A Year in Review

So, what have I learned during the past two years? Number one: Blogging is NOT one of my strong suits. Number two through ?: a lot of other things that I am not going to write about now (refer to “Number one”).

It has been about eight months since I last documented my movements and while I can’t go back and recount everything that has happened, I can tell you that this year was incredible. I am so happy to be living in Costa Rica, in Liberia, as a TEFL Peace Corps Volunteer. While things really never went, or go, as I planned them in my head, like getting placed in urban Costa Rica instead of rural Africa, every moment has been a learning experience and a joy to be a part of.

Both of my schools ended their academic year last week with kindergarten and sixth grade graduations. And while I still have a few more months as I volunteer, I kind of wanted to get up on the stage and walk across it as a successful PCV who completed another year of hard work, successful projects, and endured great distance from family and friends. As 2013 comes to a close I am proud to say that I feel great accomplishment in the work that I have done. It definitely hasn’t been perfect, or easy, but I couldn’t be happier. Between projects realized and personal relationships developed, it is clear to me that Peace Corps was my path. 

I was able to go back to Michigan for Thanksgiving and I am kind of in a mushy mood after getting home from a graduation ceremony so I am going to share a few things that I am thankful for. I am so thankful to have family and friends, both at home and in Costa Rica, that support me in my endeavors. I couldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have their love and encouragement. I also know how lucky I am to have had so many visitors and the opportunity to share my volunteer life with them. It is one thing to write or talk about Peace Corps life, but it is a “ho ‘nudda lebbel” of understanding to experience it. Between family, Meg and Kait, and John visiting, the distance between home and here shrunk for a moment. Lastly, I could not be more grateful that I was able to make it home twice to reconnect with cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, and families of friends. To be able to go back and be a part of weddings, Thanksgivings and birthday parties is a gift that makes being away for two years a little less difficult.

I have a few more projects on the way but, with the end of the school year a lot of my work came to a close. Here is a little taste of what I was up to during 2013 and I’ll think about making better blogging habits my new year’s resolution.

I love you all and Merry Christmas!!

 Last Day of the Teachers' Conversation Club!

Basic Community Class

Intermediate Community Class

Judging the High School Spelling Bee

 My Co-teacher, Medleen, and our students who participated in the National Spelling Bee!

      John Visited!!

School Stuff

Betsy Came!

Capulin Students Graduating

Escuela Capulin Teachers

6th Grade Ladies at Laboratorio 

Laboratorio J.F.K Teachers

My Home

I thought you might want a look into my house and the place that I've called home for the last five months.

For the first seven months in El Capulin, I lived with a host family whom I love so much. They are some of my best friends here and I view the kids as my siblings. But after sharing a fairly small space with between four and six people every day, I was ready to move out on my own.

I am living in an apartment attached to the house of  my "host aunt." Her parents, my "host grandparents" both died in the last two years so it is just us ladies. She is twenty-six years old and works at the national electric company. She is awesome and it is really nice having a friend close by.

Here is a tour:

                            Looking to the left through my front door, and straight ahead.

                                                                         My "office"

                                                  My living room and workout space
                                                 

 My bedroom.... Shelves made by Megan and Kaitlin when they visited me. Super MacGyver style.

Mosquito net is a necessity. Although I still got dengue.... 

Looking into the kitchen

Bathroom off of the kitchen. It doesn't flush.

My backyard. I need to rake.

And where those flags are flying is one of my schools. They know when I'm skipping school.

Where I do my laundry, usually with the company of a horse on the other side of the fence.

I was going to clean before I took these pictures but I thought it would be a lie. So you see it exactly how it is. 

Living Life

Hi All! I’m back!

Not that I went anywhere… I’m just lazy when it comes to blogging.

JumpStart was awesome and I cannot thank you all enough for your support, encouragement, questions, and money. I had 21 sixth graders from all over Liberia join me for a four week English camp way back in January. It was completely exhausting and super hard work but it was incredible to see the change in the confidence, motivation, and language level of all the students. Sometimes I wonder, as I am sure all PCVs do, if I am really doing anything here, but after JumpStart I can truly say that I influenced those kids to be better students.

Since JumpStart ended, school started and I am back into a routine, more or less. I am co-teaching at both of my schools, organizing a monthly conversation club for 20 teachers with four other volunteers, planning district, regional, and inter-regional spelling bees, giving my community English class once a week, and teaching an extra conversational class for 20 third through sixth graders. It’s been busy but I am really enjoying it.

My mom and dad came to visit in March and we had so much fun. We went all over the country, from the Caribbean Coast, to the central mountains, and over to Liberia and the Pacific beaches. It was awesome having them here. We ate really great food, stayed at some nice hotels, went zip-lining, and relaxed on the beach. I love showing people what my life has become and I think they enjoyed their time too.

                                                          Loving Costa Rica! 

School was on vacations for Holy Week and I went to visit my friend Esteli in her site. She lives in the complete other corner of Costa Rica on an indigenous reserve. It was a major pain getting there. I took a bus from San Jose to Limon, another from Limon to Bri Bri, and another from Bri Bri to a river crossing. There, we got in a canoe made of a hallowed out tree, crossed the river, and got into a banana truck that took us to her house. We were in the jungle. It was absolutely gorgeous and the people were so humble and genuine. Her village is tiny but I loved it and I hope that I will be able to visit again.

 <-- walking to the river in Katsi, Esteli's site.

There is a new group of Peace Corps trainees that arrived in March. They are all TEFL and my group has been mentoring them through their training. Last week was their “Tech Week,” which is a week-long practicum. I had two ladies, Abby and Lauren, come and stay in Capulin and work with me and my co-teachers, and boy, did they get a true PCV experience. I planned a few different classes and two spelling bees to let them practice and observe. Well, for two days classes were cancelled without notice and our spelling bees were re-scheduled about five different times. It didn’t really shock or surprise me until the Abby and Lauren asked why classes were cancelled and why didn’t they tell me in advance. This is just the way it goes and I have come to internalize these mishaps and kind of expect them.

The one thing I realized through the week of having the trainees around is that I have been here for a year. I obviously know that I’ve been here for a year, but it wasn’t until they asked their questions, which I saw as obvious or weird, and listened to their observations, which I didn’t recognize as something different, that I realized that I'm part of this culture. Living in Capulin is my normal. My filthy house from the dust in the streets, canceled classes, the heat of Guanacaste, men on horses trotting through the streets, people I don’t know calling and asking me English questions. All of these things are my normal. And that is really cool to think about.

I miss home and I miss my friends and I miss my family so, so much. But it is cool to realize that I have adapted to another way of life and culture and I am making it. 

Back Up to Speed

Merry belated Christmas and happy new year to everyone!

I’ve been pretty busy here in El Capulin working, moving and entertaining my Christmas visitors.

Since about mid November, school has been touch and go. Students took their exams on the 18^th and after that a lot of them took an early vacation. Since there wasn’t a whole lot to be taught, I focused my energy on planning JumpStart, the month-long English camp I am leading during this month. I was running all over the place asking for donations, make sure the kids were ready to go and transportation was organized.

I know many of you donated and I cannot thank you enough. I am so relieved and comfortable knowing that my camp, and the other thirteen camps in Costa Rica, are well on their way to being completely funded. Today was the first day of the camp and it went really well. Not without its minor complications, but I am feeling really confident that it is going to be one of my favorite projects so far. I am writing short posts about my group in the JumpStart blog, http://jumpstartcostarica.blogspot.com/search/label/El%20Capul%C3%ADn. That is a link to my Liberia page. And from there you can look at posts from other camps around Costa Rica.

While I was finishing up the details for JumpStart, I came down with a pretty horrible fever, which turned out to be Dengue. I remember teasing Coco and Chris when they were getting ready to visit me about catching “The Dengue,” but never thought anyone really got it, let alone me. It honestly wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and I think because I didn’t know it was dengue for the majority of the time I had it helped. It was a nasty fever, headache, eye ache for about five days, and then a horrible, itchy rash for another five days. My platelets and white blood cell count dropped quite a bit and I had to go to San Jose for monitoring by our medical staff. But after four days in San Jose I was cleared to go back to Liberia and I am feeling, and looking, back to normal.

One of my main concerns when I was trying to kick The Dengue was being healthy in time for when Megan and Kaitlin, my two best friends, arrived. I was, gracias a Dios (another phrase that Costa Ricans say in response to everything), and they were with me from the 22^nd to the 31^st. We had a really awesome trip and it was nice to be able to share some of my Costa Rican life with peeps from home. I dragged them all over the country, from the Caribbean coast to the Pacific coast and up into the mountains. It was an incredible breath of fresh air and quite entertaining watching them observe the nutty things that have become my normal. They will be writing a guest post about their experiences, which should be pretty enlightening for people that want an outsider’s perspective on my life and Costa Rica.

Oh! I finally moved into my own house/apartment! It is really awesome living on my own. I do miss my host family, but I am right around the corner and I have already been back to eat a few meals and chat. And I am actually living next door to their aunt. So it’s all in the family.

I feel a lot more productive with my own space and more relaxed knowing I don’t have to tell anyone where I am going, when I’ll be back, or if I swept my room. Although I have found that I’ve acquired that Costa Rican habit of sweeping the house and outside patio approximately four times a day.

JumpStart is going to keep my busy, but look for shorter posts from me, more often. And keep an eye out for Megan and Kaitlin’s post too. (It’s on here ladies, you have to do it).

Peace and Love.