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:

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:

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

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?

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

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!

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