Week One

I have officially been in site for one week and let me tell you, it has been a ride. Not so much a rollercoaster ride that you might be thinking of, but more like a very slow and scary Ferris-wheel ride.

I’ll start with Friday which is the part where I am waiting in line for the ride, feeling excited and a little throw-upy.  

I, along with my 20 training peers, swore-in as Peace Corps Volunteers at the Ambassador’s house. It was kind of a surreal moment for me as it marked the transition from trainee, where I had planned schedules, a host family that treated me like their toddler child, and was with my friends all day, every day, to a volunteer where I am on my own.

The day was really fun and I couldn’t imagine swearing-in with any other group. I don’t think I’ve really spoken to how fantastic my training group is, but really, we are fantastic. Everyone is so different, yet we fit like a puzzle without any missing pieces. It might be because there are only 21 of us, while most groups swear-in with 40ish, so we’ve had the ability to make connections with everyone individually. Some of us are cray, cray, and others are just chill enough to make the group a nice level of fun.

Watching everyone walk up to get their certificates, take pictures, and say hi to their families brought tears to my eyes; literally and probably not that surprising since I’m a smidge of an emotional person.

After, we all went out to eat at a Lebanese restaurant to celebrate and nine of us stayed in San Jose for the night to shop around and celebrate some more.

I spent Saturday with my host family and packing and crying.

On Sunday I left for El Capulin. Strapped into the Ferris-wheel, no getting off.

First, let me say, Peace Corps does a great job in training. I’ve learned a ton of Spanish, a lot about Costa Rican culture, I feel safe and healthy, and I think I know some stuff about teaching English. However, there really isn’t a fool-proof way to teach integration or how to start the job we were sent here to do. These are case by case scenarios and volunteers kind of have to throw themselves into it.

With that said, I woke up on Monday feeling pretty sick. Like, stomach in my throat sick, don’t know what the heck I’m doing sick, don’t want to get out of bed sick, do I have to make my breakfast or will it be made for me sick. I’ve had this feeling before but never so intense. However, in every other experience I’ve had, once I put my feet on the ground, stood up, and walked out my bedroom door, I felt a little better. So that’s what I did.

Breakfast was, in fact, made for me but then everyone left the house for work or school and I was alone. I took about three hours to pull myself together and walk over to the school to say “Hi! I’m here! For two years!” (FYI, I was making educational materials during those three hours so I didn’t feel completely useless)

I spent the first day at the school chatting with teachers and the director and the cook. Basically stalking anyone and everyone that would speak to me.

The second day I did the same.

The third day I still had not spoken to the English teacher or stepped foot in a classroom and I started thinking this was going to be harder than I thought. A little background info: The school day is split in two. One week, first, second and third grades go to school from 7:00am to 12:10pm and then fourth, fifth and sixth grades go from 12:30 until 5:40. The next week they switch times. That means the English teacher goes to school from 7:00am until 8:20am and then from 3:30pm to 5:40. She also has a baby so when she leaves class she books it home. I was always missing her.

On the fourth day, I finally set up a time to meet with her and chat about what she wants from me and how we are going to work together.

On Friday, the fifth day of stalking the school, I met with Leslie after a teacher’s meeting. We chatted for about seven minutes but I officially have a schedule to go to classes with her in the afternoons and I was able to explain to her some ideas I have. She is really nice and seems like she really wants my help. It will be tricky with scheduling time to co-plan, but we’ll deal with that as it comes.

After school on Friday I took some time to collect my thoughts and evaluate my feelings. While during the most of the week I felt pretty bad, once I thought about it, I think I did a pretty good job of starting the integration process in the school community. I was there every day, ate lunch with teachers, chatted with students, made copies in Liberia with the Director, met the president of the Junta (PTA), and one teacher even invited me to go to the beach with her family. Of course I wasn’t teaching English, but I was still there, getting to know the system, and getting to know the school that I will be part of for two years. And while the week really did feel like a long and scary Ferris-wheel ride, it was one where when you get off and think about it, you want to give it another go. And I suppose that’s a good thing since I have quite a few more weeks to ride.

The weekend was a little more relaxed, probably because I didn’t feel like I had to be doing something. I went into Liberia and set up my PO Box (address below/send me things), went into three copy centers looking for the cheapest rates, wandered in and out of stores that had air conditioning and bought myself a fruity drink for a hard week’s work!

I also met with my other English teacher from Escuela Labrotorio, Medleen. She is young, super sweet and super motivated. It is really kind of incredible. She made me lunch and she and her husband took me out for ice cream. I felt a friend vibe from her which will be good to have from a Costa Rican, and she can speak English which is a bonus.

There’s a lot more that keeps popping into my head that I want to say, but I’m going to leave my “Week One” post at this for now. Everything else, I am sure, will be continuous topics that I can share later.

Most important info: My New Address!!!!

Annie Mott PCV

Cuerpo de Paz

Apartado Postal 27-50101

Liberia, Guanacaste

Costa Rica, Centro America

That is my PO Box in Liberia. You can still send things to the old address, but this one will get to me faster. Also, only send packages through USPS and if you put “educational materials” on it, it supposedly doesn’t get tampered with as often.

I love all of you and miss everyone so much.

Annie        

Snapshot of El Capulin

Last week I traveled to my new home of El Capulin, Liberia, Guanacaste for a site visit. It is really different from San Miguel and training in almost every way, but I think it will be a great place to live for the next two years. I’ll break it down into the important parts:

Climate: H. O. T. It is so hot. I am sweating constantly. It is also fairly dry. The rainy season is from May until November, but it is not as heavy or as often as other places in Costa Rica. It also supposedly is very windy from December through January. When I was there last week, it rained one day, for twenty minutes, and then it was super dry and dusty the rest of the time. And hot.  

Housing: I have to live with a host family for the first six months of service. After that, I am able to move out on my own, with a new family, or stay with the same family. Right now, I live with a 40ish year old mom, Albina, an 18 year old host sister, Adriana, a nine year old host sister, Celeste, and a four year old brother. There is another brother who is 14, but lives with his grandparents in Upala.

I have my own room with bunk-beds, a shelf and a fan! The house is “humble,” just as my program manager told me. The floors and walls are cement and the roof is corrugated metal. There is a good foot or two between all of the walls and roof, so it is kind of open. Everyone can hear everything, including my bathroom business. I suppose I’ll get used to that fairly quickly.

The house is about ten meters from the Escuela El Capulin, where I will be working. I can see every person that goes into the school from my front porch. This is super helpful because I won’t have to wake up early to get to work, but also could be a little rough when I am working on other projects or just taking a break and all the kids can see me hanging at my house while they are all in school. We’ll see how it goes.

Community: El Capulin is a barrio of Liberia, the capital of the Guanacaste province. There are around 40,000 people in Liberia, and when I asked people about the population of El Capulin, no one had a clue. From what I observed, it is big. So far, I have divided it into three main sections. These might change as I learn more and become familiar with different spaces in El Capulin, but it’s what I have as of now…

First, there is the area where I live. Most of the houses are similar to mine, with a few made completely of corrugated metal, and others that are nicer. However, it is a fairly poor area. Most kids in this part of town go to Escuela El Capulin, which has 160 students. It is a super cute area and everyone is really friendly. The neighbor kids are in and out of my house all the time, and running around the community like they own the place. There are a couple of mini-supermarkets and pulperias, and a few bars. There is also a soccer field and three different churches. Other than that, it is all houses.

The second area I’ve dubbed as “fancy El Capulin.” You cross Rio Liberia and all of the sudden you are surrounded by condos that look straight from Florida, sheik apartments, and the beginnings of a suburb. This is where all of the professors and doctors live, and all the kids in this area go to private schools. I am not sure if I’ll be working or spending much time in this area, but it might be a potential spot for resources.   

The last area is the “across the highway” area. Escuela Labrotorio John F. Kennedy is right on the other side of the highway from my “home community section” and I will be working in that school as well. I have not explored much of this section and I think it is mostly houses, although I cannot be sure. Figuring out this part of El Capulin is on my “to do” list during my first three months of service.

There might be more of El Capulin that I don’t even know about, but I’m going to take it chunks at a time, starting with where my home is. I really love the feeling that I have in the community though. I feel very safe and I like the fact that kids are out and about at all times and feel comfortable enough to go into pretty much anyone’s home to play. It seems very community oriented and I think that will be helpful to meet people and to begin integrating into culture and way of life in El Capulin.  

My Job: If you haven’t been paying attention, I am a TEFL volunteer, which stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. My primary job is to work with Costa Rican English teachers to help improve their levels of English, as well as collaborate on ideas and activities for the classroom. This consists of co-planning lessons and co-teaching those lessons in the schools. I am supposed to be in a classroom 15 to 18 hours a week, but can go more if the teacher wants me.

            

I will be working with two primary school English teachers, one from Escuela El Capulin, and the other from Escuela Labrotorio John F. Kennedy. These two teachers teach grades 1 through 6 in their respective schools. I don’t have a schedule yet because I still haven’t actually met with the teachers to talk about what they want from me and the expectations we have of each other, but I did meet them both, and it seems like they both really want my help which makes me very excited.

            

I am also encouraged to do other projects and people were already asking for a community English class, so I might start that as soon as I feel comfortable in the community. People also talked about wanting a computer lab, kids camps, and working on other projects in the school, so hopefully I will be kept busy.

I officially swear-in as a volunteer on Friday, and I am kind of freakin. I am super excited to be moving on to my real job and having a chance to do things on my own. But I am also really nervous because I am going to be super vulnerable in a brand new community, with limited language, and no one to hang out with that understands U.S. culture. I know these are feelings that I will have throughout my entire two years, and some days will be better than others. One of the main things that I find helpful is revisiting why I decided doing Peace Corps was so important in the first place, and this tends to help put things in perspective until I 

get back into the groove.

Training has really gone by so fast and I can’t believe I’ve been in Costa Rica for almost three months. The two year countdown officially begins on Friday, and I know that it is going to fly by as well.

If you want to watch me swear-in, Costa Rica is fancy and streams it live. I might be a bit boring, but you get to see inside an ambassador’s house… http://www.livestream.com/usembassy. It is happening this Friday, May 11^th, at 11:00 EST.

I love you all, miss everyone, and think of you often.

Annie