Thursday, June 2, 2011

Starting my new Peace Corps era


Here it is June already and as most of my friends and family know, I have received the job as Peace Corps Volunteer Leader in San Jose for the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) project. It is a year extension during which I will assist the TEFL program staff, office tasks and administration, and most importantly, the volunteers in Peace Corps Costa Rica. Currently I am in training with 4 other peers who represent the projects Rural Community Development (Dina, also my roommate), Community Economic Development (Theresa), Children, Youth and Family (Morgan) and Environmental Initiative (Kyle). We are all settling into our new lives in the city with relative ease. Those of us who have come from drastically rural sites have embraced the hot water and lack of bugs and mud. But I know I will also miss the small town feel of Quebrada Grande and its community members. I’ve traded in my easy going tranquilo lifestyle for the world of office work and a 9-5 desk job. But the work is still rewarding and interesting. Twenty-five percent of my time will be dedicated to an outside organization such as an NGO or other non-profit that shares goals with my project. Each volunteer must foster a relationship with such an organization and dedicate time to working with them and for them. My organization is called Costa Rica Multilingue (http://www.crmultilingue.org/) , an organization that strives to create a higher level of English fluency in Costa Rican citizens in order to create job opportunities. The Peace Corps TEFL project is completely in line with the goals of this organization and this is why they will become my counterpart work. I will also assist with trainings and volunteer support issues when necessary. The current TEFL group is about to reach their mid service point, which will indicate a necessary training, and then a new TEFL group (Tico 23) will arrive in February.

I have moved into a 2 bedroom apartment with fellow PCVL Dina that is located only yards away from the Peace Corps office building. Living in San Jose is both more costly and dangerous than living in the rural areas of Costa Rica, but I feel mine and Dina’s setup is the best it could be and I’m loving the ease of constant internet and sidewalks.

In my last months of service as an RCD volunteer in Quebrada, I packed as much in as I could. I finished the 3 month long boys youth group entitled Chicos Poderosos and we took a hike up to Los Pinos with a picnic to celebrate. I participated in a sex education youth day in Santa Cruz with fellow Guanacaste Peace Corps volunteers. We each brought 4-6 youth from our communities and with funding from the US grant money PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDs Relief) were able to give a full day of sex education sessions with a variety of formats and information.

I participated in a large community fundraiser for the new Catholic Church in Quebrada. We held a Cabalgata, to horse show at which lots of delicious food was served while the cowboys of the area rode up on horseback to compete horse techniques and aesthetics. I wore cowboy boots and a western checkered shirt that was the “uniform” for the girls helping.

The following weekend Priscilla and I went to the National Voces Valerosas young women’s conference in San Jose. Priscilla won a position in the VV magazine for a collage she made representing women in the work world of rural Costa Rica.
We then held the second annual Kids Soccer Camp. This year we won funding from a Kids to Kids Grant and were able to hold the event free to all kids in the community while also giving each an event t-shirt. The male youth again volunteered to be the leaders of the soccer sessions, teaching kids soccer techniques and participating in the games and activities. We also ended with the famous water balloon fight which inevitably gets out of hand but is far too popular to cancel.
In early April my sister came to visit and we spent a few days down on my favorite beach, San Miguel, which was nearly void of people. It was quiet and peaceful and more than once we had the entire beach to ourselves. I bid farewell to the American owners of the bar/restaurant, telling them that my visits would no longer be frequent. But I am sure I will return there as it has become one of my favorite places.

Near the end of April was the Volunteer Action Committee (VAC) dinner- a very famous yearly event that falls during the time where there are the most volunteers in country. It was held right before Tico 19 volunteers began to pack their bags and fly out, and during the pre-service training of the newest group in Costa Rica, Tico 22. The VAC “dinner” always ends up turning into a wild dance party as there are so many people coupled with loud music and some delicious beverages. And for we Tico 19ers, it was our last hoorah before the majority went back to the real world of the USA. Some volunteers are extending for up to a year in their current sites, while a few of us moved to San Jose for the leadership positions. But it was definitely the last time we were all together as our unified group, and it was full of emotion. The RCD tico 19ers (17 of us) went out for a special goodbye dinner as some volunteers left in late April, and the rest left throughout the month of May. We listened to each other’s future plans consisting of immediately starting grad school, starting a new job, or just heading home and moving in with the parents until something exciting comes along. Those of us taking the PCVL positions still must say goodbye the way of life of the previous 2 years as a change from a rural environment to the hustle and bustle of the city and its busy work life is a large change even if it doesn’t consist of moving out of the country of Costa Rica. We RCD 19ers each filmed a short video clip in which we said goodbye to our peers and then our group techy Penelope made a slide show of pics from our two years of service that ended with the video clips of each. We all watched it together the night of the dinner. Tears were shed and about a million hugs were shared.

In my last few days in site I took the long hiking trip over the mountain to the beach just because I had wanted to do it for so long. I also went to southern Costa Rica where I met up with fellow volunteer Jessica Robinson to explore San Gerardo de Rivas and the Cloud Bridge National Reserve at the base of Chirripo, the tallest mountain in Costa Rica. I completed my English classes and youth groups, and began saying farewell to my community members. I requested a replacement volunteer and Austin Slaughter of Austin Texas came to visit in early May as a possible volunteer for the site. He instantly loved it just as I did two years ago and I was instantly confident he was the perfect volunteer to continue in my place. He started on May 16th and quickly became very active with the community Association and shared with me many feasible and wonderful project ideas he has for Quebrada in his two years of service. We overlapped for about 15 days before I finally took the final leap and moved the remainder of my things out of Quebrada and to San Jose on May 30th, leaving my dog (who I will miss as much as many community members!) with Maikol and his family who agreed to adopt him.

Before I left I was given three going away parties by different groups of people of the community. First there was the community association who had a little afternoon barbecue and presented me with a small and thoughtful plaque of recognition. Then the ladies and girls of both Quebrada and the neighboring town of Quebrada hosted a soccer game in my honor and offered me a toast over a whole lot of food they brought. And finally, the male youth of the community (who I probably feel the closest due to our almost daily contact playing soccer in the plaza and hanging out at the pulperia) told me their goodbye’s at a bar in the neighboring town of Los Angeles over lots of music and lots of beer. I danced the night away and took millions of pictures so as to never forget these once shy and quiet guys who somehow became my best friends.

Peace Corps has been a long journey that really isn’t quite over yet. But I’ve known for a while that it is time for a change and saying goodbye is always the hardest part of starting something new and exciting.

MY NEW OFFICIAL MAILING ADDRESS

PCVL Kristen Woodruff
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 1266- 1000
1000 San Jose, Costa Rica