kind of) training for a half-marathon that a group of Volunteers is going to run in September in Tamarindo, which should be really fun, although I don’t think any of us are currently in the shape we would like to be. But it’s more just an excuse for a fun beach weekend and something to look forward to. Okay, hasta luego!

Busy busy busy

Introducing...Quebradas grupo #47 Guías y Scouts

Siempre lista!

The new face of ECC Quebradas

The DeWitt girls on the road to Turrialba

Night on the town

At the mall with the girls

So mid-June hit and my schedule for the following six weeks has been filled to the brim and will continue to be so through the end of July. Totally crazy, but all good things. From June 14-18, we had five full paid days at a fancy hotel in San José for our Tico 19 Mid-Service Training. It was filled with sessions reflecting on our first year of service and looking forward to our second year, sharing project ideas, giving feedback to Peace Corps staff, etc. We were fed every three hours between buffet breakfast, two cafecito breaks and lunch, and THEN for the first training ever we were actually free after 5p.m. to explore San José and choose our own dining options. One night we went to a mega-mall and ate TCBY and saw Sex and the City 2 among a young and metropolitan crowd, and it felt just like home. So all in all, a great break from my site to rejuvenate, see people I hadn’t seen in a while, eat good food, sleep in a super-comfy bed, take hot water showers and even watch some World Cup games on a big screen TV!

On the last night of MST, Liza got in from the US and crashed in our hotel and the next morning we went with a group of 25 volunteers and friends of volunteers on a river rafting trip in Turrialba. It was SO beautiful and the rapids were big enough that Liza and I both fell out of our boat at the same time, but not so big that it was actually scary. We spent an evening in Turrialba with Adrienne and Brigitte and then headed back to Quebradas on Sunday. It was back to work for me on Monday, and Liza went off to begin her volunteer program working on various organic farms in some nearby communities.

Highlights of my week included electing our Junta Directiva and selling our first stocks at the newly formed Quebradas Community Credit Enterprise, getting my Scouts uniform and marching in the weekend church parade to promote the group, which we are officially launching on Saturday, July 3 (si Dios quiere) and playing bingo with Liza and pretty much every single person in my community at a very successful church fundraiser on Sunday. It is so fun to have my sister around to hang out in the apartment and around Quebradas and I am so excited to get to see more of Costa Rica with her in the next month!

Now I am BACK in San José for two days, but this time it’s not as much of a vacation. We are slaving away at what will by my last edition of La Cadena, the quarterly national Peace Corps publication. Then I rush back to my site tomorrow morning in time for English class and to get organized for our Scouts launch, our first loan at the CCE, and a 4th of July visit from the DeWitt cousins. Who would’ve thought I could find a way to be THIS busy in the Peace Corps?

Scouts Camp

This was definitely one of the more remarkable weekends I have spent in Costa Rica. It began, in typical Katie DeWitt fashion, with me trying to participate in multiple activities that occur at the same time instead of choosing one or the other. As I now do every Friday evening, I went to teach my micro-finance course from 6-8, then literally ran back down the hill to my apartment, grabbed my pre-packed gear (which included a sleeping bag and pillow, a pan and dishware, clothes, toiletries, a costume and my “siempre listo” bag of tape, scissors, needle and thread, rope, tissues and a bandana) and made the 8:10 bus into San Isidro, where the Regional Director of Guías y Scouts picked me up and whisked me off to General Viejo, where the adventure really began.

When I arrived around 9pm, the 30 other “campers” were already divided into their troops diligently practicing their knot-tying. I was shown to my group, the Castoras (beavers) and immediately told to get out my rope and start practicing. They seemed a little peeved that I had arrived late, as it could possibly put them at a disadvantage in our evaluation since I would be behind on my knotting skills. Not to mention that I had NEVER tied a knot for any useful purpose other than my shoelaces in my life, and that all the names were in Spanish.

We were all out until 10:30 working on knots and then sent to our various tents to rest. I briefly saw Yajaira, José, and Nalleli, the three Scouts leaders from Quebradas and the reason I decided to do the camp, but we were all dispersed. I shared a tent with the five other beavers: Sharon (our leader), Yanoori, Roxana, Mayra and Yohana. The latter four were all mothers ages 25-45 who were interested in being Scouts leaders because their kids participate in various groups. Sharon was my age and VERY energetic and intense about being a leader, but that made here very good at it. Anyways they all seemed to lighten up once we were getting ready for bed, and we got to know each other a bit, but Sharon would not let us go to sleep until we had thought of a really good cheer for our group, which kept us up until 2am, when she announced that she was setting her alarm for 4:30 am so we could all be showered and ready for breakfast at 6. That was when I realized it was going to be a looooooong weekend…

Saturday was jam-packed from 6am to 11pm with sessions and activities on constructing with bamboo, using and maintaining tools (yes, mom, I had to sharpen a machete), putting up and taking down a campsite for all weather conditions, and planning and designing a campfire. The evening concluded with said campfire, during which our costumes were used, many songs were sung, and at the end marshmallows were handed out and I got SO excited that we were making s’mores, until I saw people just eating the marshmallows plain, without even roasting them.

We got slightly more sleep on Saturday but were still up by 5 on Sunday, as the Castoras were assigned flag-raising duty, and Sharon wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get it just right. Then we had various closing events, including some Bible-reading and reflection and our final knot-tying examinations (I think they went easy on me), and then packed everything up, had lunch and were out of there by 1pm. Saying goodbye to everyone felt like the last day of summer camp, and as the four Quebradeñans boarded our bus home, we were all giddy with excitement and exhaustion.

So, what was my takeaway from this most unique and intense of experiences? I’m still processing and running on not enough sleep, but I found that I enjoyed myself more than I’d anticipated and was thoroughly impressed with the entire operation. That is to say, these were not stereotypical Ticos in the sense of Pura Vida, arrive late to meetings, slow-paced, do-it-tomorrow attitudes. Every participant and director at that camp clearly had a passion for the organization and an energy that they wanted to do something productive with. Many of them have had similar experience in their communities in terms of lack of support from parents, lack of organization on the Board of Directors, lack of monetary resources for uniforms and other equipment, but they have all made it work because they believe in the values that the Guías y Scouts represent, for themselves and the kids they are sharing them with.

I still don’t know that the Scouts would have been for me as a kid, but in a country and culture that is often lacking in discipline, organizations, and defined goals, I think the organization can offer a lot to children and parents alike. It made me happy to see how much the other participants from Quebradas were enjoying themselves, and I hope that we can all bring the spirit of our experience back to the community and get the rest of the group excited and keep this project moving forward.

Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera, but many pictures were taken so I hope to get a hold of some soon and share with you all, just in case you don’t believe I can tie a butterfly, fugitive or fireman knot. Not sure I’d be capable of using them for anything useful, but they look good…

Cautiously Optimistic

Pizza party in Bijagua

Awkward self-photo at Río Celeste

New kitties living between the walls of my apartment and my neighbors

Recycle art project with the 4th graders

Oxen and oxcarts on the city streets in San Isidro

So I always hate to say this out loud, and it’s even more dangerous to write down where it will be forever visible somewhere in the blogosphere, but work has been going really well in the past few weeks. I have now been in Quebradas for exactly a year, and I have spent a significant amount of that time making a significant effort to integrate into the community, convince people to show up at my meetings and motivate them to get involved in projects. Something between a community organizer, consultant, and party planner. During this time, I have faced many disappointments and learned to measure success in baby steps. Most of all, I have learned to manage my expectations, which is why it makes me nervous how well things are going right now. But as many former Peace Corps Volunteers have told me, it can take a full year to really get things moving in your communities, and more and more now I understand why.

Our Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts group, which we started talking about in January after our successful summer camp, took a while to get organized, and it didn’t look like there was going to be enough enthusiasm for the project at some points. But we now have a Board of Directors, a group of adult troop leaders, and a planned formal inauguration date to launch the group. We also have colors for our scarves, a logo, and a knot that symbolizes our “commitment to conservation,” the part that sounds the easiest but of course became VERY contentious. I attended my first training with the other troop leaders, in which we learned the various salutes, symbolism of different colors and animals for different age groups, and played games where we had to try to pop the balloons tied around other people’s ankles. It kind of made me wish I had been a scout myself. Though they don’t sell the cookies here…

I also got a new project started, the project I have been most interested in since I got here but needed this long to get to know people, establish trust and respect, and identify a solid group to move forward. This is the formation of a Community Credit Enterprise in Quebradas to give small loans to micro-entrepreneurs in the community. After two informational meetings with FINCA, the umbrella organization that Peace Corps works with to support ECC projects, we were able to get more than the requisite 15 people to sign up to participate in the training and form the organization. Then FINCA leaves me to actually carry out those trainings, coming back to check in and help out only for the most complicated ones. SO that means that I have to do a lot of teaching myself before I can teach the group the basics of capital, stocks, loans, accounting, etc. IN SPANISH. Fortunately, this is the kind of challenge I have been craving, and I think the material is interesting and will be useful to me for my future as well, so I do not mind the three to four hours of preparation that every meeting requires. It is a 22-step process, and we have now gotten through step 3, so there is quite a ways to go, but the idea is that we do one step every week, and the ECC is officially formed and can start selling stocks and giving out loans after step 7, which isn’t too far. Anyways I am really happy about how enthusiastic and motivated the group is, and my biggest concern is just keeping up that energy through the whole process.

And finally, I had a good breakthrough with the school this week. I have been working with them on environmental education since I first get here, but by working “with” them I mean the teachers generally leave the classroom to sit and have coffee as soon as I enter. Last year, there was a teacher who was really supportive of the recycling project and helped form a committee of parents, but now that’s she’s gone I have really been running it on my own, which doesn’t make much sense. Fortunately, Elysa, the Italian volunteer here, has been helping me with the classes and trash separation, which has kept me sane, but she is leaving in July and regardless, the teachers and parents should be more involved. So I talked to the school director about it, and she invited me to the Board of Parents meeting and also set up a meeting between all the teachers. They were all very supportive and said of course they wanted to continue to recycling and they understand how important it is and just let them know how they can help. We’ll see how much their words turn into actions, but at least the communication channels have been opened.

There has been time for a little fun, too. Last weekend, Adrienne and I made the looooooong journey up north to visit Brigitte in Bijagua. It was about a nine hour trip in total, which was pretty brutal but I have definitely gotten used to spending more time on public transportation and not worrying about urgently getting anywhere. So we spent two nights with her in her cute little house, visited Río Celeste and some hot springs, met her friends, made fajitas, baked cookies, watched movies, and went out for pizza. All in all, a short but very successful visit. It is always fun to see what other people’s sites are like because it makes you realize how different each of our Peace Corps experiences are, even within Costa Rica, though we share many of the same experiences and frustrations.

Big plans for this weekend include an ECC meeting tonight, taking an Italian cooking lesson tomorrow from Elysa, rock-painting with the artisan group on Sunday and planning our next community newspaper. And most importantly, rumor has it that a Pop’s ice cream shop just opened behind the church in San Isidro, so I will most definitely be finding my way down there. MY Peace Corps experience just got that much better…

Hitting the halfway mark

So yes, not that I’m counting, but I have now officially been in Costa Rica for a longer time than what remains of my Peace Corps service. This is particularly evident because Tico 18, the group that came a year before me, is on their way out next week, and Tico 20, the group that got here in March, have been assigned their sites and are about to be sworn in as PCV’s, like I was a year ago. Additionally, I remember since before I left talking with my mom about going to Peru a year into my service, and the trip finally came and went and was as or more amazing as I had imagined.

I met my mom and Dan in Lima on April 16, and from there we all flew to Cuzco the next morning and spent a week hiking through the Andes, exploring ruins, learning about ancient Incan and current Peruvian culture (which included drinking many Pisco Sours), and of course delighting in the wonder and mystery of Machu Pichu. The landscapes were beautiful and SO different from Costa Rica, as were the people. Much more indigenous influence and history. It was really interesting to experience another Latin American culture after being in Costa Rica for a year, and to imagine how different it would be to be a Peace Corps Volunteer there. We visited a tiny, poor town in the mountains called Hueloc where there was one telephone and one radio for the whole community and no other means of communication, everyone dressed in typical Peruvian weavings, the kids, many barefoot and dirty but all with big smiles, lined up and then clamored over us as we handed out bread, oranges and bananas, and there is no bus that comes anywhere near the windy dirt road that leads to the entrance of the community. It definitely made me realize how much more developed Costa Rica is on the scale of “developing” countries. But most of all, it was so wonderful to share the experience with my mom and Dan and as always, very hard to say goodbye.

Now I’ve been back in Quebradas for two weeks, recharged and slowly easing back into things. The big news is that we harvested our first vegetables in the school garden. That’s right, I, Katie DeWitt, made something grow. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds, and I was pretty heartbroken when during my first class back, it started to pour rain in the afternoon and the greenhouse completely flooded, knocking down two of our plant boxes and creating one big, muddy mess. Right, the rainy season is back, which will complicate everything for the next eight months…BUT the kids were great and didn’t mind getting muddy and helped dig a canal around the whole greenhouse to catch and divert the water, and we were able to salvage most of our work. The following week, we had a big bucket of radishes for the school dining hall as well as mustard lettuce and squash for the kids to take home. Everyone was very excited.

In other news, I started a new English class for beginners because there were so many people that had been asking me for it, so although I was entirely opposed to teaching English when I signed up for the Peace Corps, it turns out it is really important here because of the amount of tourism and ex-pats that live here, and it turns out I actually enjoy it and am finding it one of the best ways to really get to know people and empower them to achieve something they never thought they were capable of. I also started a computer class in our new computer center up at FUDEBIOL for the kids who live up there. Turns out, surprise surprise, that since I’m not very good at computers in English, it’s pretty tricky teaching someone else how to use them in Spanish, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Our fourth version of the community newsletter came out right before I left for Peru, and this time it was better quality print and more pages in color, which was exciting, but I think I am going to take a break from that for a bit and maybe start releasing it every four months instead of every two months and really try to start looking for someone who can take more responsibility in the project, because it is a lot of work and not very sustainable if I am doing most of it on my own. We officially formed the Board of Directors for our Guías y Scouts group and have a training tomorrow, so hopefully we will be able to sign up kids soon and really get moving. And finally, last Sunday I invited FINCA, the microfinance organization that Peace Corps works with, to give a charla on how to start a Community Credit Enterprise, and although not as many people showed up as I had hoped, most of those who did seemed really enthusiastic about the project, so hopefully they can pull some other good people into it and we can get a dedicated group together.

So as usual, I have lots going on, but have learned after a year of practice that these things all take more time than anticipated and that not all of them are going to work, or at least not in the way I expect them to. If nothing else, I think it’s a very valuable lesson…