PCV Site Visit

April 2, 2009

I need to wake up to go to Spanish class in about 4 hours, but I can’t go another day without writing about my first volunteer site visit, which was better than I ever could have anticipated. I’m wide awake right now because Costa Rica just beat El Salvador 1-0, and Mexico (who just beat Costa Rica) lost to Honduras 3-1. Everyone was over at abuela´s house to watch the game, which was actually not very good, but it´s always a big party when all the family and neighbors are together.

On a much sadder note, I found out today that my best friend here has to return to the United States. I´ve known she´s be my closest friend here since we arrived met in DC that first day, so I was pretty upset when I heard this news. Now that I’ve been able to speak with her, I understand that she has to leave, and I know she will go on to make this world a better place wherever she ends up. I love you and will miss you so much, J!!!! Hasta la proxima! Another trainee also has to leave, but again it is for a reason that is really out of her control, so I wish both of them the best. We are all a little jealous that they get to go see their families and friends today (and take hot showers and eat good food and have wireless internet and cell phones and about a million other things), but I know they both wish they could stay, and so do we!!!!

Ok, now to tell about my site visit. Saturday was filled with adventure, beginning with a walk to the San Jose bus terminal, which is always a good time (and by “good time” I mean “kind of scary”). My host mother, as always, was very worried about her gringita daughter going into the city, so I tried to explain to her that I could rock a mean mug and a gangster-fabulous hat in a way that no one would mess with me. This was a lie of course. I can work out a pretty mean mug but gangstafied hats should definitely be off limits for this girl. Now we’re just getting off topic…try to stay with me here.

Much to my surprise and delight, Carmen, a trainee from one of the other PC programs, ended up arriving at the terminal shortly after I did. This was good for two reasons: 1) We got to catch up, which was great because we never see each other and 2) She is a native Spanish speaker from Peru, so all I had to do was talk to her in Spanish, and it looked to everyone else at the Terminal like I was totally in the club. This was key, because there were definitely some shady characters around there who, up until that point, I feared might try to eat me for dinner. Carmen is a few decades older than the other 50 of us from Tico 19, but lives a more active lifestyle and most of us combined. She is a mother and a grandmother, and before arriving in Costa Rica she was running her own business, working for a consulting firm, and doing hundreds of triathlons and marathons. My favorite thing about her is notorious reputation for not being wherever we are supposed to be as a group. Sometimes we get to play “Where in Costa Rica is Carmen [San Diego]?” which is super fun because we always find her (and therefore win) in the end. Ahh, I am never going to get to the story about my trip! Seriously, do NOT let me get sidetracked again, there isn’t time for this!

The bus ride to Nicoya was beautiful. I would tell you what mountains we drove through but I have yet to find a Tico that knows when I ask, so you can look it up on your high speed internet in the confort of your own home (I’m not bitter or anything). They’re just mountains. At the halfway point we stopped in a little town and an elderly man saw the book I was reading and began talking to me about Peace Corps. Our chat led to the fact that I had yet to try Costa Rican pipa, which is the milk from a coconut that is not yet ripe. Here, pipa is often served in a plastic bag with a small slice of the fruit inside. The nice man thought it was unacceptable that I had not yet been introduced to the pipa, so he ended up buying one for me. Most of the people with whom I interact here have very little financial means, and their generosity never ceases to amaze me. It was much more important for this gentleman to introduce me to part of his culture than to have the money he spent in the process (although I’m sure he could have used that money).

I arrived in Nicoya Saturday afternoon, and was so thrilled to be out of the chaotic Central Valley that I hardly noticed the oppressive heat and exponentially greater mosquito population that greeted me as I got off the bus. Once I spotted the only other person with skin as pasty as mine, I had no doubt that it was Meghan, my mentor, and the volunteer I would be staying with for the next 4 days. After meeting her host family and eating some good ol’ gallo pinto (rice and beans), we set to a nearby church to attend a youth group event. The theme was “traditional games,” so we jumped rope, played jacks, and then ended up playing soccer. In Peace Corps sites, soccer often becomes an extreme sport, because the spaces we use as fields are often more like obstacle courses. This “field” was the hill behind the church, which was full of deep holes and large bumps. Basically, whichever team was going uphill was out of luck. The conditions did not help my ever-worsening hip injury, but I was having such a good time with the kids that I decided, “vale la pena.”

The next day we took a bus to Playa Samara, where I got my first glimpse at the coast. It was, not surprisingly, the most beautiful beach I had ever seen. Aside from being relatively touristy, the atmosphere was calm and there was plenty of space even though the beach itself is quite small. We spent the day sitting in the shade, swimming in the ocean, and boogie boarding as I asked Meghan one million and one questions about life as a PCV. We then ate at a little restaurant right on the beach, which was only my second time eating out since I arrived. I (of course) chose the dish with the most vegetables, in order to take full advantage of being away from my malnourished (albeit wonderful) life in Fatima.

After a long day at the beach, we took the hour-long bus ride back to Meghan’s town, and spent quality time with the family. She was tired after dinner so she went to bed and I stayed up talking to her host parents for about 3 or 4 more hours. I talk to my own host family a lot, but this was my most thorough and in depth Spanish conversation to date, and it certainly boosted my confidence with regard to language ability. We discussed family, culture, religion, race, politics, sports, food, and Tico slang. We spent a lot of time discussing the healthcare and university systems in the U.S. and C.R. The fact that I could barely afford to go to a doctor in between leaving my job an coming here, and that I will be paying for my undergraduate and graduate education for decades were concepts that were foreign to them. They had sent all three of their children at least through the university, one of their daughters to graduate school, and their youngest is now finishing up medical school, and the sum of their tuition bills were close to the equivalent of a semester’s worth of books in the U.S. Ridiculous.

On Monday morning I knew beach time was no more, and that it was finally time to experience the real life of a volunteer. Business time. I woke up early to do my dreaded exercise routine of jumping rope and resistance bands (instead of running), and when Meghan’s host mother came outside and saw me, she immediately went back into the house to get everyone else to come and watch. I have never wanted to run so badly in my life. That day I followed Meghan to a meeting with the director of a local high school and to meet with an interdisciplinary committee at the elementary school. The high school was a daunting experience for a number of reasons. There were more students in the hallways than in the classrooms, and the ones in class might as well have been in the hall. Picture the scene in Sister Act 2, when Whoopie Goldberg first walks into the music class she is supposed to teach…it was like that but with about 2,000 students as opposed to the 20 in the movie. It was pure chaos. When we first arrived, I figured it was during the exchange of classes, but we were there for over an hour and witnessed no change in the number of students loitering in the hallways. The alarmingly high teenage pregnancy rates sadly started to make sense to me, as there was no one in the halls controlling the raging hormones of the students. Babies were practically being made right in front of us. We then met with the director of the school for over an hour. Every time he began another sentence his phone would ring or someone would knock on the door. It was no wonder the students weren’t in class, because the system (or lack thereof) was completely dysfunctional.

My last morning there I woke up dark and early at 4am to walk with Meghan’s host parents at the local track. Meghan passed on the invitation (weird, I know). We had a nice time, and they said I have a room to stay in anytime I want to come back and visit, which was nice. Although I don’t like Fatima so much itself, it is nice to be back with my wonderful Tico family here.

I have a lot more to say but I would be amazed if anyone made it this far in my post, so I’ll leave my other stories for another time. Hasta la proxima, ciao!!!!