Hey everyone! The last week has been pretty eventful. First of all, Friday was Site Assignment Day! We all got to go to this really nice resort with pools, a hot tub, good food and stuff for the whole day. After we got there in the morning we all found out where we were going to be living for the next 2 years and then put a little sticker with our name on this big map of Costa Rica, then we had the rest of the day to hang out. It was really interesting to see where everyone else is living too...all 53 of us are definitely spread out all over the country. I am going to be living in the province of Guanacaste on the Nicoya Peninsula, kind of between the city of Nicoya and the Pacific coast in a little town of about 350 people called La Esperanza Norte. It is about 7 hours by bus from San Jose and I guess in a pretty mountainous area. I have heard a little about the town from my program director and it sounds pretty nice but I will be able to tell you more after I actually go to visit this weekend.
I’m actually in an internet café in San Jose right now with a couple buddies waiting for the van to pick us up and bring us to that conference center in Cartago where we spent our first 5 days in Costa Rica. Today we are all going to meet up with a representative from our future site and tomorrow we are going to go with them to visit for 5 days. The man coming to meet me is the president of local development association and is probably someone I will be working a lot with in the future, so I’m looking to meeting him. I’m sure we will get to know each other well after the 7+ hour bus ride from Cartago. I’m also excited to meet my new host family and see what the people in my town are like.
In other news, Saturday night was Festival Imperial in Heredia with Incubus and Smashing Pumpkins. About 20 of us got a hotel in downtown San Jose and it turned out to be quite the interesting night in more ways than one. It wasn’t a bad time but I think it took too much out of us…physically, mentally, financially etc. and we had to spend the next day, in rough shape, planning our English class and Community Field Activity. Next time I will take a bus to the beach and relax instead.
Monday I taught English to a 2nd grad class in my town while being evaluated by the Peace Corps. We sang all kinds of songs and played games about body parts and I made a bingo game with weather and emotions. I was definitely well prepared and it went pretty smoothly. The first 5 minutes were pretty scary but after that it was fine and I actually had a lot of fun. The next day Sarah and I had to hold a little assembly in the school for the first, second, and third graders to educate them about Earth Day (since that day was Earth Day). We talked about what Earth Day was, protecting the environent, recycling, and litering (all in Spanish). Then we had them draw pictures of nature and the Earth to hang on the side of the school and after that we decorated old milk cartons to use as pencil holder. All the kids had a good time and it went better than I expected.
Well I guess thats it for now....I better get going. I´m sure I will have much more to talk about after I visit my site. Take care and thanks for reading.
- Heath
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Eating Guava on our way to the river to go swimming...(this is Dennis, a current volunteer who I went to visit for a few days)
Dennis´s little friend.
A rodeo in San Jorge...this is a professional group that travels around Central America.
Waiting for the rodeo to start...that´s me with my hand being raised.
This woman happens to be the best female cowgirl in all of Central America.
Eating some kind of fruit I dont knw how to spell.
Dennis´s little friend.
A rodeo in San Jorge...this is a professional group that travels around Central America.
Waiting for the rodeo to start...that´s me with my hand being raised.
This woman happens to be the best female cowgirl in all of Central America.
Cutting open some pipas...
Eating some kind of fruit I dont knw how to spell.
Some little parrots on my finger.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Learning about piña. (pineapple)
Looking up the inside of the tree...
More hiking in the jungle...
The view from my town...
Our soccer field and basketball court...
Our school...
A big hollow tree we hiked to and climbed, you can kinda see people at the top...
Me
Looking up the inside of the tree...
Hiking back...
My bedroom during the site visit...
More hiking in the jungle...
13 out of the 18 Tico 18 RCDers
Friday, April 11, 2008
Here are a few pice I have alot more and will try to post them soon....
Walking to one of the volunteer's sites...(this was the most urban site out of all the RCD volunteers in the country, as you can probably tell by the electrical wires running right through it).
Hanging out at the pizza place... that's San Jose in the background.
Walking to one of the volunteer's sites...(this was the most urban site out of all the RCD volunteers in the country, as you can probably tell by the electrical wires running right through it).
Hanging out at the pizza place... that's San Jose in the background.
This is my community center where I have class almost every day...
Pineapples don't grow on trees...
Hey everyone, sorry I haven’t updated this in a while, the last couple weeks have been super busy with training and I’ve only had time to go to an internet café once for about 15 minutes. So much has happened that it would take too long for me to write about everything, but I will try to give you the gist of it.
The other week we broke up into groups of 9 and went to visit current volunteers working out in the country. We were gone for 5 days and visited 2 volunteers that live 5-7 hours from San Jose. One site was right next to a beautiful national park and the other was a huge pineapple farm close to a couple volcanoes. They were both really cool and it felt so refreshing to get out of the Central Valley and see other parts of the country. It was also great to be able to hang out with volunteers and see what their lives are really like. I stayed with 2 different families during the trip and it is so interesting to see how different people live and it was an all round great learning experience. I went on hikes in the jungle, went swimming/cliff jumping in 2 different rivers (unexplainably beautiful), met some really awesome people, spoke a lot of Spanish, walked a lot, learned everything about pineapples, played soccer for hours in the pouring rain, saw a sloth and a few tepiscuintles (I probably spelt that wrong but it’s this really weird rat/pig/dog looking thing that barks and people say they are delicious to eat). I went to a rodeo/carnival/dance, sang karaoke, and spent way too much time in buses. Overall it was a great experience.
We also had a “project fair” last week where nine current volunteers came to visit us and we were able to talk to all of them about what kind of work they are doing in their sites and get a lot of our questions answered. It definitely gave me a better idea of what to expect for the next two years.
This week I had to teach a second grade English class in the local elementary school. It went pretty well but it was definitely a little scarier than I expected. I have never been in front of a class of little kids before, let alone kids who cant speak English. This was only a practice class but in a couple weeks I have to teach again and this time be observed and evaluated by the Peace Corps. The 3 other trainees in my town and I also had to organize a town meeting to assess the strengths and needs of our community. It lasted for almost an hour and a half and went very smoothly (only because Jenny and Tes are amazingly good at Spanish). We have to plan a community activity next and we are thinking about going something about environmental education with the young people of our town since Earth Day in coming up soon and the littering problem here is definitely spawned by a lack of education on the issue.
We have dance classes every weekend in our community center so I have been going to them when I can. I get to dance with Ticas (Costa Rican girls) who have been dancing since they were old enough to stand, along with other Gringas (American girls) who are just as bad as me, so it’s a lot of fun. I am still a pretty bad dancer but I have definitely learned a lot. Dancing is an important social activity here and you pretty much have to learn if you want to fully integrate into the culture. Hopefully my dancing skills will improve along with my Spanish, and soccer skills and after 2 years I well be really good at all of them.
Speaking of Spanish, two weeks ago I had a proficiency test and scored Intermediate-low. I started at Beginner-mid so that means I am definitely getting better. Our last week of training we have one last test and need to score at least Intermediate-mid in order to swear in. I am definitely not worried about it at all. I have been learning so much the last few weeks and I still have 4 more weeks to go up only one little level. Intermediate-mid isn’t that good at all by the way, it just means you can have pretty basic conversations with people and are able to get you point across while understand most of what people are saying back to you. It is starting to get more difficult to write in English too. I am getting confused with sentence structure, spelling and grammar and a lot of English words don’t look the same as they used to, it really hard to explain but I think maybe it’s a good thing?
We all had to spend the other day shadowing someone of the opposite sex for at least 8 hours. I spent the whole day in the next town over hangout with my friend’s host mom who owns a Bazar (a small school/office supple store). It was a very interesting experience and actually went by much faster than I expected. She’s a really cool, intelligent woman and spoke slowly and clearly enough with me that I could actually get something out of our conversations. She is a retired school teacher who owns 2 stores in town and has like 3-4 kids and a bunch of grandkids.
We are currently past the halfway mark of our training period and next week we find out where we are going to be living for 2 years so we are all pretty excited/nervous about that. Even though we have been working super hard with training and everything most of us still make time to hang out and have fun. I have made some pretty close friends for the short time I’ve been here and we are definitely bad influences on each other, and are creating some very interesting and memorable experiences. Its kind of weird to think that in 5 weeks we might be living on the other side of the country and only see each other a few times a year.
I have always heard that the Peace Corps is an emotional roller coaster ride and I can see it’s definitely true even in the 6 weeks I have been here (it feels like so much longer by the way). Anyway, I think I have been riding pretty high most of the time with a few little drops here and there, for example a low point might have been when I had a dastrointestional viral infection and was violently sick for 5 days and still forced myself to make it to most training event and participate in everything. I definitely thought about how much more comfortable things would be if I were just lying in bed at home doing nothing. But then other times when I least expect it I look a something or think about my situation and am so glad I am here and honestly couldn’t think of anything else I would rather be doing or any other place in the world I would rather be. It’s kind of hard to explain but I know a lot of us fell the same way. And this is only training, everybody says things get so much crazier after you are in your site for a little while.
Tomorrow I get to leave by myself on a four-day trip to visit another volunteer. I guess I have to take a 6 hour bus ride then walk 7 kilometers to get to his town, so that should be quite the adventure. Since I have to take the 5am bus out of San Jose the Peace Corps is putting me up in a hotel for the night. I am actually stalying here with 4 other girls who have to leave early too so at least I'm not alone. Right now I'm sitting in the lobby of this nice little hotel and I have a big room to myself with a big bed and hot shower, this is definitely a good start to my little adventure. Its almost 11pm and I have to get up at 4am so i better get going. Thanks for reading, I will try to update next week.
The other week we broke up into groups of 9 and went to visit current volunteers working out in the country. We were gone for 5 days and visited 2 volunteers that live 5-7 hours from San Jose. One site was right next to a beautiful national park and the other was a huge pineapple farm close to a couple volcanoes. They were both really cool and it felt so refreshing to get out of the Central Valley and see other parts of the country. It was also great to be able to hang out with volunteers and see what their lives are really like. I stayed with 2 different families during the trip and it is so interesting to see how different people live and it was an all round great learning experience. I went on hikes in the jungle, went swimming/cliff jumping in 2 different rivers (unexplainably beautiful), met some really awesome people, spoke a lot of Spanish, walked a lot, learned everything about pineapples, played soccer for hours in the pouring rain, saw a sloth and a few tepiscuintles (I probably spelt that wrong but it’s this really weird rat/pig/dog looking thing that barks and people say they are delicious to eat). I went to a rodeo/carnival/dance, sang karaoke, and spent way too much time in buses. Overall it was a great experience.
We also had a “project fair” last week where nine current volunteers came to visit us and we were able to talk to all of them about what kind of work they are doing in their sites and get a lot of our questions answered. It definitely gave me a better idea of what to expect for the next two years.
This week I had to teach a second grade English class in the local elementary school. It went pretty well but it was definitely a little scarier than I expected. I have never been in front of a class of little kids before, let alone kids who cant speak English. This was only a practice class but in a couple weeks I have to teach again and this time be observed and evaluated by the Peace Corps. The 3 other trainees in my town and I also had to organize a town meeting to assess the strengths and needs of our community. It lasted for almost an hour and a half and went very smoothly (only because Jenny and Tes are amazingly good at Spanish). We have to plan a community activity next and we are thinking about going something about environmental education with the young people of our town since Earth Day in coming up soon and the littering problem here is definitely spawned by a lack of education on the issue.
We have dance classes every weekend in our community center so I have been going to them when I can. I get to dance with Ticas (Costa Rican girls) who have been dancing since they were old enough to stand, along with other Gringas (American girls) who are just as bad as me, so it’s a lot of fun. I am still a pretty bad dancer but I have definitely learned a lot. Dancing is an important social activity here and you pretty much have to learn if you want to fully integrate into the culture. Hopefully my dancing skills will improve along with my Spanish, and soccer skills and after 2 years I well be really good at all of them.
Speaking of Spanish, two weeks ago I had a proficiency test and scored Intermediate-low. I started at Beginner-mid so that means I am definitely getting better. Our last week of training we have one last test and need to score at least Intermediate-mid in order to swear in. I am definitely not worried about it at all. I have been learning so much the last few weeks and I still have 4 more weeks to go up only one little level. Intermediate-mid isn’t that good at all by the way, it just means you can have pretty basic conversations with people and are able to get you point across while understand most of what people are saying back to you. It is starting to get more difficult to write in English too. I am getting confused with sentence structure, spelling and grammar and a lot of English words don’t look the same as they used to, it really hard to explain but I think maybe it’s a good thing?
We all had to spend the other day shadowing someone of the opposite sex for at least 8 hours. I spent the whole day in the next town over hangout with my friend’s host mom who owns a Bazar (a small school/office supple store). It was a very interesting experience and actually went by much faster than I expected. She’s a really cool, intelligent woman and spoke slowly and clearly enough with me that I could actually get something out of our conversations. She is a retired school teacher who owns 2 stores in town and has like 3-4 kids and a bunch of grandkids.
We are currently past the halfway mark of our training period and next week we find out where we are going to be living for 2 years so we are all pretty excited/nervous about that. Even though we have been working super hard with training and everything most of us still make time to hang out and have fun. I have made some pretty close friends for the short time I’ve been here and we are definitely bad influences on each other, and are creating some very interesting and memorable experiences. Its kind of weird to think that in 5 weeks we might be living on the other side of the country and only see each other a few times a year.
I have always heard that the Peace Corps is an emotional roller coaster ride and I can see it’s definitely true even in the 6 weeks I have been here (it feels like so much longer by the way). Anyway, I think I have been riding pretty high most of the time with a few little drops here and there, for example a low point might have been when I had a dastrointestional viral infection and was violently sick for 5 days and still forced myself to make it to most training event and participate in everything. I definitely thought about how much more comfortable things would be if I were just lying in bed at home doing nothing. But then other times when I least expect it I look a something or think about my situation and am so glad I am here and honestly couldn’t think of anything else I would rather be doing or any other place in the world I would rather be. It’s kind of hard to explain but I know a lot of us fell the same way. And this is only training, everybody says things get so much crazier after you are in your site for a little while.
Tomorrow I get to leave by myself on a four-day trip to visit another volunteer. I guess I have to take a 6 hour bus ride then walk 7 kilometers to get to his town, so that should be quite the adventure. Since I have to take the 5am bus out of San Jose the Peace Corps is putting me up in a hotel for the night. I am actually stalying here with 4 other girls who have to leave early too so at least I'm not alone. Right now I'm sitting in the lobby of this nice little hotel and I have a big room to myself with a big bed and hot shower, this is definitely a good start to my little adventure. Its almost 11pm and I have to get up at 4am so i better get going. Thanks for reading, I will try to update next week.
Pura Vida,
Heath
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