I just had an extremely honest conversation with my host family, in light of the fact that apparently people in my community don’t have a clear understanding of what my role here is as a Peace Corps Volunteer for these 2 years. Many volunteers say that they feel that people in their town see them as being there exclusively to find funding for projects. Luckily, I haven’t felt that pressure, I think as a result of my way of integrating into the community— from the beginning, I’ve explained that I am here to help in community development, but haven’t necessarily mentioned the idea of fundraising, though it is certainly coming into play as things progress. This is, in theory, the natural sequence of events. It is for this reason (among many others!) that it is so necessary to be here for the 2 years: to make at least a dent in the organizational development of the existing organizations to then work on fundraising of projects deemed necessary as a result of the very same organizational development— something one would not be able to do in a few weeks, or even a few months.
The point is that I really need to make a more concerted effort to explain to people the 3 goals of the rural community development program (organizational development, economic opportunities, and education). However, there is another aspect of Peace Corps as an institution which led to the most interesting part of the conversation. A lot of times with Peace Corps, I think that volunteers loose sight of the 3 founding principles of the organization. While one of the goals is to “help people of interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men and women” (ie the concepts listed above), the other 2 goals have nothing to do with community development:
-help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served (aka my community)
-help promote a better understanding of other peoples (aka Ticos) on the part of Americans (aka my family and friends).
(fyi: these goals come directly from the Peace Corps handbook)
So, really Peace Corps is about this exchange and mutual understanding of cultures. Doing Peace Corps in Costa Rica, a country that sees a disproportionate number of Americans as compared to other Peace Corps countries due to the tourism industry, creates an interesting dynamic when it comes to these other goals. Ticos have a lot of interaction with “gringos” (I’ll call Americans gringos from here on out because that’s how they refer to us here. I personally don’t take offense to the term—something people are constantly asking me—because I know they aren’t using it in an offensive manner at least when referring to me, although I imagine that in other situations, that may not be the case). These interactions lead to generalizations and stereotyped that all gringos are extremely wealthy and spend their money on anything (the other day my host brother was joking around trying to convince me to buy “authentic” Costa Rican products of random things lying around the house, because supposedly all gringos will by anything if it’s “made in Costa Rica”). Gringos also exclusively eat hamburgers and junk food all the time. Also, from all the backpackers there’s the idea that gringos don’t bathe very often and live in sandals.
So my host mom, host dad and I are having this conversation and I said that this idea of breaking stereotypes is a part of the Peace Corps experience and that now people in my town at least know that all gringos aren’t blonde hair and blue eyes and my host mom says, “Yea but Tes, I wouldn’t call you gringa!” And I said, “Why not? I was born in the US, my parents were born in the US, my grandparents were born in the US.” And she says, “Yes, but you have different habits then most gringos—you don’t eat hamburgers and junk food, you have good morals and values”--- basically alluding to the fact that I am somehow an exception to the rule and that, in reality, most gringos are like those in the movies and those that they see here in CR (who, I may add, are on vacation and therefore perhaps the fact that they are wearing sandals and not bathing as often as usual, doesn’t mean that they are like that in the US!). I could not believe that my own host mom who obviously knows me extremely well still believes that I am not “gringa” because I do not adhere to the stereotypes. However it was simultaneously fascinating to realize that these stereotypes are truly ingrained into the culture here.
To say the least, it was an extremely telling conversation that revealed the need to have these conversations more often, in addition to the importance of this aspect of the Peace Corps experience, perhaps even more so in Costa Rica than in other parts of the world. If there is something that this experience has taught me (among so many other things, of course) it is the harm in making generalizations about groups of people. It always cracks me up when people make generalizations about people in the US because I then explain to that person: how can you say that all Americans are alike in any given way when we are however many million people living in a country that is varied in every possible way, minus language (and even that is disputable!). And while these stereotypes are more or less harmless, the concept of generalizing and making stereotypes about any group, whether it be the people of a country, religion, etc. can become dangerous and is the root of many of the problems facing us on a global level.
Another aspect of the conversation was me telling my host family how lucky I feel to get to experience a part of Costa Rica that most tourists never get to experience, being a part of an “authentic” rural town for 2 years. I told them that was a huge part of my motivation in joining Peace Corps, to be able to really become a part of a community outside of the US and I feel that I have been able to do that here. In turn, I am then able to impart what I’m learning about life here to people in the states. It is satisfying to know that my blog has been a wonderful way to fulfill this goal--- I am able to tell you (my readers) about my experiences so that you can learn more about Tico culture, or at least my perception of it. I appreciate you all for reading about my experiences and for helping, in turn, to expand the conceptions of Costa Rica that you may have, which are hopefully changing for the better as a result!
Ok, on that note, I’m off to bed as it’s 9:30pm right now, ya tarde!
Buenas noches!
Tesa
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Getting Back into the Swing of Things
I realized today that I haven’t written since I’ve gotten back from my trip to the states, which I think is somewhat indicative of how I’ve been feeling since then. I had an absolutely wonderful, if somewhat whirlwind, trip home last month, primarily for the very special occasion of my cousin Nora’s Bat Mitzvah. The bat mitzvah was lovely and it was the perfect opportunity to see lots of family members I had not seen in quite a long time. It was nice to have over a week, because I was able to really catch up with my aunts/uncles, cousins, and grandparents (and my Mom and Austin, too!) and at the end of the week I headed to Boston to see friends from college and CT. Needless to say, it was great seeing so many people I care about and had not seen in person for a very long time (besides my Mom and Ali, I hadn’t seen a family member or friend from home in over 9 months!). Let me say that all of the joyous time spent with all those people has made it a somewhat difficult transition back to Costa Rica. Of course it’s been nice seeing everyone and everyone has been more than welcoming after my absence. But it has been somewhat difficult coming to terms with the fact that I truly have two lives: in the US and here in Costa Rica and, though somewhat unfair for the CR life, my US life has a 23 year head start in terms of the relationships that I have there. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m not happy here, because that sincerely isn’t the case. This is more to explain that when choosing to do Peace Corps, it is difficult to conceptualize the idea of leaving one’s life behind for 2 whole years and I think that going back home to visit has certainly illuminated the weight of that decision.
However in typical “Tesandra, PC Volunteer” fashion, I am slowly assimilating back to my life here. Last week, I invited all the members of my English class to my house for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. It was a major success, with the Ticos adventurously trying some new food I had brought back (stuffing, cranberry sauce, and, if I do say myself, some delicious pumpkin pie). Part of the PC experience is this cultural exchange and I was really happy to be able to share that part of our culture with them, specifically the concept of giving thanks for what we have. I had us go around in a circle and share with the group what each person was thankful for. I was really touched, and also surprised, that many people were so thankful for the English class and not so much as a chance to learn English (that too, but that’s more implicit), but also as an opportunity to get to know more members of the community. I think I take for granted the fact that it is such a small town and everyone knows each other, but while people know each other on more of a surface level basis, there aren’t that many opportunities for people to get to know each other on a deeper level and so the English class has been an outlet to foster those friendships.
the full spread-- yum!
my host mom serving the food
some of the boys in the class enjoying their food
my host mom and I!
On a related cultural note, now that I have shared Thanksgiving, I am really excited to experience a Tico Christmas. It seems that there are lots of traditions (and lots of eating!) involved and I can’t wait to experience it all. This past weekend we got the Christmas tree in our house (my very first Christmas tree!) and have been decorating all over the house. I’m sure I will be repeating the fact that I’ve never celebrated Christmas and why not countless times over the next few weeks, because even my host family, who definitely knows that I´m Jewish, ask if I’ve ever had a tree, even though I’ve told them many times that Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas (not even the tree part!). I brought down a little menora and it’ll be interesting to see what they think of lighting the candles and reciting the prayers in Hebrew—I told them that after 8 nights, they’ll be singing along with me! We’ll see what happens!
Other pictures:
Long-awaited proof of me milking cows!
The corral where it all goes down
Across from the corral is this crazy looking contraption called a trapiche which turns sugar cane into a liquid, which can then be made into something called tapa de dulce which is basically a hardened block of brown sugar (really yummy!) used for cooking and making various drinks. Back in the day people used oxen to power the trapiche, but the trapiche at my host family’s house is really now more used for decoration, except for every once in the while when we decide we want some fresh caldo de caña (the liquid), but instead of using oxen, we use man-power!
Here I am turning the to squeeze the liquid out of the sugar cane— that smile is deceiving, it’s tougher than it looks, but also lots of fun!
the final product-- caldo de caña
However in typical “Tesandra, PC Volunteer” fashion, I am slowly assimilating back to my life here. Last week, I invited all the members of my English class to my house for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. It was a major success, with the Ticos adventurously trying some new food I had brought back (stuffing, cranberry sauce, and, if I do say myself, some delicious pumpkin pie). Part of the PC experience is this cultural exchange and I was really happy to be able to share that part of our culture with them, specifically the concept of giving thanks for what we have. I had us go around in a circle and share with the group what each person was thankful for. I was really touched, and also surprised, that many people were so thankful for the English class and not so much as a chance to learn English (that too, but that’s more implicit), but also as an opportunity to get to know more members of the community. I think I take for granted the fact that it is such a small town and everyone knows each other, but while people know each other on more of a surface level basis, there aren’t that many opportunities for people to get to know each other on a deeper level and so the English class has been an outlet to foster those friendships.
the full spread-- yum!
my host mom serving the food
some of the boys in the class enjoying their food
my host mom and I!
On a related cultural note, now that I have shared Thanksgiving, I am really excited to experience a Tico Christmas. It seems that there are lots of traditions (and lots of eating!) involved and I can’t wait to experience it all. This past weekend we got the Christmas tree in our house (my very first Christmas tree!) and have been decorating all over the house. I’m sure I will be repeating the fact that I’ve never celebrated Christmas and why not countless times over the next few weeks, because even my host family, who definitely knows that I´m Jewish, ask if I’ve ever had a tree, even though I’ve told them many times that Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas (not even the tree part!). I brought down a little menora and it’ll be interesting to see what they think of lighting the candles and reciting the prayers in Hebrew—I told them that after 8 nights, they’ll be singing along with me! We’ll see what happens!
Other pictures:
Long-awaited proof of me milking cows!
The corral where it all goes down
Across from the corral is this crazy looking contraption called a trapiche which turns sugar cane into a liquid, which can then be made into something called tapa de dulce which is basically a hardened block of brown sugar (really yummy!) used for cooking and making various drinks. Back in the day people used oxen to power the trapiche, but the trapiche at my host family’s house is really now more used for decoration, except for every once in the while when we decide we want some fresh caldo de caña (the liquid), but instead of using oxen, we use man-power!
Here I am turning the to squeeze the liquid out of the sugar cane— that smile is deceiving, it’s tougher than it looks, but also lots of fun!
the final product-- caldo de caña
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
What am I up to?
This Thursday I am heading back to the US for the first time since I left in February, almost 9 months ago! I can hardly believe that my PC service is at the ¼ mark. It simultaneously feels like a milestone and also as though I have a long way to go. The good news is that I feel about 10,000 times more comfortable in my community than ever before. I truly feel like an integrated part of my town. Today the committee of children and adolescents had a day full of charlas (talks) at the high school, elementary school, and with parents. At the parents’ meeting, there was one mom I didn’t recognize and low and behold, I came to find out that she´s from the town next door and I know her son from the high school. Needless to say, it’s a small world in rural Costa Rica!
Anyway, as I’m coming to this little break in the action in my service I though I would explain a bit about the different projects I’m involved in. As I just mentioned, the committee of children and adolescents had just formed when I got here but hadn’t really done anything, so I kind of jump-started them a bit and we just had our “inaugural” activity today focusing on the rights and responsibilities of children. We also have plans to start a little library in the elementary school, plan a Christmas party for the kids of the town, and also look into the possibility of creating a play-ground. As of right now, in terms of recreational options for the kids of my town, there is just one thing: soccer, soccer, and more soccer. And while the Ticos do love their soccer, it would be wonderful for the kids to have another opportunity to play and a play-ground would be the perfect solution. With Peace Corps there are a few fundraising opportunities and I think this might be the project for which I will try to solicit funding because it really is a necessity that has been expressed time and time again and would be a positive change in the town.
Speaking of kids, before I even got here, I had heard of something that many PC/CR volunteers do called “Chicas Poderosas” which is a group meant to engage elementary- age girls in activities that promote positive communication skills, self-esteem, and working as a team, among other things. I started the group about a month ago with 2nd and 3rd graders and it has been incredibly rewarding. The girls are adorable and enthusiastic about anything that we do from the human knot to art projects to chanting our little cheer that I came up with using different phrases that they identified as what typifies a chica poderosa:
Somos chicas poderosas:
Amamos a nuestras familias, amigos, y nosotras mismas
Rescatamos a la gente que nos necesita
Somos buenas, inteligentes, y positivas
Somos chicas poderosas!
Translation:
We are powerful girls:
We love our families, friends, and ourselves
We help the people that need us
We are good, smart, and positive,
We are powerful girls!
Needless to say, it looses a bit of it’s meaning with the translation, but you get the main idea (¡y major para los que sepan español!).
Chicas with a picture they painted, each girl using just one color of finger paint (yay for working as a team!)
the chicas and I!
I also have my English class that began about a month and a ½ ago. We just had the mid-term exam which was a bit of a wake-up call for some that one does not learn a language solely by going to class 2 times a week—you have to study! But things are going really well and I think they really like it (and I’m enjoying teaching it!). The other day we celebrated Halloween by learning the lyrics to “The Adams Family” which they got a kick out of because it was on TV here, too, back in the day (although here it was called La Familia Loca—The Crazy Family—perhaps a bit more fitting!). We also did a little mock trick or treating where everyone had to knock on the door to the English classroom and say, “trick or treat, give me something good to eat.” For anyone who comes to visit, you will certainly have the pleasure of making what I can guarantee will be a much-anticipated guest appearance in my English class, so get ready!
the whole class
giving out Halloween candy
Another group that I’m working with is a women’s group in the town next door to where I live. I found out about the group from the Ministery of Agriculture that put us in contact and they have been really wonderful to work with. They’re super open to me coming in and doing any kind of activity and the other week I brought a woman who had come to my town to give a charla that was kind of a personal reflection. I cannot tell you how touching it was to see these women talking about issues such as feeling under-appreciated for all they do for their family (a lot!) and missed opportunities for education because they were pulled out of school (something that doesn´t really happen now but was the norm in the not too distant past, particularly with girls). Women living in rural Costa Rica (at least based on my experiences) have so few opportunities to get out of the house, much less talk about their feelings and views and so it was really special to be able to give them that opportunity and I look forward to continuing my work with them.
women´s group and I
As I mentioned in the previous post, the development association and myself are continuing our work on the a project to improve the roads (see pictures in previous post). I spent last week at a workshop on Project Design and Management and learned a very thorough methodology of thoroughly planning and implementing projects that I hope will be helpful not only for this project (which is what I used as the model during the workshop) but projects with other groups, too.
When I get back, I want to get started on the following:
-exercise classes (aerobics and maybe yoga)
-recycling project with the high school (right now almost everyone here burns their garbage, for lack of other options, and I’ve been talking with the high school principal about starting up something to create a consciousness about the environmental damage this causes as well as some kind of recycling program)
-English class for kids
-community security watch (my town is super safe, but this has been a constant topic of conversation and a way to secure that much-treasured security on a community level)
But first, USA, here I come!!!! I cannot express how excited I am to celebrate my cousin Nora´s Bat Mitzvah with my family— I am long overdue to see everyone and it is the perfect occasion!
Hasta super pronto a todos!
Tes
More nature pictures from around my town:
Anyway, as I’m coming to this little break in the action in my service I though I would explain a bit about the different projects I’m involved in. As I just mentioned, the committee of children and adolescents had just formed when I got here but hadn’t really done anything, so I kind of jump-started them a bit and we just had our “inaugural” activity today focusing on the rights and responsibilities of children. We also have plans to start a little library in the elementary school, plan a Christmas party for the kids of the town, and also look into the possibility of creating a play-ground. As of right now, in terms of recreational options for the kids of my town, there is just one thing: soccer, soccer, and more soccer. And while the Ticos do love their soccer, it would be wonderful for the kids to have another opportunity to play and a play-ground would be the perfect solution. With Peace Corps there are a few fundraising opportunities and I think this might be the project for which I will try to solicit funding because it really is a necessity that has been expressed time and time again and would be a positive change in the town.
Speaking of kids, before I even got here, I had heard of something that many PC/CR volunteers do called “Chicas Poderosas” which is a group meant to engage elementary- age girls in activities that promote positive communication skills, self-esteem, and working as a team, among other things. I started the group about a month ago with 2nd and 3rd graders and it has been incredibly rewarding. The girls are adorable and enthusiastic about anything that we do from the human knot to art projects to chanting our little cheer that I came up with using different phrases that they identified as what typifies a chica poderosa:
Somos chicas poderosas:
Amamos a nuestras familias, amigos, y nosotras mismas
Rescatamos a la gente que nos necesita
Somos buenas, inteligentes, y positivas
Somos chicas poderosas!
Translation:
We are powerful girls:
We love our families, friends, and ourselves
We help the people that need us
We are good, smart, and positive,
We are powerful girls!
Needless to say, it looses a bit of it’s meaning with the translation, but you get the main idea (¡y major para los que sepan español!).
Chicas with a picture they painted, each girl using just one color of finger paint (yay for working as a team!)
the chicas and I!
I also have my English class that began about a month and a ½ ago. We just had the mid-term exam which was a bit of a wake-up call for some that one does not learn a language solely by going to class 2 times a week—you have to study! But things are going really well and I think they really like it (and I’m enjoying teaching it!). The other day we celebrated Halloween by learning the lyrics to “The Adams Family” which they got a kick out of because it was on TV here, too, back in the day (although here it was called La Familia Loca—The Crazy Family—perhaps a bit more fitting!). We also did a little mock trick or treating where everyone had to knock on the door to the English classroom and say, “trick or treat, give me something good to eat.” For anyone who comes to visit, you will certainly have the pleasure of making what I can guarantee will be a much-anticipated guest appearance in my English class, so get ready!
the whole class
giving out Halloween candy
Another group that I’m working with is a women’s group in the town next door to where I live. I found out about the group from the Ministery of Agriculture that put us in contact and they have been really wonderful to work with. They’re super open to me coming in and doing any kind of activity and the other week I brought a woman who had come to my town to give a charla that was kind of a personal reflection. I cannot tell you how touching it was to see these women talking about issues such as feeling under-appreciated for all they do for their family (a lot!) and missed opportunities for education because they were pulled out of school (something that doesn´t really happen now but was the norm in the not too distant past, particularly with girls). Women living in rural Costa Rica (at least based on my experiences) have so few opportunities to get out of the house, much less talk about their feelings and views and so it was really special to be able to give them that opportunity and I look forward to continuing my work with them.
women´s group and I
As I mentioned in the previous post, the development association and myself are continuing our work on the a project to improve the roads (see pictures in previous post). I spent last week at a workshop on Project Design and Management and learned a very thorough methodology of thoroughly planning and implementing projects that I hope will be helpful not only for this project (which is what I used as the model during the workshop) but projects with other groups, too.
When I get back, I want to get started on the following:
-exercise classes (aerobics and maybe yoga)
-recycling project with the high school (right now almost everyone here burns their garbage, for lack of other options, and I’ve been talking with the high school principal about starting up something to create a consciousness about the environmental damage this causes as well as some kind of recycling program)
-English class for kids
-community security watch (my town is super safe, but this has been a constant topic of conversation and a way to secure that much-treasured security on a community level)
But first, USA, here I come!!!! I cannot express how excited I am to celebrate my cousin Nora´s Bat Mitzvah with my family— I am long overdue to see everyone and it is the perfect occasion!
Hasta super pronto a todos!
Tes
More nature pictures from around my town:
Monday, October 20, 2008
This is what the rainy season does...
The other day the mayor of the county where I live came to have a meeting with the development association (my in-site counterpart) about the possibility of a project to improve the roads in my town (this is a big deal because fixing the roads is the #1 necessity in my town, according to my interviews). The meeting went really well and we’re now starting the process of planning the project (ie getting an engineer to make a blueprint of the roads, using the blueprint to draft a budget for the materials, writing the project proposal to get funding, etc.). At the end of the meeting, we spoke to the mayor about a more urgent need for the road way at the bottom of my community. In normal conditions, this part is passable by car, but due to what people are saying is the most tremendous of rainy seasons in a long time, it is now (well, as of a few days ago, to be exact) barely passable on foot. The mayor told us to take some pictures and he was going to contact the National Emergency Commission (not quite sure what the U.S. equivalent would be, but in CR they help out in cases of emergencies like flooding, earthquakes, etc.) to get some larger sewers that can adequately handle the incredible amount of water that pass through them.
Come Monday, I head down with my host Dad, camera in hand and we are shocked to find that the part that we were there to take pictures of was now the least of our troubles… a part of the road was literally no longer there. The rains are so ridiculously strong (apparently October is the absolute worst of the rainy season here—it has been pouring for 3 days straight as I write) that the water carried away a substantial part of the road, making it completely impassable. As a picture shows a thousand words, here are some to give you an idea. These are the pictures I’m sending to the Commission, so let’s hope that we come to a resolution as soon as possible so that the 40 people who live beyond where this happened can have a functioning road.
This is what we had come to take pictures of:
This is where the road just washed away:
Come Monday, I head down with my host Dad, camera in hand and we are shocked to find that the part that we were there to take pictures of was now the least of our troubles… a part of the road was literally no longer there. The rains are so ridiculously strong (apparently October is the absolute worst of the rainy season here—it has been pouring for 3 days straight as I write) that the water carried away a substantial part of the road, making it completely impassable. As a picture shows a thousand words, here are some to give you an idea. These are the pictures I’m sending to the Commission, so let’s hope that we come to a resolution as soon as possible so that the 40 people who live beyond where this happened can have a functioning road.
This is what we had come to take pictures of:
This is where the road just washed away:
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Better Off
I’m currently reading a book entitled “Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology” about a guy who was enrolled in graduate school at MIT studying “Science, Technology, and Society” when he decided to take a year and do a kind of “study away”/“in-the-field” experiment where he and his wife moved to a Minimite community to live for 18 months. The Minimites are a sect of Christinaity, related to the Amish, kind of similar to the relation between Opus Dei and Catholicism, i.e. very firm observance of the rules. For the Minimites, this means adhering to a strict ban on any kind of motor-operated machinery and in general practicing a very austere lifestyle. The story follows the author and his wife adapting to life on the farm, learning to maximize human potential and minimize (or really, completely eliminate) dependency on any kind of machinery (refrigerator, TV, motorized farming tools, etc).
As I’ve been reading, it has been truly striking how much the story hits close to home (and by home, I mean my life right now, of course, not Avon). Although I certainly have electricity (as they say, ¡gracias por dios!), many of the concepts in the book that are practiced by the Minimites are extremely relevant to life in rural Costa Rica: working together in manual labor and how the very labor can bring people together, the satisfaction that comes with the self-sufficiency of farm life, extremely close-knit families. It cracks me up that many of the farm references are things that by now are second nature to me. For example, the author and his wife have their own cow, but without a refrigerator, they were wasting a lot of the milk. One of the neighbors told them they had to get a pig. A few months ago I would have wondered, “how is getting a pig going to help the situation?” Now I know, as my host family has an abundance of cows, the many many ways in which the milk is used… and it’s not just for drinking! My host family makes cheese and in making cheese there is a lot of what is called “suero” left over, which is exactly why we have 3 pigs right now: suero is filled with nutrients to fatten them up so that we can then eat them. As my Mom rightfully noticed when she came to visit, when living on a farm, there is special care taken to ensure that nothing goes to waste and having pigs when one has a lot of cows is a case in point.
On a related note: in a previous post I spoke of a home at the way bottom of my community and how the family that lives there is the perfect example of self-sufficiency. As I had mentioned in that post, when I first came to visit, they had just planted rice plants that were to be cut a few months from then. I told them how I had no idea how the process worked and would love to see it and they told me I could come back when it was ready. Well, that day was today (actually, Sept. 23 was that day, but I´m just now getting to post about it)! I trekked down the hill in my big black boots, which are an absolute necessity where they live as there is a ridiculous amount of mud, and came to acres and acres of rice, enough rice for 2 families for an entire year (and judging from my last post, you can imagine that’s a lot of rice!). Talk about back-breaking work—I didn’t know what back-breaking work was before today. Here’s the deal: First you have to cut the stalks of the plant, put them in little bundles, then comes the fun part (it may be back-breaking, but I’m actually serious, it was really fun!): you lay out a big sack and a wooden board and then proceed to take bundle by bundle in your hand, raise it high above your head, and then whack it against the board as hard as you can so that the little grains of rice fall off of the end of the stalk. Repeat for as many bundles as you have in front of (aka a lot). Though this is the toughest part of the job, the rice is still not ready to eat. You then have to use a kind of giant mortar and pestle- like device (called a “pilón” in Spanish—I love all the random vocabulary that I learn here that I don’t even know what the words are in English!) to crack open the little outer shell of the rice and use a special kind of fan to sort the rice from the shell, then it is finally ready for consumption as gallo pinto, arroz con pollo, arroz con leche... I feel like Bubba talking about shrimp in Forrest Gump, but the possibilities are truly endless (and delicious!).
Before leaving, the family showed me how they use a metal press to make a kind of sugar juice (called “caña”) by taking the stalks of the caña and pushing them through the press. This family epitomizes the CR hospitality I always talk about. I had brought them some cucumbers from my host Dad and I’s garden and I left weighed down with pejiballes (CR veggie) and a big container full of the home-made sugar juice, made by yours truly. It was a lovely morning and a perfect example of how the people in my town really typify the concept of self-reliance. The thing most striking to me about this way of life is the satisfaction that comes from eating food that you know exactly where it came from because you have been involved in every step of the process from planting to preparing it to eat. This concept is something I know I will take back with me to the states, even if it’s just growing basil, mint, and other spices in my apartment (wherever it is that I will be living in May 2010… who knows!).
That’s all for now!
XOXO
Tesa
As I’ve been reading, it has been truly striking how much the story hits close to home (and by home, I mean my life right now, of course, not Avon). Although I certainly have electricity (as they say, ¡gracias por dios!), many of the concepts in the book that are practiced by the Minimites are extremely relevant to life in rural Costa Rica: working together in manual labor and how the very labor can bring people together, the satisfaction that comes with the self-sufficiency of farm life, extremely close-knit families. It cracks me up that many of the farm references are things that by now are second nature to me. For example, the author and his wife have their own cow, but without a refrigerator, they were wasting a lot of the milk. One of the neighbors told them they had to get a pig. A few months ago I would have wondered, “how is getting a pig going to help the situation?” Now I know, as my host family has an abundance of cows, the many many ways in which the milk is used… and it’s not just for drinking! My host family makes cheese and in making cheese there is a lot of what is called “suero” left over, which is exactly why we have 3 pigs right now: suero is filled with nutrients to fatten them up so that we can then eat them. As my Mom rightfully noticed when she came to visit, when living on a farm, there is special care taken to ensure that nothing goes to waste and having pigs when one has a lot of cows is a case in point.
On a related note: in a previous post I spoke of a home at the way bottom of my community and how the family that lives there is the perfect example of self-sufficiency. As I had mentioned in that post, when I first came to visit, they had just planted rice plants that were to be cut a few months from then. I told them how I had no idea how the process worked and would love to see it and they told me I could come back when it was ready. Well, that day was today (actually, Sept. 23 was that day, but I´m just now getting to post about it)! I trekked down the hill in my big black boots, which are an absolute necessity where they live as there is a ridiculous amount of mud, and came to acres and acres of rice, enough rice for 2 families for an entire year (and judging from my last post, you can imagine that’s a lot of rice!). Talk about back-breaking work—I didn’t know what back-breaking work was before today. Here’s the deal: First you have to cut the stalks of the plant, put them in little bundles, then comes the fun part (it may be back-breaking, but I’m actually serious, it was really fun!): you lay out a big sack and a wooden board and then proceed to take bundle by bundle in your hand, raise it high above your head, and then whack it against the board as hard as you can so that the little grains of rice fall off of the end of the stalk. Repeat for as many bundles as you have in front of (aka a lot). Though this is the toughest part of the job, the rice is still not ready to eat. You then have to use a kind of giant mortar and pestle- like device (called a “pilón” in Spanish—I love all the random vocabulary that I learn here that I don’t even know what the words are in English!) to crack open the little outer shell of the rice and use a special kind of fan to sort the rice from the shell, then it is finally ready for consumption as gallo pinto, arroz con pollo, arroz con leche... I feel like Bubba talking about shrimp in Forrest Gump, but the possibilities are truly endless (and delicious!).
Before leaving, the family showed me how they use a metal press to make a kind of sugar juice (called “caña”) by taking the stalks of the caña and pushing them through the press. This family epitomizes the CR hospitality I always talk about. I had brought them some cucumbers from my host Dad and I’s garden and I left weighed down with pejiballes (CR veggie) and a big container full of the home-made sugar juice, made by yours truly. It was a lovely morning and a perfect example of how the people in my town really typify the concept of self-reliance. The thing most striking to me about this way of life is the satisfaction that comes from eating food that you know exactly where it came from because you have been involved in every step of the process from planting to preparing it to eat. This concept is something I know I will take back with me to the states, even if it’s just growing basil, mint, and other spices in my apartment (wherever it is that I will be living in May 2010… who knows!).
That’s all for now!
XOXO
Tesa
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
My Town!
A few photos to give a better idea of where I am living
a view of the soccer field, aka the only flat area in my town
my house!
the road towards the school
view of the mountains. wayyyy in the distance on a very clear day, you can see the Pacific Ocean from here (unfortunately it takes about 4 hours by bus to actually get there because the road is in poor condition)
this is just a tiny of idea of the ¨rivers¨ that form in the roads in my town which, during torential downpours, literally flood to the point that when I walk thruogh, the water goes above my ankles
my dog, Ron (Rum), who I call Roncito-- isn´t he cute?
a view of the soccer field, aka the only flat area in my town
my house!
the road towards the school
view of the mountains. wayyyy in the distance on a very clear day, you can see the Pacific Ocean from here (unfortunately it takes about 4 hours by bus to actually get there because the road is in poor condition)
this is just a tiny of idea of the ¨rivers¨ that form in the roads in my town which, during torential downpours, literally flood to the point that when I walk thruogh, the water goes above my ankles
my dog, Ron (Rum), who I call Roncito-- isn´t he cute?
Comida y Tiempo
I was thinking of topics to write about and it came to me to write about two of the most obvious topics there are: food and weather. So here goes!
Comida:
As a preface, let me say that as a result of informal polling among PCV friends it appears that I have one of the best food situations around, for which I say “Gracias a dios,” as everyone here says in relation to any give situation. In addition there is “Sí dios quiere.” “See you at the meeting tomorrow?” “Yes, if God wants.” ¨I hope to do well in that math test.¨ “If God wants.” And then, yes, there is the “thank goodness” which I suppose we say a lot in English, too. Enough on that tangent. Anyway, the point being that I am extremely thankful for the fact that my host Mom is quite the good cook and I am learning tons of good recipes which I can’t wait to make for everyone which I come back, but I will now give you a sneak peak into the Tico diet. Two words: rice and beans. Really, Ticos can absolutely have rice and beans for breakfast (gallo pinto which consists of fried rice and beans with a side of cheese or sour cream called natilla), lunch (which could also include fried plaintains and luckily for me includes chicken, salad, and a picadillo which is a kind of vegetable side dish) and dinner (similar to lunch). Every day. The other key word of the Tico diet is carbohydrates. It never ceases to amaze me that one can eat spaghetti WITH rice and beans. A PC friend was telling me the other day that he could not believe it when lunch came out one day with pasta, rice, potatoes, and yucca (a starchy potatoe-esque that I am actually a really big fan of beause it has a better taste than potatoe). I don’t understand how the plates don’t break under the weight of such ridiculous amounts of starches, really! I definitely maintain that the fact that I haven’t gained a PC “first-year 15” á la the freshman 15 of college is that I run and walk everywhere all the time--- gracias a dios, verdad?!
Another integral aspect of the Tico diet is cafecito. Every morning upon walking up we have coffee. Then, in the afternoon around 1 or 2pm, more coffee (and apparently my family does not drink that much, relatively speaking). But if my host parents don’t have their afternoon coffee it’s as if something is off-kilter for the day and a topic of conversation. “I cannot believe I didn’t have afternoon cafecito!” For me, it’s more a matter of not liking the idea of “having” to have any kind of food or drink every single solitary day and for that reason I usually just have 1/2 cup upon waking up and then only in the afternoon if I’m visiting someone and they offer it to me or at a meeting, as most meetings here end with a friendly cafecito break. The craziest thing is that people are accustomed to drinking coffee basically as soon as they start drinking milk. My little host niece who isn’t even 2 years old drinks coffee and it’s totally the norm! I guess it really is just a matter of what’s normal is normal, but maybe there is some truth to the fact that coffee stunts your growth, seing as there are few members of my town, men or women, who are taller than me… hmmm!
Tiempo:
As you probably know, in tropical areas like Costa Rica there are two seasons, the rainy season and the dry season. As you may not know, the term rainy season, which I currently have the pleasure of considering a part of my everyday life these days, is an understatement. It should be more aptly termed the “torrential downpour season.” It cracks me up because I’ve read in CR guidebooks that as a way to make it sound better, they call the rainy season the “green season” which is certainly good PR work. Luckily in my town it’s green and beautiful all year round, but now it’s just really really rainy! The crazy part is that almost every single day when I wake up, it is gorgeous and sunny outside. I go milk the cows, go for my run, etc etc, then in the afternoon right after lunchtime the clouds fill the blue sky and it begins to downpour and any remnant of the sunny morning seems like a distant memory. I guess being from New England, I should be used to weather changing at the drop of a hat as the saying goes, “if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes” but here in CR I just can’t get over the regularity of beautiful mornings and not-so-beautiful afternoons.
However there always are exceptions, like a few weeks ago when I had a packed day of visiting the town next door for a meeting with a women’s group that is working on a project of producing vanilla and then in the afternoon going to the high school for a meeting with the kids who are working on the rabbit project (see previous post). Well, when I woke up to torrential downpour, the idea of walking an hour in the rain to the neighboring town was less than appealing so I called and rescheduled for the following week (which I did indeed have on a very nice morning, gracias a dios, the week after and it was quite successful—we had a discussion about the goals, resources, opportunities, and challenges facing the group and how to overcome the challenges and use the resources to take advantage of the opportunities) . Then, as soon as I got off the phone, a neighbor from the high school passed by to say that class was cancelled due to the rain. I couldn’t believe it—instead of having a snow day, it was a rain day! In the end, it was nice to hang around the house and get some reading done (by the way, I would highly recommend “The Last Lecture” to anyone who has not read it, as well as “Colors of the Mountain” which I am just finishing up), but it really cracked me up to have school cancelled due to heavy rains—it at least gives you an idea of the severity of the rainy season.
Alright, so in looking over this post, I feel like I am ranting a bit, but it’s really meant to give a peek into life here, so I hope it was successful in doing so. If you have any suggestions for blog subjects or questions about my PC experience, feel free to comment or email me and I will get right on it for the next post!
¡Ciao!
Tes
Comida:
As a preface, let me say that as a result of informal polling among PCV friends it appears that I have one of the best food situations around, for which I say “Gracias a dios,” as everyone here says in relation to any give situation. In addition there is “Sí dios quiere.” “See you at the meeting tomorrow?” “Yes, if God wants.” ¨I hope to do well in that math test.¨ “If God wants.” And then, yes, there is the “thank goodness” which I suppose we say a lot in English, too. Enough on that tangent. Anyway, the point being that I am extremely thankful for the fact that my host Mom is quite the good cook and I am learning tons of good recipes which I can’t wait to make for everyone which I come back, but I will now give you a sneak peak into the Tico diet. Two words: rice and beans. Really, Ticos can absolutely have rice and beans for breakfast (gallo pinto which consists of fried rice and beans with a side of cheese or sour cream called natilla), lunch (which could also include fried plaintains and luckily for me includes chicken, salad, and a picadillo which is a kind of vegetable side dish) and dinner (similar to lunch). Every day. The other key word of the Tico diet is carbohydrates. It never ceases to amaze me that one can eat spaghetti WITH rice and beans. A PC friend was telling me the other day that he could not believe it when lunch came out one day with pasta, rice, potatoes, and yucca (a starchy potatoe-esque that I am actually a really big fan of beause it has a better taste than potatoe). I don’t understand how the plates don’t break under the weight of such ridiculous amounts of starches, really! I definitely maintain that the fact that I haven’t gained a PC “first-year 15” á la the freshman 15 of college is that I run and walk everywhere all the time--- gracias a dios, verdad?!
Another integral aspect of the Tico diet is cafecito. Every morning upon walking up we have coffee. Then, in the afternoon around 1 or 2pm, more coffee (and apparently my family does not drink that much, relatively speaking). But if my host parents don’t have their afternoon coffee it’s as if something is off-kilter for the day and a topic of conversation. “I cannot believe I didn’t have afternoon cafecito!” For me, it’s more a matter of not liking the idea of “having” to have any kind of food or drink every single solitary day and for that reason I usually just have 1/2 cup upon waking up and then only in the afternoon if I’m visiting someone and they offer it to me or at a meeting, as most meetings here end with a friendly cafecito break. The craziest thing is that people are accustomed to drinking coffee basically as soon as they start drinking milk. My little host niece who isn’t even 2 years old drinks coffee and it’s totally the norm! I guess it really is just a matter of what’s normal is normal, but maybe there is some truth to the fact that coffee stunts your growth, seing as there are few members of my town, men or women, who are taller than me… hmmm!
Tiempo:
As you probably know, in tropical areas like Costa Rica there are two seasons, the rainy season and the dry season. As you may not know, the term rainy season, which I currently have the pleasure of considering a part of my everyday life these days, is an understatement. It should be more aptly termed the “torrential downpour season.” It cracks me up because I’ve read in CR guidebooks that as a way to make it sound better, they call the rainy season the “green season” which is certainly good PR work. Luckily in my town it’s green and beautiful all year round, but now it’s just really really rainy! The crazy part is that almost every single day when I wake up, it is gorgeous and sunny outside. I go milk the cows, go for my run, etc etc, then in the afternoon right after lunchtime the clouds fill the blue sky and it begins to downpour and any remnant of the sunny morning seems like a distant memory. I guess being from New England, I should be used to weather changing at the drop of a hat as the saying goes, “if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes” but here in CR I just can’t get over the regularity of beautiful mornings and not-so-beautiful afternoons.
However there always are exceptions, like a few weeks ago when I had a packed day of visiting the town next door for a meeting with a women’s group that is working on a project of producing vanilla and then in the afternoon going to the high school for a meeting with the kids who are working on the rabbit project (see previous post). Well, when I woke up to torrential downpour, the idea of walking an hour in the rain to the neighboring town was less than appealing so I called and rescheduled for the following week (which I did indeed have on a very nice morning, gracias a dios, the week after and it was quite successful—we had a discussion about the goals, resources, opportunities, and challenges facing the group and how to overcome the challenges and use the resources to take advantage of the opportunities) . Then, as soon as I got off the phone, a neighbor from the high school passed by to say that class was cancelled due to the rain. I couldn’t believe it—instead of having a snow day, it was a rain day! In the end, it was nice to hang around the house and get some reading done (by the way, I would highly recommend “The Last Lecture” to anyone who has not read it, as well as “Colors of the Mountain” which I am just finishing up), but it really cracked me up to have school cancelled due to heavy rains—it at least gives you an idea of the severity of the rainy season.
Alright, so in looking over this post, I feel like I am ranting a bit, but it’s really meant to give a peek into life here, so I hope it was successful in doing so. If you have any suggestions for blog subjects or questions about my PC experience, feel free to comment or email me and I will get right on it for the next post!
¡Ciao!
Tes
Shoes!
Quite a random side note
The other day my 12 year old friend was over and we were hanging out in my room talking about shoes and doing each other´s makeup (so this is what may life has come to, haha!) and she asked if I had bought any shoes since I’d arrived in Costa Rica. At first I said no, but then I realized that I had indeed invested in two pairs of shoes since my arrival in my site and then it dawned on me that the 2 pairs of shoes are entirely emblematic of my time here. After being here for less than a week, I realized that life on the farm is not complete without a pair of rubber boots. Sloshing around in the mud in anything but rubber boots is just not wise, unless you truly enjoy cleaning shoes all day long (which then leaves you with no time to actually do all the farm things you want to do!). So on my very first trip to my closest big town, I bought my big black rubber boots which I have probably used at some point during the day just about every day here.
My second shoe purchase was a more recent one. As I said in a previous post, I have been working to revitalize the women’s soccer team in my town, which poses the need for tacos (cleats), especially considering that it is currently the rainy season and therefore the field can get pretty slippery. Cleats are pretty much a necessity (literally, lots of people in my town own cleats and not sneakers, to give you an idea of how large a role soccer plays here—and how little a role running does, for that matter!) So last week when I went into San Jose to pick up the books for my English class (which starts on Thursday!) I also picked up, after much deliberation in the CR equivalent of a Foot Locker, a pretty cool looking pair (if I do say so myself!) of cleats which served me extremely well in our first game this past Sunday. Not to get into a whole thing, but although we did lose, we played against a team that has been together for over 8 years and so the fact that we totally and completely held our own (after being together for barely 1 month!), made me incredibly proud of us. I can’t wait to keep practicing and get better and better!
The other day my 12 year old friend was over and we were hanging out in my room talking about shoes and doing each other´s makeup (so this is what may life has come to, haha!) and she asked if I had bought any shoes since I’d arrived in Costa Rica. At first I said no, but then I realized that I had indeed invested in two pairs of shoes since my arrival in my site and then it dawned on me that the 2 pairs of shoes are entirely emblematic of my time here. After being here for less than a week, I realized that life on the farm is not complete without a pair of rubber boots. Sloshing around in the mud in anything but rubber boots is just not wise, unless you truly enjoy cleaning shoes all day long (which then leaves you with no time to actually do all the farm things you want to do!). So on my very first trip to my closest big town, I bought my big black rubber boots which I have probably used at some point during the day just about every day here.
My second shoe purchase was a more recent one. As I said in a previous post, I have been working to revitalize the women’s soccer team in my town, which poses the need for tacos (cleats), especially considering that it is currently the rainy season and therefore the field can get pretty slippery. Cleats are pretty much a necessity (literally, lots of people in my town own cleats and not sneakers, to give you an idea of how large a role soccer plays here—and how little a role running does, for that matter!) So last week when I went into San Jose to pick up the books for my English class (which starts on Thursday!) I also picked up, after much deliberation in the CR equivalent of a Foot Locker, a pretty cool looking pair (if I do say so myself!) of cleats which served me extremely well in our first game this past Sunday. Not to get into a whole thing, but although we did lose, we played against a team that has been together for over 8 years and so the fact that we totally and completely held our own (after being together for barely 1 month!), made me incredibly proud of us. I can’t wait to keep practicing and get better and better!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
I just came back from playing about 3 hours of soccer at the cancha which luckily is just right up the way from my house (200 meters to be exact, which is the official address of my house and how the postman knows where to deliver my letters, “200 meters northeast of the soccer field.” As I mentioned in a previous post, they don’t use road names or number houses here, so addresses are based on the distance from any given landmark, oy vey, Costa Rica!). Anyway! I had a total, “I am so glad to be doing Peace Corps here, in my town” moment today. A few years ago there was a women’s soccer team in my town but due to some of the women having kids, getting older and probably a bit of pereza (laziness), they disbanded. The last few months I’ve been talking to my neighbor/running partner who really wanted to get it started again, so a few weeks ago I made a nice little poster to hang in all the pulperías to get people together. The first Sunday about 10 people came which isn’t too bad, but today we had our second practice with our coach (a.k.a. neighborhood friend on the guy’s team who I coaxed into training us) and it went really well. I didn’t think a lot of people would come since it’s during the week, but there were 12 of us and we ended up playing against a group of neighborhood kids who showed up and at a certain point during the game, I just had this surge of happiness that this is providing women, younger girls (of which there are many on the team!), and kids a way to get out of the house and exercising. In these rural towns, kids spend entirely too much time in front of the TV watching telenovelas (which, may I add, are complete garbage in my personal opinion) as opposed to reading or being outside (which is almost hard for me to believe because it is so beautiful out here, I want to be outside all the time!). Anyway, it was just a really great afternoon and definitely a reminder of how lucky I am to have the opportunity to be here.
So what else is going on? Well, a few weeks ago we had a Peace Corps “we’ve been here for 3 months so let’s get some more information on what we are doing here” training for a week in San Jose. It was really nice to spend time with my PC buds, not to mention staying in a nice hotel with wireless internet (milagro!). At the end of the week, we received a training by one of the most well-known English programs, Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano, so that we can teach English classes in our town, using their methodology and books-- people can even receive a certificate upon completion of the course. When I got back to my town, I had a meeting the first weekend to see the interest level. I was expecting that everyone would show up and then I would “scare them off” with 6 hours a week of classes (plus homework!) and not missing more than 2 classes, but in the end only about 15 people came to the meeting. I told people I was going to have the matriculation 2 weeks later (this past Thursday) and during those 2 weeks, I don’t think I went anywhere without at least 5 people asking me about the class. Needless to say, I was all nervous that ALL these people were going to come, but in the end it turned out to be “pura paja” as they say here (literal translation: pure hay; actual translation: full of you know what) and I have the official count of 18 matriculated students. I’m actually really happy about it because I think that’ll be a good number, not too big or too small, and hopefully my new students will get really into it! People here are extremely motivated to learn English because in Costa Rica, it really is a gateway to tons of job opportunities, not only in tourism but also in the business world. I have mixed feelings about the fact that you practically “have” to learn English to get ahead in Costa Rica, but that is a whole conversation that is best had in person and not on my blog.
Which brings me to some exciting news. A few weeks ago I bought my plane ticket to come home for my cousin Nora’s Bat Mitzvah in November. I am beyond excited because by then I will have accumulated a fair amount of vacation days and will be stateside for about a week and a half! Although it’s 2 months away, I know the time will fly and I’m not sure how to mentally prepare myself. I’ve been away for 7 months now, the longest period of time I’ve spent outside of the US in my life, but I’ve kind of gotten to the point where this is my life and I’m used to it and I can barely imagine being home and doing things like, hm, speak English on a regular basis! Above all I am just really excited to see my family and friends and especially to be with my family for the bat mitzvah.
On a related note of family events, this past weekend was my cousin Jared's wedding. It really is one of the toughest aspects of doing Peace Corps that I cannot be home for such a momentous occasion, but I know that comes with the territory of making the 2 year committment to do the Peace Corps. Still, I was especially missing my family on Sunday, thinking of everyone being together to celebrate Jared and Lisa and I really wish I could have been there. I truly wish Jared and Lisa all the best and cannot wait to celebrate with them in person in November-- it will be quite a celebratory time! So mark your calendars for mid-November: Tes is making her return to the US of A. If I can’t see you in person, at least it will be substantially easier to talk on the phone!
Pura Vida!
Tesa
So what else is going on? Well, a few weeks ago we had a Peace Corps “we’ve been here for 3 months so let’s get some more information on what we are doing here” training for a week in San Jose. It was really nice to spend time with my PC buds, not to mention staying in a nice hotel with wireless internet (milagro!). At the end of the week, we received a training by one of the most well-known English programs, Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano, so that we can teach English classes in our town, using their methodology and books-- people can even receive a certificate upon completion of the course. When I got back to my town, I had a meeting the first weekend to see the interest level. I was expecting that everyone would show up and then I would “scare them off” with 6 hours a week of classes (plus homework!) and not missing more than 2 classes, but in the end only about 15 people came to the meeting. I told people I was going to have the matriculation 2 weeks later (this past Thursday) and during those 2 weeks, I don’t think I went anywhere without at least 5 people asking me about the class. Needless to say, I was all nervous that ALL these people were going to come, but in the end it turned out to be “pura paja” as they say here (literal translation: pure hay; actual translation: full of you know what) and I have the official count of 18 matriculated students. I’m actually really happy about it because I think that’ll be a good number, not too big or too small, and hopefully my new students will get really into it! People here are extremely motivated to learn English because in Costa Rica, it really is a gateway to tons of job opportunities, not only in tourism but also in the business world. I have mixed feelings about the fact that you practically “have” to learn English to get ahead in Costa Rica, but that is a whole conversation that is best had in person and not on my blog.
Which brings me to some exciting news. A few weeks ago I bought my plane ticket to come home for my cousin Nora’s Bat Mitzvah in November. I am beyond excited because by then I will have accumulated a fair amount of vacation days and will be stateside for about a week and a half! Although it’s 2 months away, I know the time will fly and I’m not sure how to mentally prepare myself. I’ve been away for 7 months now, the longest period of time I’ve spent outside of the US in my life, but I’ve kind of gotten to the point where this is my life and I’m used to it and I can barely imagine being home and doing things like, hm, speak English on a regular basis! Above all I am just really excited to see my family and friends and especially to be with my family for the bat mitzvah.
On a related note of family events, this past weekend was my cousin Jared's wedding. It really is one of the toughest aspects of doing Peace Corps that I cannot be home for such a momentous occasion, but I know that comes with the territory of making the 2 year committment to do the Peace Corps. Still, I was especially missing my family on Sunday, thinking of everyone being together to celebrate Jared and Lisa and I really wish I could have been there. I truly wish Jared and Lisa all the best and cannot wait to celebrate with them in person in November-- it will be quite a celebratory time! So mark your calendars for mid-November: Tes is making her return to the US of A. If I can’t see you in person, at least it will be substantially easier to talk on the phone!
Pura Vida!
Tesa
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Pictures from My Site!
my mom and my host mom together!
my mom and I with the little baby rabbits
the rancho outside of my house
the brick oven in the rancho which we use to make pan casero (homemade bread) and all sorts of other delicious things
my host brother and dad preparing corn to make "choreadas" (really yummy corn pancakes)
go mom go-- grinding the corn to then make the choreadas
me making choreadas
the finished product!
this bouquet is made of flowers all found right outside my house
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Special Visitor and More, 8/13
It has been a month since I’ve written, so I thought I’d give an update on how things are going. I am now passing the 3 month mark in site, which is the time when things are supposed to get going (volunteers say anytime between 3-9 months but since I have the benefit of having a high level of Spanish, I would hope I will be able to get started on projects earlier!). I have been somewhat hesitant to make finite commitments, because I really have wanted to get to know the members and groups of the community and have them get to know me before I got started. Although I go back and forth from feeling really good about the fact that I feel like an accepted member of the community from feeling like I haven’t particularly done anything, overall it’s the former and that in and of itself is an accomplishment. Of a town of 319, my host aunt who now lives in San Jose jokes that I know more people than she does and people are continually surprised when they’re talking about someone and I make the connection of who so-and-so’s parents/siblings/children are. I am definitely getting the hang of who’s who which is nice!
I finally got started doing the family interviews and it’s been a really great way to solidify relationships that I have been fostering with different families. With one family, the mom was talking about how much she likes to go for walks but has no one to go with and as I am known throughout my town for walking and running all the time, I told her that whenever she wanted to go, “vamos!” So as I was about to leave and she said, “how about tomorrow?” I said “sure!” Little did I know that we were going to explore pretty much every trail in my town and into the next town, stopping at a family friend in the neighboring town for lunch. When I arrived back at my host family’s house 4 hours later they couldn’t believe how far we’d gone and since then I have had numerous conversations with people about our “epic” walk (news about the gringa going for a walk sure does travel fast!). It is definitely an example of how with every person I meet, I continue to make more and more connections with people in my town, and in this case the town next door. In addition, it is an example of the kindness and generosity of Ticos, which is something that never ceases to amaze me and make me grateful to be here. I had never met the people we visited on our walk, yet we ended up staying for over an hour and they served us lunch and were just so gracious. This is so typical in my town, but every time it happens I think, this would never happen in Avon. If a neighbor stopped by on a walk (which would barely happen as it is), I would maybe offer a glass of water, but never a meal! But here I have rarely left a household without being fed a meal or at least cafecito (coffee with bread or pastry) and I must say it’s a lovely "costumbre."
On another note, this past week I had a very special visitor in my site… my Mom! It was wonderful seeing her and an amazing opportunity for her to get to see what my life here is like. She got up at 6am with us (the 2 hour time difference helped, because 6am here is 8am EST) to go milk the cows and feed the chickens and rabbits and in the process realized just how difficult milking a cow is… as will any lucky visitor who follows in her foot-steps! She got to walk up the crazy hill that is my road to the school/church/bus stop; it was a nice validation that my Mom, dedicated walker that she is, could not get over how long and steep it was. She got to meet lots of community members at a church event (lots of singing, dancing included), a meeting with a women’s group in the aforementioned neighboring town, a soccer game with the men’s team, as well as a more informal soccer game (in CR they are called “mejengas,” who knows where that word comes from!) including yours truly. When we first got to the soccer field, I was a bit intimidated to see only guys playing (ranging in age from 12-50), so I quickly recruited a girlfriend who lives across from the street to play and it was lots of fun.
It was great just spending time talking with my Mom (in English!) and I was quite impressed with her ability to speak in Spanish with everyone, especially during some conversations on a wide variety of topics (from family values to issues facing my town) with my host family. Being with her (and especially saying good-bye) made me really miss my family and friends. I think I had the realization that I am just beginning my service and still have 21 months to go (ah!) and that being away from everyone will be a lot harder than I had thought. But then I go back to the fact that Peace Corps is something I have always wanted to do and I’m really glad to be here, fulfilling my dream. There are so many opportunities for me to get involved and now is the time where I will begin to really get started. Now that this post has come full circle from the first paragraph (getting involved, etc etc), I will wrap it up.
Hope everyone’s well and enjoying the last few weeks of summer!
XXOO
Tesa
I finally got started doing the family interviews and it’s been a really great way to solidify relationships that I have been fostering with different families. With one family, the mom was talking about how much she likes to go for walks but has no one to go with and as I am known throughout my town for walking and running all the time, I told her that whenever she wanted to go, “vamos!” So as I was about to leave and she said, “how about tomorrow?” I said “sure!” Little did I know that we were going to explore pretty much every trail in my town and into the next town, stopping at a family friend in the neighboring town for lunch. When I arrived back at my host family’s house 4 hours later they couldn’t believe how far we’d gone and since then I have had numerous conversations with people about our “epic” walk (news about the gringa going for a walk sure does travel fast!). It is definitely an example of how with every person I meet, I continue to make more and more connections with people in my town, and in this case the town next door. In addition, it is an example of the kindness and generosity of Ticos, which is something that never ceases to amaze me and make me grateful to be here. I had never met the people we visited on our walk, yet we ended up staying for over an hour and they served us lunch and were just so gracious. This is so typical in my town, but every time it happens I think, this would never happen in Avon. If a neighbor stopped by on a walk (which would barely happen as it is), I would maybe offer a glass of water, but never a meal! But here I have rarely left a household without being fed a meal or at least cafecito (coffee with bread or pastry) and I must say it’s a lovely "costumbre."
On another note, this past week I had a very special visitor in my site… my Mom! It was wonderful seeing her and an amazing opportunity for her to get to see what my life here is like. She got up at 6am with us (the 2 hour time difference helped, because 6am here is 8am EST) to go milk the cows and feed the chickens and rabbits and in the process realized just how difficult milking a cow is… as will any lucky visitor who follows in her foot-steps! She got to walk up the crazy hill that is my road to the school/church/bus stop; it was a nice validation that my Mom, dedicated walker that she is, could not get over how long and steep it was. She got to meet lots of community members at a church event (lots of singing, dancing included), a meeting with a women’s group in the aforementioned neighboring town, a soccer game with the men’s team, as well as a more informal soccer game (in CR they are called “mejengas,” who knows where that word comes from!) including yours truly. When we first got to the soccer field, I was a bit intimidated to see only guys playing (ranging in age from 12-50), so I quickly recruited a girlfriend who lives across from the street to play and it was lots of fun.
It was great just spending time talking with my Mom (in English!) and I was quite impressed with her ability to speak in Spanish with everyone, especially during some conversations on a wide variety of topics (from family values to issues facing my town) with my host family. Being with her (and especially saying good-bye) made me really miss my family and friends. I think I had the realization that I am just beginning my service and still have 21 months to go (ah!) and that being away from everyone will be a lot harder than I had thought. But then I go back to the fact that Peace Corps is something I have always wanted to do and I’m really glad to be here, fulfilling my dream. There are so many opportunities for me to get involved and now is the time where I will begin to really get started. Now that this post has come full circle from the first paragraph (getting involved, etc etc), I will wrap it up.
Hope everyone’s well and enjoying the last few weeks of summer!
XXOO
Tesa
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
2 Months in Site!
Wow, time flies… this Friday marks 2 months in my site and 5 months in Costa Rica. It’s strange because sometimes I feel like I’ve been here forever and other times it feels like I’ve just left my family and friends in the states. So, 2 months down, 22to go… hmm, perhaps it’s better to take it 1 day at a time, which is exactly what I’ve been doing. In the states, I’m someone who lives by my planner and like to have it nice and filled up, but here “planner-planning” is not really an option. However I am slowly adapting and finding the joy in the spontaneity of having a totally unscheduled day. Of course it inevitably happens that the day with nothing going on (i.e. meetings/going to the school/etc) is the day that I end up doing the most things, which is the beauty of this point in my PC service. I know that a few months from now, between English classes and my collaborations with other groups, my planner will once again be quite filled up, but in the meantime, these first few months are really to get to know the members of my community. Officially, I am working on a community analysis, which is due after the first 6 months of service. The community analysis is a profile of my town including the history, present (census info, community resources, organized groups, etc), and future opportunities. I have been gathering information and really need to start conducting interviews because the analysis requires the input of a minimum of 10% of the community, which in my town of 319 would be 30, although I definitely would like to do more. We’ll see how it goes!
So, what are these different groups and projects going on in my community you might ask? Here is a sampling:
-As I mentioned in a previous post, the high school is currently located in our community center, which is an uncomfortable situation for all involved, but most of all for the 80 students in the 5 grades who have classes simultaneously in one big room. Therefore, the town is in the process of constructing a new high school. We have a big grant from the municipality, but the next steps to utilize that money have not been taken because of a lack of communication between the municipality and the development association. I went to the municipality a few weeks ago and made some good contacts and hopefully we’re going to have a meeting this Friday to talk about what we need to do to get this project up and running.
-Speaking of the high school, about a year ago the ministry of agriculture came to my high school with a program geared towards developing entrepreneurial skills in the students to then create agriculture-based business opportunities for the youth so that they do not leave the town upon graduation, which is what most do. While this group started a project caring for rabbits, the training side of the project is seriously lacking in organization, so I am hoping to help with the training of the students in themes ranging from business skills to environmental awareness to self-esteem.
-There is a women’s cooperative that is in the very beginning stages of development. The other week I led a meeting with the women to discuss the various resources of the community and different project ideas to see if we could come up with projects that highlight community resources (i.e. primary materials). Promising possibilities include making jams with local fruits and making furniture and other crafts from bamboo, which grows in abundance in my town.
-Also in its beginning stages is a committee the deals with issues related to children and adolescents. Since they’re just starting, they don’t have a solid idea of what the committee can do for the community, but I would love to collaborate with them on different projects in order to provide activities for the kids, specifically during the winter vacation. Anyone want to come to Costa Rica and help me run a camp in January? I’m not entirely kidding…
As you can see, there is definitely no shortage of opportunities for a “rural community developer” such as myself. Basically, I hope to help in the organization of these projects and be a resource in terms of ideas for activities, as well as a point of contact with other institution in CR that can help with any of these projects.
In addition, in August, I have a training to teach English using a well-known program that provides a highly regarded certificate upon completion of the course, so after the training I will start giving English classes, which people are eager to start. Also, based on the model of another volunteer, I want to start an aerobics class as a more informal, fun activity to promote exercise among the women (and men and kids if they’re interested!). I’ve already been talking to some women about it and they are super excited, so I need to get working on a little routine so that I can start that up, too.
Hopefully this gives a better idea of what I’ll be up to for the next 2 years. It´s funny, the other day I was having a conversation with my host dad and he was saying how he thought what my PC friends and I are doing is very valiant-- leaving our friends and family to live and work with strangers in a foreign country for 2 whole years. My response was that, I hope that within the 2 years, the people in my town become my friends and family, but even more, I want to be here for a reason. I want to accomplish something (or really, some things, plural) because that is why I am here. As clichéd and Peace Corps-y as it sounds, I want to make a difference and truly see the opportunity to make that happen in the next 2 years.
Bueno, that’s all for now!
Pura Vida,
Tesa
So, what are these different groups and projects going on in my community you might ask? Here is a sampling:
-As I mentioned in a previous post, the high school is currently located in our community center, which is an uncomfortable situation for all involved, but most of all for the 80 students in the 5 grades who have classes simultaneously in one big room. Therefore, the town is in the process of constructing a new high school. We have a big grant from the municipality, but the next steps to utilize that money have not been taken because of a lack of communication between the municipality and the development association. I went to the municipality a few weeks ago and made some good contacts and hopefully we’re going to have a meeting this Friday to talk about what we need to do to get this project up and running.
-Speaking of the high school, about a year ago the ministry of agriculture came to my high school with a program geared towards developing entrepreneurial skills in the students to then create agriculture-based business opportunities for the youth so that they do not leave the town upon graduation, which is what most do. While this group started a project caring for rabbits, the training side of the project is seriously lacking in organization, so I am hoping to help with the training of the students in themes ranging from business skills to environmental awareness to self-esteem.
-There is a women’s cooperative that is in the very beginning stages of development. The other week I led a meeting with the women to discuss the various resources of the community and different project ideas to see if we could come up with projects that highlight community resources (i.e. primary materials). Promising possibilities include making jams with local fruits and making furniture and other crafts from bamboo, which grows in abundance in my town.
-Also in its beginning stages is a committee the deals with issues related to children and adolescents. Since they’re just starting, they don’t have a solid idea of what the committee can do for the community, but I would love to collaborate with them on different projects in order to provide activities for the kids, specifically during the winter vacation. Anyone want to come to Costa Rica and help me run a camp in January? I’m not entirely kidding…
As you can see, there is definitely no shortage of opportunities for a “rural community developer” such as myself. Basically, I hope to help in the organization of these projects and be a resource in terms of ideas for activities, as well as a point of contact with other institution in CR that can help with any of these projects.
In addition, in August, I have a training to teach English using a well-known program that provides a highly regarded certificate upon completion of the course, so after the training I will start giving English classes, which people are eager to start. Also, based on the model of another volunteer, I want to start an aerobics class as a more informal, fun activity to promote exercise among the women (and men and kids if they’re interested!). I’ve already been talking to some women about it and they are super excited, so I need to get working on a little routine so that I can start that up, too.
Hopefully this gives a better idea of what I’ll be up to for the next 2 years. It´s funny, the other day I was having a conversation with my host dad and he was saying how he thought what my PC friends and I are doing is very valiant-- leaving our friends and family to live and work with strangers in a foreign country for 2 whole years. My response was that, I hope that within the 2 years, the people in my town become my friends and family, but even more, I want to be here for a reason. I want to accomplish something (or really, some things, plural) because that is why I am here. As clichéd and Peace Corps-y as it sounds, I want to make a difference and truly see the opportunity to make that happen in the next 2 years.
Bueno, that’s all for now!
Pura Vida,
Tesa
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Hola! So things in rural Costa Rica are going well. It’s funny because the other day I called a fellow volunteer (not in my same rural community development program-- he is living in a big city doing work specifically with children and adolescents) to ask about something. It was 8pm and things in my house were winding down for the night (I tell people to never call past 8pm here because inevitably we are getting ready to go to bed/in bed). I could hear lots of noise in the background and he told me he was at a 24/7 internet café. I literally couldn’t believe it— the concept of having internet access period is now a foreign concept and internet 24 hours a day—jamàs (never)! The thing is, it’s not that I even really miss it that much (besides the urge to “google” something, but even that has been happening less and less as time goes on), I just couldn’t believe that other volunteers are having an experience that is so completely different from mine. I guess it goes to show that I’m really getting into the life here, right?! I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but my community here consists of the following:
-Catholic church
-elementary school
-community center which also serves as the high school, which means the 5 grades all have their respective class simultaneously in a single large room that is the community center (talk about having trouble concentrating!)
-cemetery
-soccer field (which has been getting a lot of use as of late from yours truly, along with the neighborhood kids)
-3 pulperias (little convenience stores, 1 of which I would describe as a pulperia-light!)
Needless to say, a 24/7 internet café will probably not be coming here anytime soon. I know I’ve said it before, but to reiterate, I really have been enjoying the much more “natural” pace of life here.
Speaking of which, yesterday I spent the morning at the high school where I have been conducting informal interviews with the students to get their opinions about the school and the town in general. I was going to go to the house of the president of the development association because he has information on statistics of the members of my town, but in the end he had to go to San Jose to do something. So as I’m heading down the hill to my house, one of my neighbors, an older woman and her youngest daughter who’s about 30, say hello and invite me to “pasear” (go pay a visit) to a family that lives way abajo (down below). I have been trying to find out more about what my town was like in the past and had heard about the couple that they were going to visit as some of the oldest people in the town and decided, why not?! Little did I know that when they said “abajo,” it was literally to the furthest house in my community. Since I go running all over the place, I thought I had been to the “end” of my community, but little did I know that the point where the road (road being a term used loosely) ends, there is a little path that continues through little streams for about 20 minutes, until you arrive at the 2 most solitary houses in my town.
When we reached our destination, I literally felt like I had gone back in time. The best way I can describe it is that it felt very ¨Little House on the Prairie¨-esque —the mother and daughter were in long skirts and aprons and had their hair tightly braided, they live in a modest house made of wood, when we arrived the daughter was outside washing clothes by hand. It really seemed like a lifestyle from a different era, which in many ways it is. It’s hard to get an idea of when people began living in my town, but from what I’ve gathered, it goes back about 3 generations, so probably around the beginning of the 20th century. The lifestyle of the family we visited is literally the epitome of self-reliance—they grow rice, beans, and vegetables, have numerous farm animals including cows that provide milk and cheese, and also have tons of fruit trees. This whole idea of self-reliance is one of the things I most admire about the majority of the families in my town--- they grow and care for the vast majority of the food they consume. I think it’s something they are very proud of, as well (and rightfully so!). So needless to say, I was really happy to have had the opportunity to see the furthest-reaching area of my community and am looking forward to returning in a few months (if not before!) to see the full-grown rice plant so I can see how the whole process works. The daughter showed me what they had planted about a month ago, but it takes a few months for it to grow enough to be picked, processed, and ready to eat—I can’t wait to see it!
On a semi-related note, in one of the PC guidebooks there is a quote on the “psychology of sitting” that I would like to share with you all:
“People in Western civilization no longer have time for each other, they have no time together, they do not share the experience of time. This explains why westerners are incapable of understanding the psychology of sitting. In villages all over the world, sitting is an important social activity. Sitting is not a ‘waste of time’ nor is it a manifestation of laziness. Sitting is having time together, time to cultivate social relations.”
I really think this epitomizes the difference between US culture, where everyone is always on the go and doing something. Here, sitting on a porch and spending time chatting with family and friends is something. It’s funny, because I feel like I never know how long is too long to just stay and hang out when I am visiting someone at their house, so after a while I usually make up some reason or another as to why I should get going. I imagine in time I will become more in tune with what the norms are for “paseando” and how to make a more graceful exit.
So tomorrow I am off to San Jose for a training on a program that I am hoping to employ with some students in the high school—it is a whole process for developing business skills in youth to prepare them for entrepreneurial opportunities. I’m really excited because I’m going to be reunited with Jenny, Heath, and Sarah and we’re all going back to our training community to spend the night with our old host families (and each other!). We haven’t seen each other since mid-May and I can’t wait to see them and catch up on everything—it’s so different now that we’re all so far away-- oh the stories we will tell!
Hope everyone has a good weekend!
Love,
Tes
-Catholic church
-elementary school
-community center which also serves as the high school, which means the 5 grades all have their respective class simultaneously in a single large room that is the community center (talk about having trouble concentrating!)
-cemetery
-soccer field (which has been getting a lot of use as of late from yours truly, along with the neighborhood kids)
-3 pulperias (little convenience stores, 1 of which I would describe as a pulperia-light!)
Needless to say, a 24/7 internet café will probably not be coming here anytime soon. I know I’ve said it before, but to reiterate, I really have been enjoying the much more “natural” pace of life here.
Speaking of which, yesterday I spent the morning at the high school where I have been conducting informal interviews with the students to get their opinions about the school and the town in general. I was going to go to the house of the president of the development association because he has information on statistics of the members of my town, but in the end he had to go to San Jose to do something. So as I’m heading down the hill to my house, one of my neighbors, an older woman and her youngest daughter who’s about 30, say hello and invite me to “pasear” (go pay a visit) to a family that lives way abajo (down below). I have been trying to find out more about what my town was like in the past and had heard about the couple that they were going to visit as some of the oldest people in the town and decided, why not?! Little did I know that when they said “abajo,” it was literally to the furthest house in my community. Since I go running all over the place, I thought I had been to the “end” of my community, but little did I know that the point where the road (road being a term used loosely) ends, there is a little path that continues through little streams for about 20 minutes, until you arrive at the 2 most solitary houses in my town.
When we reached our destination, I literally felt like I had gone back in time. The best way I can describe it is that it felt very ¨Little House on the Prairie¨-esque —the mother and daughter were in long skirts and aprons and had their hair tightly braided, they live in a modest house made of wood, when we arrived the daughter was outside washing clothes by hand. It really seemed like a lifestyle from a different era, which in many ways it is. It’s hard to get an idea of when people began living in my town, but from what I’ve gathered, it goes back about 3 generations, so probably around the beginning of the 20th century. The lifestyle of the family we visited is literally the epitome of self-reliance—they grow rice, beans, and vegetables, have numerous farm animals including cows that provide milk and cheese, and also have tons of fruit trees. This whole idea of self-reliance is one of the things I most admire about the majority of the families in my town--- they grow and care for the vast majority of the food they consume. I think it’s something they are very proud of, as well (and rightfully so!). So needless to say, I was really happy to have had the opportunity to see the furthest-reaching area of my community and am looking forward to returning in a few months (if not before!) to see the full-grown rice plant so I can see how the whole process works. The daughter showed me what they had planted about a month ago, but it takes a few months for it to grow enough to be picked, processed, and ready to eat—I can’t wait to see it!
On a semi-related note, in one of the PC guidebooks there is a quote on the “psychology of sitting” that I would like to share with you all:
“People in Western civilization no longer have time for each other, they have no time together, they do not share the experience of time. This explains why westerners are incapable of understanding the psychology of sitting. In villages all over the world, sitting is an important social activity. Sitting is not a ‘waste of time’ nor is it a manifestation of laziness. Sitting is having time together, time to cultivate social relations.”
I really think this epitomizes the difference between US culture, where everyone is always on the go and doing something. Here, sitting on a porch and spending time chatting with family and friends is something. It’s funny, because I feel like I never know how long is too long to just stay and hang out when I am visiting someone at their house, so after a while I usually make up some reason or another as to why I should get going. I imagine in time I will become more in tune with what the norms are for “paseando” and how to make a more graceful exit.
So tomorrow I am off to San Jose for a training on a program that I am hoping to employ with some students in the high school—it is a whole process for developing business skills in youth to prepare them for entrepreneurial opportunities. I’m really excited because I’m going to be reunited with Jenny, Heath, and Sarah and we’re all going back to our training community to spend the night with our old host families (and each other!). We haven’t seen each other since mid-May and I can’t wait to see them and catch up on everything—it’s so different now that we’re all so far away-- oh the stories we will tell!
Hope everyone has a good weekend!
Love,
Tes
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Getting Into the Swing of Things
Ok, so now I really and truly don’t know where to begin… I have been here for a little under a month and it’s hard to say whether it has gone by really fast or really slow because my answer would vary depending on the hour of the day that you asked me. Things are going well overall and I’m happy with the progress that I’ve been making in the last few weeks. I’ve gotten to meet and spend time with different people and every day I meet someone new, whether it’s a child in the elementary school, a community leader at a meeting, or just by striking up a conversation with someone while walking up the crazy hill. As there aren’t that many people in my town (hard to know how many exactly, but I think somewhere around 400), I imagine that before long I will know the vast majority of people. I’m really excited because this weekend there is a big fiesta for the patron saint of the church. As pretty much everyone here is Catholic and any kind of big activity is a big deal for a little rural town, tons of people should be there, so I’m looking forward to meeting lots more people this Saturday!
Funny sidenote: I am without a doubt the first Jewish person my host family has ever met and when I first told them, they were pretty baffled by it, but also very accepting and interested to learn more about Judaism. When I first told them, I stressed the fact that we believe in all the same things in the Old Testament, we just don’t believe in the New Testament, to which my host mother quite bluntly asked, “So you don’t believe in Jesus?” and to which I had to awkwardly reply, “Um, no.” So now when it comes up in conversation with a community member, my host mom gracefully explains that I don’t believe in Jesus. Hopefully this will not present any difficulties on Saturday. Although I really want to expand people’s horizons and teach them about Judaism, I don’t think Saturday is the day to make a big deal about the fact that I am not Catholic or Christian, so I plan to keep quiet and we’ll see what happens.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. About a week ago, I was at the high school for the day and met a girl named Adriana, 12, who lives a few houses down from me (mind you, the houses are all pretty spread apart, but we’re in the same general vicinity). On our walk down the hill after school got out, Adriana bombarded me with questions of all kinds pertaining to what things are like in the states: what we eat, what we wear (I think she was surprised that the clothes I was wearing at the time, jeans and a tank top, the same as she, were from the states), what the weather’s like, etc. She´s really sweet though and has become my impromptu dance teacher. I stop by her house and we blast cumbiya, merengue, salsa, etc. and dance outside in the corridor of her house (most tico houses here have this, which I love because a lot of time people just hang out right outside there hosue and you can go up and say hi, as opposed to in the states where we have our porches behind the house and thus is much less inviting). Anyway, the point being that through Adriana I´m getting to meet a lot of the kids who live in my ¨neck of the woods¨ which is really great!
As for other people that I meet, I can pretty much predict what they’re going to ask (and in the following order): Where are you from? What are you doing here? Don’t you miss your family? Quickly followed by, Don’t they miss you? Do you have a boyfriend? To which I answer that it would be fairly difficult to maintain a long-distance relationship for 2 years. To which they respond that they need to find me a tico boyfriend so that I’ll stay here when my 2 years are done. We’ll see about that, haha… Although it’s repetitive having the same conversation over and over, it’s all part of the initial process of integrating myself into the town and I enjoy meeting new people and trying to place them in the web of families that is my town (there are a lot of big families with 10 or so kids that all have families of their own, etc etc.—basically I really need to get some kids together and map out some family trees to put the pieces together!).
This past week I have been going to the elementary school to get to know the kids and the basic routine there. The way the schedule works is the kids come on a rotating schedule where one week 1st.2nd.and 3rd graders come from 7-10:30 and 4th,5th, and 6th come from 11:30-3 and the next week they switch. Each day is a different subject (Spanish, English, Math, and Science) with English interspersed throughout the week. A funny thing that they do at the elementary schools is call the female teachers, “nina” which means “little girl” in Spanish. I’ve asked numerous people where this comes from, but it’s totally ingrained in the culture, so to the Ticos this doesn’t seem as weird as it does to an outside. So when I’m helping in the class the teacher will say, “nina, can you do such and such a thing.” I think it’ll take a little while for me to get used to a teacher and a class full of students 10+ years younger than me referring to me as “little girl.” But it´s been great getting to know the kids so that now when they see me around, I´m not ¨that random gringa.¨ Next week, I´m planning on spending time at the high school in order to do the same with the high-schoolers.
Ok, my time on internet is running out, so I´ll leave it at that. One month in, so far so good!
Pura Vida (the famous tico phrase that they do indeed say ALL THE TIME in response to ¨how are you¨or how something´s going, it´s definitely ingrained in the Tico lexicon).
-Tesandra
Funny sidenote: I am without a doubt the first Jewish person my host family has ever met and when I first told them, they were pretty baffled by it, but also very accepting and interested to learn more about Judaism. When I first told them, I stressed the fact that we believe in all the same things in the Old Testament, we just don’t believe in the New Testament, to which my host mother quite bluntly asked, “So you don’t believe in Jesus?” and to which I had to awkwardly reply, “Um, no.” So now when it comes up in conversation with a community member, my host mom gracefully explains that I don’t believe in Jesus. Hopefully this will not present any difficulties on Saturday. Although I really want to expand people’s horizons and teach them about Judaism, I don’t think Saturday is the day to make a big deal about the fact that I am not Catholic or Christian, so I plan to keep quiet and we’ll see what happens.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. About a week ago, I was at the high school for the day and met a girl named Adriana, 12, who lives a few houses down from me (mind you, the houses are all pretty spread apart, but we’re in the same general vicinity). On our walk down the hill after school got out, Adriana bombarded me with questions of all kinds pertaining to what things are like in the states: what we eat, what we wear (I think she was surprised that the clothes I was wearing at the time, jeans and a tank top, the same as she, were from the states), what the weather’s like, etc. She´s really sweet though and has become my impromptu dance teacher. I stop by her house and we blast cumbiya, merengue, salsa, etc. and dance outside in the corridor of her house (most tico houses here have this, which I love because a lot of time people just hang out right outside there hosue and you can go up and say hi, as opposed to in the states where we have our porches behind the house and thus is much less inviting). Anyway, the point being that through Adriana I´m getting to meet a lot of the kids who live in my ¨neck of the woods¨ which is really great!
As for other people that I meet, I can pretty much predict what they’re going to ask (and in the following order): Where are you from? What are you doing here? Don’t you miss your family? Quickly followed by, Don’t they miss you? Do you have a boyfriend? To which I answer that it would be fairly difficult to maintain a long-distance relationship for 2 years. To which they respond that they need to find me a tico boyfriend so that I’ll stay here when my 2 years are done. We’ll see about that, haha… Although it’s repetitive having the same conversation over and over, it’s all part of the initial process of integrating myself into the town and I enjoy meeting new people and trying to place them in the web of families that is my town (there are a lot of big families with 10 or so kids that all have families of their own, etc etc.—basically I really need to get some kids together and map out some family trees to put the pieces together!).
This past week I have been going to the elementary school to get to know the kids and the basic routine there. The way the schedule works is the kids come on a rotating schedule where one week 1st.2nd.and 3rd graders come from 7-10:30 and 4th,5th, and 6th come from 11:30-3 and the next week they switch. Each day is a different subject (Spanish, English, Math, and Science) with English interspersed throughout the week. A funny thing that they do at the elementary schools is call the female teachers, “nina” which means “little girl” in Spanish. I’ve asked numerous people where this comes from, but it’s totally ingrained in the culture, so to the Ticos this doesn’t seem as weird as it does to an outside. So when I’m helping in the class the teacher will say, “nina, can you do such and such a thing.” I think it’ll take a little while for me to get used to a teacher and a class full of students 10+ years younger than me referring to me as “little girl.” But it´s been great getting to know the kids so that now when they see me around, I´m not ¨that random gringa.¨ Next week, I´m planning on spending time at the high school in order to do the same with the high-schoolers.
Ok, my time on internet is running out, so I´ll leave it at that. One month in, so far so good!
Pura Vida (the famous tico phrase that they do indeed say ALL THE TIME in response to ¨how are you¨or how something´s going, it´s definitely ingrained in the Tico lexicon).
-Tesandra
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
First Post in Site
So, it has been exactly 2 weeks since I arrived at my site. I don’t know even know where to begin… well first of all, this whole arriving at a place that you know is your new home for the next 2 years has definitely been a lot tougher than I thought it would be. Although I came here to visit a little over a month ago, it feels exponentially different now. The first day I literally did not know what to do with myself. However after the initial shock, things have definitely gotten better. Right off the bat I got in touch with the high school principal because at the swearing-in ceremony I met a guy from the Ministry of Agriculture who is working to start a project for the youth of the town to start an income-generating project. After graduation the vast majority of people leave for a bigger city like San Jose to find work so the goal is to provide a reason for them to stay and work here. The project is very much in the beginning stages and I think it’s an awesome possibility for something that I could get involved with.
The weekend that I arrived, there was a camping trip planned for the seniors of the high school to learn team building skills and the guy I met at the swearing-in said he’s love it if I would come along, so I talked to the principal and ended up going. As soon as I got there, I hear someone call “Tes” (almost everyone, especially in my new site, calls me Tesandra, so I didn’t know who it could be) and turn around to see another PCV, Kayla, there with students from her school! It was really nice to have her there because the kids were definitely into doing their thing and hanging out (which I certainly can’t blame them for, since I remember what it’s like to be in high school and how cool it would be to get to away for a few days). Overall it was a positive experience and I think it was a good way to get to know some of the high school-ers in a less formal environment. The principal wants me to get involved helping kids with English as well as with self-esteems and motivation charlas (talks). Another PCV did an extended course called “Learning How to Learn” on study skills and I think that could be very beneficial for the kids, too. What I really want to do in the next few weeks is observe the classes to get a feel for how things are run and then get involved myself.
After I got back from the campamento, it was time to “get down to business.” However in PC terms, getting down to business comprises getting to know as many of the people in my town as possible. So basically anytime I am interacting with other people I am “working.” But seriously, I have really been getting into the lifestyle here. Here is a sample “day in the life:”
6am: wake up
6-6:30am: breakfast/get ready
6:30-7:30: milk cows (!)
7:30-8:30: collect fruit (including mango, oranges, sweet lemons, and lots of other Costa Rican fruits that I had never heard or seen before coming here but are really yummy) and then feed some of collected fruit to the rabbits (one of whom just had 6 little baby rabbits that are the tiniest little things I have ever seen!)
8:30-9:30: clean up around the house/outside
9:30-10:30: go running
10:30-12: shower, read/help prepare lunch/hang out
12-2: lunch/watch the news/relax (love that Latina siesta!)
-the rest of the afternoon includes going to the meeting of any group that may be having a meeting (the women’s group, the development association, etc.), going to the elementary or high school, or else hanging out with my host family
6-8pm: dinner/watch news
8-9pm: sometime around here, I’m off to bed after a long day!
So that is pretty much my life during the past 2 weeks in a nutshell. I have taken the adage, “early to bed, early to rise, makes a (wo)man healthy wealthy and wise.” I have never ever been a morning person, as anyone who knows me can certainly attest to, but I have been happily surprised to find that life in the campo is not hard to get used to. In the last couple days, I have gotten up around 6am without an alarm clock! What I’m hoping to accomplish in the next few weeks is to spend more quality time getting to know people. Already some of the women I’ve met have been asking when I’m going to stop by their houses, so I really need to solidify some “cafecito” dates. Running has also been a really good way to get out in the community, in addition to giving structure to my day and being a good source of excercise. Today I ended up taking a little break to eat some guavas (one of the yummy CR fruits) with a really sweet older woman who was on her way back to her house, guavas in hand. “Running” is actually really a combination of running and walking because, as I mentioned in a previous post, my town is one big hill. If, one day, I can run up that hill without stopping, I will know that I am in incredibly good shape because it is intense! So basically I get a big warm up from walking up the hill to the road with the church/elementary school/high school/cementary that is relatively flat and therefore run-able.
Alright, I´m currently in my closest bigger town (about an hour bus ride from my site, after I make the (aprox.) 3km trek up the hill to the bus stop) to catch up on email and do some much needed errands, so I´ll leave it at this.
Pura Vida a Todos!
Tesandra
The weekend that I arrived, there was a camping trip planned for the seniors of the high school to learn team building skills and the guy I met at the swearing-in said he’s love it if I would come along, so I talked to the principal and ended up going. As soon as I got there, I hear someone call “Tes” (almost everyone, especially in my new site, calls me Tesandra, so I didn’t know who it could be) and turn around to see another PCV, Kayla, there with students from her school! It was really nice to have her there because the kids were definitely into doing their thing and hanging out (which I certainly can’t blame them for, since I remember what it’s like to be in high school and how cool it would be to get to away for a few days). Overall it was a positive experience and I think it was a good way to get to know some of the high school-ers in a less formal environment. The principal wants me to get involved helping kids with English as well as with self-esteems and motivation charlas (talks). Another PCV did an extended course called “Learning How to Learn” on study skills and I think that could be very beneficial for the kids, too. What I really want to do in the next few weeks is observe the classes to get a feel for how things are run and then get involved myself.
After I got back from the campamento, it was time to “get down to business.” However in PC terms, getting down to business comprises getting to know as many of the people in my town as possible. So basically anytime I am interacting with other people I am “working.” But seriously, I have really been getting into the lifestyle here. Here is a sample “day in the life:”
6am: wake up
6-6:30am: breakfast/get ready
6:30-7:30: milk cows (!)
7:30-8:30: collect fruit (including mango, oranges, sweet lemons, and lots of other Costa Rican fruits that I had never heard or seen before coming here but are really yummy) and then feed some of collected fruit to the rabbits (one of whom just had 6 little baby rabbits that are the tiniest little things I have ever seen!)
8:30-9:30: clean up around the house/outside
9:30-10:30: go running
10:30-12: shower, read/help prepare lunch/hang out
12-2: lunch/watch the news/relax (love that Latina siesta!)
-the rest of the afternoon includes going to the meeting of any group that may be having a meeting (the women’s group, the development association, etc.), going to the elementary or high school, or else hanging out with my host family
6-8pm: dinner/watch news
8-9pm: sometime around here, I’m off to bed after a long day!
So that is pretty much my life during the past 2 weeks in a nutshell. I have taken the adage, “early to bed, early to rise, makes a (wo)man healthy wealthy and wise.” I have never ever been a morning person, as anyone who knows me can certainly attest to, but I have been happily surprised to find that life in the campo is not hard to get used to. In the last couple days, I have gotten up around 6am without an alarm clock! What I’m hoping to accomplish in the next few weeks is to spend more quality time getting to know people. Already some of the women I’ve met have been asking when I’m going to stop by their houses, so I really need to solidify some “cafecito” dates. Running has also been a really good way to get out in the community, in addition to giving structure to my day and being a good source of excercise. Today I ended up taking a little break to eat some guavas (one of the yummy CR fruits) with a really sweet older woman who was on her way back to her house, guavas in hand. “Running” is actually really a combination of running and walking because, as I mentioned in a previous post, my town is one big hill. If, one day, I can run up that hill without stopping, I will know that I am in incredibly good shape because it is intense! So basically I get a big warm up from walking up the hill to the road with the church/elementary school/high school/cementary that is relatively flat and therefore run-able.
Alright, I´m currently in my closest bigger town (about an hour bus ride from my site, after I make the (aprox.) 3km trek up the hill to the bus stop) to catch up on email and do some much needed errands, so I´ll leave it at this.
Pura Vida a Todos!
Tesandra
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Pictures!
Ok, since I'm really excited about this whole new world of being able to post pictures on my blog, here are some more!
On a hike with Heath and Heath's host dad
the view from the mountains right above my little town
that's the central valley and San José
the view of San José from the mountains at night
the famous arbol hueco!
me inside the arbol hueco
vast majority of awesome RCDers who came to hike and see the tree
first time at the beach during my PC service with Megan-- by the way, that's Nicaragua in the backround, we were really close to the border!
on our way back from visiting current PCV's we took a little pit stop at mcdonald's (kind of breaks with the nature theme, oops!)
Now that I know how to do this, I promise next time they won't be in such random order!
On a hike with Heath and Heath's host dad
the view from the mountains right above my little town
that's the central valley and San José
the view of San José from the mountains at night
the famous arbol hueco!
me inside the arbol hueco
vast majority of awesome RCDers who came to hike and see the tree
first time at the beach during my PC service with Megan-- by the way, that's Nicaragua in the backround, we were really close to the border!
on our way back from visiting current PCV's we took a little pit stop at mcdonald's (kind of breaks with the nature theme, oops!)
Now that I know how to do this, I promise next time they won't be in such random order!
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