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.

JumpStart!

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 12^th 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 4^th to 6^th 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. 

Little Lessons

Lordy, Lordy. I am the worst. Practically two months since the last post. Forgive me.

As most of you people that read this blog know, I was home for two and a half weeks celebrating the marriage of my sister, Colleen, and my new brother-in-law, Chris. Even with a few days of being terribly, deathly sick, it was the best trip home that I could ever imagined. The wedding celebrations were beautiful and fun. And I was able to spend time with everyone that I miss so much.

Since arriving back in Costa Rica, however, I have been on the go. I’ll have to write a few posts about everything I am doing, but I promise that I’ll do it before February.

On October 16^th Guanacaste had its first ever Regional English Spelling Bee. I, along with three other volunteers, held local spelling bees in our schools and decided to organize a Regional Bee for each of our top three participants. I had three students from El Capulin and three students from JFK. We had classes outside of school about three times a week and my students went from not even knowing the pronunciation of the letters in English, to spelling words that I cannot spell myself.

The Regional Bee was in Liberia at the Regional Ministry of Education office. Our fantastic Regional English Assessor, Max, helped us to secure the venue and Taylor, another volunteer in La Cruz, and I were off to scour Liberia for donations of prizes and food. It was quite the task and did not actually work out as well as we hoped. Unfortunately, with the end of the year coming up, a lot of places already donated what they were going to donate. We did get fruit donated from a locally owned and locally grown store, which cut a lot of our costs, but we ended up buying a few prizes for the winners.

The entire event turned out awesome. We had 15 fifth and sixth graders from six different schools participating and these kids really knew their stuff. It was really rewarding to see how far they had come, and they not only learned how to spell 120 new words, but also their meanings. My students did an incredible job and they all asked when practices for next year began.

I sometimes feel like I am not doing a whole lot here and that if I wasn’t working at these two schools no one would really care. But after the Bee, after hearing the students talk about how much they liked it and wanted to continue learning, I realized that through these little events, that are stressful to organize and half the time I don’t want to bother with or don’t think the kids are paying enough attention or care, they really are learning. And they are learning a lot more than I am blatantly teaching. Throughout practices the students were consistently showing up late. And I consistently told them that they weren’t respecting my time. And every practice they started showing up closer to the starting time until one practice I arrived two minutes late and they were all there ready to tell me that I was two minutes late. And another practice where they arrived at my house asking me why I wasn’t at school yet and it was seven minutes before class was supposed to begin.

Throughout my time in Costa Rica, honestly probably every day, I have to remind myself that even if I am not doing some huge-scale event, or building a English Center, or even teaching every day, I still have influence and I can still teach what I know through my actions and everyday life. While it is always difficult, and probably always will be difficult, to feel completely useful here, I hope that through my conversations and actions I can teach my students life skills and open-mindedness. My three fifth grade students learned the value of being on time; not an easy feat in Costa Rica. Hopefully this is just be the beginning of a bundle of little lessons that I can share.

Earthquake Alert

Well if my actual work projects aren’t reason enough to write a blog post an earthquake sure does the trick.

Today, Wednesday, September 5^th, 2012, started exactly how I thought it would as I was falling asleep last night. I got out of bed, ate breakfast, dressed myself and headed out the door on my SuperPro bike. I rode into Liberia to meet up with three other volunteers and our twelve co-teachers for our monthly conversation club. We meet on the second floor of the Antigua Escuela Santa Ana to share activities for classes and to get the teachers speaking English with people other than their first graders. We were just beginning an open forum on classroom issues and solutions when I felt what seemed like a giant ogre running up the stairs or a huge train coming through town. The conversation silenced as everyone looked at each other with wide eyes. As the rumbling grew and the building began to shake the Costa Rican teachers yelled “earthquake!” as the other volunteers and I asked “are we in an earthquake?” (huh?? wuh??)

I stood up and did a couple of turns looking around the room as I tried to remember my pre-service training on earthquake protocol. I didn’t remember a thing but I noticed all of the teachers huddled in the door frame so I headed over to the inside wall of the room and grabbed hold. We were all clinging on to something as the trembles picked up and the entire building began swaying from side to side. As I widened my stance to surfing status it finally hit me that we are on the second floor of ANTIGUA escuela. Just how antique is this school?!

The entire earthquake lasted for around thirty seconds and as soon as it stopped we headed downstairs to open area, preparing for any aftershock. It wasn’t until after the event that I realized that I was super tense. I listened to the teachers talking about how strong the earthquake was, but seeing as I have nothing to compare it to, I honestly didn’t know if it was really a big deal. I did wonder if it was big enough to reach the news in the States and I was surprised when I had two emails within twenty minutes of the quake, asking if I was okay. The other volunteers and I also got a bunch of texts from other volunteers and our bosses called us to make sure that everyone was fine.

We waited outside for about thirty minutes and then sent the teachers home to be with their families as that is typical procedure for schools and companies. As I walked back up the stairs to gather my things I realized that I was still a little shaky on my feet and that I had a headache. I could just picture my brain rattling in my skull.

The other volunteers and I hung around Liberia for a bit of the day and talked about the experience. I am still shocked that it was an earthquake of 7.6 magnitude. It felt big, but 7.6 is really big! In Liberia and El Capulin, everyone is safe and there isn’t much structural damage. There are quite a few houses with damage closer to the epicenter, as well as a hospital in Puntarenas, landslides in other areas of the country and two people died, but for what we were hit with we are lucky that there isn’t more ruin.

I am thankful for all of your thoughts and prayers and I know that it made a huge difference. It’s amazing to see all the love that is sent to Costa Rica, not only today but I am sure every day.

And just FYI, I’ll be home in a week and cannot wait! See you all sooooon!       

Si Dios Quiere

Next week marks three months since arriving in El Capulin, (and one and a half months since my last post. I know. I’ll do better). In Peace Corps, the first three months in site are usually spent talking to community members, observing habits and routines, and trying to figure out what the community needs and wants from us as volunteers. While I have been teaching in the schools and my community class and am in the planning stages of a couple of other projects, I’ve been taking it slow and trying to integrate more in the community before jumping head first into projects that the community doesn’t have any interest in.

During these months, I’ve become accustomed to a few cultural matters that pop-up in my daily life. One of those things is the use of the phrase “si Dios quiere,” which translates to “if God wants.” Costa Rica is a Catholic country and there are waves of Catholicism throughout the culture, even if the community isn’t exclusively Catholic. “Si Dios quiere” is used by adults and kids and in all sorts of contexts. When someone leaves the school for the day they usually say, see you tomorrow, if God wants. When I talk to my host family about going to the beach my host sister will say, yeah, that sounds great, if God wants. When I talk to my co-teacher about co-planning after classes the following day she’ll say sure, if God wants.

Now, the cultural implications of this phrase aren’t just about Costa Rica and Catholicism. It leads to a struggle that most volunteers face in all Peace Corps countries; which is to say, most of the time, God does not want. I’ve found that many times when I plan a meeting or class or trip, the corresponding party doesn’t show, texts me saying they forgot they have another meeting, or simply never speaks of said trip again. This is a significant challenge when trying to organize pretty much anything, and yet I am slowly getting used to it.

Costa Rica is also famous for their “Tico time:” a name used to define their laidback lifestyle. When I set up a meeting for 10:00am, the other party might not show up until 10:30, 11:15, or not at all, signaling that God obviously didn’t want this meeting to happen.

I know that I am not the only volunteer to face this challenge but it can still be super frustrating. There have been a number of times where I organized a class and it gets cancelled for other things, or only a couple of people show up. And I am a smidge nervous to start any huge project where I need a lot of community support because it just might not happen. And there have been times where I wonder if I am doing anything of importance, or if the community of El Capulin really wants a volunteer.

But, looking at these experiences from another angle, my patience is getting really good practice. I am reading more than I have in my entire life. I look around and take in my surroundings more. I appreciate where I am at any given moment; I mean, living in Costa Rica is a pretty cool thing and I remember that when I’m sitting around. And probably the most significant realization is the fact that meetings and work don’t rule lives here. Timeliness and work are viewed differently and are not the end all, be all of the day. It’s not that Costa Ricans don’t work hard. They just take more coffee breaks to talk about their lives, and their children’s lives, and their neighbors’ lives. Personal relationships come first, work second.  

Don’t get me wrong, the fact that God doesn’t want half of my plans to come to fruition is going to be an ongoing annoyance and challenge. And I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. But the time that I spend waiting around is teaching me other lessons and giving me the opportunity to explore other aspects of myself that I usually don’t have time to think about. So maybe it will be ok.

I am really going to try to write more and keep you updated on my projects and life here, si Dios quiere. I’ll be in San Jose for in-service training next week and I would love to share what other volunteers are doing in their sites, as well as my own.

Thanks for all the love and encouragement from home.

Love and miss you all.

Annie 

I love schedules.

Sorry I have been MIA for a little bit. I’ve been pleasantly busy and trying to figure out my new life in El Capulin, but after reading my last post, I realize how much I have to tell you!

It’s been about a month and a half in site and I am feeling like I’m starting to get a handle on what life is going to be like for the next two years; which is to say, I have no idea what every day is going to bring, and I’m beginning to accept that.

Ever since fifth grade, I’ve loved schedules and plans and organization. It all makes me feel grounded and in control of my life. And I do have a schedule here in Costa Rica, which I am going to share with you. But if that schedule ever goes as planned, I will be shocked.

Monday through Thursday I am working in the schools. I go to La Escuela Laborotorio from 8:40 until 11:40, and to La Escuela El Capulin from 3:30 until 5:40. Now, I go to the schools with the intention of co-teaching seven classes every day, four in the Lab and three in El Capulin. That would make sense, right? I go to the school and I teach. However, in Costa Rica, and I think especially in Guanacaste, the province I live in, classes are often interrupted for assemblies or “Acto Civicos” where the entire school comes together for any number for reasons. Last Monday classes were normal at El Capulin, but two class periods were interrupted in the Lab for a vehicle safety acto civico. Tuesday, all four class periods at the Lab were used for a speech competition and El Capulin had a teachers’ meeting in the afternoon, so there were no classes. Wednesday and Thursday, classes were normal at the Lab, but first grade left early at El Capulin because… well… I’m not sure why.

So far, over the month and a half I have been here, I’ve witnessed acto civicos covering healthy eating, peace, vehicle safety, student government debate, elections, and transfer of powers ceremony (all separate days), speech competition, art festival, science fair and more that I am forgetting, I’m sure. Don’t get me wrong. These are all fabulous things to have in school and to talk about, but why they have to be all school events, which takes an absurd amount to time to organize these children, get them quiet and do the actual event part, is beyond me.

And the fact that we don’t have classes is not just teachers not showing up for school, which was a big problem I noticed when I was volunteering in Ghana for a summer. This is institutional and something that I am going to have to get used to.

Back to my schedule, I use the evenings and the weekends to cross things off of my to-do list and to wander the community. I started a community English class for adults that meets on Thursdays for a couple of hours, and I’m thinking of other projects to do outside of the schools.

I don’t really feel lost anymore, which was the vibe I was getting when I read my last post. I have things to do and places to go, even if classes aren’t held. I am familiar and comfortable walking around the neighborhood, and I am slowly but surely mastering navigation in Liberia.

I think people are starting to know who I am and kind of why I am here, although there’s a lot of people that still probably think who is this chick and when is she leaving. The students and I are working on our relationship as well, and every week I think I’ve gained the trust of another one. The English teachers that I work with are great, and while we aren’t really planning lessons together, I think we work really well together in the classroom and with time we can make a schedule for when we will plan (we’ll see if that schedule ever holds firm). And the other teachers in the schools are nice and I feel part of their community too.

I’ll try to post more regularly and keep you updated on how many classes I actually teach.

I love and miss you all

Annie         

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

My Site!

I did it again. I came home from class and no one was home. I wanted to get some letters written so I sat down with my new stationary from Meghan, and new sharpies from my mom, and started writing. I heard an, “Upe! Dona Luz?!” and knew that I had to go outside to tell whoever it was that Dona Luz wasn’t home and that I couldn’t recharge their phones. I barely stepped out of the front door when a gust of wind slammed it shut. Shit. Why do I keep pad-locking the gate?

I was not about to sit for another hour, so I immediately started, quietly, shouting “Upe?” at my neighbor’s house. I heard movement so I waited. No one came. I shouted a little louder, and a little louder, and louder until I was using my cheerleading voice. Finally, my neighbor poked her head around the curtain and saw me standing about a foot and a half from her window, just on the other side of the cement wall. She came out and I explained that I was locked in my yard and asked if I could climb over the wall and leave through her yard. She laughed and told me “tranquilla,” which is relax, and said of course. Within ten minutes of getting locked in, I was able to get out and walk to the safety of Dona Luz and her keys. It’s amazing what changes in a week. I don’t know if it was my overwhelming confidence that made me believe that I could explain my situation to my neighbor using Spanish, or my dread of sitting there for more than an hour that made me take action, but I am so glad I did.   

On to the really exciting news, I officially have my site placement! For the duration of my service, I will be living in El Capulin, a barrio of Liberia, in the province of Guanacaste. El Capulin is only two kilometers outside of Liberia, which is the capital of Guanacaste, the home of an international airport and has a population of about 40,000. In contrast to the fancy living of Liberia, El Capulin is a pretty poor town and fairly small. I will be working in two elementary schools, each with less than 200 students. Each school has one English teacher and I will be working with them to improve their English and teaching habits. Hopefully they like me.

Guanacaste, the province I’ll be living in, is dubbed the wild, wild west of Costa Rica. It is hot and dry and there is a lot of cattle ranching. I don’t know what El Capulin will be like, since it is so close to a city, but lucky for you, and me, I am visiting it from Saturday until next Wednesday and can give a more detailed post then.

I am really excited to finally have a place to call home for the next two years. And I am super nervous to actually move there and start my life, which will be in three weeks. I think once I am there, everything will feel real and I might freak a little. I have to live with a host family for the first six months, so hopefully I won’t feel super lonely. But I think the reality that I am going to be here, in Costa Rica, for two years, will sink in.

But, hopefully the site visit this coming week will give me a good idea of what my site is like and what I potentially will be working on. How exciting!

This past weekend sixteen of the trainees went to Manuel Antonio, on the Pacific Coast, to get a little sun before we are all split up throughout the country. The beach was gorgeous and the water was fantastic. There were waves and surfers and parasailing and food and sarongs and everyone had a really fun time.

This coming week is the site visit and the week after that is swearing-in and moving out. Everything is moving really fast but I like it! I am feeling really great and comfortable with Costa Rican living and Spanish and teaching. I know that will change when I move, but for now, I am very content.

Thanks for all of the letters and packages. It’s really incredible what an amazingly fantastic group of family and friends I have. I hope to get a PO Box in Liberia, so look for a new address in a few weeks.

I love and miss you all! And Happy Happy Birthday to Meghan! Hope you had the best day ever!!

Annie     

Changes in San Miguel

Time has gotten away from me and kind of a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. So far, I’ve thought about my time in Costa Rica in chunks and those chucks tend to have some big event related to them. I always tell myself, I know I’m going to want to write about that, so I’ll wait until it’s over. And I wait, but the next week has another event that I’m going to want to write about so I wait again. And now it’s been almost three weeks and I have lots of stories.    

Going back to Semana Santa, aka Holy Week:

Costa Rica is a Catholic country, and because of that, schools are closed and many people have the entire week off of work. Unfortunately, I had classes until Wednesday, but the rest of the week I had free.

I think I mentioned this before but my host sister, Ruth, was pregnant. When I came home from class on Wednesday, Dona Luz, my host mom, told me that she was at the hospital all day with Ruth because she was having contractions and it seemed like Jimena, the baby, would be born. I love babies; so obviously, I was super excited to have a host niece around.

About two hours after that initial conversation, Dona Luz told me to pack a bag for one or two days and that we would be leaving in an hour.   Whut?    Now, I had remembered that the week prior, Dona Luz talked about going to visit the Province of Cartago, where her son lives. But, we have talked about other plans before and rarely do they come to fruition. And Ruth was in the hospital. So, I thought, hm… ok, we can go to the hospital and hang out for a bit until the baby is born. It’s a little weird, but I’m down if that’s what we’re going to do!

Now, disclaimer here, Dona Luz very well could have said exactly where we were going and why I needed to pack a bag. And she probably did. But with my Spanish abilities I get the really important information, like pack a bag of clothes, but not the minor details, like where we are going, what to bring, how long we’ll be gone, who’s coming, ect.

So, just in case, I packed three outfits, six pairs of undies, and a bathing suit.

And good thing I did. It turns out we were, in fact, going to Cartago and we were going to stay at Freddy’s house, Dona Luz’s son. We stayed there for two nights and he was a fantastic tour guide and cook. We went to a couple of church ruins, La Negrita Cathedral, Rio Paloma, and other little stops along the way. It was really interesting to be traveling with Costa Ricans who know the history and stories that go along with the sites. It was a lot of fun but also quite a learning experience not knowing all of the details of the trip. Since that experience, I’ve gotten better at asking questions or repeating back information to make sure I understand it correctly and I have it all.   

Tech Week:

The week after Semana Santa I went to visit another PCV in a town next to Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui. [This is not the Puerto Viejo where Coco and Chris will be honeymooning, but it is the Puerto Viejo where Will Smith and his son were just filming] The goals of this week were to observe four hours of classes, co-plan for four hours, and to co-teach for four hours. And I did just that along with some other non-work-related things.

La Guaria, where Marlene volunteers, is super hot. I was sweating all the time. It’s in the plain lands but there were mountains within walking distance. There were a ton of pineapple and banana fields, which is where the majority of people work.

Marlene works in two primary schools and both are fairly large. Also, there are basically two school days in one, which I found interesting. One group of k-5^th grades comes in from 7:00am until 12:00 and another group goes from 1:00 until 5:00. The teachers teach the same lessons twice every day. And while the kids get about five hours of school every day, the teachers work about ten. The kids were really great though and I thought the English teachers that Marlene works with had a high level of English and worked really well with her.

She also has a community class that I observed and taught in. It is a beginning class and she has about 30 adult students. It was awesome. The classroom was packed and every student was engaged and interested in learning. We played a lot of really fun and interactive games to help reinforce the vocab and get them speaking. I loved it and I thought Marlene did a great job.

When we weren’t working, we did some non-English-teaching related things. Marlene and I went to a “Zumba” class and it is in quotations because, in reality, it was a pretty hard core dance class with cumbia and meringue and other Latin dance moves. My hips just don’t move like that, but maybe by the time I leave Costa Rica I’ll be dancing like a Latina.

We also took a boat tour on the Rio Sarapiqui and it was gorgeous. We saw a crocodile, monkeys, an iguana, bats, and a ton of birds. All in the wild! It was super cool and I felt really one with nature. And, it was free because the boat driver was one of her community class students and insisted it was free. I can’t wait to have a community class!

I loved visiting another place in Costa Rica and seeing variance in weather and landscape firsthand. It was a great week.

Additions to the Family:

When I came back to San Miguel this past Saturday we had four new additions to my host family. We gained a dog and two parrots before I left for tech week, and Jimena was born on the Thursday that I was gone. She is beautiful, with a full head of hair, and sleeps a lot.

I had gotten a text from Dona Luz saying that Jimena was born, so when I got to the house on Saturday and no one was home, I figured they were at Ruth’s admiring the baby. I was going to drop my bags off and I head over after but, very suddenly, I became a prisoner.

Let me set the scene. Practically every house in Costa Rica has a fence around it. The one around my house is green and very tall and impossible to climb. It also has a padlock. On top of that, the door to the actual house automatically locks when it closes.

So, I got home, unlocked the padlock to the fence and locked it again to signal that no one is home because I didn’t want to talk to anyone to explain that Dona Luz wasn’t there (people ask for her a lot because she recharges cell phones). I unlocked the door to the house, put my stuff in my room and took Pinky, our new dog, out front to pee. As I walked outside, one of my students was walking by and stopped to ask where I was the last week and when I would be coming back. We were chatting it up in Spanish and I was feeling really good about it until I heard a SLAM of the front door. I whipped my head around just to confirm my fear that I was now locked out of my house, but inside my front yard without my phone or keys. Awesome. I explained this issue to my student and he laughed and waved goodbye and I was alone with Pinky who kept staring at me like, “Now what are we gonna do?”

It was a nice day so I sat down and I thought I would wait for 30 minutes and someone will probably come home. They knew I was coming home at 2:30 and they would meet me here. So I sat. And 30 minutes go by and I start thinking about an escape plan. I could hop the fence between my house and my neighbor’s house and leave out of their front yard. But, I was wearing a skirt and I would have to explain my situation to a stranger and my family should be coming home any time now. So I sat. And another 30 minutes passed and I was getting cold and I was coming to terms with the fact that I really need to take action. Just as I was about to start yelling for my neighbor, a friend of Dona Luz’s drove up and tells me that everyone is at Ruth’s house and what am I doing just sitting outside. I explain to her the situation and she starts cracking up. Not just a chuckle or even a laugh, but a full out belly laugh. She would have been rolling on the floor if she wasn’t in a car. Once she regained a smidgen of composure she said she would go back to the house and tell someone to release me.

About five minutes later Raquel and Angelo walk up, laughing, and let me out of the cage that I had been stuck in for more than an hour. It was absurd and all the while I kept thinking what a great story this is for my blog, but a horrible situation in real life.

This Friday I find out where I am living for the next two years and I am beyond excited and anxious to know. I cannot wait to google it and ask people about it and find out what type of schools I will be working in! We all go to a country club with a pool and we find out in the morning and they hang all day. So exciting.

And Saturday to Sunday all the trainees are going to Manuel Antonio, a beach on the Pacific Coast, that is supposed to be one of the best.

I was going to wait until these events were over to blog because I know I will want to, but good thing I didn’t! This sucker is loooong.

I miss everyone a ton and love you all times a million.

Annie            

Out of the Routine

So, the schedule that I explained in the last post has been my life for the past five weeks or so. It was nice to get into a groove and feel some form of stability, but I was ready when we had two activities planned that were out of the norm.

First, each PCT visited a TEFL PCV. These are volunteers in our same program that have been in Costa Rica for about a year and a half. The point was to see how and where a volunteer lives and what they do. I visited Jackie for four days and we had a lot of fun. She lives in Congrejal de Acosta. It is in the San Jose Province, but is up in the mountains on the other side of the city from San Miguel. It was about an hour and a half bus ride to Acosta and then another 45 minute drive, in a yellow school bus, up the mountain to Congrejal. This was the first time that I felt like I was in more of a developing country. The roads were pretty bad and the town where she lives does not have many resources. There are about 300 people living there and most are cattle farmers. It was pretty hot during the day, but cooled off nicely at night.

Jackie moved out of her host family’s house and lives in a “mansion.” It is a two story house with a pool in the backyard. It doesn’t have water in it, but it is there… There are also a ton of orange and mango trees on the property and pigs and a horse. The house is a vacation home for a Costa Rican family and Jackie rents it from them. I was told not to expect something so fabulous wherever I am going.

The first day we hiked out behind Jackie’s house, down the side of the mountain, to a waterfall and river. It was gorgeous like something out of National Geographic where only five people have ever visited. It was really nice to hang out and swim there. We also visited another volunteer who lives an additional eight kilometers up the mountain in Sabanillas. We hung out at her house, way smaller and more Peace Corps-ish, and sang Karaoke at the bar next door.

The next day a couple of men were going to be installing toilets in the cultural center that Jackie is helping to organize so we went down to “help.” It was really cool to see the project. The building is an abandoned elementary school that Jackie is converting into a space for workshops, meetings, band practices, parties, and a library. She said it has taken some time getting everything in order and gathering resources, but it is coming together really nicely.

I was also able to go to one of the schools where she teaches and observe her in her first grade class. It was a lot of fun and the kids are so adorable. The school does not have an English teacher, so she is there alone which is kind of difficult to make sustainable, but the kids looked like they were having so much fun.

It was a great weekend and it was cool to see a glimpse of what my life might be like in a month and a half. I liked it.

The second event was this weekend. A PCV group planned a night for all the volunteers in Costa Rica to come together to welcome my group coming into the country and to say goodbye to a group that will be leaving in May. We all booked rooms at a hostel in San Jose, had a cafecito and then went to a bar for pizza and dancing. It was a lot of fun to meet the other volunteers and to hear everyone’s stories… and to be away from home.

This morning we had time to hang out and do whatever so, naturally, a group of us went to see The Hunger Games. Movies are CHEAP in Costa Rica and that movie is fab! We wandered around the mall and downtown before getting on the bus to come back home.

This week coming up is Holy Week. Costa Rica is a Catholic country so pretty much everyone except Peace Corps has the entire week off. Schools are included. I have class Monday through Wednesday and then there are a bunch of processions and activities that happen Thursday through Sunday. My family is actually not Catholic and does not celebrate Easter, I might meet up with another volunteer and their family to go to church.

And the week following Easter is “Tech Week.” I will be going to visit a different volunteer and will be teaching in the schools where she works. That is pretty much all of the information I have on that unfortunately. We find out more details on Tuesday, but it should be really good practice and will hopefully give me an idea of what working will be like.

The love is still rolling in. Thank you!

Love and miss you all.

Annie