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.