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