Happy belated Thanksgiving to
all, happy belated birthday to my mom and merry early Christmas.
Everything is winding down here
in Costa Rica. While school doesn't officially end until the 12th of
December, final exams were two weeks ago and those smart little kids know that
they aren't getting tested on any more information so why go to school?
I don’t really have any projects
currently happening other than my community class, but I still have a ton of organizing,
planning, and begging to do that is keeping me busy.
First, my two best friends, Megan
and Kaitlin, are coming to celebrate Christmas with me! They will be here for a
total of 10 days and I am anxiously awaiting their arrival. The general agenda
is created and now I am trying to figure out how we are getting from place to place
and where we are staying. Christmas is the busiest season in Costa Rica in
regards to both outside and inside tourism, so reservations are a must.
Second, I just got approval from
the El Capulín junta,
Costa Rican PTA equivalent, to have an Around the World club during the summer.
I am inviting students from 4th to 6th grade to
participate in the club. We will be painting a huge world map on a wall in the school,
and everyday talking about a different country. I get so many questions about
the States and about other parts of the world so I thought this would be a fun
activity to do during summer vacations, which are December and January in Costa
Rica. I need to figure out how exactly we are painting this map, and with what
paint we will be painting this map, and what kids will be painting this map,
but I am working on it and am hopeful that it will come together.
Lastly, I am
organizing a month long English camp for 20 students entering high school.
Peace Corps partnered with Costa Rica Multilingue, a Costa Rican organization
that promotes language learning, to organize and host 14 camps around the
nation. JumpStart Liberia is the camp I am leading and we have 20 students
coming from the three poorest barrios in Liberia.
The idea of
Jumpstart is to give students who never had English before, or only the bare
minimum, a chance to succeed in high school. Most of the time these students
enter high school with students from private and bilingual schools, and they
fall extremely behind. English is a required subject so if a student doesn't pass the class, they don’t pass the grade, and they usually drop out of school.
The camp is four
weeks long for three and a half hours a day. The students receive
transportation, a snack, and an English workbook. Also, as Peace Corps tries to
make everything sustainable, I am recruiting Costa Rican English teachers to
participate in the camp with me, so they can give students insight into high school
and hopefully become so engaged in the camp that they will want to do it again
next year with minimum assistance from me!
We had training
on the JumpStart curriculum, which was created by other PCVs, and I am even
more excited to be a part of this nation-wide initiative. And while teaching
English is cool and all, I am more excited to be giving these students a chance
to meet other students, learn that learning can be fun, and motive them to
continue with their education. If I can help one kid stay in school, the camp
will be worth it.
The one thing
that is a challenge in organizing this camp is that it is completely free for
the students, which means fundraising is becoming my obsession. I have
identified different hotels, businesses and cooperatives in Liberia, sent them
letters requesting donations, physically went and dropped off letters, and have
phone numbers to follow up.
It is kind of
exhausting asking for donations in Costa Rica for a number of reasons. First,
if you don’t physically go to the institution, they will forever ignore you.
Second, the person in charge rarely seems to be present. Which means I go to
this institution four different times, explain myself to four different managers
and give out four copies of the letter, which are supposed to make it to the boss
but never really do, before I actually talk to the boss who tells me their
donation limit is up for the year. Times this by ten or more institutions and
it’s quite the… adventure? I’ve had a couple of places that seem a little interested
so I am holding out hope that some help will be coming from my community.
But along with
Liberia, I am asking anyone and everyone at home if they could help, even if you
tell others about JumpStart. Costa Rica Multilingue made it really easy to make
a tax-deductible donation by going to this link https://www.amigosofcostarica.org/get-involved/express-donation/donate?reset=1&id=30. Just make sure to specify “Multilingual
Costa Rica as the beneficiary.
If you have any questions about
JumpStart or suggestions on organizations that tend to donate to things like
this, please let me know.
When I am not doing something
related to those three projects I am back to the usual: roaming around town,
reading, playing with my host siblings, and looking for a house.
Thanks in advance for all of the
support, of all kinds, that you all give me. I can’t express how much of a
difference it makes knowing that I have so many cheerleaders at home.
