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

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!