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.