Closing Time

The 46 survivors of Tico 19

Team CED

The CED mafia survivors...a few hours later

Late-night shake at Soda Tapia

Well the final Peace Corps acronym is upon me: COS. Although I feel like I have been looking forward to this moment for many months, it somehow snuck up on me and I am feeling more conflicted and nostalgic than I imagined I would at this point.

We had our official Close of Service conference last week, which was the last time all of Tico 19 would be together as a group. We came with 52 people two years ago, and 46 made it to the conference. Not a single person in our group left willingly (mostly medical reasons), which is pretty rare. We got to spend three nights at the fancy Crowne Plaza Hotel in San José and spent our days talking about the logistical and emotional components of finishing up our time as PCV’s in Costa Rica.

It was definitely the most fun and rewarding Peace Corps conference I’ve been to. Instead of worrying about what we were going to do with the rest of our service, we were reflecting on all that we had (and hadn’t) done and enjoying our time together.

Some of the highlights for me included: a session on strategies for readjustment in which we had to do skits about things we might feel inclined to do when we get back to the US and other people will think is weird – for example, greeting every person you walk by, hanging out at people’s houses uninvited for an entire afternoon, and slipping into Spanglish when the Spanish word articulates what you want to say better.

There was also a panel of four returned Peace Corps Volunteers who were all living and working in Costa Rica, and it was interesting to hear about the paths they’d taken. All of them had either married host country nationals or another Peace Corps Volunteer, so that sparked a lot of curiosity from the many PCVs in my group who are involved in serious relationships with Ticos and trying to figure out the next step.

On the last day of the conference, each project group was responsible for making a presentation to the entire Peace Corps staff about the projects we had achieved and the impact we had made. Of course, the Children, Youth and Families team did a tear-jerking slideshow with Bar Mitzvah video classics such as Time of Your Life and Imagine, while my Community Economic Development group took a more individualistic and ironic approach. We called ourselves the CED mafia and did a lineup (the boys dressed in Crowne Plaza bathrobes, which was a nice touch) and showed pictures and facts about each volunteer and then the staff “witnesses” had to guess the culprit – all to the soundtrack of Bad Boys. I’m just saying, I think we got the most laughs.
Afterwards, each staff member presented us with a signed thank you card and we had our final session, which I thought was going to be painfully cheesy but ended up being kind of beautiful. Throughout the week, we were each responsible for coming up with a six word memoir of our experience and writing it on the front of a card, and then on the inside our fellow PCV’s had to write six words about us. In our final session, we got in a big circle and were each handed a card that we had to present to the person it belonged to. Maybe two years as a PCV has softened me, but I got a little emotional, and I was not the only one. It’s weird because we didn’t all see each other as much as you see your high school and college friends since we were scattered all over the country, but the shared experience we went through and the times we did spend together created a bond and respect among everyone in that circle. I guess it was the first time it hit me that I would miss all these people, and mostly being a part of this group.

Thursday evening festivities started off with the Skill Slam, a challenge that fellow PCV Chase Adam had put upon us during Pre-Service Training to devote some of our anticipated free time in the upcoming two years to developing a totally new skill. We each put in 2,000 colones, which meant a pot of about $200. Twelve people ended up participating, showing off everything from lock-picking to assembling a Rubik’s cube at record speed to walking from the Nicaraguan to Panamanian border in 15 days to Latin dancing, which was ultimately the winner. We then got a big group out to Steinvorth, the one hipster bar in Costa Rica, followed by a serious dance party at Bar Morazán and ending where all the best nights end, having late-night French fries and milkshakes (Chase opted for gallo pinto) at a 24-hour diner.

Now I’m back in Quebradas helping sell snow cones at our community parties and preparing for our annual women’s soccer game tomorrow. The karaoke outside my window last night was incessant until midnight, but instead of shoving in earplugs and trying to shut it out, I went down and ate chicarones and bizcocho with my friends. And I thought, I’m actually going to miss this…

Panamania

Locked in!

Snorkeling, swimming and sunning on the island

Rebuilding after the fire

Me and the Kuna ladies

Rainbow in Boquete

Fun with Barry and Jane

The rest of January continued to be busy and fun working with the Quebradas youth on fixing up the butterfly garden at FUDEBIOL, swimming in the river (although that kind of ended after I severely bruised my butt trying to show off and jump off a bridge), and attending the Peace Corps-sponsored environmental conference with the two youth group leaders. This was a really exciting opportunity for them to meet other volunteers and youth from communities around the country and to talk about the environmental problems and projects they are working on.

I was also going to LOTS of meetings with the Scouts, ECC and FUDEBIOL. Now that I only have three months left, I am feeling a lot of pressure to make sure I do everything I can to leave these groups and my projects in a functional state, but I also know that I need to start easing out instead of working overtime. I think people here are also realizing I’m leaving soon and finally realizing they need to take advantage of me as a resource before I go, which is great, if only it had happened 20 months earlier…

Anyways all of this is to say that it was a perfect time for a break, and that’s just what I got. After a marathon Saturday or trash pick-up with the Scouts in the morning, a regional ECC meeting from 9 to 12, and Feria del Agua planning commission meeting from 2 to 4 and then a FUDEBIOL Junta meeting until 7, I got up Sunday morning and packed my things, had a hearty breakfast of pinto and eggs with some friends, and headed to San José where I met up with about 50 other PCVs for a Super Bowl bash at Hooters. I never thought I would say this, but there is no place I would have rather been.
It was a really fun night of catching up with friends, as well as meeting some new people from Tico 21 (it made me feel like a high school senior seeing all these new, eager volunteers coming onto the scene), drinking beer, eating wings and sliders and oh yeah, watching football…Followed by a dance party at one of San José’s classiest establishments. It was a great beginning to a great vacation.

The next evening began my Panamanian adventure. I met Dan, who came straight from the actual Super Bowl, in Panama City, where we spent the next three days exploring Casco Viejo, the oldest part of the modern city whose gorgeous colonial architecture is now being renovated, the canal zone (by foot, boat and train!), and the Caribbean coastal town of Portobelo, which hosts a few forts that could use some renovation.

Upon arrival to Panama City, I was immediately struck by how different it is from San José, and I imagine most other Central and South American capital cities. Downtown is cluttered with skyscrapers all the way out to the water, though apparently many of them are vacant or minimally occupied. The roads are all in good repair, which ended up being true throughout the country, and the city just seemed a bit more planned and organized than anything I have seen in Costa Rica. I took a great run on a bike and pedestrian path that runs all along the coastline next to the city. However, people still use landmarks instead of street names or signs to give directions, and we got just as lost trying to find things.

Major highlights included our partial transit through the canal, during which we went through two sets of locks and could really grasp the magnitude of the operation and how amazing it is that they came up with this technology more than 100 years ago and it is still functional today. We also took a beautiful train ride across the isthmus to the Caribbean coast, a route that was developed during the California gold rush because it was the fastest way for people to get from the east to west coast. And finally, we were conveniently staying on the same block as an amazing homemade ice cream shop, where we made multiple visits.

Our next stop was the San Blas islands, which was one of the most unique and wonderful places I have ever visited, and I am already hoping to make it back there someday. We were picked up in a tiny wooden lancha and taken to Yandup Island, which is a lodge with 12 cabins along the water, a restaurant that serves whatever the catch of the day is, and a small beach. That is the whole island.

We were greeted by the very small and very friendly Kuna staff. Men were dressed in collared shirts and jeans, while all the women were dressed in their typical mola blouses, colorful skirts that looked like they could have been made of leftover curtain material and layers of beads adorning their arms and ankles. We immediately had a connection with Boris, who was excited that we were from Los Angeles because he is a big Lakers fan.

The San Blas islands are part of the Kuna Yala Comarca, a self-governed indigenous region, in which only Kunas can own land. It is made up of about 300 islands right off the eastern Pacific coast as well as a thin strip of land on the coast that is currently uninhabited. There are about 43 islands that are packed with homes with roofs made of palms and dirt floors and thin alleyways between homes (no cars), and the rest of the islands are either uninhabited or have small lodges like the Yandup.

Besides the setting being like a picture from a postcard, I loved it there because it did not feel like just a beautiful beach getaway. It felt untouched and far away, which is a huge credit to the Kuna people for preserving their land and containing development. We snorkeled and swam and hiked and lazed in our hammocks and socialized with the other guests, who all had interesting stories and were adventurous travelers (our favorites were a children’s book author who writes a series called Adventures Abroad and a couple from Philadelphia who both do some kind of sex therapy).

The highlight for me was definitely the visit to the community of Playón Chico, where all the staff at the Yandup live, which made it particularly interesting to get the tour from them. As soon as we got off the boat, we were struck by the amount of young kids running around (with and without clothes), and later found out that 60% of the population are children.
There had just been a fire on the island a week before and 52 houses had burned down, but amazingly no one was hurt. The whole community had woken up in the middle of the night to put out the fire, and they were already rebuilding the houses with the help of the local government. The government also gives every home a solar panel and battery, which is the only source of electricity for most families. The island has 3000 inhabitants, and it seemed impossible that even one more could fit, but apparently they keep making room.

One of the most interesting parts was visiting the congress house, where the “Shiloh” presides as the political and spiritual leader of the community. He spends all day there, attending to women in the morning and men in the afternoon. When we peaked in, we saw him standing up and addressing a group of men, some of whom were laying in hammocks and smoking cigars. Now maybe that’s the way to get things done in government…

Our final stop was Boquete, a mountain town in the northwest of the country by the Costa Rican border. We found our Inn, La Montaña y el Valle, on a small gravel road just outside of town. There, we were greeted by Barry and Jane, the friendly Canadians who would be our hosts for the next two days. They came to Boquete almost 20 years ago after deciding to leave their stressful IT jobs behind and pursue their shared passion for gardening in Central America. They fell in love with this piece of land and built their home there, eventually adding three bungalows and opening a bed and breakfast. All of this and more can be seen in their 23-minute documentary film, Recreating Eden.

We spend the next couple days hiking and driving through the mountains and enjoying incredible views of the valley and farmland below. Even when the sun was out, there was an almost constant mist in the air, which made for some amazing rainbows. We also enjoyed Barry’s homemade bread, fresh-squeezed orange juice and just-roasted coffee from their garden every morning. We took Barry’s coffee tour one day and got to see how it is harvested and roasted, which I should know from living in Costa Rica but somehow have never gotten around to doing a tour. This was particularly interesting because he does it all himself, for the love of the process and the product, not for income generation. It was really cool and inspiring to meet two people who had made such a bold change in their lives and are so clearly enjoying the outcome.

It was sad to say goodbye, and getting dropped off at the chaotic David bus terminal where people were yelling at me from all directions to get on their colectivo to the frontera jolted me back into Peace Corps mode, but I do feel very refreshed and ready to approach my last 11 weeks(!) as a Volunteer. My main goal for the end of my service is to enjoy myself and my friendships, both within my community and among other Volunteers, and to not worry so much about keeping all my projects together, because it shouldn’t be up to me at this point anyhow.

Basket-balling with the 9-11 year olds

Alianza de Jovenes Ambientalistas Quebradas (AJAQ, we're making it into a t-shirt!)

I was the art teacher and my painting is definitely the worst of all

Day 3 of Scouts camping trip and our uniforms are still somewhat clean...

Ms. Mehlman arrives in Quebradas