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