3/18
Hola a todos! I never know how to start my entries, I need to think of a good introduction, but anyways, things are going really well here in Costa Rica! I just got back from playing soccer in the cancha de fútbol in front of my house. We had training with all the RCD-ers this afternoon in our town and afterwards a bunch of us went to the cancha (which is only open for anyone to use on Tues/Thurs afternoon—they have a lot of pride in their cancha, and with good reason-- it’s super nice and lots of teams rent it out to use during the week. There’s even lights so there are lots of night games, too). But anyways, it was open, so we had a little impromptu game and when the bus came to take the volunteers back to their own communities, the other volunteers in my town and I asked some of the kids there if they wanted to play. It was so much fun and such a riot. Even though I’ve been running a lot, I felt SO out of shape--- the little kids were definitely kicking our butts, but it was awesome playing with them. In one of the essays I read for my Spanish class entitled “Costa Rica Desdibujada” which was basically a social commentary on a wide variety of themes, the author described soccer as a kind of religion here. The Ticos are very serious about their soccer and I love it—soccer is so much more fun than football and baseball, the typical American pastimes (Pats/Red Sox/Yankees/etc fans, please don’t take offense!).

Oh! So I realized I have mostly been taking about what I’ve been doing on the weekends and not too much about how PC training itself is going and what my schedule is like during the week. They are definitely keeping us quite busy! Two to three times a week, I have Spanish class from 9-12 in the closest city which is about 30 minutes away by bus (the advanced group is split in 2 so we meet every other day as opposed to the rest of the groups which meet most days. It’s nice to get a free day/morning every few days to catch up on reading and just relax). Then a few afternoons a week we have RCD-specific training which conveniently happens to be in my town, so all the other RCD volunteers comes here from their communities. In these sessions we go over community development skills. So far I am really impressed with the training—it utilizes an out of the box thinking that is really refreshing and I think will serve us very well during our 2 years of service. We practice what is called Non-Formal Education which is basically the “un-learning” of the way we are taught in the states (although I do feel like a lot of my small classes at Conn were kind of like this). Non-Formal Education focuses on teaching through facilitation of discussions, as opposed to purely lecturing. A very important part is making sure that you incorporate different learning styles (ie people can be visual, audio, or kinesthetic learners and it’s important to appeal to all 3 kinds of learners) so the focus is on making things interactive. At the conclusion of an activity, we are learning to go through what is called the “experiential learning cycle” which consists of defining and reflecting on what has been taught/discussed and then focusing on the possible concrete applications of the topic at hand. So for my first foray into Non Formal Education, I taught the yoga sun salutation as a form of meditation, exercise, and as something the volunteers could teach in their community.

Ok, hopefully that wasn’t too boring and gives a bit of an idea of what I’m learning! The last aspect of training occurs every Friday (and sometimes Thursdays) in San Jose with all of the volunteers. We go over health and safety information (let’s just say it was less than appealing to learn about some of the lovely illnesses that one can get here like dengue fever and malaria—I’m just going to hope for the best on that front and keep taking my malaria medicine!). We also go over general information that relates to all PC Costa Rica Volunteers. For example, last week we had a professor from a university in Costa Rica talk about Costa Rican history and the political situation here. He was incredibly passionate and made the issues come alive for us, illuminating a need for a change in the political system here that would move towards providing education, health care, and other needs for all. I feel like I have a lot more to learn about Costa Rican history and politics, but poco a poco in the next 2 years, I imagine that I will learn a lot.

Hmm, what else is going on here… this weekend we had another dance class on Saturday night and yet again it was a total blast. There was a quinceañera in the salon comunal, so we had the class at the teacher’s house and then afterwards had a little dinner party. We brought the tortillas that I made with my host aunt (quite delicious, I must say!) and there was tons of other food. It’s funny because Jenny was asking me before if she should tell her host mom not to make dinner for her because last week they told everyone to just bring a little something to have after the class, but I told her, “no se preocupe” (don’t worry), I’m sure there will be plenty of food and there absolutely was. One of the PC trainers equates Costa Rican mothers to Jewish mothers in terms of their love of cooking and need to feed people to the max. Fortunately, my host mom totally gets that I eat “poco” (little), even though it really is a lot, and doesn’t heap on the rice. On that note, I am absolutely loving the food here. I think it helps that my host mom is an amazing cook and she loves to keep things varied, so although gallo pinto (rice and beans) is definitely a staple, it is by no means the only thing I’m eating. The best is the dessert—arroz con leche with miel de chivere (honey of chivere, a fruit I’ve only seen in CR, kind of looks like a cross between a watermelon and a pumpkin) is my favorite, we made corn bread the other day that was really good, tamal which is kind of cheesecake-esque and really good, I just had some coco (coconut) ice cream that my mom made this afternoon…. I could go on and on!

Ah! I can’t believe I almost forgot-- I went hiking with some friends to the arbol hueco (hollow tree) that is about a 45 minute hike into the mountains. What, might you ask, is an arbol hueco? Apparently it is caused (sadly!) by a parasite that attacks the tree. However it has rendered this very large tree completely hollow with branches all around, making it super easy to climb through the center of the tree to the top. It’s really hard to explain but was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and the view from the top of the tree was amazing with beautiful mountains all around and then a spread of San Jose and the central valley. I will definitely go and again and take my camera and then get the pictures online (one of these days!).

Alright, it’s getting late (and by late I mean 9pm, haha!) so I’m off to bed!
Pura Vida!

PS Thanks to all who have left messages on my blog—I love getting them and knowing that people are reading this, so please feel free to leave a message! I miss everyone lots and it means a lot to hear from family and friends!