Still Sizzling in Costa Rica

Even though I´m in Costa Rica, I still feel the intensity and miss the excitement of football in February. I am not alone I found, and a sizeable group of Peace Corps volunteers decided to meet in San Jose on Superbowl Sunday for a little flag football in central park followed by watching the game and eating giant American style burgers and fries at one of the few “American” bar and restaurants in Costa Rica. It was a blast. Here we were, a group of about 20 gringos in the middle of rows and rows of soccer fields where curious Tico bystanders stopped their soccer dribbling to stare at this weird sport where you touch the ball with your hands. We had little orange cones set up as the end zones and were strapped up with belts and flags; devices I´m sure are rarely seen here. We played for a good 2 and a half hours, occasionally having to stop and kick a runaway soccer ball out of our small patch of land. Then we headed to the bar and I joined the group of New Orleans fans hoot and holler for the Saint´s while enjoying for the first time in nearly ayear real tomato ketchup instead of the sugary tomato paste Ticos use.
One weekend I made my way to Malpais, the somewhat famous tip of the Nicoyan Peninsula. It only took about two hours from my site and was worth the trip. Although tourism has nearly overtaken the shores with hoards of foreigners and expensive restaurants, there is some local artisan work and the beaches are gorgeous.
So we have a computer center in our town now, but it is not open yet and it does not have Internet. We do not have Internet yet for the same reason I have no phone; the ridiculous and sad excuse for the phone and internet company here called ICE. They are inefficient, disorganized, slow, and full of bureaucracy. So, we continue to wait for them to decide to install Internet to our computer center which is now equipped with 6 nice new machines. But when we do have it, I already have requests for classes on how to do basic word processing and Internet searches.
One Sunday I was invited to play softball with the sort of American club of retired gringos who live down on the beaches in their fancy beach retirement homes. I was the only female who played and the only person under the age of 45, but I had blast and played fairly well for never having really practiced the sport. I´m not too bad at catching balls in the outfield. Again I participated in a “strange Gringo sport” that was viewed by surrounding Ticos with mild mocking curiosity.
A fellow volunteer who lives not far from me in distance came to give a course on beekeeping to my community. We were at a Peace Corps meeting when I got to know him. He was in Paraguay for two years for Peace Corps already and he decided to do an extension transfer here to work with rural agriculture development. The course was excellent due to his immense knowledge on beekeeping as well as due to it being very hands-on with a demonstration of how to make a smoker, smoke the bees out of their hives and into a bee box, and then care for the combs in preparation for honey production. We made cardboard “beehives” for a more realistic demonstration, he used volunteers from the audience, and then answered every question with patience and a true knowledge of the topic. He also passed out copies of a well written packet (from Peace Corps Paraguay) detailing all instructions of the process and including pictures. Even I understand way more about beekeeping than I ever thought possible. Many women from the women´s association attended, but in addition, a lot of local farmers attended who are simply interested in adding this possibly lucrative and sustainable project to their personal land. Two days after Michael left I was informed that two of the attendees had already constructed a beebox , found the location of bees on their property and were preparing to extract them using the techniques they learned from Michael’s talk.
One weekend in March I had the pleasure of hosting Ms. Meredith Burgess, a Tico 20 RCD Peace Corps trainee. They arrived the first week of March, and just like me and my Tico 19 group did a year ago, they are making their way through the three month Peace Corps training. One of the parts of the training is visiting a current volunteer in his or her site to see firsthand what the work is all about. Meredith and I had a blast watching some local soccer games, visiting the beach below, meeting some community members, and running a session of my Chicas Poderosas youth group. She seemed to enjoy the experience and I hope it gives her some extra strength to get through the stress of training.
In sad news a fellow volunteer in my group, Georgina Garcia (my only fellow New Mexican in Peace Corps Costa Rica), has been forced to medically separate from the Peace Corps due to ongoing digestive issues. She will be the fifth Tico 19 volunteer to early terminate, and one of four that have left due to medical reasons. I am reminded how thankful I am for my health and the stomach of steal my mom passed down to me.
The time finally came for Tatiana´s wedding. After being postponed from February, my 21 year –old neighbor and friend tied the knot to her boyfriend of a year. I was the equivalent of the maid of honor and witnessed the stress and bridezillaness of the final hours of singleness. We cleaned and decorated the salon and the church of Coyote, the town below where the ceremony was held. And on the day of, I accompanied her to the salon for hair, makeup, nails and the dressing. Everything as usual was running behind, and I was the one who hastily pulled on the gloves, placed the earrings and necklace, etc. In the end, despite some disorganization, it was beautiful. The red, gold and white color theme was excellent, the ceremony was beautiful, and the dance and party afterward was a blast. She has now moved down to Coyote to live with her new husband where it is 15 degrees hotter, but only about ten minutes to the beach. I will definitely be visiting.

Guanacaste; the cowboy frontier

The Rains have gone and we are gradually drying into a dusty, hot and browning jungle. Maybe that sounds unpleasant for you, but to me it reminds me more of home every day; The Southwest with its rustic adobe desert laid out over a palette of browns and reds and oranges. I miss it sometimes and I swear I will forever call it home. But here is beautiful too. As leaves dry and fall to the ground in big heaps I am reminded of autumn in Colorado growing up. The only difference is it continues to heat up instead of cool down. This time of year here is called summer or the dry season while April through November is termed winter or the rainy season. Sounds simple, but I assure you the bustling wilderness that envelops every village and town keeps living here anything but boring and simple.
Projects are also bustling to life. I continue to teach weekly adult English classes, a course that is demanding and time-consuming for both teacher and students but offers a certificate of completion with the name of the well-known teaching institution Centro Cultural. I began with 19 students and am down to 15, but this is actually a better percentage of maintenance than many volunteers have. At the beginning of January I began a girls youth group called Chicas Poderosas. We meet weekly to discuss themes like self-esteem, nutrition and health, relationships, decision-making, and future goals. I have ten girls who are special and unique each in their own way and I truly enjoy the discussions and activities with them. The kids will begin school again in a couple weeks and I will start my English classes in corroboration with their classes. I will gain three little boys to first grade and lose three girls to the high school. That will be quite a change. In terms of infrastructure projects, we have three going in the town. First, the decades old church was flattened right after Christmas in December in preparation for the construction of a new, more modern building. Plans have been drawn up and we are beginning to collect funding to get the construction started. Next, Quebrada Grande will soon be home to a computer center… with Internet!!!! At least this is the hope. The town Association solicited for computers from an organization of the government and we will be receiving 6 machines shortly. The only catch is that we, the townspeople are in charge of assuring a secure location for the computers. We were able to get materials donated and we began the construction last week of the very simple building that is in front of the school. I organized a chart of work times for all the able-bodies workers of the community to donate work time to help complete the building rapidly. We should be done by the end of this week. And then I will begin giving basic (and I mean basic!) computer classes to both kids and adults in the community. The third project that I am in the works of planning is a new kitchen/ cantina and bathroom for the town soccer field. The one we have is extremely old, dilapidated, and in my opinion, unsanitary for cooking and selling food. The restroom too is incredibly uninviting. The Association has given my approval to move forward in writing the proposal to search for funding. I hope to have this completed by the end of the year. One more project I just got started on involves photography. It’s called Dog Meets World, (www.dogmeetsworld.org) a non-profit organization that was founded in 2008 to promote, educate and sustain appreciation of the fact that many people in the world do not have access to personal photographs. A previous volunteer in my area (Anna Meyers, Tico 12) came back to visit for a week in January. She brought with her this project which includes a totally sweet little digital printer with all the pieces (paper, ink, etc.) The idea is to educate kids about the process of the making of a photo while giving them their own personal photo as their property. To Americans, a photo of ourselves is incredibly easy to come by. We probably have thousands spanning throughout our lifetimes. But here in rural Costa Rica it is very rare to have more than one or two personal photos and even then, the kids themselves don’t really have ownership of them. This non-profit project is just getting started but it has already spanned across the world as world travelers bring along the compact printer with them on their trips abroad. Peace Corps Costa Rica is Dog Meets World’s first initiation of the project in cooperation with Peace Corps. The founder hopes to expand this and have printers circulating Peace Corps countries as volunteers initiate the project. I implemented the project first during my girls youth group and it went over fabulously. My second run will be when school starts this month and I can include all the community children.
In personal news I am the happy renter of my own home where I cook my own meals completely free of rice and beans. I now grow cilantro and oregano in my back yard garden and I am hoping to plant some veggies for the future. I am learning to cook a lot from scratch actually. I like to make my own tomato sauce, stirfries, and a bunch of different baked goods. I found a place to buy whole wheat flour in Nandayure and I make whole wheat pancakes. Totally delicious. The locals find it incredible I survive without rice and beans, and I just shrug attempt for the millionth time to explain that I need variety and especially vegetables to be happy and healthy. I have now gone two months and one day without consuming rice or beans, and honestly I still have no desire for the Tico traditional dish. One thing I have completely conformed to is the coffee tradition. I get free, fresh organic coffee from my neighbor’s farm and make it every morning and every afternoon for cafecito. I also always receive a bunch of fruits and sometimes vegetables from town members. Although I am not a big squash fan, it is good in a soup with garlic, cilantro and beef. As you can see, I have begun to enjoy the art of cooking, and experimenting, which go hand in hand. Without a TV, a car, a million commitments, I’ve discovered the goodness in slowing down and enjoying cooking and eating good food. But this certainly doesn’t mean I don’t miss New Mexican food, especially Frontier.
December and January are big party times here due to the rains stopping, Christmas, and the end of the coffee harvesting. I went to my first bull riding event and watched as insane men swung around erratically atop angry and lethal torros, a custom of the cowboy frontier of Costa Rica, Guanacaste. It was very exciting to see in real life. Thankfully and surprisingly, no one died. These fiestas also include bailes-dances where we shake our booties to meringue, kumbya and reggae. My parents and grandparents came for a week in December and my mom gave the kumbya a try with a local guy. I have pictures to prove she enjoyed it.
I recently took a trip to the Island of Chira off the east coast of the Nicoyan Peninsula. A Tica friend of mine has family there, so she and I along with two other friends rented bikes (the most logical and popular method of transportation there) and pedaled around the island. It was hot, tropical and everything you’d want from an island. I want to go back and spend the night in some woodsy cabins there that are run by the island’s women’s association. They are very organized and as their husbands continue with the centuries old tradition of fishing, the women have turned to local arts and crafts as they ignite the sparks of rural tourism. Gabriella, Nuri, Marjorie and I enjoyed very much our weekend trip and decided to start a little tradition of monthly outings for us girls. At the end of February we head for Playa Samara where Marjorie’s parents live to enjoy the beach and ride the horse’s her parents own. I am so thankful to finally have some girl friends here.
The first week of March (just around the corner) Tico 20 will arrive- the next bright-eyed and bushy-tailed group of Peace Corps volunteers to serve here in Costa Rica. I will host a volunteer for a site visit in April during their training and I am also a mentor to an incoming volunteer. I have already begun exchanging e-mails with her (a new and useful facet of the peer mentoring program PC initiated). How amazing to think this means I have been in this country for nearly a year. Wow. In some ways it has drug on tremendously. In others, I don’t know how it swept by so fast. Either way, I am doing well and have not yet lost the idealism and motivations that fueled my coming in the first place.

If it’s December, Where’s the Snow?

Okay so I am seriously slacking on the blog writing. Here it is Nov. 31st and I haven’t written since the beginning of October. I blame it on my lack of Internet access. Once every one or two weeks to the Internet café is quite a change from my previous lifestyle in which my gmail box was constantly open on the computer giving me a nice little alert noise when one e-mail came in. Well, those times have changed. When I get to the Internet I have a pre-written list that has been compiled over the previous week or two. This list can sometimes be quite extensive. It includes e-mails to specific friends and family, research over a certain project, picture posting of a recent adventure, etc. etc. I have actually been able to keep pictures reasonably up to date on Facebook, so hopefully all of my avid fans have been satisfied with pictorial news.
The big news is this: I move into my own rented house tomorrow, Dec. 1st. Woohoo! Finally my dog will have a place I can care for her without worrying she’s dirtying something up. Finally I will be able to decide if I want to eat giant piles of rice and beans at every meal of the day. Finally I will be able to enter my home and my room after 9pm without fear of waking anyone. Ahh, it’s like I’m 17 again, finally leaving the nest and going out on my own. Except this has been doubly hard because, oh yeah, I already did all that; college dorms, house with friends, apartment solo. But here there are 30-something’s living with mom and dad still. It’s partially culture and it’s partially economics. But anyway, my house is in the center of town, therefore safe with many neighbors. It is semi-furnished with beds in each of the three bedrooms, a couch, a couple chairs, a fridge, and the owner says he will soon be putting in a little washing machine for me. It’s a pretty large house, especially for one person, but I have decided this is a positive for when I start my girls youth group. We can have our meetings in the house and do baking activities, etc. I’m in the process of buying a few kitchen supplies like a mini oven, a blender, and a microwave.
English teaching is definitely my biggest project in terms of work. Once per week I teach a 3 hour adult English class. I have 19 students ranging from age 15 to 65. The class has a wide variety of levels as well, but I am very happy with the Centro Cultural program I’m using. It caters to every level in my opinion. Some students definitely catch on quicker than others, but there is a lot of group and partner work as well as games. We finished up semester two for the kiddos in the primary schools. I’m extremely happy with their progress. The only thing that saddens me is that I will be losing 3 of the students to the high school this coming February. The school year here ends in December and starts in February. I will be gaining three new students for first grade- three little hyper-active boys. This scares me a bit. I’ll admit I prefer teaching to the older students as they don’t have as much ADD. But I will just have to adjust, be creative, and do more interactive things with the younger ones.
My parents and grandparents are coming on December 9th for a visit. I am super excited and have already made a bunch of plans to incorporate them into community activities. We will have a fiesta for the kids English class where Grammie is going to bake Christmas recipes with us. Also my adult English class will practice their English with the group for conversational practice. There also happens to be our yearly town dance during the time of the visit. I can’t wait to see my grandparents dance kumbya.
I’ve taken several beach trips that are always a total blast. I now know the area quite well and the 4 or 5 beaches within a few minutes of each other in car. I went ocean fishing for the first time. My favorite part was finding the bait. Basically Ticos use this pipe thing that they make out of plastic tubes and they stick it into the sand where you see the little air bubbles. Then pull out the inner tube of the device really fast to create intense suction and the little alacran del mar pops out. Alacran del mar is ”scorpion of the sea.” But don’t worry they aren’t poisonous or anything like real scorpions. So you catch a bunch of those guys and stick them in a bucket, and when you have enough you thread one onto the hook of the fishing line. You walk out into the ocean about waist-height and lasso the fishing line into the water. Trying to get the line to real out was the hardest part for me. But I did it. So, I stood there for about three hours, didn’t catch anything, and got stung by a jellyfish. The group caught 4 fish, no thanks to me. But I did get my picture with one to put on Facebook for pride’s sake. I also went river shrimping one evening in Quebrada. You go when it’s dark and shine a pretty high-powered flashlight into the water. The shrimps’s eyes glow and they are temporarily blinded. This is when you have to stab them with this pitchfork thing. They are super fast so you have to get them when they are blinded. I got one of those dudes all by myself!
Early in November Peace Corps Costa Rica volunteers had a mandatory retreat up in the mountains. It was camping-style in tents and it was cold. But the three day event was a blast. I think it’s always good to go re-center yourself with fellow gringos who understand your culture, background, etc. We all shared stories of triumphs, disappointments, and failures in our communities. And it was a relief to hear many of my own concerns voiced by others. I must say though, I almost did not make it to the event due to rain and transportation issues. The road out of my town partially washed out and the one and only bus that leaves my site was cancelled. Long story short I used my extremely well-tuned survivor skills and excellent Peace Corps training to get myself to San Jose and then finally to the retreat site. I won’t even tell you the variety of transportation methods used.
My final topic for this blog is baby showers. Wow I feel like I have been to a million baby showers in the last couple months. Okay, so it was only three, but these things are serious here. Women are serious about their baby showers. And I guess I proved myself worthy because I was asked to help in the latest one (the third one). This is quite an honor. These baby showers go like this: It is planned secretly as to surprise the mother to be. Everyone gets to the house at a certain time a crouches within. Then it’s usually the poor husband who brings the woman home from errands, a trip, etc and leads her into the house to be shocked into premature labor by a group of 20 to 30 women who jump out and scream “sopresa!” Okay, so I have not yet witnessed the premature labor part, but it’s only a matter of time. So then the mother to be sits in a chair specially placed and prepared for her next to the table of gifts. She leads baby shower bingo, baby shower scavenger hunts, baby shower word scramble games, etc. while the hosts of the party take turns bringing out plates of little snacks and drinks for everyone. I was one of these servers in the last one. Oh, and of course I am always the photographer. This is a new addition to baby showers since I have come. There is also an interesting tradition of this milky vodka drink. It reminds me a white Russian but hardly has any alcohol and I’m not sure of all the ingredients actually. Someone gives a toast and we all drink it down with good wishes for the mother to be.
Life has a funny way of working out. Since being here, three community members have died (all elderly). And now we are waiting for the third baby to be born (due date is mid-December). So, thanks to nature I don’t have to change the population statistics in my community diagnostic-- just a little change to the ages. So I have been to three funerals, three baby showers, a wedding, and a first communion. And the fun only continues.

So maybe it´s not so easy...

So here's the basic update:
My womens soccer team got new uniforms. They are pink with our names on the back and totally cute. The only thing is that I am “Kristel” instead of “Kristen.” But hey, it's close enough for me and easier to pronounce in Spanish. I head down the mountain most weekends to travel with them to surrounding villages for games and it's a blast. Although it is far less organized than my soccer teams in the States, the pure zest for competition is the same, and my undeniable desire to win is most definitely respected among Ticos.

September 15th was Costa Rica Independence Day. The school children of each village pass a torch from one school to another representing the passing of liberation of the Central American countries. I did the hike with the kids in the early morning hours when the school kids of Los Angeles passed the flame to us. In the evening of this celebrated day was the march of the faroles. They are basically like New Mexican luminarias, but far more extravagant and they are made to be carried. People design all kinds of different shapes with amazing drawings, cutouts, and designs. Then they all march through the village with the candles within each farole lighting the way singing Costa Rican songs.

The women's group held a party for the Day of the Elderly on October 7th. We invited all the elderly members of the community for a luncheon, had a raffle to give away prizes and also nominated a “king” and “queen” to wear crowns and represent the group. It was wonderful to get some of the older members of the community out of their homes for some fun.

And now for the personal update:
The initial vacation feel has faded rapidly these last couple months. Everyone knows you can't be loved by everyone, but unfortunately I feel my job description pressures me to fulfill this lofty goal. I feel plowed over by cultural norms that I just can't adapt to, expectations that I just can't meet, and a feeling of helplessness in that I'm simply not the savior that seems to be expected. Where did this idea that Peace Corps volunteers are some kind of experts come from? We are twenty-something recent college grads with liberal arts degrees and a zest for life. We are experts in all-night study sessions, last minute thesis-writing, and multi-tasking. I don't know anything about orchids, coffee farming, paper machete art and a host of other things that are a way of life here both in work and hobbies.

I try to stay positive; both about the project possibilities here as well as about my own self worth. I know I'm a good organizer. That's part of the reason I am a rural community development volunteer. But wow is it hard to organize here. I planned a meeting Peace Corps calls a FODA in which an assessment of challenges, problems, positives, and hopes for the community are established through a host of different exercises with community members. I walked to every single house in my 156 person community to hand deliver invitations and give a little overview of what it would be about. Out of the 156 people, 21 showed up in total, 13 of which showed up on time, and 3 of which showed up in the last 15 minutes of the hour-long meeting. This is only one example of this community's atmosphere for organizing.

I know I'm idealistic. I mean, I think idealism is pretty much a feature of Peace Corps volunteers. If one follows pure logic, it is far too easy to slip into the pit of cynicism. But I guess I had this idea of what it would be to enter into a community who asked for me, went through all the paperwork and phone calls to receive an outsider to come in with new ideas and passions. This idea included people being passionate about events and activities that I planned, advertised, and specifically invited them to. It doesn't matter that during training we were told numerous times that everything is harder than that, that this culture is passive and non-active, and that everything takes longer to accomplish.

It's like this strange middle region of existence. I feel the pressure to accomplish things to show that I am useful and that I was sent here for a reason. At the same time I feel like I am unable to accomplish anything because I am a foreigner in this place, new to the laws, the customs, the norms and I therefore am simply unaware of how to motivate organization. It's as if all my education, my experiences, everything written in my resume and all my deeply thought out theories on life are void in this rural jungle village.

Patience is key I realize. Both with myself, this place, and specific community members. I have been in my site for almost 5 months. In the grand scheme of things this is only a blip on the time line and I can't expect myself to have established the confidence and relationships necessary to make huge changes so quickly.

The Meaning of Work

The Meaning of Work

I think it is well known that being Peace Corps volunteers is a very different type of work. It's a far cry from a 9 to 5 office job in front of a computer. Even back in the PC interview stages I was asked how I would deal with such a different work environment in which I must make my deadlines, projects, goals, even work hours instead of these things being delegated by a boss or office rules. I admitted it would be a different way of life compared to my agenda, list-making, schedule obsessed daily routine back in Albuquerque, New Mexico where I went from being an avid university student to a paralegal in a law office. Yes, it will be challenging I remember saying. And here I am waking up to daily chicken screeches wandering if a scheduled meeting will actually take place later in the afternoon and hoping that girls mejenga I've been planning for weeks will actually have more than 4 people in attendance. That's life in my rural Costa Rican town of 156 people. Not only is there a totally different attitude about scheduled group events, but there are just not that many people. I've begun to get this through my thick skull and shrug it off when things don't pan out according to plan.

But here's the thing about work I really want to emphasize; here in rural Costa Rica work is physical labor. Period. Work for men is agricultural; planting cultivating, growing, chopping and clearing plant-life, using machetes, shovels, bare hands and raw muscle. For women it's scrubbing, mopping, sweeping, raking, washing, using amazing arm strength and a seemingly unlimited reserve of energy. After watching my host mother beat the crap out of clothes in the pila on a daily basis, I'm pretty sure she could take me in an arm wrestling competition.

I certainly respect this physical labor that signifies my community and probably many other rural Costa Rican communities. The problem that I have met is their lack of respect, and more importantly lack of knowledge when it comes to labor or work that is not physical. What about intellectual labor? Planning, organizing, writing, calculating, and even just thinking. I appreciate a good physical job where it is totally unnecessary to engage the brain and your body goes into robot mode as you allow your muscles to engage in a continuous pattern. And I definitely take every opportunity to participate in physical labor when the community needs me. But I also consider myself an intellectual. I like to read, I like to write, I like to learn and challenge myself with new ideas. It seems it shouldn't be an issue to continue with that facet of my personality in a new place, but I have met with some challenges.

After a super long and unproductive meeting about a new aqueduct system one day, my counterpart asked if I had a minute to talk. Sure, I said in my chipper PCV voice that I use to hide my discouragement about seemingly impossible projects like a new aqueduct system. After a nervous sigh he told me that several members of the community had approached him with complaints about me. These complaints in general were that I am a vaga volunteer, lazy, I don't like to work, and I generally just sit in my room listening to music. Wow, that was a bombshell. I was totally taken aback with surprise. There was absolutely no one in the community I could think of that I did not have at least a friendly relationship with. And I couldn't imagine anyone saying these things about me to my local counterpart. This is a whole other topic of course; the indirect culture of Ticos in which they give you one incredibly supportive and friendly face and then rear a totally different one to others on the chisme train. I mean, come on, if you think I'm not doing crap, approach me an tell me what you think this community needs, what you want to see change, what projects are important to you. I'm not Jesus, but I will always give a listening ear and always see if there is anything I can do. But no, instead I have be slapped in the face with these shocking words spoken from the mouth of my poor counterpart who tell me he's sorry and that he doesn't agree, and that he thinks I'm doing a great job teaching English, organizing mejengas, aerobics, attending all the committee meetings, etc etc. And in my heart I know I'm doing the best I can, but it doesn't soften the sting of resentment and that lurking feeling of unwarranted betrayal.

After much thought on this topic as well as discussion with other community members, volunteers, and friends and family back home, I have realized that differing conceptions of meaning of work is the culprit to this misunderstanding. They see me in my room, on my computer, a book in my lap, or a pen and paper in front me, and they think I'm just hanging out, passing some down town before the “real work”. And yes, I have my music on a lot, I certainly won't lie about that, but I also don't feel like defending my personal choice to “work” while listening to music. You know what I'm doing while I'm on my computer? Organizing English class lesson plans. You know what I am reading in that book on my lap? Possible funding options for your new and ridiculously expensive aqueduct. But the perception is different. The majority of my community did not attend school past the 6th grade and their lives are defined by physical labor. When they don't see sweat dripping off my brow or some tool in my hand, the significance is that I am lazy. They don't realize how much time and brain power is necessary to accomplish the non-physical goals of this community that they themselves have articulated to me.

Hopefully as time passes I can prove the benefits of this type work through real accomplishments and projects, or simply by introducing to people the beauty of newly acquired knowledge. And in doing this, I hope to better my personal image here as a Peace Corps volunteer.

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.

si se puede

The school year in Costa Rica is February through the first week or two of December with a 2-3 week vacation in July. The adults too take somewhat of a vacation during this time. During this July vacation period my satellite town of Los Angeles hosts a Semana Cultural every year. This year marks the 22nd year of the event, and the popularity is through the roof. I was raffled onto a team when I first arrived in Quebrada, not really knowing what that entailed. Well I soon found out the event is a highly energized, competitive week-long competition among community members divided among 8 teams. The teams are relatively fair considering it is done by raffle. I was raffled on to the blue team, which we named “Blue's Brothers.” The popular thing to do was to have a team name in English. The black team even named their team the “Obama's.” I found that pretty awesome. The week consisted of a very diverse variety of competitions; sports including volleyball, basketball, field soccer, court soccer, a running race, long jump, high jump, sack races, relays, penalty kicks and bike races. Others included performance competitions like dance, singing and painting and board games like chess. Then there were the goofy things like tortilla-making contest (men only), hot dog eating contest and wood chopping contest. Ending the week was a concert by a really good local band, fireworks, and a dance.

I can only tell you this was one of the most entertaining and fun week's of my life. My competitive spirit was most definitely ignited. I participated in nearly all the sporting events. I got second in the women's run and my team won the women's soccer, volleyball, soccer penalty kicks, and basketball free throws. We also took second in basketball. All the sports are divided into girls and guys competitions except the volleyball. I can honestly say it was the women on our team that carried us to a second overall finish. We were so close to first and actually we were in first place for much of the week, but then our guys lost in soccer, and took a pretty bad defeat in both tortilla making and hot dog eating. There was no way I was participating in hot dog eating, although they asked me, since I am “the Gringa” and gringos are supposed to love hot dogs. Right. I was asked to referee in several events as well. I reffed basketball which was scary because of how competitive and physical people were getting. I also was one of the refs in both tortilla making and hot dog eating. I never want to be that close to someone shoving wieners down their throat ever again. One guy had to walk away to puke. Nasty. One day was a type of obstacle course relay race that included climbing up this dirt hill, slithering under a plastic sheet, swimming through a mud bath thing, and a bunch of other stuff. I was the part of the relay that included a sprint down a hill and through a kind of mud hole that led to the basketball court for a free throw. It happened to pour rain on this day.... and I mean really pour. So you can imagine what we all looked like after climbing up sheer mud hills, etc. It looked as if we had been mud wrestling all day. And after this event was court soccer, so we all just jumped onto the court to play in our soaking wet muddy apparel. The court was full of mud puddles, but it was totally worth it when we won. I had mud ball marks on my face, chest, legs, everywhere. I got home and my host mom made me come in through the back door straight to the shower. Great fun. The women's race was a 2k. Doesn't sound like much I know, but shorter distances are actually more challenging for me than long one's, and the part that made this one super challenging was the fact that there is not flat place here. It was a run up a huge dirt hill and back down to the finish line at the field below. Sprinting back down the hill was scarier than anything else. But I did not fall to my death as I had pictured in my head prior to starting, and I sprinted through the finish line to secure second place at something like 12 minutes. It was a really tough run, but in that moment the sheer pleasure of team spirit, support, and the adrenaline of competition swept over me. This was unlike anything I had experienced before. Members of my team ran with me at different points. A guy on my team rode a motorcycle next to me with water. People lined the sides of the road and three of my teammates ran through the finish line with me, all the while urging me on, “vamos vamos, si se puede!”. This is the kind of thing I live for. The entire week transpired in this way; with passionate enthusiasm, support, encouragement, and the creation of unbreakable bonds. On the final night, fireworks were bursting into life in the darkening sky above when my team was called onto the stage to receive our medals. We charged the stage and began jumping up and down together chanting “azules, azules, azules” (blues, blues blues). I can't even explain the beauty of it, how much it meant to me to be a part of this team, this community, this family.

The dance was later that night, and everyone returned home to beautify in their flashiest attire. I embarked on learning the steps to meringue, salsa, kumbya, and raggaetone. After several different partners who assured me “si se puede” (yes you can), I gained some confidence and actually felt like I was fitting in on the dance floor. I bought a kumbya and salsa CD of the band as well. I really am growing to love the music genres here. They are very high energy.

On another weekend I traveled with my host mom to Tamarindo to visit her daughter and granddaughter who live there. I spent much of my time lazing on the beautiful beach that is walking distance from Gentry's house. I absolutely fell in love with 5 year old Yamilla (Betty's granddaughter). She ran on the beach with me and we found shells and drew our names in the sand. I also attended a motocross to watch Gentry's husband fly over dirt hills on his suped up moto. It was very entertaining. I was also able to see Playa Conchal, Playa Ventana, and Playa Grande, which are all in Tamarindo's general area. I swear beaches will never get old for me. I love swimming in the ocean, lying on the beach, running on the beach, sitting and watching the sunset/sunrise/waves. Although it is four bus rides to Tamarindo from my site, it goes relatively quickly and is relatively cheap. So I definitely plan to visit again.

English classes in my primary schools are in full swing. When vacation is over the kids will soon have a little quiz over the alphabet and some vocab. They take this very seriously and I was impressed with their interest in the syllabus I made for semester one. I have two groups of adults for Saturday English classes; level one and level two. Everyone seems pretty energized for some English every week. But my favorite thing is passing time chatting with community members on their porches in the afternoons. This is the thing to do here. And it is this time when I see the people who really want to learn English. They ask me to correct pronunciation, to tell them a certain vocabulary word. And of course I am learning new things every day. Every day is a lesson in Spanish, in Tico culture, and in life. Sure, I embarrass myself often out of sheer naivety, but I think that's part of the experience, and it shows I am willing to put myself out there, and that yes, I can do this. “Si se puede.”