Corcovado; Costa Rica's True Wilderness Area

I believe I mentioned in my last blog that after we finished the basketball camp 3 fellow Peace Corps volunteers and myself decided to take an adventure into the wild…



The adventure was composed of Daniel Buffington (a volunteer from Seattle Washington who despite studying at U Dub is has become a great friend of mine down here) Kyle Grieffe (A tall lengthy volunteer who hails from Denver Colorado) and Angelo Concocalis (who is from North Carolina) and myself. Dan, Kyle and myself lived in the same training community in San Jose for three months with another female volunteer and became very close throughout training only to be Separated as far as possible by the PeaceCorps with our assignments. Lope (Penelope Kim) lives on the Nicoya Peninsula in Guanacaste, Kyle lives almost in Nicaragua in San Carlos, Daniel lives on the Bri-Bri indigenous reserve in Talamaca on the Carribiean side, and of coarse I live here in San Luis of Perez Zeledon in the Southwest part of Costa Rica. Despite being from the Peace Corps group a year after us Angelo fit in good with us on our trip.



This backpack trip had been talked about since training almost 2 years ago, for those who don’t know Corcovado National Park is Costa Rica’s most remote and biologically rich region. It’s the largest remaining patch of virgin lowland rainforest in Central America, and takes up most of the Osa Penisula. Jaguars, Crocodiles, Scarlet Macaws, Tapirs, Wild Bores and all 4 of Costa Rica’s Monkeys call this place home. I’ve even heard that is could be the most biologically diverse place in the world. So needless to say it was on my to do list.

The difficult thing about Corcovado is its remoteness. It’s only accessible by feet, boat, or plane. Wanting to get the most out of the experience and doing on a PeaceCorps budget we had decided that hiking would be the only way to fully see all that it has to offer; and that was a great choice.

After staying with Morgan and Jerred Clouse a married couple of volunteers who put on the Basketball camp in San Isidro on Saturday January 22 we took a 5 hour bus ride to La Palma a town just outside Puerto Jimenez and that is where the journey began. A volunteer named Laura Trinkle lives in La Palma and although never having done the journey she was a great help with putting us in contact with a hostel and driver that we would need the next morning. Sunday morning we started off at 4:30am in the back of a 4x4 truck we needed to get to Los Patos ranger station. After an hour and half and a dozen river crossings with the truck we made it to the ranger station to check in and start our 20-kilometer hike to La Sirena Ranger Station.

Being somewhat concerned about the heat of the lowland jungle, we had been hydrating ourselves since the night before and on the way to the ranger station in the truck. The ranger station was the last place to fill up water until we reach La Sirena. I filled up my 32 ounce Nalinge bottle I had already drank that morning and still had a 42 ounce bottle of water I bought at a grocery store the previous day (by the time I reached La Sirena both would be drunk).

The rangers informed us that we should stay on the trail because they would be very reluctant to come rescue lost tourists and warned us about a recent Jaguar sighting and snakes we should watch out for. The hike started off exactly how we were told a mile and half of steep uphill hiking but with the added distraction of mud. It had rained hard a day and a half before and being a thick jungle the sun doesn’t enter to dry the land out, within an hour we were covered in mud, slip sliding all over the place. One nice thing about this hike was that the sun didn’t hit us directly, which made Kyle’s super duty sunscreen irrelevant but kept the temperature tolerable. As we walked through the jungle we took in the beauty and the size of native hardwood trees, Scarlet Macaws, spider, white-faced and howler monkeys were also seen. At numerous spots we saw tracks in the mud of varies animals including the wild bores. At one point I saw something fall from the trees and next thing I know some monkey shit lands two feet away from me… I guess white-faced monkeys have a habit of throwing feces at people and one almost got me. The hike was great but our packs were heavy and we were very happy when we finally got to our destination after 8 hours of hiking.

La Sirena is a Ranger Station/research facility and was a lot nicer than we imagined. After hiking 20K in the shade we finally saw sunlight and freshly mowed grass. The station came to view and as we looked down to the right there was a long strip of grass that leads to the beach and doubles as a landing strip. I had just gotten my pack off to enjoy the view when Angelo says “lawn match” and tries to tackle me. Quickly he regreted this decision saying he forgot that I wrestled and that I was really sweaty and smelly (which was very true). There were a probably 25 people at the station most lounging around reading or hiking the trails looking for wildlife. Most were European, a few Canadians and a handful of Americans and Ticos. We realized we were by far the least equipped and youngest group being one of the only groups without a guide or the nicest equipment REI can buy. (We all hiked in shitty tennis shoes)

After re-hydrating and checking in with the park rangers we decided to go check out the beach. Miles of untouched beaches surround the park and at sunset the view was worthwhile. We got back to the station where there was a deck with a roof that people can camp on. Knowing that in advance I choose to hike in my Peace Corps issued mosquito net instead of a heavier tent. We set up the nets and then enjoyed our dinner of cold bean and corn burritos with fresh avocado and salsa I packed in. The food hit the spot and we ended the night with a game of hearts accompanied by my travel size friend of Ron Cortez (cheap Panamanian Rum).

We woke up the next day to howler monkeys in the neighboring trees and spent the day checking out the abundant hiking trails around Sirena. Tortillas with bananas and peanut butter made for a nice change from our cold burrito diet. In the afternoon we checked out a local river at high tide and got a glimpse of bull sharks feeding on fish at the mouth of the river. It was somewhat an unsettling thought knowing that the next morning we would have to cross the same river… Dan and I headed back early and got lucky to walk upon a Tapir resting in the grass. It was another checkmark to add to the wildlife seen.

In order to get to La Leona Ranger station there is a river crossing about a half hour after leaving Sirena. After checking the tide chart we thought it would be wise to get there at 8am in order to successfully cross the river without danger of sharks or getting swept out to sea. We got there a little early and I volunteered to check the depth, I took off my pack and walked into the river at the mouth of the ocean. Immediately I was swimming over my head, getting drug out to sea. We then thought it would be smart to wait for the tide to go out a little more. After waiting and trying numerous times more, we started to get frustrated. Dan who is very accustomed to crossing rivers on the indigenous reserve made it across the river swimming and would have been difficult with his pack. After over an hour of waiting and watching the water slowly drop, Angelo who had the smallest pack got tired of waiting and went for it. He made it across mildly getting his bag wet. I double bagged my camera and followed suit. Shortly later Dan and Kyle were across as well and we could continue our journey.

The hike from La Sirena to La Leona/Carate is quite different from the hike in from Los Patos. This part was longer at 24-kilometers and despite being hotter it was actually an easier hike. Instead of the lush rainforest that we hiked in on, the hike out when along the peninsula and for the most part hugged the beach, so it was much flatter. Its difficult for me to say which part I enjoyed the best, they were up there with a couple of the hikes I have done in the Grand Canyon with beauty or even better. The views were spectacular. At one point we were hiking on a sandy trail just inland from the beach and I saw a paw print. I pointed it out to my friends and we all were in agreement that it looked like a big cat print. Sure enough about a half-hour later we caught up to a guide with to hikers asking us if we saw the 2 pumas on the trail. This grayish cat is almost impossible to catch a sighting. A male and female puma crossed their path and the male one even stopped, stretched, and starred at the hikers. They said their excitement turned to fear quickly and were happy when he decided to leave on his own. I asked the guide how long it had been since he had seen a puma in the forest. He said over 2 years. These two hikers from New York City were very lucky; unfortunately we were not. We were able to see 3 types of monkeys, dozens of types of birds, wild pigs, Tapirs, Pizotes, ant-eaters, wild central American turkeys, and even fins of bull sharks; It was by far the most wild animals I have ever seen in my life on one trip.

We hike for 7 hours to get to Carate where we got lucky and a garbage truck was leaving for Puerto Jimenez. We were hiking in the same dirty smelly clothes that we had hiked in with, so the garbage truck seemed perfect instead of waiting two hours for a slower collection truck. The ride took an hour off of the time to get to Puerto where we immediately caught a bus back to the Palma. Now it was afternoon everybody had just gotten off work and the bus was hot, and crowded; we were the only gringos and from the reactions around us, I think we smelled pretty bad. The first thing we did back in La Palma was get a couple of cold victory beers and then went back to the hostel to shower. It was a good end to a great trip that I will not soon forget.

Basketball Camp Perez Zeledon, January 2011

One of the reasons why I don’t update my Blog more often is for the fact that I haven’t been as busy as I would like to be, so I guess I should explain what that means and why that is. I live in a town with some really nice, caring people and I am very happy I was placed here and I wouldn’t change the experience that I have had for anything. During training we were asked what sort of town we would like to be placed in. I said the most rural town possible, that I didn’t mind being alone and far from other volunteers. I also mentioned that working with children especially teaching was a goal of mine. So in a sense PeaceCorps placed me exactly in a town I described. By far I live in the smallest town that of the 150 volunteers in Costa Rica (My friend Dan lives in a town with more people but far more cut off having to cross a river without a bridge to leave his town on the Bri-Bri indigenous reserve) within the three communities I work with there is probably less than 150 people within a 10-mile radius. In other words it is very spread out over the most mountainous terrain in Costa Rica. It’s some of the most beautiful country I have seen not only in Costa Rica but also of the world that I have seen. This is another reason why there are so few people; a majority of my town has sold to “gringos” and moved to other parts of the country where is easier and cheaper to farm. My town was formed 50 years ago by farmers who couldn’t afford land anywhere else; now their land is worth much more than the places they left from. This makes getting support for development projects a little slow because very few families see themselves staying for the long haul. For those reasons I wont be advising PeaceCorps to send a volunteer to replace me (teaching English is the main desire for my town so I am planning to contact World Teach for the possibility of one of their volunteers). At my closing of service conference in February I have to start getting my paperwork in line to come home and that is when we would recommend a volunteer but for the lack of community groups/individuals to work with, unfortunately I wont be recommending my town. I just feel that other communities could take a better advantage of having a Peace Corps Volunteer.



With that said I just had one of my most rewarding weeks in country last week with a basketball camp. A few Youth and Family Development volunteers that live near the center of San Isidro planned a weeklong free basketball camp for all kids interested. The majority of kids that came were from the volunteers’ town and most of them are “at risk” youth. We had about 150 come to learn how to play basketball and around 15 volunteers came from all parts of Costa Rica to help out. I, being such a good basketball player volunteered to help with the youngest kids from 5-8 years old. For such a young group the little ones did very well, but we had to be creative because unlike the older kids, the 5-8 year olds don’t want to practice basketball all day long. So we ended up taking them to a park with a playground and doing lots of group activities as well. I even got to show my art skills and do face and hand paintings on the kids. Most the girls just wanted stars, flowers or rainbows; which I perfected quite well. One boy came up and told me he wanted a semi truck painted on his hand. I thought it was a very unique and different than the girls’ paintings so I gladly puff painted a sparkly 18-wheeler on his hand.

It was an awesome fun filled positive week for children that don’t have opportunities to get out much. I was kinda sadden that no kids from my towns came in but I live in the “campo” and its coffee picking season and the children have to pick coffee so in their parents eyes an educational basketball camp was out of the question. I posted signs and told all the parents about it (even saying I would accompany them on the bus) but wasn’t surprised when nobody came. I stayed at the facilities with the other volunteers the days that I didn’t have night English class back in my town. Its always fun when we get a bunch of volunteers together to go out and have dinner or a beer or two. After the camp some of the more athletic volunteers played a game against the Perez Zeledon Division 1 basketball team and actually won. Most the volunteers who played are exceptional athletes 3 of them played college sports and one pitched minor league for the Yankees (he ended up rolling his ankle on a rebound and after a trip back to San Jose and an x-ray found out it was broken) That being the only downer to the week.

After the camp finished three of my buddies and I took a remarkable backpacking trip into the heart of Corcovado National Park (supposedly being the most biodiverse place in the world) and that trip belongs in a blog of itself, with lots of pictures so it should be up soon. If you want a preview to it you can read my buddy's blog at coclanis.blogspot.com he talks about our trip and a visit he took to my town and the are some good pics...

Made it to Costa Rica, again...

Hello my family, friends, and few random people that read strangers’ blogs no offense intended.

So I’m writing this in the middle of August 2010. I came back to Cost Rica about couple of weeks ago and finally settled back into the way of life here, which as I have probably mentioned is way different than my life back in Portland. By the way, my trip home went better than expected, whenever I go home or talk to my family and friends I realize how much I have to look forward to when I come home for good. The only problem is that it makes it even harder to leave that comfort for support. And for an unexplainably reason it was even harder to leave this time. As somebody put it, its “bittersweet”, but that’s life and I am excited to finish what I have come to Costa Rica to do. It’s also crazy to think that I could be home as early as 8 months from now.

So all this made me think, shit I still got a lot to do and I know from other volunteers’ experiences it goes by quick. My remodel on the school is done, but where is the Internet and public phones? This was one of my main goals when I arrived here and time is now a concern. I did receive a positive email after my 10th letter I have written on the subject to different government institutions that basically said that my school was a priority due to the fact that my community doesn’t have a house lines, a public phone or cell service worth a damn. But still waiting, things take way too long; I now understand why Peace Corps is a 2-year commitment. I know the town will receive the satellite dish and phones, it would just be nice to see them implemented while I am still here.

My English classes are going good, before I was teaching 2 classes, twice a week for the School in Ceibo but only one class (all grades 1-6) in San Luis twice a week as well. I have now separated the youngest in both schools so that the older kids can learn more which is especially important for the handful that will go to high school and the few that might make it further to a University.

Waiting, waiting, it seems like I’m always waiting... So I guess its a good thing I teach English because now we are waiting on a couple of engineers to come and inspect a bridge that’s in bad condition and also another creek where a bridge is super necessary. We cant cross the creek when it rains, which isn’t so much a problem for me, but for others that live on the other side it could be a very big danger during an emergency. Oh, also waiting on an engineer to inspect our water tank to see if a filtration system is necessary.

So if you know me, or have listen to me ramble I don’t like to wait and do nothing. So while I am waiting on those projects that may or may not bloom in the next half year or so. I decided to write a proposal to try and build a playground for one of the schools I work with. It would be nice for those who don’t like to play soccer. I’m writing this proposal to the same institution that give us 6,700,000 colones or over 13 thousand dollars for proposal I wrote last year for their cemetery. I would feel pretty good about helping kids get a playground in their community so wish me luck.

Oh, one last thing... I scored a goal to help my town beat our biggest town rival in a soccer game last Sunday. As much as I dislike soccer it does feel good to score goals...

Ok, well that’s all I have time for now, I will put some pics together of my remodel and post them next week, I just got a call from Peace Corps to come to San Jose next Friday for a training session for some new volunteers, so I will have internet for a whole night, lol. Ok take care,

oh, and I met the President of Costa Rica today, that was unexpected. She showed up at a meeting I went to in the City...

-Peace
Leif

Finnally an update...

School Garden-

One cool thing about Costa Rica is it’s awesome climate for growing foods. I personally have next to nothing experience with gardening, but I quickly realized that growing vegetables in Costa Rica is a breeze. This probably has to do with the tropical climate, nutrient packed and relatively new volcanic soil, and also an abundance of cow and chicken shit to use as fertilizer. The photo above I took from a green house I started with the school kids in my town it’s a couple months old (now the whole green house is full). The actual structure of the green house was already there but needed a few reparations because it had been abandoned five years ago when the ex-teacher retired and moved away. Unfortunately, the new teacher didn’t want to keep the garden in the curriculum for the kids. However, he was open to the idea if I worked with them. People my age from the town remember taking care of the garden being their best memories from their school days, and my goal is to bring that back.

We have planted tomatoes, lettuce, celery, green beans, radishes, carrots, beets, chilies, cucumbers, cilantro, and papaya trees outside of the green house. The kids love it so far, especially because now they eat the same vegtables they planted everyday during lunch. It’s a cool learning process for the kids (and me) and can stick with them for the rest of their lives. It’s also healthy; sadly the majority of the locals don’t grow much of their own veggies for consumption, especially ones with good nutritional value. Resulting, in the majority of meals being heavily rice and beans with sometimes eggs or meat but no veggies because they’re expensive to buy. This garden should change that problem at least in the school. The school’s cook likes the changes and is working with me as well; my hope is that she can keep it going when I leave to be something sustainable for the kids.



MOPT materials

If you have been keeping up with my blog, you might have heard me talk about some materials that MOPT (ministerio de obras publico y transporte) Ministry of public works and transportation) donated after I wrote a solicitation. Below are a couple pictures of the kids from the school in my town (one of two schools I teach English in). The first two pics are taken inside the old school room. You can notice cement (55 bags), wood, paint, a toilet, plywood and hardboard, and square metal bars for security on the windows. We’re in the process of remolding the school and kitchen. Community members that don’t have a salary-paying job (they only make money during the months of picking coffee) are doing the work and getting paid with a program I solicited from the Ministerio de trabajo (Ministry of work). So the project is pretty cool because its bringing a little extra money to families that could use it and when that’s complete, my goal is to get internet, some public phones and turn it into a computer center/library. But it’s a slow process, so I’m taking it one step at a time.



The next photo is of the same school kids after I gave a class on brushing their teeth. The supplies that they are holding were donated by Ashley Carl and the dentist office where she works, thanks again Ash, you’re awesome! In general, Costa Ricans consume copious amounts of sugar. With every meal instead of water they drink refesco, which is nothing more than sugar water. Costa Rica is also known for great coffee; unfortunately the locals will never be ably to taste the difference because they make their coffee extremely weak and very sugary. Needless to say most adults have lost their teeth and have dentures. Since I have given the lecture on teeth hygine the students in both schools now brush their teeth after lunch.

The other pics are of my buddy´s dog Rabito and of coffee I toasted.

I´´m a horrible blogger

Hello everybody and welcome back to my blog, sorry I have slacked off a bit and haven’t updated it in a while, I’ve just been enjoying my time here and haven’t really had time to write. SO, here I go, my town is finally starting to remodel the school with materials I solicited from a government institution; Ministry of Public Works. We´ve had the materials for a few months now but been waiting on the money for wages that I solicited from the Ministry of Work. I can happily report that we received the money and community members are starting the construction on Monday. If all goes well in a couple months the school will be prepared for the internet access and public telephones that I solicited about 6 months ago. Needless to say it’s a slow process, and when that happens I will start soliciting computers for a computer center, that’s my goal anyway. I also just got done writing a solicitation to the environmental government agency to get barrels to start recycling. I am sick and tired of watching everybody burn everything including things that don´t burn and just pollute. Costa Rica has to be one of the more developed countries PeaceCorps is in, So its projects like starting to recycle that could have a lasting effect on the community. And of coarse I´m still working away teaching English.

OK that is what´s going on in my professional life, I have also done some really cool things lately, including scoring my first goal in a soccer game (in my life I think, lol), went on a all day hiking adventure to two remote waterfalls and collected honey from a wild bee hive, it was intense, like harder than hiking out of the Grand Canyon. I also took a trip to Cajuita an awesome Caribbean beach in Talamaca, the culture there is way different and it was a really cool trip I took with 5 other volunteers. I have pics of the waterfall and some other cool stuff but still haven´t transferred them to my computer so expect another update with more photos soon.

Below should be a link to a cool blog a guy is writing that visited my town. There´s a couple pics of me and my buddy Deiner.

http://www.dreamcatcherimaging.com/blog/

Pura vida,
-Leif

Spending the Holidays Tico style
If you´re reading this you probably know that my family and some awesome friends made the journey down to Costa Rica in December to visit me. In order to save a little money the vacation ended a few days before Christmas. So I headed back to my town exhausted and ready for the slow pace of ¨campo¨ life. It was hard for me to think that it was Christmas, being in sunny and in the 80 and 90s. This Christmas and New years was very different than I had ever spent, but in the end, both holidays passed and I enjoyed them very much, but of coarse Oregon was on my mind.
Holidays in the boonies of Costa Rica involve a lot of killing… Don´t get scared nobody died, just a lot of animals, and boy did they taste good! It all started the 23rd when we killed a few chickens for the tamales that were really good. Here they grind up corn to make the filling, then put some rice, sweet pepper, and green beans in with a piece of Chicken. It’s then all wrapped up in a banana leaf and tied with vines and put in boiling water. They taste delicious and it’s cool that everything comes from the community, they grow or raise everything.
Christmas Eve was interesting I left my house at 5 in the morning to round up a cow that we were going to kill. I even felt bad a little; this cow was the tamest cow I have been around. I walked right up to it, put a rope around its horns and walked it to the creek where we shot it behind the head with the good old 38 special, Lol. I was holding a hind leg while we bleed it out in a bucket for its blood when it gave one last kick, luckily it got me in the shoulder and not the face or I would be missing a few teeth, lol. And of coarse, we never slaughter a cow without the proper toasting material; Guaro (alcohol) We had a shot after we killed it and a few more one we got it back to the barn to part it out. We cut the whole damn thing up into little pieces for the Christmas barbeque. The hooves, spine, intestines and other parts will be saved for soup.
The Christmas party was at my host dads parent´s house, about 50 people came and we barbequed, drank and let off fireworks, (some mortars, and quarter sticks of dynamite) it was pretty cool actually. The meat taste good, some better than others, I’m sure the more tender pieces were the better parts of the cow, but it was all mixed together so who knows what part I was eating. Oh, and the bbq is a little different, the put a couple blocks of cement down build a fire in-between and lay the back to an old refrigerator for the grill (the radiator part) Surprisingly it worked. One thing is for sure, they are resourceful.
New Years Eve was nice too. I few less people, another bbq, but this time with a pig, they killed a pig the day before so this time it was bbq pork, that I think I liked better than the cow, either way it was good. And some ceviche (fish cured in limon) and of coarse some more guaro and even some beers, which is a must for New Years. And there was even some karaoke going on inside, but I stayed outside in my comfort zone, I hate karaoke, in English let alone Spanish lol. In the end, my holidays went by very nicely.
Ok, well that was a quick version of my holidays in the Campo of Costa Rica. Hope all yours went by nicely!

Today is a bittersweet day…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Tortillas, flowers, cofee, and Cock fighters

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!