Camp Counseling

In my CED program framework, the objectives include: assisting with business planning and administration, teaching English for employment and bringing information and communications technology to our communities. I am going to suggest they add camp counselor/babysitter/cheerleader, since that is a more apt description of my past few weeks as a PCV.

The day I got back from Nicaragua, I had to go straight to a Scouts planning meeting for our three-day camping trip that weekend. Two days later, my good friend and the head dirigente Josè, who was in cahrge of making most of the plans, sent a text messatge that he was in the hopsital with a torn meniscus after a Tae Kwon Do accident. That left me, Luis Carlos and a new leader, Ivannia, to scramble to do all the shopping an dget al the materials together in time for our Friday afternoon departure.

Miraculously, 13 of us made it on the same bus (we were 14, but one girl got a last-minute stomachache and bailed) and got to the campsite in one piece. There, we met up with the other group we were going to be camping with and the camp organizers. The organizers were the same guys who helped me out with the camp I organized at FUDEBIOL a year ago, which is when the whole idea of forming the Scouts group started, so it was cool being back with them again and thinking of how far we`d come.

Aside from the rice and spaghetti mixed with MSG packets diet and the incessant mosquitoes, the weekend was a blast. The kids had a great time getting to know the other group and they learned how to do everything for themselves, from setting up their tents to cooking to scaling up ropes and plunging through mud baths. And I think it got everyone really motivated to be around leaders who actually knew what they were doing.

After one afternoon of rest, I got up Monday morning and started an all-week environmental workshop with 12 youths from 12-18 years old in Quebrads. Each day was about a different theme (water, soil, biodiversity and climate change), and it all culminated in a project investigating these themes in our community and presenting their findings in a digital form.

I was SUPER impressed by how motivated the kids were. First, just the fact that they continued to show up each day, but that they also put together a pretty thoughtful presentation that included pictures and interviews and graphics. The driving factor was that two representatives from the group had the chance to qualify for an all-paid Peace Corps-sponsored three-day conference in Bahìa Ballena, which they did, and I ampleased to say that they deserved it.

The cool thing is it wasn`t just about the free trip, they also want to carry out some environmental projects in Quebradas, including fixing up the butterfly garden at FUDEBIOL. So this week we went to see a real functioning butterfly garden, which was amazing, and they are really excited to get started in Quebradas. Stuff like this makes me wonder why I couldn´t have gotten this started earlier and had more time to help them develop the project, but it unfortunately took me this long to build credibility with the youth in Quebradas, and maybe now that they know I`m leaving soon they are finally taking advantage.

Last weekend we had our last regional volunteer meeting for the Zona Sur in Uvita, which is kind of like camp for volunteers. We stayed at this cool treehouse/tee-pee place called the Flutterby, which had great food and was close to the beach. There were almost 40 of us with Tico 20 and 21 now being represented. It`s kind of weird because just as we started to get to know the new people in our region, it`s time for us to go.

On Saturday we took an awesome snorkeling trip to Isla del Caño, and island about 50 km off the coast. We say humpback whales and turtles on our way out and saw manta-rays, a shark and myriad colorful fish straight out of Finding Nemo while snorkeling. I topped the day off with a run on the beach with my friend Angelo, followed by a swim in the ocean, an amazing sunset, a delicious barbeque and a shared liter of Imperial. It was one of those Peace Corps moments when you realize just how good we have it here.

Then Monday began the final camp of the season (and perhaps my career) with our annual Peace Corps Pèrez Zeledòn basketball camp. I got assigned to the 9 to 11 year olds, which was a pretty fun and manageable group. I hadn´t touched a basketball since camp last year, but luckily I still remembered enough to pretend I knew what I was doing. The highlight of the week was when I got to play with some other Peace Corps girls against the Pèrez Zeledòn Under 15 girls team, and it was actually a pretty even match! I`m happy to report I still have an eye for openings and connecting good passes. But unfortunately whatever shooting skills I once posessed are no longer with me.

Friday was the last day of camp, and everyone went home happy with a medal of participation. It was fun to hang out with volunteers who came down from all over the country for the week, and it kept my evenings busy, which was nice. Unfortunately, my computer died on me last week (okay, my spilling water on it may have had something to do with it), so now I am without my PCV friends, podcasts, dvd`s, or more camps to look forward to. I may have to take u pa new hobby...

P.S. I forgot to mention that I had a delightful visit from Lisie, my old roommate in New York, in early January. She spent a night in Quebradas and we cooked fish in my toaster oven and hiked up to FUDEBIOL the next day before she headed off to meet her friends in Manuel Antonio. It was wonderful to see her and have her see my (slightly different from NYC) life in Costa Rica!

Nicaragua

The crew (for many more pictures, check out my facebook page...)

It was an all around amazing trip. My dad reminded me when I talked to him on New Years Day that when I was mulling over my decision to join the Peace Corps, one thing I was really hoping to get out of it was the opportunity to travel with other adventurous and like-minded people. This was exactly what I meant.
We had a great group: Adrienne, Chamisa, Brigitte, Jen and me. As we have all been living the Peace Corps life for the past 22 months, everyone is used to cold water, dirty feet, bumpy bus rides, gallo pinto, nothing being on time, and speaking Spanish. We all also like to eat well, be active, and go out (sometimes), so it was pretty ideal. Also, there were some of us who like to make the plans and lead the troops and others who were cool with just doing whatever we suggested. I’ll let you guess which category I fit into.
It took us about 10 hours to get from San José to Managua on Ticabus, and then we immediately got on a local bus to León, another two-hour trip. The bus “stations” are slightly less official in Nicaragua. You kind of just stand in an open space and all of a sudden a bus or mini-van pulls up and everyone starts yelling the destination at you and you run on to grab a spot.
We got to the Albergue León Hostel in the evening and immediately took to Fran, the hostel owner who also works as a lawyer for an organization that promotes sustainable tourism in Nicaragua. We had our own room and bathroom for $5 each a night, which helped us justify spending a little more money in the next few days on good food, iced coffees, and chocolate. León was a really cool colonial city that still isn’t developed for tourism beyond backpackers and a small population of ex-pats, which lent to its charm. There were 17 old Spanish churches, as well as a few museums commemorating the Sandinista revolution and some interesting communistic murals.
We soon discovered that telling locals we were living in Costa Rica got them all riled up, and though they didn’t hold it against us, they didn’t hold pack in railing on Ticos for how they have mistreated Nicas, taken land that was unrightfully theirs, and are culturally and historically vapid. After 22 months of cringing every time I hear a racist Nica joke in Costa Rica, it was interesting to hear the other side. What made me sad was that Fran, a highly educated and intelligent Nicaraguan, was the most passionate in his utter distaste for Costa Rica, which doesn’t bode well for their future relationship.
We ended our time in León with a fun night out on the town with Fran and Silvio, who had been our tour guide for our hike up Cerro Negro and volcano-boarding adventure. They took us to a salsa bar, where we met some fun Australians and we all continued on to the after-party, but not until we closed down the first place in a group hug singing Feliz Navidad. Trip highlight #1.
The next day we made our way to Granada, the more well-known and touristy colonial city in Nicaragua, where there were nicer hotels, the buildings and roads were in better and more modern condition, and there was a significant ex-pat community, which brought with it the benefit of GREAT restaurants, though not as cheap as León. Our hostel, the Oasis, was cute and clean, though not as intimate. We were all pretty beat and in bed early, but it was Christmas Eve and we soon discovered a local tradition: at midnight, the entire city erupts in fireworks set off in front of family homes. We had a pretty good view from the roof of our hostel, which was fun.
We spent Christmas kayaking and lounging at the nearby Laguna de Apoyo, followed by pizza dinner and dance party at the “be” discoteca in town. We met some crazy Brits who seemed to really like us and then ran into them at breakfast and they gave us totally blank stares and didn’t even remember where they had been the night before. The next day we checked out Masaya, a nearby town known for its artisan market, where we got in some quality speed-shopping. A final morning of strolling and museums concluded the urban portion of our travels, as we headed to “sea” in the afternoon.
Isla de Ometepe is an island made of two volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, which is so huge that it looked like an ocean anywhere you turned on the island. We had our first major hitch in plans when the ferry we were planning to take was already full, but we were able to catch a bus to another ferry and enjoyed a beautiful sunset and met a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Nicaragua on the boat, so it was interesting to compare notes.
A mini-bus picked us up and took us to our hotel. It was already dark so we couldn’t see much, but the road felt long and windy. El Porvenir had a very different feel from our first two hostels. It was super quiet and surrounded by nature. We ended up being given three large, clean rooms with their own bathrooms, which was a nice change, but it wasn’t as much of a hostel environment and the food wasn’t particularly good, so we decided to switch on our third night there to a hostel in Playa Santo Domingo, which was a little more of a town on the water, though unfortunately the beach had been flooded since October. We could enjoy the sound of the waves, but no swimming allowed.
We spent two super-active days there, the first exploring the island on these barely functional bikes our hotel rented out, and the second climbing Maderas Volcano. It was about an eight-hour hike in total, and the view of the other volcano and the entire island was amazing at our halfway point, but of course when we got to the top we couldn’t see a thing and it was cold and rainy and we ate as fast as we could and headed back down.
We all woke up the next morning barely able to move our legs, but the timing was fortuitous since we were heading for the last leg of our trip at a beach town where we were all ready for a vacation from our very exhausting vacation. We got to our final hostel in San Juan del Sur, Casa Amarilla, ready to kick back, but it turned out they had kind of messed up our reservation and two people would have to stay across the street in what turned out to be a family home. That didn’t sound so appealing, so Adrienne and I spent the next hour and a half going into hostel after hostel (and there were a LOT of hostels there) asking for a room for five girls. Although it pained many of the male hostel owners to do so, they all turned us down. It was the night before New Years Eve, and this whole town was packed.
By the time we got back, they had worked out an arrangement where we could all stay in the main house, just on two different floors. Our room still wasn’t ready, so we decided to go out for the night and deal with it later. It was a fun night of dancing at Iguana Bar, and we hung out with three Peace Corps Volunteers from El Salvador. Their stories made me feel really lucky I’m in Costa Rica…We got back to our hostel and had another room, but no pillows or towels and there was dog poop in the hall outside our room, which I promptly stepped in in the dark. Things at Casa Amarilla didn’t really get better from there, but since we had no other options, which just stayed out of it as much as we could.
We spent the next two days lounging on the beach, one day in San Juan del Sur and one day at a beautiful and more tranquilo nearby beach called Playa Maderas. For New Years Eve, we crashed the barbeque party at the coolest hostel in town and made some friends and got some flip cup games going and then rang in the new year on the beach. We discovered yet another tradition involving bootleg fireworks, this time in the form of stuffed life-sized dolls that were placed in random spots in front of stores and houses around town and all blew up at midnight and smelled really bad after.
Anyways, I realized I have spent the past two New Years Eves on beautiful Central American beaches with good friends. For a holiday I have never really liked, that’s pretty great.
The last leg of our journey was the most annoying, but not enough to put a damper on our trip. We left Casa Amarilla at 6 am on Sunday, January 2nd (one man down, Jen had left the day before) and got to the border by 6:35. We did not get in a bus on the other side of the border to head to San José until noon. It took about three and a half hours to get our passports stamped to get out of Nicaragua, then another hour and a half to enter Costa Rica, and then another half hour just to get on a bus. I guess we picked the absolute worst day of the year to come back, plus it was crazy disorganized and there was only one line for people entering and leaving the country, plus there was a whole black market going to cut the line, which we were morally against but became increasingly appealing as we stood there in the sun without moving.
But we made it and eventually all went our separate ways back to community life, excited about certain luxuries like clean towels, slightly higher water pressure, and flushable toilets, but sad to end what had been a pretty unbeatable and incredibly memorable 12 days across the border.

Summer!

Aguas termales with the Scouts

Girly drinks with José

Preparing for the late night dance party with Porter, Chamisa and Jacqueline

I remember when I received my Peace Corps invitation in December 2008 and the end date said May 2011, which seemed inconceivably far away. Now I am closing in on my last four months, and it is hard to believe that I am almost there. Nonetheless, there is LOTS to do between now and then, both fun and work-wise, so it still doesn’t feel like the end is near.
I had a really fun birthday celebration that began with a hike in Quebradas with Porter, who was visiting after leaving the country a year and a half ago. It was really fun to show him all my projects and how Quebradas has changed since he was a volunteer here, which in many ways is not at all, but I did have some visual proof of my work and relationships since he was last here.
That night was the Festival of Lights (nothing to do with Chanukah) in San Isidro, so I went with a big group of friends, gringos and Ticos, and it was actually the most impressive and highly attended of the various parades I have witnessed or participated in since I’ve been here. There were high school and college bands from all over the country, floats with Disney princesses and Rugrats characters, and my personal favorite, a bank-sponsored group of elderly people who performed baile típico and looked like they were having the most fun of anyone.
The night continued with a group going out for dinner and drinks and then the remaining few going dancing, which is much more action than a typical Saturday in Quebradas. Great fun, though I was in a lot of pain when I had to wake up at 4:30 the next morning to catch the bus for our ALL DAY Scouts trip to the hot springs in San Gerardo. The kids had a great time, and fortunately entertained themselves for the most part, since all of the leaders had been out the night before. I taught them Marco Polo in the first half hour, and they were still contentedly playing six hours later…
The next day I had to lead a strategic planning session for the Scouts, but they surprised me with a birthday cake and we ate chicharrones and they took shots of whiskey, which made the whole activity much more entertaining. Then it was off to San José to meet up with Chamisa and Adrienne and begin the first leg of our Nicaraguan adventure, which merits a blogpost in itself, so stay tuned...