Site Assignment!!!!!!

May 8, 2009

After spending the last year of life telling people that I don’t know exactly where I will be living for my 2 years of Peace Corps service, I finally have an answer!!!! From May 30, 2009 until May 30, 2011, Barrio Santa Cruz, Buenos Aires will be my home. I just went there for a site visit and fell in love with the place (see last blog entry), so I was elated to hear the news. It actually came as a complete shock to me, because my program manager definitely gave me the impression that there was no way I would be placed there. My experience was also different because, given that we only visit 2 or 3 sites in training, it is rare to be placed in a site that you already sort of know. It was exciting enough for everyone to just receive the name of a place and a little bit of geographical information, but I was lucky enough to have more points of reference. I immediately thought of all the people I’d met, who would soon be my neighbors and friends, and that the places I’d seen and enjoyed would soon be part of my own town. It was a pretty intense feeling, and it left me literally shaking with excitement for a couple of hours.

As if my site assignment wasn’t good enough, my friend Chamisa was placed in a new site that is just 30 minutes away! We will actually be working with the same PANI office, which is located in my site, and Chamisa will also have to travel to my site whenever she is in need of civilization (e.g. banks, large grocery stores, post office), so she will be forced to hang out with me. She is one of my dearest friends here, so I could not be more stoked about the fact that we will be so close!!!

I will be replacing Jenna, whose service ends in September. Although I didn’t really want to replace a current volunteer, I could not be happier with my site assignment. It will certainly be a challenge to have to live up to the standard set by Jenna, but having met the lovely people and seen the abundance of potential resources available in Buenos Aires, I am confident that it will be a good fit for me. Also, it will be extremely useful to have Jenna around for my first 3 months of service, and I’m really looking forward to getting to know her better before her big return to the land of the free and the home of the brave.

A couple facts about my site:

- semi-urban town of about 2,000 people (that's just Sanat Cruz...Buenos Aires has much more)

-largest rate of teenage pregnancy in the country

-at the center of the large, southern pineapple industry, and a Del Monte processing plant

-sweet mountains all around

-surrounded by a number of indigenous populations, includinjg the Boruca, Cabecer, Terraba, and Cabagra

-one of the top 3 poorest counties in the country

-third highest illiteracy rate

-drugs and child sexual exploitation are among most striking social problems

-lots of work to be done in the high school

I will be doing lots of work in the areas of sports/recreational programming, leadership groups for young girls and teenage mothers, mentoring programs in the high school, sexual education workshops, prevention of child sexual exploitation, among other jobs...I could go on forever. There's a lot to be done there.

A lot went on this past week, so I’ll try to reflect a bit and share that with you soon. Tomorrow about 40 of us are going Jacó (a very touristy beach area with a lots drugs and prostitution) to celebrate our new site assignments and use our second (and last) night out of site for the remainder of training. It is supposed to be beautiful, and I’m hoping to have some good, family-friendly stories to share.

I just consumed more saturated fat in my dinner than I consumed in the entire 10 years of my life before arriving in this country. My body is in shock, it’s making unwelcomed sounds, and it is taking every ounce of strength in my body to keep it all down. If you would like more detailed information on this matter, please email or call me.