It’s only a few days before Christmas, and I just got done spending just over a week with the best family and friends I could ask for. It’s exactly for that reason why it’s a bittersweet day.
I had been looking forward to this visit since that cold March Monday morning when I left a perfectly good life to live in the boonies, without any of the comfort and material things that we all get so used to in the States for a very different but equally satisfying life as a Peace Corps Volunteer. In the weeks maybe even months before I left I had many “going away get togethers” and tried to at least meet up with all my friends before I was to leave and put my life on hold for 27 months. I don’t think it really hit me until the Friday before I left when I went snowboarding for the last time, although I was 100 percent sure on my decision; to call last run on the mountain when you know you wont be back for 2 seasons is a hard one.
A couple days later I told my family and friends that I wanted pizza for my last meal with everybody. That Sunday about 20 or 30 great people met me for one last beer and a slice at Old Chicago. It was there that I realized; I had to say goodbye. It had been easy for me to say for over a year, “well, I want to go in the Peace Corps, but I don’t know if I’ll get accepted” and then it changed to, “well its still months away”, and day by day months changed to weeks and weeks changed to days. Finally there was no hiding the fact that I was leaving, while it wasn’t the hardest thing I have ever had to do, it was very difficult to leave a perfect family and great friends that have always been there for me for a life of the unknown.
That was 9 months ago, and now the unknown is here and it’s a little town called San Luís in Costa Rica. I can now say that I didn’t put my life on hold but rather opened a new chapter like college but way more satisfying and clearer minded. I made Peace Corps friends during training and our bond will last for all of our service and the few times we see each other during the year always makes for a good time. And my friends and family in my town are very important to me, in fact my job here would be very hard or not worth it if I hadn’t forged great friendships. But nobody can replace those of you from home, and that is why I had been waiting for this vacation since the day I left Oregon.
My family and friends arrived in Costa Rica and I was waiting for them outside the airport with a couple of Peace Corps buddies that wanted to meet them. It was a surprise for my mom and sister that brought a few tears out. Immediately we fell right back in place. We all told many stories that I had missed out on and I let them in on my life here that doesn’t always get put in my blog. They came to my town for a soccer tournament; John was a hit, who played for my team scoring one goal and 2 assists, and all the chicas thought he was hot. After the game they came to my house and met more of my family and tried to communicate with them. The lady that I live with made Arroz con leche, miel de chiotte, tamal, and coconut cookies. And her husband prepared moonshine sweetened with a bunch of stuff but still real strong (ask Steve about it). We also picked a couple of oranges form a tree behind my house and surprisingly in the end almost everybody told me that seeing where I live was the highlight of their trip. My family here was equally happy to meet my real family and it was a great day.
A few days later Dieter, Steph, John and I rented quads and rode them back to my town. Dieter and Steph weren´t in CR yet when we previously went my town, not to mention I had to pick up Janet, my lady friend. It was about an hour quad ride from our awesome house in Dominical to my town in the mountains. She was real surprised by the house but so was I, (dad you picked a great house) and she went with us to two national parks, Manual Antonio and Corcovado which we took a boat ride to get to and walked around a forest for a bit, which was cool but we can see the same wildlife in my town so that wasn’t that big of a deal and I didn’t know there was a waterfall and area to swim in, which we would have all rather have done, since it was real hot. However the boat ride through a Mangrove, and then into the ocean was cool for all of us, especially Janet who had never been on any boat in her life. When she left, she told me it was her favorite vacation ever.
Throughout the week we did a lot of stuff, enough that it was nice sometimes to get back and relax at the house. I was not used to staying up till the wee hours of the mourning or drinking like we did, so needless to say I was exhausted and although I didn’t want to leave everybody, I needed life to slow down again. I hadn’t even thought about how it was going to be hard to say goodbye once again until the last night that I was with them. They continued their trip for another day and a half but I had an end of the year party and graduation to attend in my town. That night we did a Christmas gift exchange and watched a lightning storm that was pretty cool. But I soon realized that I had that same feeling that I did 9 months before in Portland, knowing that the next morning, I’d have to say goodbye again. And once again it sucked, to say the least. Coincidently, in another 9 months I will be coming home for Gatto and Heather´s wedding, and once again I am already excited to see my family and friends that I just said goodbye to, and of coarse all of you that I wasn´t able to see.
Dad thanks for finding such a cool house, you made it a great trip, and I appreciate all the work you put in, and all the emails you sent. To the rest of you, I love you guys and had a blast with all of you. And don´t worry Hill your big brother will be home in 9 months to give you more crap!
Take care, Merry Christmas and Happy New year to all!
Oh and sorry for the lack of photos, everybody else took pics this vacation and Im sure they will send the to me and I can get them up...
Pura Vida,
-Leif
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Happy December from Costa Rica....
I wrot this blog about a week ago but better late than never, expect a new one next week about my family´s trip here, it was awesome!
It’s been a while since I have updated my blog so I thought I would say hi to everybody and wish all a happy December and holidays. Hope everybody had a stomach fulfilling Thanksgiving ate turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and fruit salad for me! I ate rice and beans, lol.... a bunch of other volunteers went to people houses from the US embassy and had traditional meal and stayed in a hotel afterwards, I unfortunately wasn’t able to make it, but was told by a couple of friends that the atmosphere wasn’t the same without me; which made me feel good. I hear the mountain has snow, Hill, Alison, and all other snowboarders/skiers, I’m super jealous; ride double time and enjoy a Widmier Seasonal Birrr for me, what I would do for a good beer... My dad’s been sending me the sports sections so I feel somewhat up to date with Beavs and Blazers. The last I read, it was all up to the Civil War to decide the fate of the Beavs or Ducks, do I smell Roses? Who knows but it will be the first thing I check when I get to the Internet to post this blog. I even talked about flying to Pasadena if that happens, but in reality, that’s a little bit of a rush. Who knows, maybe next year I’ll make a trip to home for the Civil War at Grant’s tailgate. Reading up about the Beaver’s improvement this year has been awesome, I hope they can finish strong. But whatever happens, its good for Oregon in general to have both teams fighting for the Rose Bowl. Hopefully it will be a more interesting game than last year’s Civil War.
On a more sobering note, I received the news that Dennis Moore (Ryan Moore’s dad) passed away.... Ryan, you’ve been my best friend since junior high school, I remember growing up with both your parents. And have great memories of them both whether it’s from freshman year when Shelley walked in on us putting eye drops in our glazed over eyes and you having to explain our misdeeds. Or watching countless football games with Dennis. They are memories I will cherish forever. It seems like just a couple months ago I heard the news of your mom, now I can’t believe your father’s goon too. Sorry man, like I said a year ago; death is the shittiest part of life. Keep your head up dude, sorry I couldn’t be there for you! Love you like a brother...
Ok, now let’s change the subject to Costa Rica!
It’s Tuesday December 8th and I’m sitting in my house writing this blog that I will post when I go to the city to greet my family and friends at the airport. Something that I am super pumped to do. Hopefully my mother and sister do not read this before they board the plane because they are under the impression that I can’t make it to the City to greet them. But, if all goes as planned it should be a good surprise. I’ll be spending just over a week with my parents, sister, our friends Ed and Rosie, John and his sister Austin, Steve and Ash, Deiter and Steph.... They all rented what looks to be a sweet house about an 1.5 hours on a bad dirt road from my house, unfortunately unless we have a 4x4, to get to my community we’ll have to loop around to San Isidro on the highway about an 2 hour detour. I can’t wait to spend time with all of them, and on Sunday they will be able to see one of the communities I work with, who’s hosting a soccer tournament. They’ll be able to meet some of my friends that a have made here and even a girlfriend who doesn’t speak English. Yes, I said it; I have a girlfriend... I really planned on not having a relationship, but shit happens, lol. Her name is Jeannette and she was one of the first friends I made in my town, she’s actually a younger sister of the guy I live with, one of 13 kids, a good Catholic family, lol. She’s almost a year younger than me and collects coffee and makes cheese for a living. Needless to say we have extremely different backgrounds. I remember meeting her in my community and thinking to myself, “careful Leif, she’s a cute one, you could get yourself in trouble here, lol”. And for almost 6 months I behaved myself, but as we became better friends my feelings got the best of me. I have no idea where we’re going with this and can’t tell the future but for now I’m happy living in the moment. She’s going to spend a night or two at the house with my family which is amazing that her family is allowing that, the really trust me, little do they know, lol, no in all seriousness it should be fun for her, she’s never been to a house with a pool or visited any of the 3 national parks that are within 50 miles of where she’s lived all her life. So it’s an opportunity that she doesn’t get very often or ever, the language barrier should be interesting, she just started to learn English so hopefully she tries to speak a little, lol.
On the business side of things, I have good news to report. I wrote a proposal a few months back to fix up the cemetery; last week I was informed that I got about $10 thousand dollars to build a fence around it, and a building where they have their funerals, I don’t know what its called in English they call it a “Capilla”. Its important to them and the community is stoked. The same week I was also was informed that we are going to receive a bunch of materials to fix up the school and its kitchen, a truck delivered the material this week. Including 53 bags of cement, paint, wood, tin roofs, toilets, sinks, and bars for the windows, which is a requirement for a program that could bring a satellite for internet and telephones to my community. So it’s a start to something I really want to see in here.... Two agencies of the Costa Rican government are funding these projects. There is money here for projects the problem is the majority of the public doesn’t know how to get the funds, especially in the rural communities so my job is to show them that they can develop their community if they know where and how to look for help. It does help that I write in the proposals that I am a Peace Corps volunteer, but the goal is that in a year and a half when I leave they can continue their development of the community. I’m also in the process of trying to figure out what happen to a lot of money that was signed to repair the roads of my area more than 2 years ago. None of the reparations were ever done, so with any luck, we can fix up the roads, because some of them are not passable unless you have a moto or quad.
Ok well, I believe I have rambled on for enough, miss ya’ll that I won’t be seeing this week! And, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! To leave you all with a quote,
“You’ll never regret the chances you take, you’ll regret the ideas you don’t pursue.” A quote by Andy Mercier before I left Oregon. It has a lot of truth to it, thanks.
Pura Vida,
-Leif
It’s been a while since I have updated my blog so I thought I would say hi to everybody and wish all a happy December and holidays. Hope everybody had a stomach fulfilling Thanksgiving ate turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and fruit salad for me! I ate rice and beans, lol.... a bunch of other volunteers went to people houses from the US embassy and had traditional meal and stayed in a hotel afterwards, I unfortunately wasn’t able to make it, but was told by a couple of friends that the atmosphere wasn’t the same without me; which made me feel good. I hear the mountain has snow, Hill, Alison, and all other snowboarders/skiers, I’m super jealous; ride double time and enjoy a Widmier Seasonal Birrr for me, what I would do for a good beer... My dad’s been sending me the sports sections so I feel somewhat up to date with Beavs and Blazers. The last I read, it was all up to the Civil War to decide the fate of the Beavs or Ducks, do I smell Roses? Who knows but it will be the first thing I check when I get to the Internet to post this blog. I even talked about flying to Pasadena if that happens, but in reality, that’s a little bit of a rush. Who knows, maybe next year I’ll make a trip to home for the Civil War at Grant’s tailgate. Reading up about the Beaver’s improvement this year has been awesome, I hope they can finish strong. But whatever happens, its good for Oregon in general to have both teams fighting for the Rose Bowl. Hopefully it will be a more interesting game than last year’s Civil War.
On a more sobering note, I received the news that Dennis Moore (Ryan Moore’s dad) passed away.... Ryan, you’ve been my best friend since junior high school, I remember growing up with both your parents. And have great memories of them both whether it’s from freshman year when Shelley walked in on us putting eye drops in our glazed over eyes and you having to explain our misdeeds. Or watching countless football games with Dennis. They are memories I will cherish forever. It seems like just a couple months ago I heard the news of your mom, now I can’t believe your father’s goon too. Sorry man, like I said a year ago; death is the shittiest part of life. Keep your head up dude, sorry I couldn’t be there for you! Love you like a brother...
Ok, now let’s change the subject to Costa Rica!
It’s Tuesday December 8th and I’m sitting in my house writing this blog that I will post when I go to the city to greet my family and friends at the airport. Something that I am super pumped to do. Hopefully my mother and sister do not read this before they board the plane because they are under the impression that I can’t make it to the City to greet them. But, if all goes as planned it should be a good surprise. I’ll be spending just over a week with my parents, sister, our friends Ed and Rosie, John and his sister Austin, Steve and Ash, Deiter and Steph.... They all rented what looks to be a sweet house about an 1.5 hours on a bad dirt road from my house, unfortunately unless we have a 4x4, to get to my community we’ll have to loop around to San Isidro on the highway about an 2 hour detour. I can’t wait to spend time with all of them, and on Sunday they will be able to see one of the communities I work with, who’s hosting a soccer tournament. They’ll be able to meet some of my friends that a have made here and even a girlfriend who doesn’t speak English. Yes, I said it; I have a girlfriend... I really planned on not having a relationship, but shit happens, lol. Her name is Jeannette and she was one of the first friends I made in my town, she’s actually a younger sister of the guy I live with, one of 13 kids, a good Catholic family, lol. She’s almost a year younger than me and collects coffee and makes cheese for a living. Needless to say we have extremely different backgrounds. I remember meeting her in my community and thinking to myself, “careful Leif, she’s a cute one, you could get yourself in trouble here, lol”. And for almost 6 months I behaved myself, but as we became better friends my feelings got the best of me. I have no idea where we’re going with this and can’t tell the future but for now I’m happy living in the moment. She’s going to spend a night or two at the house with my family which is amazing that her family is allowing that, the really trust me, little do they know, lol, no in all seriousness it should be fun for her, she’s never been to a house with a pool or visited any of the 3 national parks that are within 50 miles of where she’s lived all her life. So it’s an opportunity that she doesn’t get very often or ever, the language barrier should be interesting, she just started to learn English so hopefully she tries to speak a little, lol.
On the business side of things, I have good news to report. I wrote a proposal a few months back to fix up the cemetery; last week I was informed that I got about $10 thousand dollars to build a fence around it, and a building where they have their funerals, I don’t know what its called in English they call it a “Capilla”. Its important to them and the community is stoked. The same week I was also was informed that we are going to receive a bunch of materials to fix up the school and its kitchen, a truck delivered the material this week. Including 53 bags of cement, paint, wood, tin roofs, toilets, sinks, and bars for the windows, which is a requirement for a program that could bring a satellite for internet and telephones to my community. So it’s a start to something I really want to see in here.... Two agencies of the Costa Rican government are funding these projects. There is money here for projects the problem is the majority of the public doesn’t know how to get the funds, especially in the rural communities so my job is to show them that they can develop their community if they know where and how to look for help. It does help that I write in the proposals that I am a Peace Corps volunteer, but the goal is that in a year and a half when I leave they can continue their development of the community. I’m also in the process of trying to figure out what happen to a lot of money that was signed to repair the roads of my area more than 2 years ago. None of the reparations were ever done, so with any luck, we can fix up the roads, because some of them are not passable unless you have a moto or quad.
Ok well, I believe I have rambled on for enough, miss ya’ll that I won’t be seeing this week! And, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! To leave you all with a quote,
“You’ll never regret the chances you take, you’ll regret the ideas you don’t pursue.” A quote by Andy Mercier before I left Oregon. It has a lot of truth to it, thanks.
Pura Vida,
-Leif
Monday, October 12, 2009
Life´s not always ¨pura vida¨....
This blog update was unexpected, and not a happy update but it’s a story that needs to be told, so here I go… Last week I experienced something that I always hate to see, but as I know all too well, its part of life. On Sunday my football team or should I say soccer team went to the neighboring town of La Florida for a soccer tournament. 13 teammates and some fans pilled into the back of a truck and off we went, with various motos, quads, and even some people on horses following. This is a typical weekend activity for the towns where I live. We arrived early in La Florida and were ably to watch a game between two other towns while we waited for our game to start. We played a good game and won! I played the second half and had a couple good looks at a goal but wasn’t lucky probably because I suck at soccer. Afterwards we ate dinner and had a couple of beers with everybody that came to watch us play.
This is the main way rural communities make money. In almost every town there is a football field and a kitchen near. The community cooks a bunch of food and has plenty of drinks on hand to sell. Our last one-day tournament, we raised about 500 dollars for the school, which is surprisingly a lot of money here. At about 6:00 pm, the truck I came in was about to leave. I had a great time, drank a couple of beers, ate some great food, and it looked as if rain was in the forecast; so I elected to leave with the truck that I arrived in. However, the party was not quite over, there was still Karaoke going on and a significant amount of people still hanging out. One of those people, who had even bought me a beer earlier was a guy named Nila, he asked me if I wanted to stay. Various people had mentioned I could get a ride home on one of their motos or quad. Most people that know me, know that I don’t usually call it an early night, but I did… I had to get up early the next day to go to town to get some information on a couple of projects I am working on so I thought it was time to go home. Little did I know that was the best decision I could have made...
We got back to my town and I took a cold shower and wrote a letter I needed to give to an engineer the next day in the city. Monday morning I took the two-hour long bus ride through the mountainous dirt road to San Isidro and everything went smoothly in town. It wasn’t until I got back to my town that afternoon that I learned Nila had an accident in his quad the night before and died.
The news came to me as a shock. He wasn’t a very close friend but, he was always nice to me and I never wish death upon anybody. It kinda messed with my head that he was the last person that I talked with in La Florida, and that I could have stayed and been on the quad with him. Riding on quads and motos is a normal way of transportation here and is also against PeaceCorps rules, but to be honest that wasn’t the reason why I wasn’t on the quad with him.
Se dice, “they say” that around 7:30-8:00pm he was returning home on his quad and lost control while crossing a bridge and went off the bridge. A lot of the bridges in my area don’t have side rails, which probably would have saved his life. He and his quad fell about 20-30 ft where he hit his head on rocks and received the injuries that took his life. A helmet could have saved his life as well. He had previously talked to me about his quad and how he had bought it in the New Jersey while he was working in the states roofing. A lot of ticos go (or went) to New Jersey to work in roofing. He also told me that he had a bought a $150 helmet in the states as well, but here; he never used it. A neighboring house to the bridge heard the crash and called an ambulance; he was in intensive care until Monday at 1:00pm, when he died. There was nothing they could do to save his life. His brother told me that he was coherent to hear and understand everything that people were saying to him but could not talk. His family was ably to say their good byes to him; he even cried when his mom talked to him. A priest came for him to confess (even though he wasn’t able to talk), it something that is common for the Catholic religion and he died shortly after.
Tuesday afternoon the body was brought in a casket to the family’s house where it is tradition for the family to stay awake while family and friends pay their respects through out the night. Emilio the man I live with and his son Denier, went to their house at 2am and did not return until 5:00am when they had a quick breakfast and then they asked me to accompany them to the cemetery to help dig the grave with only hand shovels to prepare for the funeral. Within a couple hours about 10 of us had taking turns digging the 8 ft deep hole, and it was ready. It was an experience that I hope I don’t have to repeat in the next year and a half.
Needless to say I feel really bad for the family and it made me think back to loosing my brother and how shitty of an experience it was. But as we all know so well, its part of life and you never know how quickly it can be taken from you, so live it up.
As for those of my friends that bikes or quads, you’ll know I love adventure sports as much as anybody and I fully understand that they’re not the safest sports. And my advice is still to enjoy life and experience as much possible, and I can’t wait to get home and start riding with you’ll again. But please, ride as safe as possible. I know that all you guys wear helmets on your quads and bikes, but I also know and have been guilty myself of every once in a while hoping on one without a helmet, just for a short while. But in reality, it’s not worth it. And when you feel like having a drink, do it… Shit, have a few, its fun as well. But once you start drinking stay off your bikes and out of your trucks for the rest of the night. I know we’ve all made bad choices and had relatively good luck with some of those bad decisions, but all it takes is a little bad luck with a bad decision and it can change your life. Ok, I’m done giving advice, I just don’t want to experience what just happened here in Costa Rica to happen closer to home, so be safe, at least until I come home, lol
Leif
This is the main way rural communities make money. In almost every town there is a football field and a kitchen near. The community cooks a bunch of food and has plenty of drinks on hand to sell. Our last one-day tournament, we raised about 500 dollars for the school, which is surprisingly a lot of money here. At about 6:00 pm, the truck I came in was about to leave. I had a great time, drank a couple of beers, ate some great food, and it looked as if rain was in the forecast; so I elected to leave with the truck that I arrived in. However, the party was not quite over, there was still Karaoke going on and a significant amount of people still hanging out. One of those people, who had even bought me a beer earlier was a guy named Nila, he asked me if I wanted to stay. Various people had mentioned I could get a ride home on one of their motos or quad. Most people that know me, know that I don’t usually call it an early night, but I did… I had to get up early the next day to go to town to get some information on a couple of projects I am working on so I thought it was time to go home. Little did I know that was the best decision I could have made...
We got back to my town and I took a cold shower and wrote a letter I needed to give to an engineer the next day in the city. Monday morning I took the two-hour long bus ride through the mountainous dirt road to San Isidro and everything went smoothly in town. It wasn’t until I got back to my town that afternoon that I learned Nila had an accident in his quad the night before and died.
The news came to me as a shock. He wasn’t a very close friend but, he was always nice to me and I never wish death upon anybody. It kinda messed with my head that he was the last person that I talked with in La Florida, and that I could have stayed and been on the quad with him. Riding on quads and motos is a normal way of transportation here and is also against PeaceCorps rules, but to be honest that wasn’t the reason why I wasn’t on the quad with him.
Se dice, “they say” that around 7:30-8:00pm he was returning home on his quad and lost control while crossing a bridge and went off the bridge. A lot of the bridges in my area don’t have side rails, which probably would have saved his life. He and his quad fell about 20-30 ft where he hit his head on rocks and received the injuries that took his life. A helmet could have saved his life as well. He had previously talked to me about his quad and how he had bought it in the New Jersey while he was working in the states roofing. A lot of ticos go (or went) to New Jersey to work in roofing. He also told me that he had a bought a $150 helmet in the states as well, but here; he never used it. A neighboring house to the bridge heard the crash and called an ambulance; he was in intensive care until Monday at 1:00pm, when he died. There was nothing they could do to save his life. His brother told me that he was coherent to hear and understand everything that people were saying to him but could not talk. His family was ably to say their good byes to him; he even cried when his mom talked to him. A priest came for him to confess (even though he wasn’t able to talk), it something that is common for the Catholic religion and he died shortly after.
Tuesday afternoon the body was brought in a casket to the family’s house where it is tradition for the family to stay awake while family and friends pay their respects through out the night. Emilio the man I live with and his son Denier, went to their house at 2am and did not return until 5:00am when they had a quick breakfast and then they asked me to accompany them to the cemetery to help dig the grave with only hand shovels to prepare for the funeral. Within a couple hours about 10 of us had taking turns digging the 8 ft deep hole, and it was ready. It was an experience that I hope I don’t have to repeat in the next year and a half.
Needless to say I feel really bad for the family and it made me think back to loosing my brother and how shitty of an experience it was. But as we all know so well, its part of life and you never know how quickly it can be taken from you, so live it up.
As for those of my friends that bikes or quads, you’ll know I love adventure sports as much as anybody and I fully understand that they’re not the safest sports. And my advice is still to enjoy life and experience as much possible, and I can’t wait to get home and start riding with you’ll again. But please, ride as safe as possible. I know that all you guys wear helmets on your quads and bikes, but I also know and have been guilty myself of every once in a while hoping on one without a helmet, just for a short while. But in reality, it’s not worth it. And when you feel like having a drink, do it… Shit, have a few, its fun as well. But once you start drinking stay off your bikes and out of your trucks for the rest of the night. I know we’ve all made bad choices and had relatively good luck with some of those bad decisions, but all it takes is a little bad luck with a bad decision and it can change your life. Ok, I’m done giving advice, I just don’t want to experience what just happened here in Costa Rica to happen closer to home, so be safe, at least until I come home, lol
Leif
Monday, September 21, 2009
Checkin in....
Hello everybody and welcome back, I hope everybody is doing great and of coarse had a great summer. I think its coming to and end up there; which sadly means I missed out on a season of rafting, camping, dirt biking, boating, BBQing, beer drinking, and probably many other fun summer activities that I would have loved to partake in with all of you.
As for me, I’ve been in Costa Rica for over 6 months now and it has flown by. Nevertheless, if I think by to the last time I saw my family or friends from back home, it does seem like forever. However, I prefer to look at the bright side of things and think about all that I have done in the last 6 months and the experience that I am having.
Since my last update I’ve just been “Pura Vida”. Literal it means “pure life” but anybody that has experience of Costa Rica knows that it is much more. It is used to describe just about anything. Ticos (Costa Ricans) always are pura vida, even if they’re having a shitty day, its still pura vida. In that since, I understand why Costa Rica was named one of the happiest places to live in the world on some CNN special I heard about. Not to say it doesn’t have a fair share of economical and social problems as any third world country, but if I had to generalize, it’s a happy culture, so we get along pretty well, lol.
I don’t really have any new updates on work here, waiting on a couple of projects that we are putting together mainly getting some public phones, remolding the school, cemetery, and trying to get a bridge over a creek that cars cant pass when its rains which is about 5 months out of the year. And of coarse teaching English has basically been filling up my days. Not to mention for the last month and a half I have been concentrating on a report that I have been writing about my community, it’s a pretty through Spanish document, about 15 pages of info which, for my little community was a feat. After it gets edited and corrected I can give it to the town and we can attach it to project proposals and hopefully it might make a difference, I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It made me feel like I was back in college writing a report.
On the health side of things I am glad to mention that I’m having luck as well; since I have been gone I have yet to be struck by any serious illness (knock on wood), which is something that can happen much easier in a third world country. I’m blessed with a strong stomach but, Costa Rica is home to some unfriendly parasites, worms, other stomach illnesses, and diseases in which I hope to continue to avoid, and of coarse the usual illnesses that plague all countries including the AHNI flu that is from my understanding now a pandemic, which is present in Costa Rica; our President Oscar Arias was the first leader of a country to get it. In all reality I am not too worried about it, since I don’t spend much time in the city, and I am young and healthy enough that if I did get it, it wouldn’t be all that bad. Not to mention the Peacecorps has pumped me full of some good but many unnecessary vaccinations along with drugs against Malaria, which I personally don’t feel the need to take, but I would never break a PC regulation. (If you can read sarcasm; there might be a little there) The side effects of the anti-malaria drug include but are not limited to mind-altering dreams, along the lines of a hallucinogenic drug trip and hair loss (I really don’t mind the dreams, but from the looks of my father and grandfather I wont need any help losing my hair… I think the side effects out number the possibility of me actually getting malaria since the small number of cases are confined to the Caribbean side of the country and I live on the Pacific Coast, and nobody in my town knows anybody who has contracted it. I’m more scared of getting bit by a torceopelo (fairadlaine in English) a very poisonous snake that unfortunately is extremely common in my town, if you look at a previous post there should be a photo of a dead torceopelo we killed. The good news is they have anti-venom at the hospital in San Isidro only an hour away by car, and they only kill about 5 people a year in Costa Rica, which is surprisingly less than bees. Dengue Fever is another disease that I want to stay away from; like malaria it is passed by mosquitoes and from what a fellow volunteer who got it said, it was the worst experience of his life. Supposedly it’s a terribly fever accompanied by your whole body aching to the point where you can’t do anything. On a more positive note if for some reason I did fall victim to some nasty illness the Peace Corps has a good connection with a top-notch hospital in San Jose. I was able to see the hospital’s care first hand when I visited a friend of mine, who for her second time since arriving in country in January as a World Teach Volunteer is back in the hospital. That visit made me realize how thankful I am to have been able to stay healthy here in Costa Rica.
So yeah, that’s all I have time for today a have to go catch a 2 hour bus ride and then walk another hour to get home, so until next time…
Pura vida
-Leif
As for me, I’ve been in Costa Rica for over 6 months now and it has flown by. Nevertheless, if I think by to the last time I saw my family or friends from back home, it does seem like forever. However, I prefer to look at the bright side of things and think about all that I have done in the last 6 months and the experience that I am having.
Since my last update I’ve just been “Pura Vida”. Literal it means “pure life” but anybody that has experience of Costa Rica knows that it is much more. It is used to describe just about anything. Ticos (Costa Ricans) always are pura vida, even if they’re having a shitty day, its still pura vida. In that since, I understand why Costa Rica was named one of the happiest places to live in the world on some CNN special I heard about. Not to say it doesn’t have a fair share of economical and social problems as any third world country, but if I had to generalize, it’s a happy culture, so we get along pretty well, lol.
I don’t really have any new updates on work here, waiting on a couple of projects that we are putting together mainly getting some public phones, remolding the school, cemetery, and trying to get a bridge over a creek that cars cant pass when its rains which is about 5 months out of the year. And of coarse teaching English has basically been filling up my days. Not to mention for the last month and a half I have been concentrating on a report that I have been writing about my community, it’s a pretty through Spanish document, about 15 pages of info which, for my little community was a feat. After it gets edited and corrected I can give it to the town and we can attach it to project proposals and hopefully it might make a difference, I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It made me feel like I was back in college writing a report.
On the health side of things I am glad to mention that I’m having luck as well; since I have been gone I have yet to be struck by any serious illness (knock on wood), which is something that can happen much easier in a third world country. I’m blessed with a strong stomach but, Costa Rica is home to some unfriendly parasites, worms, other stomach illnesses, and diseases in which I hope to continue to avoid, and of coarse the usual illnesses that plague all countries including the AHNI flu that is from my understanding now a pandemic, which is present in Costa Rica; our President Oscar Arias was the first leader of a country to get it. In all reality I am not too worried about it, since I don’t spend much time in the city, and I am young and healthy enough that if I did get it, it wouldn’t be all that bad. Not to mention the Peacecorps has pumped me full of some good but many unnecessary vaccinations along with drugs against Malaria, which I personally don’t feel the need to take, but I would never break a PC regulation. (If you can read sarcasm; there might be a little there) The side effects of the anti-malaria drug include but are not limited to mind-altering dreams, along the lines of a hallucinogenic drug trip and hair loss (I really don’t mind the dreams, but from the looks of my father and grandfather I wont need any help losing my hair… I think the side effects out number the possibility of me actually getting malaria since the small number of cases are confined to the Caribbean side of the country and I live on the Pacific Coast, and nobody in my town knows anybody who has contracted it. I’m more scared of getting bit by a torceopelo (fairadlaine in English) a very poisonous snake that unfortunately is extremely common in my town, if you look at a previous post there should be a photo of a dead torceopelo we killed. The good news is they have anti-venom at the hospital in San Isidro only an hour away by car, and they only kill about 5 people a year in Costa Rica, which is surprisingly less than bees. Dengue Fever is another disease that I want to stay away from; like malaria it is passed by mosquitoes and from what a fellow volunteer who got it said, it was the worst experience of his life. Supposedly it’s a terribly fever accompanied by your whole body aching to the point where you can’t do anything. On a more positive note if for some reason I did fall victim to some nasty illness the Peace Corps has a good connection with a top-notch hospital in San Jose. I was able to see the hospital’s care first hand when I visited a friend of mine, who for her second time since arriving in country in January as a World Teach Volunteer is back in the hospital. That visit made me realize how thankful I am to have been able to stay healthy here in Costa Rica.
So yeah, that’s all I have time for today a have to go catch a 2 hour bus ride and then walk another hour to get home, so until next time…
Pura vida
-Leif
Monday, July 27, 2009
Getting settled in...
Hello and welcome back to my blog, sorry I haven’t updated it since I moved to my town, I’ve been busy and haven’t had the time. I’ve been living here for about 2 months. I’ve gotten to know just about everybody in my town and have started working and trying to find my place here. Which, I am happy to report has gone pretty well. Living in probably least populated PeaceCorps Costa Rica town ever; I was a little worried about how it would work out; it still is a concern but there is surprisingly enough things to do to pass the time, and I’m having a good time doing it. The PeaceCorps is a very interesting experience. I am the English teacher but other than that I don’t really have a job title, but if I were to describe what I do here, I would say that I am a very active member of the community. I have passed the days doing everything from exploring waterfalls to working in the banana, plantain, and coffee farms, to milking and slaughtering cows, repairing the school, working on trucks, killing poisonous snakes, and even fishing just to name a few.
Rural Costa Rica is a beautiful place to live, I wouldn’t trade it for anyplace in the world right now. I miss ya’ll back in Portland and those of you who live elsewhere, but I am truly happy here. Needless to say I miss the shit out of all you as well! I would like to congratulate Lauren and Tim, Alex and Lindsay, and of coarse Brent and Abbey; I would have loved to be at all three of your weddings. You’ll are all great friends, I apologize for missing your big days.
I have made new friends and learned a lot about myself along with the world outside the US. After watching four girls ride one quad together every morning at 5:30 am to get to a neighboring town where they can catch a bus to the high school, I have realized that education in the US is taken for granted. Its interesting how things work here, there is government aid out there for rural Costa Rica but the people have to search and ask for it (usually many times) For example I just finished writing a letter to the government owned electricity and communication company asking for public phone lines. There are no public phones in my town. But there is a program to give all schools phone lines with an emphasis on access to internet for the children, yet if we didn’t write letters asking for these programs that are usually only available in the city it would never happen. I also am in the process of looking for aid to build bridges that the area is lacking along with general road repairs (sometimes the bus that only comes once a week can’t make it to my town because the road or lack there of is in such bad shape, and I end up having to walk to my town anyway). But all in all, the development in Costa Rica has come a long way. Just 10 years ago there wasn’t electricity in my town, now it’s a common commodity that is fairly reliably. I’m also in the process of figuring out how much material cost for a cemetery project we have, I need to know exactly how material and the cost before I can ask the government for help. We’ll see how long it takes for these tasks done, unfortunately I hear that it can be a slow process, but in the mean time, I can soak up all of the beauty and fresh fruit rural Costa Rica has to offer.
Another interesting thing about PeaceCorps in Costa Rica that makes it unique is that CR is a major tourist destination, which in turn means a couple things. For example a good friend and fellow volunteer’s brother is joining the Marines so their family sent him to CR to visit her before boot camp. They went to some national parks and saw a lot of the beauty that CR has to offer, but had an extra day to spare on their trip back to San Jose and the Airport. We got started talking and the next thing I now I hitched a ride out of my town for a couple days and we went bungee jumping. For those of you that know Casey Dale and Bungee.com, he was nice enough to put me in contact with the owner of a 265 ft bridge and got us a killer deal. Needless to say my volunteer lifestyle was lacking a little adrenaline and it was just what I needed. Thanks Casey! After I got that out of my system I made my way back down to the central coast to meet up with a group of 20 or so volunteers in my zone for an annual meeting at a mansion we rented out that has a pool, hot-tub, life-size chess board, and waterfalls on the property. It was pretty amazing and nice to eat something other than rice and beans but after all that excitement I was more than ready to get back to my peaceful tiny town. I don’t believe there are many places in the world where you can live in a very humble but poverty stricken undeveloped town and within hours transform into a tourist that feels like you are in another country, it’s a weird feeling, but can be nice every once in a while for a change.
Well until next time take care,
Pura Vida,
Leif
Monday, June 15, 2009
Finally a volunteen
I can finally say that I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, up until Swear-In day on May 29th I was considered an “aspirante” or trainee in English. For those of you who aren’t up to date on who the PeaceCorps functions or have been wondering what the hell I have been doing in Costa Rica, I’ll give a little summary of to what has gone on.
March 10th I flew to Washington DC, where I met the 51 other volunteers in my training class “Tico 19”
March 11th I arrived in Costa Rica and spent one week in a retreat center outside San Jose. This is where we met the Staff and got to know each other a little better. The center is a beautiful complex with sport courts, fields and sits on top of a large hill to overlook a town called Tres Rios. The trees where also home to hundreds of Parrots which I happily listened to every morning.
March 15th I traveled to my training community San Juan Sur. Here my community was in a cluster of 4 training communities separated by level of Spanish and also by program, mine being Rural Community Development. It was in this town that I had Spanish training 3 days a week with the other 3 volunteers (was 4 but one decided to go back to the States). We also traveled one day a week to a neighboring town Jerico for technical training with the other 3 communities. And every Friday we got the painful experience of going to San Jose for Safety and Security training. This on a packed hour and half bus ride usually standing up. In San Jose we learned about earthquakes, floods, diseases, more earthquakes, and diseases. Oh, and sometimes we were lucky enough to get vaccinations during lunch. I would say that I got a good one-hour of useful information each 8 hour day there. During the 11 weeks of training I also visited to current volunteers at their rural sites (neither of which are even close to as rural or small as mine). It was these site visits that I enjoyed most during training, not that there wasn’t good information giving to us during training I just enjoyed being in rural Costa Rica, that’s why I’m here.
May 14th I met my counter-part for my community who happens to be the President of the development association that I will be working with and went to the town for a week. I enjoyed it, went back to my training town for a week to swear-in and now I’m back!
Ok, that should have got you caught up on what the hell I have been doing, basically a lot of BS mixed in with some good training, lol. And now for the next 2 years I will be living in the community of San Luis, Peréz Zeledón. I will be working with the Development Association on a variety of projects and teaching English as well.
As you should be able to see from my photos, I lucked out on the beauty of my site. I definitely have the best view that I have seen in Costa Rica just 20 yards from my house. My town’s name is San Luis outside of San Isidro on the way to Dominical. There’s a 300 ft waterfall that we can see just a couple kilometer walk from my house or I have gotten in the habit of running to it every morning, it takes about 20 minutes. There is also a river on the way to the beach that is good for fishing, or I can go fishing in the Talapia pond a 3 minute walk from my house. My family is super nice, sometimes I go working in the family’s banana or coffee farm. The father is teaching me the guitar, so hopefully in 2 years I will be able to play because, right now I suck… Oh yeah, the town let me on their soccer team. Some of the weekends we go to neighboring towns for town parties and soccer games. They set up a kitchen and bar and all the neighboring towns come to socialize, play soccer and it’s actually a pretty fun time.
So other than that I am just trying to get to know everybody in town before I can really start doing anything. I have a community assessment project to do in my first 3 months here, I have to interview basically everybody in town and go to town meetings to figure out what they want to improve in their community. The only bummer in my town is its size. To have a development association you need 100 members and to get any government funds or to receive a PeaceCorps Volunteer you need the association. Well, my town has it but in order to receive it they formed an association with 2 neighboring towns, which sucks for me! In my town I have counted 11 families so far, so the nice thing is I will be able to get to know everybody in my town easily. The bummer is the walk to the other towns, Ceibo and Morete. Ceibo is actually bigger than my town and want me to work with their school as well but I hope to wait till a get a horse or something to make the walk easier. Also the climate is changing to the raining season. So every morning it is beautiful and sunny, by the afternoon I can’t see 20 yards in front of me because the fog is so thick and the evening is filled with strong thunder showers along with the heaviest downpours I have ever seen. It’s actually relaxing and I enjoy the storms, assuming I am inside…
Now that I am done with training, I can finally start the real process of being a PeaceCorps Volunteer. Its something that I have wanted to do for well over a year and now I can make it happen. This comes as a bitter sweet feeling, although this has been a dream of mine, the reality of isolation starts to set in. Up intil this point I have been surrounded around some people that I now call close friends. We`ve had some good times together and for the majority of these volunteers, I probably wont see but a couple times a year. However I am sure when we do meet up it will be filled with more good times.
Well, until next time,
Tenga un buen día
Pura Vida, Leif
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
I know where to call home for the next 2 years, finnaly!
Hello and welcome back, I’m sitting at my training community’s house writing from here for the last time. The last couple of weeks have gone by very fast and I’m happy to say that I know where to call home for the next 2 years. Friday I will swear-in and become a PeaceCorps Volunteer and the next Monday I will arrive at my site. Training has been a long, frustrating and fun process; but I am very ready to move on. I have made some great friendships that I will feed off of for the next 2 years but I came here to live among the locals and learn from them as well as help them and training is just prolonging that process.
My community’s name is San Luis and is located in the mountains above Punta Uvita and Parque Ballena (whale’s park) which is a beautiful part of Costa Rica. My family has the only Pulperia (tiny store that sells everything from gas to rice and flour) in town just up a small hill about 25 yards from our house where you can see this awesome part of the Costa Rican coast. If you haven’t googled Punta Uvita you should! Other than the Pulperia the town has a small one-room school with 11 students up to the 6th grade. If I had to guess I would say there is about 50 people in my community, but I will be working with the Development Association from 2 other towns as well. Unfortunately most students can’t continue their education in high school due to the lack of transportation. In fact there are only 5 students from my town that attend high school. There is one boy who has a dirtbike and can ride the 15 kilometers on a dirt and sometimes very muddy road. The other 4 girls share a quad and pack all four on it at once. Seeing how difficult it is just to get to high school really makes one realize how much we take our education for granted in the US. Transportation is an issue for me as well, which the director of my program said was one reason why I have a very difficult site, but I’m up for the challenge. I have bus service to my town once a week on Monday’s assuming the rain isn’t too hard and hasn’t washed away the road. The bus passes by at 5:50am and leaves San Isidro at 2:00pm to get me home around 4:00pm. Tuesday through Saturday there is also one bus roundtrip but to the neighboring town which is about an hour and half walk and there is no bus service on Sunday. The good news is that my host dad has to buy supplies in San Isidro once a week for the Pulperia or I can hitch a ride with one of the many Gringos that live around my community and have farms in the area and are stoaked that I am here to help the community they have been living here for years and employ some of the community.
My host family seems real sincere, the father is a hard working Campesino named Emilio. Him and his 7 brothers have coffee and banana farms that they work together as well as produce many other fruits and vegetables on a personal farm. I drink café every morning, which they make all in the home. My host mom Rita is Native so she speaks another language as well as Spanish and I have a little host sister named Melissa who is a pretty awesome 10 year old. She is one of the 11 students at the school and is excited to learn English (we already started a little) I have a 21 year old host brother named Denier who is married, he and his wife live about a half mile away but came over almost every night in the week I was there. They really like Monopoly so we played that a couple nights last week. That brother didn´t go to school after the six grade but works in the finca with his dad and uncles, there is another brother named Danier who is 19 years old and did go to the high school and a received scholarship for one of the best universities in Costa Rica for engineering and lives with distant family in Cartago. Along with that my dad is one of 13 children ranging from mid early 20s to mid 40s so I have a large new family that has been very accommodating. I also was able to go fishing in the family´s Talapia fish pond that they built 4 years ago, which is something I see myself doing quite often. A larger fish farm for the community is also one of the plans for me to help out with along with being the English teacher among other things. While I was there I helped my dad collect a semi truck full of bananas which was a good work out as well as use a chainsaw and hammer to help my brother build a green house which was fun. My host aunt who is 23 took me on a hike to see a water fall that was very pretty, unfortunately I didn´t bring my camera so you´ll have to wait for photos. That night I woke up to feel something on my thigh, when I could feel that it was stuck in my skin I knew it could be only one thing; a tick. I got up turned on the light and had the pleasure of pulling out and killing it. After seeing it in light I realized the color and shape and lack of little legs wasn´t ticklike but yet some other nasty little insect that I didn´t want in my body… But other than that experience all was great! lol
The house I will be living at is very simple and kept very clean for being not fully enclosed. The floor is cement and there isn´t a ceiling just the tin roof that is kinda fun for listening to the winter rain shows at night. Unfortunately, the walls don´t go all the way up so lights and noises are shared throughout the whole house which is interesting, lol. The kitchen is partially outside as well and they use a wood stove for cooking. But it is a very peaceful place that I think I will enjoy very much. The other morning I grabbed a ripe mango from the tree outside our house and sat in a chair over looking the sea and just listened to the tucans and howler monkeys, ate my mango and drank my home made coffee as I realized this will be my home for the next 2 years of my life and got a big smile on my face. So as for now I am excited to swear-in get back to my site and get to know the community a little more, and see where it takes me!
-until then, take care
My community’s name is San Luis and is located in the mountains above Punta Uvita and Parque Ballena (whale’s park) which is a beautiful part of Costa Rica. My family has the only Pulperia (tiny store that sells everything from gas to rice and flour) in town just up a small hill about 25 yards from our house where you can see this awesome part of the Costa Rican coast. If you haven’t googled Punta Uvita you should! Other than the Pulperia the town has a small one-room school with 11 students up to the 6th grade. If I had to guess I would say there is about 50 people in my community, but I will be working with the Development Association from 2 other towns as well. Unfortunately most students can’t continue their education in high school due to the lack of transportation. In fact there are only 5 students from my town that attend high school. There is one boy who has a dirtbike and can ride the 15 kilometers on a dirt and sometimes very muddy road. The other 4 girls share a quad and pack all four on it at once. Seeing how difficult it is just to get to high school really makes one realize how much we take our education for granted in the US. Transportation is an issue for me as well, which the director of my program said was one reason why I have a very difficult site, but I’m up for the challenge. I have bus service to my town once a week on Monday’s assuming the rain isn’t too hard and hasn’t washed away the road. The bus passes by at 5:50am and leaves San Isidro at 2:00pm to get me home around 4:00pm. Tuesday through Saturday there is also one bus roundtrip but to the neighboring town which is about an hour and half walk and there is no bus service on Sunday. The good news is that my host dad has to buy supplies in San Isidro once a week for the Pulperia or I can hitch a ride with one of the many Gringos that live around my community and have farms in the area and are stoaked that I am here to help the community they have been living here for years and employ some of the community.
My host family seems real sincere, the father is a hard working Campesino named Emilio. Him and his 7 brothers have coffee and banana farms that they work together as well as produce many other fruits and vegetables on a personal farm. I drink café every morning, which they make all in the home. My host mom Rita is Native so she speaks another language as well as Spanish and I have a little host sister named Melissa who is a pretty awesome 10 year old. She is one of the 11 students at the school and is excited to learn English (we already started a little) I have a 21 year old host brother named Denier who is married, he and his wife live about a half mile away but came over almost every night in the week I was there. They really like Monopoly so we played that a couple nights last week. That brother didn´t go to school after the six grade but works in the finca with his dad and uncles, there is another brother named Danier who is 19 years old and did go to the high school and a received scholarship for one of the best universities in Costa Rica for engineering and lives with distant family in Cartago. Along with that my dad is one of 13 children ranging from mid early 20s to mid 40s so I have a large new family that has been very accommodating. I also was able to go fishing in the family´s Talapia fish pond that they built 4 years ago, which is something I see myself doing quite often. A larger fish farm for the community is also one of the plans for me to help out with along with being the English teacher among other things. While I was there I helped my dad collect a semi truck full of bananas which was a good work out as well as use a chainsaw and hammer to help my brother build a green house which was fun. My host aunt who is 23 took me on a hike to see a water fall that was very pretty, unfortunately I didn´t bring my camera so you´ll have to wait for photos. That night I woke up to feel something on my thigh, when I could feel that it was stuck in my skin I knew it could be only one thing; a tick. I got up turned on the light and had the pleasure of pulling out and killing it. After seeing it in light I realized the color and shape and lack of little legs wasn´t ticklike but yet some other nasty little insect that I didn´t want in my body… But other than that experience all was great! lol
The house I will be living at is very simple and kept very clean for being not fully enclosed. The floor is cement and there isn´t a ceiling just the tin roof that is kinda fun for listening to the winter rain shows at night. Unfortunately, the walls don´t go all the way up so lights and noises are shared throughout the whole house which is interesting, lol. The kitchen is partially outside as well and they use a wood stove for cooking. But it is a very peaceful place that I think I will enjoy very much. The other morning I grabbed a ripe mango from the tree outside our house and sat in a chair over looking the sea and just listened to the tucans and howler monkeys, ate my mango and drank my home made coffee as I realized this will be my home for the next 2 years of my life and got a big smile on my face. So as for now I am excited to swear-in get back to my site and get to know the community a little more, and see where it takes me!
-until then, take care
Monday, May 4, 2009
Sight Visit
I returned from my technical visit today and it was by far the highlight of training to this point. I spent a week at a volunteer’s community near Los Chiles in northern Costa Rica. Her town is typical campo; small rural and wonderful. A town with all the necessities, a school, health center that’s open a couple days out of the month, one payphone, and 2 extremely small stores called pulperias. I stayed with a mother named Yorlone, Farther named Ruiz and their three year old named Olsvaldo. The majority of production that takes place there is cheese, yucca, and pineapple, along with other fruits and vegetables. As I look back on the week, I don’t think it could have gone better.
The first morning I was awaken by the very strange and unmistakable sound of the Mono Congos around 5:00am, having been informed that there were Holler Monkey in the area I did what any person who had never seen a monkey in the wild before would; I went searching. And to my surprise with less than a 5 min walk I was right underneath a tree with 5 monkeys. (You should be able to see some pics) I also got the experience of milking cows, which if you haven’t done; it takes practice, making cheese, teaching English, practicing Spanish at the local school and giving self esteem / non-violence talks at the school as well. There’s only one small elementary school in the community. Kelsey the volunteer has helped bring a night high school to town twice a week but this is still a new concept of theirs. Most kids don’t go to school after 6 grade, which is quite sad. I also passed time by riding horses, swimming in the river, and jumping from vines into the river. It was amazing, and the last night after a tour of the jungle like atmosphere, the townspeople were nice enough to have a special dinner with carne asada that they got from a cow who conveniently for us died last week, lol. My family was super nice to me and saying good bye was hard for them, minus their volunteer, I was probably the second American they have gotten to know; that’s how rural this place is.
I know that my positive experience in her community is a reflection of the work and help she has put in. I only hope to have as well as relationships in my town that she enjoys in her community. This experience couldn’t have come at a better time. As some of you know the 29th was the 7th year anniversary of my brothers passing. It is a day that no matter how much time passes or where I am in my life; I remember and dislike. Usually, I am somewhere where I can have a beer with family and or friends, and even if we don’t talk about that day, it helps. This year was different, but not in a bad way, I might not have been with family but I was in a truly beautiful place to do some remembering as well as some good reflecting about my upcoming 2 years as a PeaceCorps Volunteer which leads to this Friday the 8th of May; my sight-assignment day; where I will learn exactly where I will be calling home for the next 2 years. Its crazy to think about, but I can’t wait. To celebrate sight assignment day, we rented a huge house with a pool this Saturday at Jaco Beach, which should be a kick ass time in itself, lol. Well until then, peace!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Agnostic Gringo in Costa Rica during Semana Santa
Well to start out, I hope everybody had a nice Easter with family, friends, or loved-ones. I wish I could have teleported myself home to eat some good old mom’s cooking; I’m sure it was great mom! But there will be many more Oregon Easters to come so missing one or two will not be the end of the world. Anyway, on to my stories; I’m looking at this experience as an opportunity to try new things and see others’ perspective on life, so I’m keeping an open mind and jumping in headfirst. So as holy week approached I was invited to partake in traditional Costa Rican holy week activities, which I gladly accepted. The Sunday before I went to my host relatives home in a somewhat more rural area to make Miel de Cheverre and miel de coco (2 delicious customary Tico desserts) Cheverre is a vegetable that most likely resembles a watermelon from the outside and inside is stringy unflavored substance. We took machetes to the cheverres and got all the eatable substance into a huge caste iron wok looking thing that was filled with water and built a fire underneath it. We let that boil for a good 45 mins occasionally stirring it and then emptied the water. Next we put about a kilo of dulce (basically brown sugar) in with the Cheverre and stoked the fire once again. We walked through their garden and collected some orange tree leaves and cloves to add to the sweet mixture. We let that cook for a while and finally removed the leaves to get to the finished product; which my host cousin and I happily licked each leaf like it was a spoon with batter from cookies back home. My cousin´s name is Puala she´s studying pharmacy in the University. Her family is real nice, her dad owns a coffee plantation and that night we watched Slumdog Millionaire (translated to “Quien Quiere Ser un Milionario” who wants to be a millionaire) which I hadn’t seen and was really good even dubbed in Spanish, no wonder it won all those Oscars! Later we made Empanadas de Cheverre and put it also on Arroz con Leche (rice with milk), which was muy rico.
Costa Rica happens to be a Catholic country so holy week is no god damn joke; they have the entire week off. No school all week and the few businesses that are open, are only open till Wednesday. After that the busses don’t even run. This might be one example of why things just take longer to get accomplished down here; the pace is much slower. Unfortunately the United States Government doesn’t agree so we had training until Wednesday. It was nice to have some time off, some friends and myself jugamos bola (played soccer) and Frisbee in the local field. I also used this opportunity to spend more time in a church than I have my entire life, minus skate church of course. I’ll be honest here, I lied to my host family; my uncle asked me if I believed in god in a manner that there was only one right answer. He asked this after just talking about how loco somebody was in the community for being 7th day adventagist, how Jewish people are weird and wrong for not believing Jesus is their savoir, and how gay people are going to hell. I saw how incredibly closed minded he was so the last thing I wanted was to stir up a lecture on religion; so I said, “of coarse I believe in god”. When in reality I don’t really think I believe in shit! Why should I believe in Christ, Buddha, Allah, or the Feathered Serpent (the Mayan god, who had a more concise calendar than we use now thousands of years ago) In my personal opinion religions are foretold by a combination of factors including; location, genealogy, and social-economic status. Take Costa Rica for example; this region was conquered by catholic missionaries and religion has been passed down from family to family. Let’s not forget that it is a relatively poor country. It’s no coincidence that developing nations have a higher amount of religious constituents. There are indigenous communities in parts of the world who do not know who Jesus Christ is, and that is just fine. They do not need to be saved; they’ve gotten this far, they’re doing all right. As for gays, I think that their desires are weird and different, but it shouldn’t condemn them by any means. I am fully aware that this is a huge stereotype, but I had to say it anyway. Probably for the fact that I sit back and watch people prejudge others here on their religion, which I do not agree with. What really matters is the quality of your character, and that can originate in any religion or non-at all. This is also not to say that the Catholic religion is not a positive aspect here, I just had to rant for a bit. On the contrary, the vast majority of people in semi-rural Costa Rica that I have met show very positive morals, many that far exceed those of my own. All in all, my religious experience here has been interesting, I have no idea when to sit or stand in church, went on four processions, two of which depicted the crucification of Jesus. One guy walked about a mile with a large wooden cross on his back and then they actually put him on an even bigger cross, minus the nails of course. And this was in the heat of the Costa Rican sun. (I should have pics showing this) In the end the processions were actually very interesting and I am glad that I got to see them, it was an experience that I won’t soon forget. I did have a funny incident that occurred during this holy week; after going to “bastante” masses at the church one day we decided to play some ball in the local field, afterwards we went to the “Super Corazon de Jesus” (Super Heart Of Jesus) the local grocery store get something to drink. And a beer sounded mighty nice, but unfortunately I was unaware that it is illegal to sell beer or booze during holy week. This was a big bummer; but I survived.
Ok enough holy week talk… Going back to a week ago Saturday, I got my first tourist experience in Costa Rica. My host dad being the director of the school had planned a fundraiser to go to Jaco beach. If you don’t know what Jaco beach is its one of the more popular beach destinations in Costa Rica and filled with gringos. He told me about it a few weeks prior and said there were some open spots so I should invite some other trainees. Not wanting to over extend the welcome I told two other trainees about it and they were excited to finally get to see the beach. I had actually gone to a beach in Guanacaste the week before while visiting a volunteer in his site, but this would be for the entire day. To my surprise my host dad informed me that there were 12 spots on the bus and he wanted me to fill them, so I was able to invite 9 more people to spend the day at the beach. So my friends were pretty stoked with me and more importantly my host dad. It was a 4 hour bus ride each way and we left at 4:30 in the morning but all totally worth it. The water was warm and the sun was even hotter. We tried to keep as much Peace Core issued 30-sun screen on as possible but inevitable some of us gringos got burnt, my back was a little pink, but others turned out like a lobsters. At lunch I got some ice cream with some friends and enjoyed some shade. We got talking about how weird it felt to be in probably the touristiest beach in Costa Rica. Up until this day, we had been kept so busy that we had not been able to experience any of the tourist spots. Even there in Jaco Beach where we probably heard more English than Spanish it was weird because we might have looked like tourists, but we’re not and we’ll be here for another two plus years. Which is crazy to think but also great to know I should have time to see some of Costa Rica’s beauty. Around 4:00pm I decided to pay about a dollar to rinse off the sticky salt water and sand that I had been playing in all day and decided to have a cold beer with a friend before sitting in the bus for four more hours. I don’t think one beer had ever tasted so good!
The other day I was over at a fellow trainee’s house named Kyle but the town has renamed him el gigante (the giant) because he’s 6’5’’ which is taller than 99.9% of ticos. He’s got a cool family as well, his host sister speaks really good English and has been in the US a few times; she’s a manager for HP computers and only 26 years old. Her older brother lives behind their house in a house that would be considered nice in US standards and likes to plays soccer with us. Ricardo’s twin daughters are 11 years old and along with the grandma are probably the cutest people I have met. They also took pleasure in showing us their neighbor’s gallinos de pelea (Cock fighters) and explained how the neighbors fight and sell the roosters. Cock fighting is illegal in Costa Rica but this isn’t the first time I have heard about it, so I’m not sure how much that rule is enforced. (I should also have some pics of the roosters)
Well that’s what I have been up to lately so nothing too exciting but I’m still enjoying it! This Saturday I am looking forward to a dinner dedicated to welcoming our training group and saying goodbye to Tico 16 a group that is finishing their service. Afterwards we all rented rooms at a hotel in San Jose called the Royal Dutch, which is supposed to be a great time when all three groups get together, there’ll be about 100 of us gringos there. On the second floor there’s a casino and a bar on the third floor so needless to say it shouldn’t be too hard to have a good time. All right, until next time, pura vida mae!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Tuesday, March 31
Tuesday March 31, 2009
Well, I made it back from my first sight visit with no problems and had a great experience! Saturday morning I took a 4-hour bus from San Jose to Liberia the Capital of the Guanacaste region, which here in Costa Rica is there Cowboy country. The bus ride was nice, a 27 year old Tica named Marybeth sat next to me, who was on her way to Coco beach where she lives and goes to college. She was very nice like many Costa Ricans I have met and while I wasn’t able to sleep the conversation in Spanish was pleasant. At the end of the bus ride she gave me her email address and phone number and preceded to tell me to call her if I’m ever near Coco Beach, which I thought was very nice of her. From there I switched busses and made my way to Cuajiniquil a rural fishing village in the northwest part of the country only about a half hour from the boarder of Nicaragua. This is where a current volunteer was waiting for me. His name is Rob and he has been in Costa Rica for about a year in the same program as myself. So it was nice to get an idea of some of the things I could be doing in my future site.
Upon arriving at the fishing village Rob asked if I would be interested in watching the Mexico vs Costa Rica soccer game, which I gladly obliged. We ended up getting invited to the local bar to watch the game with a local fisherman named Cola who is also part of the development committee and has befriended Rob. Unlike most Ticos Cola is a big man; well over 6 ft tall and broad shouldered. During and after the game we chatted over some beers with Cola and some other locals. Trying to understand slang fishermen bar talk was somewhat challenging but a good experience. Throughout the night I was taught to pretty funny Costa Rican sayings that I will not soon forget. Although it was a fun night, Costa Rica lost. Towards the end of the night we were invited to a development meeting in the morning so we elected to call it a night so that we could wake up without a hangover for the meeting. We tried to split the tab, but Cola would not have it and payed for all of our beers, unnecessary but a nice gesture.
Sunday morning we went to the 9am meeting at another fisherman’s house at 9:30 to be on Tico time(Ticos are notorious for being late); where there were 8 people discussing different upcoming projects. The most interesting was a project that will help the community with tourism. They are receiving 4 boats that have been donated to put into use as scuba diving and snorkeling tour boats. I had heard about these Costa Rican meetings where people just sit around and talk for a few hours over coffee and snacks but don’t get a lot accomplished except for planning another meeting. So it was a good experience to see first hand.
Afterwards we made it back to Rob’s house where we where trying to cool off in the shade of his front porch (Guanacaste is also one of the hottest regions in Costa Rica) when a truck pulled up looking for us. It was a man named Alvero (but he said I could just call him Al, lol) He has to be the funniest Tico I have met. He reminded me of Ed Brower for those of you that know Ed; you probably get the idea. Al and his wife own the one hotel in town that is a nice little bungalow kind of thing that specializes in snorkeling, kyaking, and other tours. He had a busy night the night before at his hotel but all his clients had left that morning so he was looking at it like a day off. His wife had left to go hike the tallest pike in Costa Rica Mt. Chirripò where on a clear day you can see both the Pacific and Caribbean seas (A goal of mine). We didn’t have much planned for the afternoon so it wasn’t to hard to convince us to come back to his hotel and sit outside in the shade to watch the Brazil vs Ecuador soccer on his flat screen tv game and drink Casique with him. It turned into a very enjoyable and needed afternoon with some delicious shrimp pasta, sediche (a lime cured fish platter), and guaro. Al even tried to get us to stay in one of the air-conditioned rooms, although tempting in the 90-degree weather, we elected not to. He also wanted to take us out snorkeling the next day but we had work to do. So we said our goodbyes and walked back to the house I was staying at to take a cold shower before trying to sleep in the blistering heat.
Monday Morning we had to take some blue prints for the community center into Liberia to the DINADECO office. DINADECO is the national development association that gives money to a lot of development projects in Costa Rica. They will be my counter-part and a very good resource to get to know for my own experience. So needless to say I was happy to go to the office and get some sort of an idea of how things work. We brought the plans that Rob has be working on and just got the money approved to start the construction. I enjoyed learning about this sort of infrastructure project, and could see myself helping on a similar project if necessary in my future community.
Around the heat of the day we arrived back in Cuajiniquil and took the employee at the DINADECO office’s advice and made our way to the beach! It’s about a half hour walk so we were very ready to jump in the ocean once I saw it! The beach we went swimming at was another beautiful Costa Rican view of a national park and an island that would have made a great picture. I even brought my camera this time but realized when I went to take a picture that although I had brought the camera I left my memory card in my lap top back at my host family’s house so that was a disappointment. After swimming a baking in the sun for a couple hours we decided to make our way back to town to prepare for and English class we were supposed to teach. The walk back made us pretty thirsty and we were looking forward to chugging some water when we got back to the house, unfortunately this rural town has some problems and one of them is that sometimes you cant count on having running water. And that was the case when we got back. Luckily there was a bottle in the fridge, but we would have had a couple more glasses if there was more. Hydration is a concern for me, it seems like the locals in Costa Rica don’t drink any water only coffee and refresco, or agua dulce (a sugary water drink that I’m not a fan of). And personally I drink a ton of water and I think my host family thinks this is weird that I would rather have water than a sugared down refresco, lol. Anyway the point being, I’m trying to stay as hydrated as possible.
So Monday evening as we were preparing English class with no running water, when power went out. So some of the problems that plague the poorer parts of Costa Rica are unstable power and water systems. I have seen power surges at my host family’s home and at the retreat center but this time it was more like a long nap than a surge. The lights went off around 5pm and didn’t come back on till after 9pm. Needless to say we weren’t able to teach an English class, when the lights go out people don’t really do much of anything, so we sat around Monday night talking to some locals in the dark.
Tuesday morning I woke up and made my way back to San Jose by about 2:00pm. I stepped out of the bus terminal and thought to myself, “wow, it looks like it might rain”. And sure shit, it did, hard! Luckily for some reason I packed a light rain jacket that was easily accessible and that came in handy. It didn’t help that I was wearing shorts and Chaco’s. I had about 15 blocks to walk from the bus terminal to a different bus stop that would get me back to my community of San Juan Sur. It rained the entire walk and my shorts were soaked, but my jacket did its job and my backpack got its first passing test in a tropical rainstorm. I did learn that standing in soaking wet shorts for an hour and half packed bus ride is not fun. But there happened to be about 10 other trainees who had made it back from their trips to different parts of Costa Rica who were just as uncomfortable as me. It was interesting to hear how they liked their visits to other volunteers as well and I think the consensus was that the majority had positive trips, so that was reassuring.
All in all, I had a great weekend! I traveled by myself to a rural community to see some positive things that the PeaceCorps does. Not to mention I saw a community who had completely accepted a gringo, which is comforting and a future concern of mine. As well as got a chance to relax and have a little fun, which was really necessary since they have been keeping us real busy in training. I just hope that when I get my assignment I will be accepted and help make a difference with my community. Ok, I have rambled on enough…
-Hope you enjoyed it!
Well, I made it back from my first sight visit with no problems and had a great experience! Saturday morning I took a 4-hour bus from San Jose to Liberia the Capital of the Guanacaste region, which here in Costa Rica is there Cowboy country. The bus ride was nice, a 27 year old Tica named Marybeth sat next to me, who was on her way to Coco beach where she lives and goes to college. She was very nice like many Costa Ricans I have met and while I wasn’t able to sleep the conversation in Spanish was pleasant. At the end of the bus ride she gave me her email address and phone number and preceded to tell me to call her if I’m ever near Coco Beach, which I thought was very nice of her. From there I switched busses and made my way to Cuajiniquil a rural fishing village in the northwest part of the country only about a half hour from the boarder of Nicaragua. This is where a current volunteer was waiting for me. His name is Rob and he has been in Costa Rica for about a year in the same program as myself. So it was nice to get an idea of some of the things I could be doing in my future site.
Upon arriving at the fishing village Rob asked if I would be interested in watching the Mexico vs Costa Rica soccer game, which I gladly obliged. We ended up getting invited to the local bar to watch the game with a local fisherman named Cola who is also part of the development committee and has befriended Rob. Unlike most Ticos Cola is a big man; well over 6 ft tall and broad shouldered. During and after the game we chatted over some beers with Cola and some other locals. Trying to understand slang fishermen bar talk was somewhat challenging but a good experience. Throughout the night I was taught to pretty funny Costa Rican sayings that I will not soon forget. Although it was a fun night, Costa Rica lost. Towards the end of the night we were invited to a development meeting in the morning so we elected to call it a night so that we could wake up without a hangover for the meeting. We tried to split the tab, but Cola would not have it and payed for all of our beers, unnecessary but a nice gesture.
Sunday morning we went to the 9am meeting at another fisherman’s house at 9:30 to be on Tico time(Ticos are notorious for being late); where there were 8 people discussing different upcoming projects. The most interesting was a project that will help the community with tourism. They are receiving 4 boats that have been donated to put into use as scuba diving and snorkeling tour boats. I had heard about these Costa Rican meetings where people just sit around and talk for a few hours over coffee and snacks but don’t get a lot accomplished except for planning another meeting. So it was a good experience to see first hand.
Afterwards we made it back to Rob’s house where we where trying to cool off in the shade of his front porch (Guanacaste is also one of the hottest regions in Costa Rica) when a truck pulled up looking for us. It was a man named Alvero (but he said I could just call him Al, lol) He has to be the funniest Tico I have met. He reminded me of Ed Brower for those of you that know Ed; you probably get the idea. Al and his wife own the one hotel in town that is a nice little bungalow kind of thing that specializes in snorkeling, kyaking, and other tours. He had a busy night the night before at his hotel but all his clients had left that morning so he was looking at it like a day off. His wife had left to go hike the tallest pike in Costa Rica Mt. Chirripò where on a clear day you can see both the Pacific and Caribbean seas (A goal of mine). We didn’t have much planned for the afternoon so it wasn’t to hard to convince us to come back to his hotel and sit outside in the shade to watch the Brazil vs Ecuador soccer on his flat screen tv game and drink Casique with him. It turned into a very enjoyable and needed afternoon with some delicious shrimp pasta, sediche (a lime cured fish platter), and guaro. Al even tried to get us to stay in one of the air-conditioned rooms, although tempting in the 90-degree weather, we elected not to. He also wanted to take us out snorkeling the next day but we had work to do. So we said our goodbyes and walked back to the house I was staying at to take a cold shower before trying to sleep in the blistering heat.
Monday Morning we had to take some blue prints for the community center into Liberia to the DINADECO office. DINADECO is the national development association that gives money to a lot of development projects in Costa Rica. They will be my counter-part and a very good resource to get to know for my own experience. So needless to say I was happy to go to the office and get some sort of an idea of how things work. We brought the plans that Rob has be working on and just got the money approved to start the construction. I enjoyed learning about this sort of infrastructure project, and could see myself helping on a similar project if necessary in my future community.
Around the heat of the day we arrived back in Cuajiniquil and took the employee at the DINADECO office’s advice and made our way to the beach! It’s about a half hour walk so we were very ready to jump in the ocean once I saw it! The beach we went swimming at was another beautiful Costa Rican view of a national park and an island that would have made a great picture. I even brought my camera this time but realized when I went to take a picture that although I had brought the camera I left my memory card in my lap top back at my host family’s house so that was a disappointment. After swimming a baking in the sun for a couple hours we decided to make our way back to town to prepare for and English class we were supposed to teach. The walk back made us pretty thirsty and we were looking forward to chugging some water when we got back to the house, unfortunately this rural town has some problems and one of them is that sometimes you cant count on having running water. And that was the case when we got back. Luckily there was a bottle in the fridge, but we would have had a couple more glasses if there was more. Hydration is a concern for me, it seems like the locals in Costa Rica don’t drink any water only coffee and refresco, or agua dulce (a sugary water drink that I’m not a fan of). And personally I drink a ton of water and I think my host family thinks this is weird that I would rather have water than a sugared down refresco, lol. Anyway the point being, I’m trying to stay as hydrated as possible.
So Monday evening as we were preparing English class with no running water, when power went out. So some of the problems that plague the poorer parts of Costa Rica are unstable power and water systems. I have seen power surges at my host family’s home and at the retreat center but this time it was more like a long nap than a surge. The lights went off around 5pm and didn’t come back on till after 9pm. Needless to say we weren’t able to teach an English class, when the lights go out people don’t really do much of anything, so we sat around Monday night talking to some locals in the dark.
Tuesday morning I woke up and made my way back to San Jose by about 2:00pm. I stepped out of the bus terminal and thought to myself, “wow, it looks like it might rain”. And sure shit, it did, hard! Luckily for some reason I packed a light rain jacket that was easily accessible and that came in handy. It didn’t help that I was wearing shorts and Chaco’s. I had about 15 blocks to walk from the bus terminal to a different bus stop that would get me back to my community of San Juan Sur. It rained the entire walk and my shorts were soaked, but my jacket did its job and my backpack got its first passing test in a tropical rainstorm. I did learn that standing in soaking wet shorts for an hour and half packed bus ride is not fun. But there happened to be about 10 other trainees who had made it back from their trips to different parts of Costa Rica who were just as uncomfortable as me. It was interesting to hear how they liked their visits to other volunteers as well and I think the consensus was that the majority had positive trips, so that was reassuring.
All in all, I had a great weekend! I traveled by myself to a rural community to see some positive things that the PeaceCorps does. Not to mention I saw a community who had completely accepted a gringo, which is comforting and a future concern of mine. As well as got a chance to relax and have a little fun, which was really necessary since they have been keeping us real busy in training. I just hope that when I get my assignment I will be accepted and help make a difference with my community. Ok, I have rambled on enough…
-Hope you enjoyed it!
Hello everybody from San Juan Sur
Thursday March 26, 2009
Well hello everybody from San Juan Sur, Costa Rica! I’m writing from my host family’s house up here in the mountains about 1.5 hours from San Jose (where I will save it to a flash drive until I find some internet). I really lucked out with my living situation in my training community. I live with the principle of the local school Don William, which down here is just about the most respected person in the community. Along with his wife Dona Yorleny and their children Francisco or better known as Franciscito. (Costa Ricans put “ito” or “ita” on just about anything to show that something is small or young) who’s 10 and Nazareth their daughter who’s 14. The family is great, they are as nice as it gets and their food is good as well. I think the mom is trying to fatten me up, but she says that she only has 3 months then I wont be ably to eat much because I will be in a much more rural and poor barrio. I usually eat fresh fruit along with rice, beans (Gallo Pinto) and an egg for breakfast, more rice and beans and a salad for lunch and a small soup or more rice and beans for dinner. Alone with the family is 5 dogs including Bruno my favorite who’s only 3 months old, a parrot, 8 little birds, a rabbit, and 40 chickens / roosters. So as Nazareth put it, their home is a zoo, lol. The house itself is actually very nice for the community, minus the cold showers but I’m getting used to those and even starting to think they’re refreshing. Between our house and the surrounding family members houses we have just about every fruit and vegetable imaginable, and there are lots down here that I have never seen or tasted up in the states.
The Tica mom takes pride in cooking and doing the chores so its fairly hard to even dish my own plate for dinner let alone do my own laundry, she even irons my tee-shirts. But I try to help out as much as possible. Their customs here are much different from those back home. Family comes first here in Costa Rica above all things. For example my immediate family goes to church every Saturday night together, while my host dad’s mom and sisters go Sunday evenings and he gladly drives them and picks them up (a whole half mile away), as well as walks up to his mothers house ever night to talk to her and other family members over cafecito. Even as late as 9:30 after an hour and half bus ride from San Jose he takes most nights of the week because along with being a principle he’s also in Law School studying to be an attorney.
This town is beautiful it sits up in the mountains outside San Jose, which on the other hand is in my opinion ugly, crowded and sketchy for us gringos. Up here we have a supermarket, school, church, and a few little stores, along with even an internet café, which is slower than 56K, if you remember dialup. (WOW a quick interruption, a BIG ASS spider was just crawling up my leg, that’s another thing I have to get used to, lol) So San Juan Sur is the third town in a string on 4 communities that our Rural Community Development program is split up in. There are about 5 trainees in every town. I can fairly easily walk to 2 of the other communities where some of my friends are at, but when people do meet up its usually in my town, because we have the only internet café and its in the middle. My week starts out on Monday and Tuesday with language training in my town where I’m trying to improve my Spanish, which is a necessity if I’m going to be able to interact with the community in my future site. Four other trainees and myself have one language facilitator as the PeaceCorps calls it. Her name is Karla, and she is very supportive and that helps out a lot. It also doesn’t hurt that she is a beautiful 25 year old Tica. Wednesdays myself and the other trainees take the bus to Jerico, the 1st town in our string of communities where we have technical training with the other Rural Development trainees in ingles, which is nice. There we learn more about what rural community development is and usually have a current volunteer tell us about their experience. Then Thursday is back to language training with Karla in San Juan Sur. And Fridays we have to make the journey to San Jose by bus. There we meet for safety training with all 52 trainees in country from all 3 programs. Which is nice to see some other faces that I met and became friends with at the retreat. It’s a relief when I go to San Jose that I’m in the RCD program because I know that I wont have to live in San Jose. The city is not a pretty place and from the sounds of it, it can be more dangerous than the rural areas, and the people aren’t as eager to talk to you. Last Friday we learned about all the horrible things that have happened to volunteers in the past. Its good to learn about because we do stick out like crazy down here and bad things have happened, but its sort of depressing to learn about muggings and sexual assaults on a Friday afternoon. Needless to say as much as everyone wanted a beer in San Jose, we decided to get back to the safety of our RCD communities…
Last Saturday we had more training in San Jose so Sunday was our 1st day off since arriving in Costa Rica. We all were very happy to have it! I started my day a little later around 8:00am, which is surprisingly late with all the noise from the animals (They’re all outside, but between 40 roosters and barking dogs, and the strong Costa Rican sun; that’s late!) I took a jog to the neighboring community, which got the sweat going that makes cold showers more tolerant, a little trick I found out quickly. Then I played a little Soccer with Franciscito. In the Afternoon I met up with a few friends who came in from the neighboring town and went to something similar to a Saturday Market. After that Don William was nice enough to drive the visiting trainees back to their town, which saved them a 20 min walk. He actually took a detour for us and drove 15 min up even further into the mountains to a viewpoint that is up there for one of the best in my life! Miles and miles of rolling Costa Rican mountains, forests, and coffee plantations. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera so I wasn’t able to photograph the view, but it was amazing. While we were there some clouds came in and we could feel the mist as they rolled by, this was the first and only moisture I have felt since arriving. Everyday I would say its around 70-75 degrees and sunny, in the evenings clouds come in and make awesome sunsets in the mountain range, I’ll try to photograph this phenomena but I think that it will be hard to capture it.
Saturday I take a 6 hour bus ride up to a rural coastal town in Guanacaste by my myself to visit a current volunteer and stay with him until Tuesday. This should be an awesome experience to see what an average volunteer’s day is like. I actually met the volunteer last week he happened to be a guest speaker in my training class on Wednesday. He seems like a cool guy so it should be fun, interesting and helpful. I just hope I get there around 5 in the afternoon that’s when Costa Rica plays Mexico in a soccer match, which is one of the most anticipated games of the year. I do know that his sight isn’t too rural and will have tv’s around to watch the game. So ‘si dios quiere’ (if god wants) we’ll be able to watch the game. I’m excited to go to this sight but kind of bummed on the other hand because from what he has told me is its an unusually large community around 2000 people unlike some rural sights that I would have to take a couple hour boat ride to and definitely couldn’t count on a tv, lol. I do have a couple more sight visits in training so I’m sure I will get to see what I can expect to get for my sight. Nevertheless, I’m stoaked for this viaje.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Made it to Costa Rica!
Well, for those who made it to my going away party last Sunday and or those at pizza this Sunday afternoon, thank you! Even though it was very hard to say goodbye, I’m extremely thankful I was able to see all of you. After leaving Old Chicago I still had to go home and pack the rest of my luggage that I will need for the next 27 months, in a beer induced haze. I managed to pack very well, there has been only a very few things I have remembered that I forgot; one being my Nalgene water bottle and the other being my Rudy Jersey that my sister bought me for my Birthday. (By the way Fuck the Lakers for taking out my boy Rudy in the game the other night. My roommate and myself saw highlights last night on SportsCenter while we couldn’t sleep before out 1:30am checkout time in DC) Anyway, back to my trip, well both my forgotten items and any others can be mailed to me once I figure out my next address.
My parents and sister drove me to the airport Monday morning (actually, I drove… it will be the last for quite some time) and was a mixed emotion event. After a tear filled goodbye I got on the plane and it headed east. I sat next to a very nice doctor who talked more than me from Corvallis. He was on his way to DC as well for a conference. At our short layover in Chicago, he repeatedly told me how much good it was of me to be doing this adventure and offered to by me lunch. I tried to say no but he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I’m not going to lie; it did feel good to see a stranger have so much respect and appreciation for my upcoming service.
I arrived in DC around 6:00pm Monday evening and took a shuttle to my hotel. After checking in at the hotel I picked up a map and was about to get on my way to go see the monuments when I noticed three girls about my age looking like they might be volunteers as well. So I struck up a conversation and my assumption was correct. They too wanted to go see the Monuments and off we went. It was a very clear night in DC that made it a perfect night to sightsee. I was very glad to come in a day early to get that opportunity; the majority of our training class did not. Tuesday we checked out the DC Zoo and had lunch before our orientation started. By the time we arrived back at the hotel it was packed with people who were in the exact same boat as me. During the orientation I met the rest of the 51 other volunteers I had yet to meet and then about 15 of us went out for pizza and beer before last minute repacking for our five day retreat we would be going on once we landed in Costa Rica.
So at 1:30am, myself and the other PeaceCorps volunteers checked out of our hotel in Georgetown and headed for the Regan International Airport to fly to Miami and then San Jose, both flights were a haze between sleep and thought of my upcoming activities. When we arrived at San Jose, around noon, it was about 75 degrees and sunny which was a nice additive for no sleep. There were 3 buses and a large enclosed truck waiting for us along with PeaceCorps employees. After loading a ton of baggage into the truck we boarded the medium size buses and dove about an hour into the mountains for our retreat where I am writing this entry. It is a beautiful place that sits upon a steep hillside. This is where I will be till Sunday when I will move in with a family at an unknown location for my next 11 weeks of training. I believe this is a nice retreat that is actually a treat before moving into what will most likely be a much more underprivileged residence without the luxuries of the internet, a courtyard, sports, lots of people and relatively good food.
I had a great trip arriving here. It is very pretty, birds are constantly chirping and everybody in my training class is very nice. I can already imagine I will meet some good friends for a long time to come. This afternoon something very interesting happened, I was laying in the shade talking to some friends when we felt the ground shake! At first I had know idea what was going on, and then I quickly realized it was a small earthquake. Nothing major, but the ground shock for about 10 seconds very slowly. To be honest I liked how it felt, lol. Our program director came outside a few moments later and informed us that there was a large earthquake somewhere in the Pacific this morning and that was an aftershock. Interesting to experience on my first day here, Since I have never felt one. I’m sure it wont be my last, but hopefully they will all be as non-harmful. Well, after a long day I need to take what I am told will be a cold shower, so this is adios amigos! I’ll update you all probably after I move into my training village but it might be a week or two before I get a chance to find Internet (my village wont have it).
Love you’ll and take care, I’ll do the same!
-Leif
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The beginning is in sight....
Hello everybody and welcome to my first blog, personally I've never been a blogger but I'll try just about anything once, and also think it will be a great way to let my friends and family in on my life as a Peace Corps volunteer. So here I go.
Well, first off I should explain a little on why I have chosen to become a volunteer. I was fortunate enough to have been born in a country where basic needs are not only met but exceeded. On top of that resources are available to all. Unfortunately, for millions around the world that is not the case. So to better appreciate the fortunes in my life I have chosen to serve for 2 years for the Peace Corps in Costa Rica.
This has been an ongoing process that I have been striving at for quite some time now. 2 years ago during a Spanish class at Oregon State University a guess speaker spoke to our class about her experience as a PeaceCorps volunteer, and that got the thought rolling. After much thinking, reading, and a couple more PeaceCorps presentations I decided to apply. After completing the application process and interview I received the news that I had been nominated to serve last April. It wasn't until the beginning of December that I got the actual news that I had been invited to serve and that is when I learned I would be serving in Costa Rica. I was told a few days before in a phone conversation with a placement specialist that my Invitation was in the mail, but I did not know the country I would be serving in. So when I opened my Invitation kit and immediately saw the words "Buenos suerte en Costa Rica" in handwriting at the bottom of the first letter, I became even more excited. I would have been satisfied and relieved with an invitation to any country but this was my 1st region of choice and having received a Spanish degree at OSU I fell like it will be beneficial to have some knowledge of the language prior to arrive. I wouldn’t call myself 100% fluent by any means, but I will be able to get by much easier than if I didn’t speak Spanish.
So here’s my timeline….
-March 9th I fly to Washington DC for a staging event where I will meet the other volunteers that are headed to Costa Rica as well.
-March 11th our flight will depart for Costa Rica
-March 11th - May 29 I will be in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital for Pre-Service Training
-May 29th – May 30th, 2011 are my actual dates of service.
So now you might be wondering what I will be doing in Costa Rica. Well, I do not know exactly so I’m not going to lie to you. My job title is Community Development Volunteer in the Rural Community Development Program. A lot of the info I have received is fairly broad, but here is one quote out of my Assignment Handbook that describes the focus of the RCD program. “Our program focuses on communities with the lowest human development indicators in Costa Rica and we work with local community partners to help them exercise a greater role in raising the standard of living and improving their lives through these three goals”;
1: Organizational Development
2: Increasing economic opportunities in the rural areas
3: Enhanced education
So after training I will be sent to a rural town of around 500 people. And that will be my home for the next 2 years. I will have very limited access to communication in my town but periodically I will try to venture to a larger city with an internet café to update this blog thingy. And during training I should be able to find access to internet as well.
I’m super excited and stoaked for this opportunity but at the same time, I’m going to miss A LOT of things. So here’s a quick list-
-My friends and family (I have the best of both, you’ll know who you are and mean the world to me!)
-My dog Lucy (who’s sitting right next to me right now)… Lol, I could be the only person in the world that could miss her because she’s a little crazy, but I love that damn dog and I’m really lucky that my parents will take her in.
-Portland!!!
-SNOW!!!!
-Camping
-Dirtbiking
-Rafting
-And basically all other adventures that I like to get into
Well, I have rambled on enough, anyway I’m leaving in just about a month and probably wont update this till I’m actually in Costa Rica and hopefully have something new and exciting to say. So until then, Cheers!!!
Well, first off I should explain a little on why I have chosen to become a volunteer. I was fortunate enough to have been born in a country where basic needs are not only met but exceeded. On top of that resources are available to all. Unfortunately, for millions around the world that is not the case. So to better appreciate the fortunes in my life I have chosen to serve for 2 years for the Peace Corps in Costa Rica.
This has been an ongoing process that I have been striving at for quite some time now. 2 years ago during a Spanish class at Oregon State University a guess speaker spoke to our class about her experience as a PeaceCorps volunteer, and that got the thought rolling. After much thinking, reading, and a couple more PeaceCorps presentations I decided to apply. After completing the application process and interview I received the news that I had been nominated to serve last April. It wasn't until the beginning of December that I got the actual news that I had been invited to serve and that is when I learned I would be serving in Costa Rica. I was told a few days before in a phone conversation with a placement specialist that my Invitation was in the mail, but I did not know the country I would be serving in. So when I opened my Invitation kit and immediately saw the words "Buenos suerte en Costa Rica" in handwriting at the bottom of the first letter, I became even more excited. I would have been satisfied and relieved with an invitation to any country but this was my 1st region of choice and having received a Spanish degree at OSU I fell like it will be beneficial to have some knowledge of the language prior to arrive. I wouldn’t call myself 100% fluent by any means, but I will be able to get by much easier than if I didn’t speak Spanish.
So here’s my timeline….
-March 9th I fly to Washington DC for a staging event where I will meet the other volunteers that are headed to Costa Rica as well.
-March 11th our flight will depart for Costa Rica
-March 11th - May 29 I will be in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital for Pre-Service Training
-May 29th – May 30th, 2011 are my actual dates of service.
So now you might be wondering what I will be doing in Costa Rica. Well, I do not know exactly so I’m not going to lie to you. My job title is Community Development Volunteer in the Rural Community Development Program. A lot of the info I have received is fairly broad, but here is one quote out of my Assignment Handbook that describes the focus of the RCD program. “Our program focuses on communities with the lowest human development indicators in Costa Rica and we work with local community partners to help them exercise a greater role in raising the standard of living and improving their lives through these three goals”;
1: Organizational Development
2: Increasing economic opportunities in the rural areas
3: Enhanced education
So after training I will be sent to a rural town of around 500 people. And that will be my home for the next 2 years. I will have very limited access to communication in my town but periodically I will try to venture to a larger city with an internet café to update this blog thingy. And during training I should be able to find access to internet as well.
I’m super excited and stoaked for this opportunity but at the same time, I’m going to miss A LOT of things. So here’s a quick list-
-My friends and family (I have the best of both, you’ll know who you are and mean the world to me!)
-My dog Lucy (who’s sitting right next to me right now)… Lol, I could be the only person in the world that could miss her because she’s a little crazy, but I love that damn dog and I’m really lucky that my parents will take her in.
-Portland!!!
-SNOW!!!!
-Camping
-Dirtbiking
-Rafting
-And basically all other adventures that I like to get into
Well, I have rambled on enough, anyway I’m leaving in just about a month and probably wont update this till I’m actually in Costa Rica and hopefully have something new and exciting to say. So until then, Cheers!!!
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