Thursday, September 10, 2009

Siga Pa'lante! (Keep it going!)



August was jam-packed with events in my little town of Quebrada Grande. (It's really not that “grande”... :-) The month was kicked off by a beautiful local wedding that took place here in the small Catholic church. Helen and Evelio tied the knot on August 8th and I volunteered to be photographer for the ceremony and dance that followed in the salon. It was a very fun experience to note the different customs in weddings here. The mass and ceremony in the church was a traditional Catholic service with the pair sitting in fancily decorated chairs in front of the altar. The dance and party that followed took place in the town's salon comunal that was decorated in the color theme of light green and white. A DJ played a wide selection of music that mainly revolved around Costa Rica's kumbya, salsa, and marengue. In weddings here the first few dances are specifically for wedding guests to literally pay the bride and groom for a dance. People approach the newlyweds and pin money onto the the dress or shirt of the newlywed to “pay” for a dance. This is a way of gift-giving to help the new couple start their life together. After taking a plethora of photos I participated thoroughly in the dancing.

Costa Rica Mother's Day took place in August and my English class made cards in English and a big poster to post in the Church during the mass. They all traced their hands onto the poster and wrote a message to their mother's. At the end of August my class completed semester one of English. They had an exam that covered the basics of what we had learned in the previous 3 months. I am very pleased with their progress. To celebrate, we had a movie day. I brought my computer and we watched Hollywood Chihuahua in Spanish and ate palomitas (popcorn). Semester 2 starts this month and will end in December for the holiday vacation. I will then lose three students to the colegio in Los Angeles, but gain 2 new first graders.

The encampamento of men's soccer has started. Every year a few of the surrounding communities (Quebrada Grande, San Bosco, Por Venir and Los Angeles) participate in a 3-4 month soccer competition. It's sort of a tournament amongst the teams that lasts for the duration. Every Sunday three games are played in one of the communities. They are all fairly close so the trek isn't too tough. There is a raffle to determine which teams play each other on any given day and points are tallied depending on the final score. In December there will be a winning team and probably a prize. I have truly enjoyed these Sunday games because I've gotten to know other communities, I love watching soccer, and I am able to help with run the festivities when games take place in Quebrada.

As for my own soccer interests, I have recently been asked to join a women's team out of Juan de Leon, which is located down the mountain near Coyote. It's a little far, but there unfortunately is no real organized team up here in the Los Angles/ Quebrada area. I am working to organize that myself, but the population of women interested is just not big enough here at this point. So, I said yes of course to the team and participated in my first game with the ladies last weekend. It was a blast and I have now realized there are many women's teams down the mountain and further south into Puntarenas that are talented and competitive.

I attended an all-day meeting in Juan de Leon one day with Quebrada's Comite de Acueducto. It was a meeting of many surrounding communities to learn about possible opportunities to obtain a new water system for each respective town. This project by far will be the most trying almost completely due to the incredibly high cost. But Quebrada is in desperate need of a newer system. We suffer from frequent water outages and the constant fear of unhealthy and dirty water.

I finally concluded my diagnostic report on my community to present to both Peace Corps and the people of Quebrada Grande. Forty-some pages of text, graphs, and statistics all in Spanish took a lot of time and effort. I feel that it has been worth it to get this information into an organized format both for my own benefit and for the community see their home in a tangible way. I will be presenting the information to the community this month at a meeting a will host.

Work continues in the Vivero de Orquideas in which we work weekly to ensure the growth of beautiful natural Costa Rican flowers in hopes to sell to tourists in the future. Also, we have made great progress in the trail blazing for rural tourism. I enjoy the walks up through the jungle myself on occasion and we recently added flowers along the sides of the trails in many parts. These and the howler monkeys make for a great Costa Rican jungle ambiance.

I attended a week-long retreat and meeting for Peace Corps last week in San Jose. It was a wonderful time to catch up with fellow volunteers, share all our similar and differing stories, and receive more training on a wealth of different things. I was very glad to receive training on a few new different types of funding opportunities that may be utilized for projects in my community. We also spent a day at Centro Cultural, a facet of the Costa Rican Ministry of Education where we learned of a possible program for adult English classes that includes a strict schedule and books. This might very well be a better organized method for me to teach English to the adults in my community.

I am continuing with weekly soccer for girls on Tuesdays. Also, some of the leaders of the community started a group for the elderly of the community in which every Wednesday there will be charlas on health, art classes, or games to offer events for the elderly of the community. Dia de Adulto Mayor or Day of the Elderly is in October and we are planning a fiesta with bingos, games, and music.

And still in planning phases for the future is the weekend sports camp, an environmental day/ community trash clean-up activity, and a drug prevention activity for the youth of the community. These projects and others have come to my attention as beneficial for the community in my three and half months here in site and I feel community members are very energetic for new things.

On a personal note I am absolutely loving my jungle paradise. Daily hikes with my canine companion Shakira, strong new friendships, and of course soccer, keep me energized to help work for all the goals I think this community wants to accomplish.