Winter Ramblings+2008 Presidential Election+All Volunteer Conference+...

We are now in the thick of the Costa Rican winter, or invierno, which basically means the days are filling with rain, strong North winds, the constant threat of berrancos…or mudslides. At least that is the Tico side of the story.

I can tell you from my experience that is not really completely accurate. Take the last 4 days for example. We haven’t had a drop of rain and almost no wind. Great weather. Everyone once in a while we have spells like this during the so called “winter months” and you will hear people saying things like puro verano hoy, or its summer today.

I’m very confused with the seasons at this point. We have had some cold spells, but it hasn’t been nearly as noticeable as I was told to expect by the Ticos. I guess it is all relative. December is almost here, supposedly bringing the fiercest North winds. They keep saying things like “you haven’t seen anything yet…wait for December.” Well we shall see soon enough.

My rant on the weather is almost finished. To be fair, the additional rain does soften up the ground quite a bit, leaving pieces of terrain that seemed to be firm one day, sliding down the hillside the next. Just a few weeks ago we had a perfectly good piece of highway wash away in a matter of days. First it showed a few cracks, then dropped about 5 inches a couple days later, and then after a week se fue!...it went. The picture should be above at the start of the blog if the file uploaded correctly.

So what is new?

Mom, Dad, and Matt will be here in 1 week!!! That is the biggest thing going on right about now. They are flying in on Monday, November 24. They will stay here with me in my town for 2 nights, then we will head to Playa Manuel Antonio for about 4 days to celebrate Thanksgiving. About 20 volunteers, mostly from my program, are meeting up there and renting a huge house to enjoy a few days of R&R. I can’t wait! It should be a complete despiche…use your imagination to translate that.

After Manuel Antonio, we will spend about a week exploring a couple of different cloud forest reserves, as well as the Arenal Volcano in the interior of the country. It should be relaxing and a lot of fun.

My parents will leave to go back to the States on Monday, December 8. Fortunately my brother will then be sticking around for another week or so with me in my town. Matt has been studying Spanish, so I think he is interested in the language practice and also experiencing daily Tico life. He takes off on December 15th.

Since the fam is coming down for Thanksgiving, I will not be returning to the U.S. for Christmas. I don’t have any plans to come back at the moment, but am thinking maybe July 2009 will be the right time for me to come back and visit. Will keep you posted.

As for work…business is good.

I am the proud new teacher of 45 English language students in my community! Actually, about 20% of them are coming from surrounding towns to take advantage of the classes. Since my last blog update, I’ve had class sign-ups, acquired the books and teaching materials, and started classes. I’ve been teaching now for about 3 weeks. Managing 45 students probably sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but fortunately Peace Corps has an agreement with a respected English speaking program so that we can use their materials and bring high-quality English teaching to rural communities. Having the program saves me a lot of time and I probably only spend about 15 hours a week on English classes, which includes the 8 hours of in-class time each week.

A picture of one of my English classes. We use the town elementary school.

The San Cristóbal Norte Boys and Girl Scouts Troop (here the Guías y Scouts de Costa Rica) is well on its way to formation! We went through some rocky times at first trying to drum up support for this program, but seemed to have turned a corner. We now have a Committee of 6 parents in place, 4 scout leaders on-board , and more than 30 kids signed up. At the end of October the Committee members, scout leaders, and myself attended the Introductory Training, which helped solidify and motive our team. I ended up as Vocal, a minor role which I was happy to take on. It has been an unexpectedly fun project!

The Boys and Scouts committee before we started the introductory training course.

In other projects I am almost finished with my Community Analysis Tool report, or CAT. I hope to be done with that this week and push it out the door. I continue to work with community leaders on an organization to bring more union to the town, which has a history of groups working independently. The result as been the formation of the Civic Union San Cristóbal Norte or Unión Cívica. We have been meeting monthly for several months now. The group still has a lot of internal strengthening left to be a sustainable project, but we seem to be on the right track.

I’m almost finished with the Junior Achievement class mentioned in the last blog. With the completion of the Junior Achievement class and my CAT I hope to have a lighter schedule for a little while once I get back from vacation with the family…that is the plan anyway.

Other important events.

The 2008 Presidential Election!

Obama won. How crazy is that?! I was able to watch the election night coverage with a large group of Peace Corps volunteers at a bar in San Jose before we started our All-Volunteer Conference (AVC).

I am no Obama nut, but it was an exciting night. As you can imagine, the Peace Corps crowd is about as far left on the American political spectrum as the U.S. military is to the right. That only made things more interesting. Even still, I found McCain’s speech, as well as Obama’s speech that followed to be very moving. With the bar dead quiet in rapt attention, it was a special moment.

All-Volunteer Conference.

We had our All-Volunteer Conference, a once a year event, from November 5-8. It was great to finally see all the 95 or so volunteers together. For some reason to me it felt like the last step in truly becoming a Peace Corps volunteer.

Sometimes the money is not in the budget for an annual AVC, and that was nearly the case this year, but our inventive Volunteer Advisory Committee was able to put together something on the cheap. By cheap, I mean to say we camped out for 3 days in the mountains north of San José. To be fair, it was a nice pre-prepared camp with tents, a chow house, meeting room, wi-fi internet, and pre-constructed tents on platforms. (Okay, so we didn’t exactly rough it.)

The meeting was basically 3 days of teambuilding, best practices exchange, program meetings, and social events. There was a Halloween party and costume contest…in which myself and two other fellow volunteers, Matthew McMillan and Clinton Glase, cleaned house! At the last minute, Matthew came up with the idea of going as Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s. We slapped sun glasses on Matt, then Clinton and I spent the rest of the night dragging Matt’s limp body around the costume/dance party. Due to Matt’s dedication as a corpse, not moving for nearly 3 hours that night, we won Most Creative and Best Group costume…2 out of the 3 events. Sadly, I have no pictures for you.

AVC also featured a talent show the final night of the meeting. Having no "talent-show” worthy skills that I could think of, I decided to just sit back and watch. A number of volunteers performed on the guitar, sang, did stand-up comedy, played the drums, acted out comedy skits, or demonstrated other abilities. Suffice it to say that I have never been in the company of such a gifted group of people. It was also a very memorable night and made me proud to be a PCV.

That is about all the major updates I have for you right now…or want to continue typing, that is. It is 2pm at the time of this writing. Time for a cafecito! If you read this and I have a few minutes, drop me a line and let me know what is going on back home…I always love to hear updates. I will come back with a full report on the family visit. Best-

I want to dedicate this blog entry to my friend Brian Gandy who recently got engaged. He is living in Augusta, GA managing an organic produce farm. Gandy (the old hippy…as he describes himself) seems to be in a good place right now and I am very happy for him. Best of luck to him and his fiancé.

I just thought you all might get a kick out of this. There is a certain skill to milking a cow, and I haven´t figured it out yet.

A day in the life

Monday, September 22

5:30AM Wake up. Hit the snooze on my alarm (now my Ironman running watch).

6:00 Wake up again. Think about the hill. Reflect on the soreness in my legs. Decide running this morning is not such a good idea. Go back to sleep…without setting the alarm again.

7:00 Wake up once more…groggier than usual. I did not sleep as well as usual.

7:15 Take a shower. (cold)

7:30 Walk into the kitchen. Doña Albertina greets me with se lo pegó la covija! or in English “so the covers stuck to you this morning”. With a grunt I acknowledge this is the case.

7:45 Eat gallo pinto with an egg, tortillas, and coffee. It is a hearty meal. I wash the dishes afterwards as a good will gesture to Doña Albertina. Plus it feels good to be doing something around the house…just like the old days (i.e. pre-Peace Corps). She basically spoils me and does just about everything for me – wash my clothes, dusts my room, cooks all the food.

8:30 After brushing my teeth and cleaning up a bit, I realize the school is expecting me at 11:40AM to teach a Junior Achievement (JA) class to the 6th graders. It will be the first class and I need to review the lesson plan.

8:45 Begin reviewing the lesson plan. Decide to write my own secondary plan so I will know the material better. I review the JA suggested class plan and opt to make a few changes and additions.

10:45 Complete the lesson plan and feel about 80% comfortable with it. After gaining modest experience with teaching I have come to realize this is about as good as it gets.

11:00 Announce to Doña Albertina that I will now begin my walk to the town. She bids me good luck with a Que Dios lo acompañe. I begin the trek, 1.2 kilometers of steep hill. The sun is bearing down on me. I begin to sweat about a quarter of the way up, so begin to adjust my backpack to different sides so I don’t sweat too much, but it doesn’t work. I hate sweating when I am perfectly clean and going to work! I shout Pura vida! or Adios! to the mechanics, storekeepers, and other people living along the route that I’ve come to know over the last few months.

11:30 Arrive at the school, talk to the 6th grade teacher, and then enter the class to get organized a bit before the students get there. I am still soaked in sweat at this time.

11:45 Class begins. The kids are a little rowdy. I point out to them this is the first time I have been in there class, and that I don’t know what the rules of the class are…so would they please point them out, I ask. The kids are able to think of a couple of things, like don’t get out of your seat…and other things. The teacher, Marco, points out that the class does have rules, but the kids don’t pay any attention to them. This is not a good sign.
I inform them that I would like to institute a new rule. I have a squishy ball in my hand that I show to them. The rule is that whoever has the ball can talk and has the full attention of the class. If someone has a question, they have to raise their hand and I will then pass them the ball so we can all give the person our attention as they talk. We practice. This proves to work moderately well throughout the class.
The course is called Economía para el Éxito, or Economy for Success…or something along those lines. During the course, which consists of 6 classes of 1 hour each, the students play games and do activities to recognize what their interests our, learn the jobs / earning potentials of people with different levels of education, and practice managing a personal budget. It seems to be a good course for the students because they will soon be heading to the colegio, or high school.
The first class went pretty well and the students seem to enjoy. Marco and I make an arrangement so that I will come back each Monday for the next 5 weeks. I leave my umbrella in the classroom by accident.

1:15PM I make my way back down the hill (minus the umbrella).

1:35 Arrive back at the house. Doña Albertina heats up my lunch – rice, beans, chayote (similar to potato), plantains, and a little meat patty. I add hot sauce. We chat with the brother of Doña Albertina’s deceased husband, Naun (pronounced na-oohn), who just arrived from San Isidro farther to the south. He brings a bunch of ears of corn. This is a good sign, since it means fresh tortillas for the next couple of weeks (Corn is the third most common crop here, but won’t be harvested until the next month).

2:15 It begins to rain. I sit on the porch and watch the rain for awhile. I realize I have forgotten my umbrella at the school and curse inwardly at myself. The cover of the porch is tin. There is no sweeter sound then a light rain falling on a tin roof, and I have to fight to keep from falling asleep. I read a bit.

3:15 Olman, one of Doña Albertina’s sons, comes over to the house and we begin the walk up the hill again. Olman is a member of the junta directiva of the bank, and we are headed to the weekly meeting.

4:00 The meeting starts, or is supposed to start, but we are missing a couple of members of the group.

4:20 The meeting really starts.

6:20 After listening for a couple hours to the business of the bank – correspondence, applications for credit, other agenda items – I begin to doubt my usefulness at these meetings. But at the same time I realize the local micro-finance bank has been a good counterpart and it is good to stay in close contact with them. I inform them I will be having an informational meeting for more English classes next week, and also that I need to use the bank office for a meeting of the junta of the Boy Scouts group we are setting up. The are supportive and give me all the help I need.

7:30 After having hot tea and homemade bread, we end the meeting. I begin to head down the hill with Olman. It begins to rain. I curse myself again and get wet.

8:00 Arrive at the house, change clothes, and eat dinner. Doña Albertina is already in bed so I heat the food up.

8:30 I got to my room and start to read. This is my nightly ritual. Right now I am reading, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, sent by my Mom’s friend as a gift. He is a Columbian writer and won the Nobel Prize for literature back in 1982. At first I wished I had a copy in Spanish, but then I began reading and realized I didn’t know some of the words in English…so better to just stick to my native language. The book is about a mythical town that seems to be set somewhere in the countryside of Columbia. The story rambles and twists and turns every which way though 100 years of the towns life…it is a little convoluted and confusing, but overall pretty good.

10:00 End of the day. I turn of the light and go to sleep…hoping that I will have the will power to make it out of bed at my normal hour tomorrow. (p.s. I do)

This one goes out to Jim and Barbara Sorber, friends from the VA who are retiring. Jim and Barb - Congrats! I’m really happy for you. You will now be free to roam around the world exploring all kinds of crazy animal habitats. Come visit Costa Rica… or better yet, just join Peace Corps! :)

The 3 month mark comes...and goes

Hello my friends. I realize the blog has been quiet for the last couple weeks, however a lot has happened.

The third weekend in August about 8 of us volunteers from the Central Valley region got together and did a day trip on the Pacuare River, a river very famous for its beauty. It was a really exciting day, with a lot of class 3 and 4 rapids. Unfortunately, no pics available right now as I´m still trying to get copies.

The last weekend in August all the volunteers in my program (Community Economic Development...about 15 of us) got together for our first In-Service-Training, or IST. The training last 4 full days and after being out in the sticks for 3 months, it was a real treat!

Peace Corps put us up at a very decent little hotel just outside of downtown San José. Each of the rooms had a little kitchenette, beds with thick, soft mattresses, and last but not least...all the hot water we could ask for.

I honestly have not laughed so much in a 5 day period. It was great to get together with other volunteers to catch up and share experiences from the last few months. Thankfully, everyone seemed to be in good shape mentally and physically.

The training was also much more stimulating from a content standpoint, as we focused more on trainings needed to implement projects in our communities - for example rural tourism, Junior Achievement classes, English teaching, working with women´s groups, establishing micro-finance banks, small business coaching - instead of the more general language, culture, safety, and security training that made up about 85% of our Pre-service training.

Following the 5 nights in San José, a few of us jumped off for a couple of nights to the small seaside town of Uvita, on the Southern-Central Pacific Coast. It was great to have a little bit of free time away from the long day sessions of the IST. We were also able to contact a local volunteer who was able to plug us into a whale watching tour for very cheap. So...we went one more and luckily were able to see a few humpback whales! ...something I had never seen before.

At this point you are thinking....really Blake...whitewater rafting, hotels in San José, whale-watching...what exactly are you doing down there? :)

You all will just have to trust me that the last 3 months in my site has been an extremely productive time of community integration. One in which I have started to form great relationships with numerous community leaders, gained the trust and begun working with small business owners, completed an informal English course with 30 students, begun the formation of a local Guías y Scouts troop (the Costa Rican form of the Boy Scouts), made great strides in my Spanish-speaking abilities, and finished a draft of the longest paper I´ve ever written in my life (the Community Analysis Tool)...and all en español.

In short...I´m thrilled with the strides that have been made during the last 3 months! Thanks to all of you out there who have been following along and pitched in encouragement with comments on the blog / emails / g-chats. It means a lot.

Also, thanks to a friend of my Mom´s, Candy, for sending down a great care package. Both my fellow volunteers and my host family appreciated it. Not-so-suble-message: you too can be given a shout out...send goodies! Just kidding...kind of.

What now? Mostly it is back to work for me. And thankfully now after setting a solid base for myself in my community over the past few months...I can start to partner with people to undertake some more long-term projects. More on that to come.

I´d like to leave you all with something written by a past Costa Rica PCV. This was read to us at the close of IST as inspiration...and for me it really struck home. What a blessing it is to be an American and a PCV. Hope you enjoy.
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Words of Wisdom from the veteran volunteer.

One thing that I have come to realize after being involved in the Peace Corps Costa Rica for nearly three years now is the incredible privilege and opportunity it is to be able to simply be a Peace Corps Volunteer. I know very well that being a volunteer is not easy, an experience filled with ups and downs, hardships and challenges but at the end of the day, we as volunteers should feel fortunate to have this opportunity.

Very few countries in this world have the vision and most importantly, the luxury, of being able to financially and theoretically support a program such as Peace Corps that sends professionals oversees for two years and three months to learn a new language, learn from a new culture, obtain valuable new skills and work with communities to better the lives of those around you. How many times have I been asked by Ticos, “Is there a Peace Corps for Costa Ricans to do what you are doing here, in your country?” The unfortunate answer is no. The only way a Tico would be able to go to the states to learn English, learn from another culture and do development work with Americans is to do it all on their own; win the Visa lottery, come up with enough money to support his or herself and find an organization that would be willing to take and train someone who hardly speaks the language. O sea, not likely. We, as volunteers, don’t make any money but we don’t spend a dime either, Peace Corps foots the bill for us to live this life-changing experience, and what a luxury that is. We are fortunate enough to come from a country where we can afford to take a two-year hiatus from making money, confident that we will go back to our country and be able to find jobs and make enough money to buy a car, a house and start our families. Citizens in so many parts of the world aren’t afforded such a luxury struggling to barely make ends meet. The average citizen in the third world and developing countries isn’t thinking about leaving their country when they struggle to establish themselves in economically unstable, sometimes war-torn places.

It is important that we, as volunteers, never forget the gift that we have been given. As recently as our grandparents’ generation, Americans were fighting wars without the luxury of joining a Peacekeeping mission such is ours. Even our parents generation didn’t have it so easy, many of them being drafted into war. And there is no guarantee that our children or grandchildren will have such an opportunity. I hope it never happens but some day, American legislators – forced by budget constraints or God forbid, security issues -- might decide we no longer have the resources to spend ___ a year to send ___ Americans oversees to help others.

I would give this speech to volunteers in any country but I think it rings even more true here in Costa Rica, a country rich with human warmth, natural beauty and an intrinsic tropical energy that warms and brings a smile to the face of even the most hardened, capitalistic Gringo. It is hard to not end up feeling a little bit Tico by the time you’re done here; hard to not crave Gallo Pinto in the mornings, hard to not cheer for La Sele, get addicted to the visits to the beaches, to the cafecitos, to not feel a brotherhood with the warm and hearty Ticos. In the end – despite all the worlds problems – it all is Pura Vida!

I encourage you all to view your experience for what it is: a privilege, an opportunity, a gift. You will have lonely days, feel beaten down and maybe even wonder why you chose this program but I urge you all, instead of feeling sorry for yourself or like a martyr, to take advantage this gift you’ve been given and remember how lucky you truly are. Good luck to you all!
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The blog entry goes out to my grandfather, who very recently had surgery to replace a hip. Gran - I´m thinking about you, buddy. I know you only have one speed normally, and that is 100% all out, but try to take it easy and get healthy. Wishing you the best. -Blake

The pilgrimage and the 15th birthday party

It has been an eventful last couple of weeks.

On Friday, August 1st we set out from the house for our pilgrimage, or romeria, to Cartago. The romería is done once a year by catholics from all across the country to honor the patron saint of Costa Rica, La Virgen de Los Angeles. The trip is done on foot, and the pilgrims walk from the farthest corners of the country. The few hearty souls that begin the walk from close to the border with Panamá set out nearly a month before. Our stroll…excuse me…pilgrimage…took about 6 hours.

The group was made up of some members of my host family, Clarisa – another volunteer from a town close-by (side note: the link to her blog is on the right side of this page), and myself. We had to climb for about an hour up the hill to the Interamerican Highway, however, we finally made it and started long, slow meandering walk down the mountain to Cartago, located in la meseta central, or central plateau.

Along the way we met up with Tamara, another volunteer located in San Pablo, a town close by. Tamara was helping out at the Red Cross tents stationed along the highway. She has gotten to be good friends with the Red Cross folks after organizing some emergency planning public meetings following a violent tropical storm that passed through the region a couple of months ago and displaced people in her town.

It was good to see Tamara…who I hadn’t seen since training ended about 2 ½ months ago. Despite the fact that Clarisa and Tamara only live about 2 or 3 mountains over in the same general area, there is no public transport between our towns and so sometimes it feels like they might as well live on the other side of the country.

From the Red Cross tents we had about 12 km left. We slowly made our way into town, although admittedly stopped for a short beer break along with some of the more fiestero pilgrims.

Gracias a Dios as the Ticos would say, it did not rain on us that day, which is really a miracle considering we are well into the rainy season. Once in Cartago we hung out by the cathedral, which is the big destination for all the pilgrims. It was pretty chill around there, so we bought some food before heading back to our respective towns.

Overall the pilgrimage was a great experience, and it was great to finally catch up with Clarisa and Tamara.

The other big event that has happened since my last blog entry was the 15th birthday party of my sister from my training host family. 15th birthday parties for girls are a huge deal in Latin American…so I’ve recently learned.

This would have just been any other interesting cultural experience for me, however this time I participated as the acompañante, or date.

The weekend after the romería, I arrived back in Tarbaca the Saturday afternoon before the big party so I could help the family set up. Over the next few hours and into the night we completed a looting of desks from the local school, and managed to blow up a couple hundred pink balloons, a process that kept us up working until around midnight.

Skip to the good part!…so the next day I find myself with the birthday girl, Paola, on the other side of a big wall separating us from the rest of the party-goers. It’s finally here!...Paola’s big social debut…she is visibly nervous.We are given the sign to start our procession.

We walk out into the sunlight surrounded by about 150 guests and 15 couples especially designated to serve as accompañates to the birthday girl and her date. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Terri, or Teresita, my old host mom wipe away a tear as we move into the room. We make a lap around the big party area, all the while everyone is continuing to clap.

Finally, we make it back to the group of 15 couples. The music starts. We are the first to dance. The dance is the balz…a very slow rhythm. As we dance we have to make it around to each of the 15 couples and once we approach them Paola leans over and blows out the candle held my each of the female dates, which starts each pair dancing.

How do I play this?...was what I was thinking through the whole process. Do I smile real big as we walk around the room…or do I go with the somber, no smile look. I decided to go no-smiles…as the record (i.e. photos) will show. After all…it’s her day. Nobody came to see me strutting around smiling like an idiot. I caught some grief from my friend Marcus for the serious look…but still think it was the way to go.

After the dance….the 15 couples all gathered around the central table. A juice drink was poured in all the glasses, and we all had a toast. Then, we sat down and all stared at each other…actually… maybe that was just me doing the staring. I tried to start some conversation but nobody seemed to interested into talking to the big gringo serving as acompañante to their cousin.

The whole ceremony was pretty awkward…and funny. Hey!..that pretty much describes my whole Peace Corps experience up to the point.

The rest of the night was spent trying to procure food (unsuccesfully) from the overworked kitchen area and dancing regaton with a group of 15 year olds. Overall it was a great time…and I got to see my good friends Marcus and Kayla from training.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Next up is a regional volunteer meeting that has somehow devolved (or evolved…more appropriately) into a whitewater rafting trip. A week later we have IST, or In Service Training, a 5 day event in San Jose with 15 other volunteers from my program. After 3 months in the sticks…it is bound to be interesting. Will let you know how it goes.

This blog goes out to my grandparents – Mema, Gran, and Papa – all back in the great state of Kentucky, and whom I miss very much but haven’t been able to talk to in recent months. I miss you guys and am thinking about you a lot. Watch out!...I have a Skype account now..so expect a call soon.

Feeling the flow...riding the bull... (w/ shout out to DC dawgs!)

All is well here in San Cristóbal Norte. A lot has happened in the past two months. I’m not even going to try to recount all of it, but will try to hit the highlights.

When I left off last blog, I believe most of my days were spent walking around in a stupor being amazed at my new surroundings. As it turns out, after the first couple of weeks I was able to move onto something a little more structured, in the form of a survey of the townspeople. Over the last two months, I’ve been able to complete the survey, as well as a number of interviews with the local leaders. All of this information is then funneled into my gigantic community diagnostic that all volunteers have to turn in after 6 months in-site.

The hill continues to be a daily trial, but I’m happy to report it has not bested me yet. In fact, I seem to be getting better at the climb.

Also on the work front, feeling the pressure from some of the local folk, I started up some informal English classes. I now have 2 classes every Saturday morning with 30 students. They are mostly high school age with some adults sprinkled in. We play games, review grammar rules, and mostly just have fun. Overall, it has been a great experience, and I have discovered I actually enjoy teaching.

Between the English classes, research for my report, and a handful of smaller side-projects…I have been staying very busy.

What else can I talk about?...recreational activities. I have only taken a couple of short pleasure trips.

The first was a 1 night trip into San José for an all-volunteer dinner about a month ago. It was the first time seeing other volunteers after about 6 weeks in our communities. We did a lot of catching up. Dinner was followed by dancing late night, and then a handful of us crashed with a friend who works at the embassy (DC connection). It was interesting to go from our small town life to staying at the plush two-story condo of a U.S. diplomat…quite a change. It was a great night, although it passed too quickly.

The second trip was the next weekend when a group of us met up on the Atlantic side in the small beach town of Cahuita. There were about 10 of us from our training group that met up in a small hotel across from the beach. For the next two days we mostly sat on the beach and told stories over beers. This trip also passed too quickly, and I soon found myself chugging back up the hill numerous times each day.

Cahuita pic...with a straggler from Wisconsin (middle) we picked up for the day.
If these brief breaks are any preview of what future trips will be like with fellow volunteers, I can already tell we are in for some good times.

Other updates...we lost another volunteer from our program due to a family medical issue. The guy was part of one of our two married couples. He and his wife had to leave due to an ailment of her mom. It sucked to see them leave under those circumstances…and with them being such good friends. That brings our total number of volunteers in my program to 15, minus 3 from the 18 we started with.

What is life where I am at like in terms of comfort? Fortunately for me it is fine here. Because we are higher up here in the mountains, it is not very hot and I do not have to worry about all the bugs which bring illnesses like malaria and dengue fever to other parts of the country. Also, because the terrain is so broken, we don’t have to worry about flooding…just landslides.

From the bits of news I pick up, it seems like the food crisis is really taking its toll on some of the poorer countries in the world. The food crisis does not put Costa Ricans at any health risk, but it does take its toll on farmers and other low income families who feel the price increase. The increases in the costs of fertilizers are also taking a toll on the farmers. It really cuts into the farmers profit margins here, and the high prices of fertilizers is a common complaint.

Things are definitely not as bad as in other places. Peace Corps has its own small internal publication called The Peace Corps Times. They put out a special issue recently focused on the food crisis. It talked about how some volunteers, such as in Africa and other hard hit places, might soon feel the pressure to start skipping meals out of the desire to help others in the village. Also, one article from a volunteer talked about how his small African village has turned into a ghost town because the farming work normally done in the village is not viable now due to the high transportation costs.

It is terrible to think there are still millions of people out there trying to get by from one day to the next. I will get off my soapbox now…but just couldn’t help to comment in case any of you were wondering about how the higher prices affected life in my town.

Other happenings…I had my 25th birthday a couple of weeks ago! Thanks to all who dropped me a line. To the rest of you…you are rotten friends! Ha ha…jus’ kiddin.

Doña Albertina and the rest of the family threw me a party. They cooked a bunch of food and made a cake. After eating…everyone sat around telling jokes for hours…most of which I did not get. Truly, I think understanding jokes is of the last things to come to someone learning a language. Either way, it was a great night.

There are a couple of upcoming events on my end that should be pretty interesting. On Friday this week is la romería, or pilgrimage, to Cartago. This is a national religious tradition. People from all across the country walk for days in the heat and rain to reach the cathedral for el dia de la Patrona. I am walking with the family here. The trip from San Cristobal Norte is only about 5 or 6 hours on foot, and we will be taking off Friday at 1pm. I will do my best to come back with a recap.

Also, the daughter of my old host family in Tarbaca is having her quinceañera, or fifteenth birthday, on Aug 10th. Fifteenth birthdays are a big deal here in Costa Rica. The daughter, Paola, doesn’t have a boyfriend or too many guy friends…so yours truly has been picked as her date! I’m happy to oblige. Seems like a great excuse to learn a couple more dances. Will try to report back on this as well.

This blog entry goes out to my friends on the DC dawgs for pulling off an awesome softball season. I wish you guys the best of luck with flag football coming. I definitely miss hanging out…keep representing the dawgs well!

First Week in San Cristóbal Norte

Now that I am in my site, it seems I will have a little more time to reflect on this crazy experience.

So what does a Peace Corps volunteer do during the first week at his or her site?...you might be wondering. In my experience, mostly just walk around down and be completely stupefied by the thought that this strange new place is going to be my home for the next two years. From what I’ve heard from past and current volunteers, this is pretty common.

Actually, after arriving late Sunday afternoon, I woke up Monday morning early for a run to brush off the cobwebs and try to get some of those first day jitters out of the way. Doña Albertina’s house (my home) is located about 1 kilometer outside of town, and that 1 km of road is what the Ticos like to call pura cuesta, or pure slope.

They don’t mess around here in Costa Rica when it comes to hills. I decided to give myself a break and turn right, heading down the hill as a warm up. Unfortunately, that strategy only worked for around a half a kilometer when I came upon the cemetery and realized I’d hit the town limits. So I did what any good volunteer would do, and turned my butt around to face this monster hill that is probably to become either my worst enemy or best friend during my time here.

That moment starting up the bottom of the hill, nay…mountain, was very apt considering I was feeling pretty small at that point in time anyway, it being Day 1 of my two year experience. Between the 40 degree grade and 1800 meters in altitude, I was sucking wind pretty quickly. Slowly but surely I made my way to the top of the ridge and into the town center. After some my explorations running around the town, I made my back to the house and proceeded to attack the day.

That run actually succeeded in getting some of my jitters out of the way and so has become just about a daily ritual. I slog my way up to the top, all the while yelling A Dios! to any passer-byers on the road, mostly moms walking their kids to school. (A Dios is actually a salutation here in Costa Rica. It took me some time and quite a lot of confusion before I figured that out too.) They usually give me a weird look, say A Dios back, and we both have a good laugh in passing. It’s working out pretty well as a community entry technique, to break out a nerdy PC technical term on you.

Interestingly, my living situation here in San Cristóbal Norte is actually better here than it was in Tarbaca, the training site. Here in SCN I have my own larger room, a bigger bed, and no kids living in the house. Doña Albertina is also a heck of a good cook. The house is more of a farm, with cows, chickens, and all that jazz. It’s pretty interesting having all these animals around, and that will no doubt have to be the subject of another blog. As usual...hot water continues to be elusive.

I say it is interesting that my living situation is better because everything we’ve been told up to this point has led us (volunteers) to believe our situation was to be much worse following training. Two-thirds of Ticos live in the Meseta Central, or central plateau, part of the country. These folks are generally better off and reap the benefits of better infrastructure. The remaining third outside of this central area are usually poorer, more removed, and the folks are left to fend for themselves. This is usually where you will find the Peace Corps volunteers operating. My town is on the edge, but still inside of the Meseta Central, and hence better off.

Costa Rica’s more developed characteristics actually had some of my fellow volunteers worried they would not be getting the FULL Peace Corps experience. To be honest, I did not share their concern.

This worry led one friend in my program to exclaim to our program coordinator “Give me the hardest shit you got!” during our 1-on-1 interviews prior to site assignment. How bout that.

He is now happily serving out his term…errr…service in Los Angeles de Páramo de San Isidro. Its about a 2 hour drive from the nearest small city, which is saying something in a country the size of West Virginia. They don’t have a phone at his site. If you want to get in touch with anyone there, you have to call the nearest town a few kilometers away. They will then get on a 4-wheeler and make their way down the road to let the person know someone is waiting on the line in the next town over.

I would feel sorry for him, but I know he is tickled pink and loves to recount this aspect of his living situation to his friends back in the states. You probably have to know the guy to fully appreciate this.

Despite the awkward communication situation, it is doubtful that even he is suffering any extreme discomforts. (Google the UN Development Index and you should see Costa Rica just scores well enough to be considered a “developed” country) No, Peace Corps life in Costa Rica is not going to be like a volunteers experience in Malawi or Chad. Either way, two years living and working alone in a foreign community is exactly that.

To be fair, I actually got a lot more accomplished this week than simply walking around in a daze. I started researching the history of town, being one of the components of my CAT (that is the 30 something page report mentioned previously), and this being one of the subjects I find interesting. Doña Albertina’s family was able to refer me to a few of the local history buffs. Several interviews later, I’ve got a couple pages of notes, a written manuscript, and a keepsake book written in honor of the 50th anniversary of the construction of the church.

There is a lot of good material among these things. The problem is not the amount of information. The problem is that everyone seems to have a different version of the history, and it somehow has to be parsed out in a way that is fully truthful and takes into account the points of these locals. I’m going to have to either get these three or four folks in a room together to duke it out, or just hold off and print the darn thing later and catch what flak comes…I’m definitely leaning towards the latter.

Actually, looking back, it was an extremely successful week. Besides the history research, I met with the Director of the local school, Don Esteban. We had a good talk. He was completely open to me undertaking projects in the school and was nice enough to give me a short introduction to the kids in each of the classrooms.

This may not sound like a big deal, but its common PC knowledge that when you are in a community, if the kids know you – EVERYONE knows you. Kids do a lot of talking. They just have to run home a say “Mom, Dad, there is a new gringo in town. I can’t pronounce his name and he’s really tall.” Then everyone will know who you are. Kids are a major gateway to the community.

Another first week highlight was the Sunday mass. This week they had a special celebration for Corpus Christi. Their tradition here is to put flowers, colored sand, sawdust from different trees, and Cypress branches to form shapes on the sidewalks using molds. They had flowers throughout the downtown…really very beautiful.

I got up early to pitch in with that and the next thing I know they had roped me into being part of a representacíon. A representation is like a small scene. The Catholic tradition is to lead a procession through the town and stop at these different themed representations to say a few words about the particular topic.

The them of our representation was Diversity. They sat me down at this table with a dozen other folks – young, old, single, married, handicapped, etc. I was to represent the Non-Costa Rican peoples. That’s right, yours truly was tapped to represent the some 6 billion other people on this planet.

The procession came around (i.e. half the town), we stood up at the table, the padre did his thing, blessed us, and the gaggle moved on down the street. It was a stoic performance by all the participants. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done and joined the masses.

However the fun was not over for me. At the end of the service, during the community announcements, one of Doña Albertina’s sons, Olman, got up to the pulpit and introduced me to the congregation. He said a few words and had me stand up so everyone could get a good gander. The padre even through in a few words of encouragement. I was very grateful to them both for their words. It was a packed house! Several hundred people, or about half the town, was probably there that day. They saved me days of awkwardness with this brief introduction to the community.

Between jogging through the town screaming at the locals, the introductions at the school and the church – this has been a pretty productive week in the PR arena. Regardless, it is week 1 of the two year experience and there is plenty of pura cuesta ahead.

Here is a link to some of our swearing in pictures. Hope this works for you all:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mesa802/PCSwearingCeremony?authkey=uYsTTOjbMcE

Released into the Wild

Man…when I created this thing I thought it would be something I could stay on top of and keep updated, but it just hasn’t happened so far. Oh well, I hope it suffices as a short update to say that I am now done with training and am living in my work site – San Cristóbal Norte – a small town about 1 hour south of San Jose just off the Interamericana Sur Highway. The will be my home for the next two years.

Last week we had our Swearing-In at the Ambassador’s residence, which was pretty cool. We are in between Ambassadors right now but the folks at the embassy were nice enough to let us use the house. It was a lot of fun, we were all presented with certificates by our country director and a representative from the embassy. It’s nice to not be a trainee anymore!

After a night of partying in San Jose, we (the volunteers) all parted ways with each other as well as our training host families, and headed to our sites. From here, life is slowing down a lot.

San Cristóbal Norte is a small agricultural community of about 900 people located roughly 1800 meters up in the mountains of the Cordillera Central south of Cartago. Coffee country. It’s absolutely beautiful. I’ll try to get some picks up soon so you all can get an idea once I can find a better connection.

For the next 3-6 months my life will basically consist of living like a Tico, and talking to the locals and associations in my town. All of this is in order to develop a 30-something page report called a Community Analysis Tool (CAT).

Each volunteer has a counterpart organization within the community that is supposed to serve as their sponsor and home base within the community. My counterpart is the San Cristóbal Norte communal micro-lending bank, or ECC SACRIN for short. The bank began about 12 years ago with about $200 dollars in capital and 20 associates. Over time and through steady invest by community members, today the bank has roughly $120,000 in lending capital and 60 associates. All of this done with capital raised from within the community. I’m not sure how it all works yet, but it seems to be running pretty smoothly for them.

So where do I fit into all of this? The idea is the bank will serve as my base from within the community, and from there I can reach out to provide assistance as necessary to the various micro-entrepeneurs connected with the bank.

As with most things Peace Corps, the situation is very loosy-goosy, and will most likely depend on what I and the bank make of it. Either way, it seems like a pretty cool way to start off, and I will get to learn more about the micro-lending environment from one of the leading organizations in the country.

Other projects I will probably be getting into, aside from micro-enterprise collaboration, are things like teaching English, rural tourism, teaching Junior Achievement, and IT courses.


As for the living situation, my new home is in the house of Doña Albertina. She is a 70 year lady whose husband died a couple of years ago. Although she lives alone, the entire extended family lives in 4 of the neighboring houses in what makes up a little family compound. She is very nice, has a good sense of humor, and is a good cook (that’s important). I think we are going to get along just fine.

That is about all I can think to say right now. I hope that gives you some insight into my world. I really want to get some pictures posted soon so you all can get a better idea of what the town looks like.

This blog entry goes out to my friends and co-workers at the VA. Some of them, but not all, are pictured here. And no, this is not a police line up. I really appreciated there support when I decided to commit to Peace Corps, so this one goes out to them.

(If anyone shown here has a problem with there pictures being slapped on a website for the whole world to see, please let know and I will remove this from the site…maybe. No seriously, just let me know)

The Bulldawg has landed! (okay, about 6 weeks ago...)

Pictures to the right under the "Tarbaca" slideshow.

The last month has been pretty busy. I know its taken me awhile to get something posted, but the internet access is not so great. Hopefully once training is over I’ll be able to post things more regularly.

I’m living with a family in a small town called Tarbaca in the mountains to the south of San Jose. Their are three other volunteers living with other families here in the same town. This is our training community for the next six weeks or so.

During the week we usually spend at least 2-3 days in language classes all day. The other days we are meeting with our full training group in San Jose or meeting with local officials here in the community as part of our training projects – principals of the local schools, chair of the development association, owners of businesses, and other community organizations. Our training coordinators keep us pretty busy.

On the weekends I and the other three volunteer trainees usually hang out with our families here in Tarbaca. The families we live with, as well as the other three volunteers, are all buena gente (good people).

My training family is made up of the parents (Pablo and Teresita) and their three kids (Paola, Pablo, and Sharon). There ages are 14, 13, and 7, respectively. The dad works at the local telecommunications station as a security guard, but also grows and sells tomatoes and some other vegetables on the side. Between the two jobs he probably works at least 60 hours a week.

The last two weekends on Saturday we have gone to la feria, which is basically the local farmers market, to sell his tomatoes. We get up EARLY (think 3:30am) to load up the tomatoes in the truck, drive them to market, and get set up. These are long days but it is a hell of a lot of fun! Plus I get to meet plenty of locals through Pablo and brush up on the language skills.

The other three volunteers in my training community are great people. Two of them, Marcus and Kayla, live about 10 meters (that’s right folks, we are using meters now, part of the integration process) from my house. The families are all related. Marcus lives with Teresita’s father and Kayla with her sister and family. The other volunteer, Brittany, lives about a kilometer away with another family. We all still hang out with Brittany all the time though.

Marcus is from Arizona and went to UConn and then Alabama, where he ran track at both schools. He has a great sense of humor and spends about all day laughing. He greets just about any person on the streets with a booming “Como le va!” or “Pura vida!” He generally spreads joy and good humor wherever he goes. You can’t miss Marcus in Tarbaca.

Kayla grew up in Roswell, GA, where we were only a few miles from each during high school (but never met prior to Peace Corps). Kayla went to Valdosta state, where she studied Business and Spanish. In total I think she spent about a year and a half in Spain. About six months in study abroad, and a year following school teaching English in Malaga. Kayla enjoys watching movies and shaking her booty to some salsa music.

Brittany is from Florida (Tampa Bay area) but spent a lot of time in Montreal where she went to school. She studied philosophy in school and served as editor-and-chief (and founder) of a bilingual publication produced by philosophy students at Canadian universities. Brittany enjoys selling eggs at la feria for Marcus’s dad and confounding all the Costa Ricans by responding “I’m agnostic” to questions regarding her religion. A long explanation usually ensues.

These are the three people I spend the vast majority of my time with at the moment. We get along great and have a lot of fun. Together we are el equipo!

Tarbaca is a sleepy little town. There is no internet café or access to daily newspapers (which always kills me). Since our family is kind of campo (country), we seem to wake up early and go to bed early. Any time not in class or on training projects is spent with our families. We are generally the center of attraction at home. Between my house and Kayla’s, there are six kids in our little barrio, and they have a lot of energy.

While I’m not usually that crazy about kids, these kids are great – very happy-go-lucky, not spoiled, and overall good-natured. It’s been a lot of fun to hang out with them.

How do you live as a volunteer? Do you get paid? Some of you have asked me this. For the entire time we are in training, or about 12 weeks, each volunteer receives Э130,000 colones!!!...or about $260.

That may seem like an incredibly small amount of money, but it seems to be working out just fine (surprisingly). This money does not include the money given to our host families for lodging…which is about Э80,000 colones a month!!!....or about $160.

Note: From now on all amounts in colones will be followed by three exclamation marks, followed shortly by … and then the amount in U.S. dollars. Please see the two previous examples. This is done for dramatic effect.

Once we becomes volunteers we will be paid more, but not much more, and we have to negotiate our own rent in the sites.

What else can I say? In a few words – I eat rice and beans with every meal, the roads are terrible, and the showers are cold. That is my life in a nutshell. No great hardships right now…just a few quirky things to make life interesting.

As for work, there are roughly 50 or so volunteers here in training in my group. 18 volunteer trainees are in my work project – Community Economic Development. I will get into the specifics of my work project with a later blog. Basically it involves lending a hand to small business in communities, with emphasis on women and youth.

In about 2 weeks I will be assigned my work site. This is a big deal! It is where I will be living for the next two years. It is pretty exciting. I will let you all know what happens.

This is my world for now and for the next six weeks or so. I know it took me awhile to get a blog entry up. I had to go through a process with Peace Corps to make sure this conformed to their policies (note the disclaimer). Hope to have more for you soon and hope you all are doing well wherever you are. I posted some pictures to the right under the "Tarbaca" slide show. Hope you enjoy.

This blog is dedicated to my Mom who recently had a birthday. Happy birthday, Madre.

Bienvenido! Welcome!

Welcome to the inaugural blog of my Peace Corps Costa Rican adventure. I have no idea what I’m doing, so let’s just roll with it.

Two years! Actually it is a little more than two year commitment. Man, that is a long time. I have a feeling it’s going to creep by in some periods and other times will fly by and I will be wishing I had it back.

Based on preliminary research of Costa Rica, I’m going to do development work in what looks to be a fairly developed country. Stable democracy since 1949. Income per capita around $11,000. Decent health care. Increasingly diversified economy. Not to mention it is absolutely beautiful with what is reputed to be a very hospitable people with a warm culture.

How did this happen? How did I land this? I have no idea, but some things aren’t worth looking into too much. Either way, with about 20% of the population living below the nationally-established poverty line, they still have a ways to go.

"Pura vida" is the motto of Costa Ricans, hence the title of the blog. In most parts of the world people say hello or goodbye - in Costa Rica they simply say "pura vida", or pure life. I'm not sure what la pura vida is right now, but I plan to find out.

My hope for this blog is it will be somewhere you can check-in every once in a while, verify that I am in fact, still alive, and also learn a little bit about Costa Ricans, the country, and the life of a Peace Corps volunteer along the way. Every blog I plan to dedicate to someone out there. This is an idea I picked up from another Peace Corps Volunteer's (PCV) blog. It seems like fun. Also, I’ll try to keep it relatively unprocessed as much as possible…more stream of consciousness than painstaking editing. Holla Stu!...a.k.a. the kid on the couch.

No prediction is ventured at this time regarding how often posts will be made. I have a feeling there will be long lulls in communication as the pains of culture shock set in…followed by rapid fire posts as I get more acclimated - the coffee starts tasting good again, the sun is shining, birds are chirping, etc.

I almost forgot…please post comments!

Here’s the general schedule for the coming weeks:

Feb 11-17

Hang out with friends. Party like a rock star. Enjoy all things American.

Feb18-24

Downsize my life. Anyone need furniture? Clothes? What about a car?

Feb 25, 26

Orientation in DC.

Feb 27 Fly to CR. Feb 28 and Onward

Three months of training, then I truthfully have little to no idea.

This first blog is dedicated to my bro! With an absolute lack of savviness (not sure if that is a word, but it should be) for all things technological, he will most likely never see this and receive no gratification from this dubious honor.

This is truly the most flattering picture I can find of him. Taken after mysteriously being hit with a falling rock while on a hike in Canada, he has not been quite the same since. Matt – wherever you are climbing in some Southeast Asian land – I love you brody!