We are Going to Party in San Cristóbal Norte

Last week my English classes finished their first level of the English course after taking final written and verbal exams. I am relieved to be through with the classes for awhile. Each verbal exam took about 15 minutes per students, which is not that bad…except if you have 37 students like I do.

My mind was numb after 3 straight days of half-conversing with these beginning English students. That experience was enough to make me push for a 3 week break as opposed to the two weeks off I had initially planned.

The good news is everyone passed. Or that is, everyone that didn’t voluntarily drop out. Out of the 45 students that started the class at the end of October, I still have 37 after almost 4 months. I am pretty pleased with that.

But things are going to get harder. We will see how many continue to stick with it. My goal is to finish at least 4 levels of the course…which should roughly take me into December of this year.

As I mentioned in the last blog, the school has a big need to raise funds for the new computer lab they should be getting. Where we left off last, I believe the community was going to organize some event to raise funds to outfit the computer lab with air conditioning, an alarm system, and furniture.

Since then we’ve had a couple more meetings of the Unión Cívica among community leaders, which have resulted in a very positive, although suprisingly different outlook.

It now looks like, with the support and leadership of the town padre, that we will be organizing a 9 day cultural celebration to take place from April 18 – April 26.(!!!) As it probably sounds…this is a big deal. From what I understand the town hasn’t thrown a big summer party for 7-8 years.

From what I can tell, several things brought this about.

First, the local district representative to the county, who has some political friends higher up in the county and national levels, was able to get the right people in the county gov behind the idea of a summer fiesta in San Cristóbal Norte. With the support of the county comes all kinds of logistics support – they coordinate extra transportation, publicity for the event, program a parade with school bands, invite important groups, bring out a stage, and coordinate security.

Second, the padre got on board with the project. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of San Cristóbal Norte as the parroquia, or founding of the church as the religious center of the surrounding towns. The padre wanted to do something to honor this milestone, so he then pitched the idea to the Unión Cívica participants. Also, it seems he had started to pick up on signs from some people in town that the time was right to organize an event of this scale.

Either way…it seems the opportune time has finally arrived for our little group of community leaders in the Unión Cívica. They have decided to use this group of 8 community organizations as the base for dividing the work and the proceeds of the event. Also, we recently reviewed a draft charter written by the leader of the development association, and it was met with approval by the group.

So after another draft or two, the group may actually sign a basic charter agreement to establish the group as a standing organization in the town. Against all of my expectations…it appears it may actually be a sustainable project after all.

And naturally…the future of the group will be tested over the next couple of months and probably determined based on the success of this party. But hey…what’s better than a trial by fire?! :)

It is a very exciting time. I am very excited at least. This excitement is shared by the other community leaders in the group, although they are a bit more reserved. No vamos a disfrutar, vamos a trabajar…they say. Or basically put…we are going to be too busy working to enjoy the party! Despite this bit of realism, I know they are all pleased.

So now its time for us to roll up our sleeves and begin working on the planning! We’ve basically got 2 months to do all the work that is normally done in about 4 months for a fiesta communal of this size. There is a lot to be done – determining the events schedule, organizing kitchen teams, scheduling soccer matches, planning the parade, obtaining gifts for the bingo, coordinating with the cerveceria to get the outdoor cantina, or bar, in place…and much, much more.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. All readers of this blog are hereby invited…provided you coordinate your own transportation.

So what happened with the school computer lab project…you might be wondering? Admittedly, they have been pushed off to the side a bit with the prospect of this new fiesta…but not forgotten. The members of the Education Board put their heads together and came up with a few fundraising ideas they plan to use in the next couple of coups…such as a beauty pageant – also called a reinado, in which each grade level has a nominated queen, and the class to raise the most money wins at the end.

The Education Board also coordinated with the micro-finance bank, my counterpart, and has taken out a line of credit to be used should they need the money to outfit the computer lab immediately in the near future.

And the Education Board will also be able to benefit from some fundraising done at the fiesta in April. They appear to be in good shape. The president, a friend of mine, is such a great guy. He has been a participant in the Unión Cívica group since the beginning. He said to me, “I didn’t really care what we project we worked…I just wanted us to work together.”

Temporary Boy Scout Leader

The Girls and Boy Scouts project is still moving along well. We are now ready to start working with the 40 or so kids we have signed up. The only problem is we have the same weakness that most groups do when they are starting out – that is, a lack of adult scout leaders. We have 3 committed scout leaders, but need 1 more to direct the 10 or so kids of the Tropa group (ages 11-14). We desperately need to get started working with these kids and get them in uniforms. The theory is that just about every kid in town wants to be a boy or girl scout, but until the town sees a couple of groups working around town in those bright blue uniforms…we won’t see a whole lot more support from the parents.

So like the Unión Cívica project, we have staked the success of the project on how we fair during the fiesta communal in April. We have determined this should be our “coming out” party, complete with community activities, participation in the parade, community works such as trash pick-up, and other things we haven’t thought of yet. We hope to drum up all kinds of support that week and find some more adult scout leaders so we can enlist more kids.

In the last meeting of the junta, the subject came up, “what do we do with the 10 or so kids of Tropa?” The scout leaders were adament that if we didn’t have enough scout leaders, then someone from the junta would have to direct the kids – and unfortunately they were right. All eyes turned to me.

…So I bit the bullet and committed to being temporary scout leader for the next 3 months of the Tropa boys.(!) This is not what I had planned. But before agreeing I extracted a couple of promises from the junta: 1) they had to do a better job of require the scout leaders attended training sessions at the regional level, and 2) they had to actively recruit new scout leaders. We did not discuss specifics, but hopefully those ideas will stick.

Anyway I start working with the boys and whipping them into shape on March 7th…I will try to get you all some pictures…as I’m sure it will be entertaining for all.

Not the only Gringo in Town

It turns out I am not the only gringo in town now…which came as a complete surprise to me. Last week I was sitting outside in the morning practicing guitar – which is coming along nicely by the way – and a Nissan Pathfinder drove up and a man who was obviously American greeted me with a shout, “Hey! Are you Blake Henderson?” (Response: Yes) “Oh I found you on the internet!”

The man had recently bought a small plot of land just outside of town and found this blog while google-ing San Cristóbal Norte. So after recovering from my surprise, I invited him inside and Doña Albertina treated him to a cup of coffee. He is a pastor in San José of a non-denominational English language church (part time) and then has other projects on the side. He was looking to get the know the town a little better and get a little bit involved in the community, so I told him I would keep him informed the best I could. I enjoyed the conversation and enjoyed talking about different aspects of the town from my experience.

So…it is with great reluctance that I inform you that I no longer hold the dubious honor of “the only gringo in San Cristóbal Norte.”

1 Year Mark in Country

Amazingly tomorrow (2/25) marks 1 year of being here in country…but hey who’s counting?! Kidding…but I am amazed at how fast time is moving. I’ve been here in town for about a month straight and so it seems like a good time to get out and do some hiking to celebrate hitting the 1 year mark.

This weekend I’m headed north to do some hiking in a small mountain range of extinct volcanos (and one active one!) in the interior of Guanacaste. There is a volunteer there in the area, so we plan to hike from his town to volcanos Miravalles and Tenorio there in the area. We have a good group of about 5 guys. I am really looking forward to the short break.

I can say one thing about Peace Corps Costa Rica…the time off the job is as interesting as the time on the job.

Headed Back in July…Si Dios Quiere (translation: If God wants. Common Tico-ism)

If god wants I will be back in the States for the 4th of July and couple weeks after…with a short swing up to DC planned for sometime during the trip. I sure hope God is in favor of this trip…because I am sure looking forward to seeing you guys back home. Will keek you posted on the details.

This blog goes out to the people who send random emails and ping me for G-chats from time to time checking in – Candy, Mema, Bernstein, Shelley, KristIn, Jim, Paul, Matt, Kelly – and others…you know who you are. As always…thanks for thinking of me.