I´m Official

June 2, 2009

I just finished my first full day as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. I feel tired and sweaty and itchy, and I smell like feet. Pura vida.

A lot has happened since my last post, so I’ll try to recap. On May 29th, all 50 members of Tico 19 were sworn in as volunteers at the house of the U.S. Ambassador. It was a lovely ceremony, with the entire PC Costa Rica staff and almost all of our host families in attendance. Saying goodbye to several staff members and fellow trainees felt very strange, and I was especially sad to part with one of my language teachers, to whom I have become very close. I seriously owe our staff more than half the brain cells in my body right now. In spite of a limited time frame and even more limited budget, they did an incredible job preparing us for service.

Besides becoming a Peace Corps volunteer, I also turned a half century old this week. My training host family threw me a big surprise party and invited all my friends from training to our house. We all crowded into my little tiny house, reflecting on our training experience, talking about our future sites, eating arroz con pollo (rice with chicken), and listening to my friend Jerred sing and play guitar (which always makes me cry).

I spent my last day in San Jose baking whole wheat banana bread and whole butter and sugar apple pie with my dear friend Chamisa and her lovely host family, and then went home to spend my last night with my family. While my host Dad and I watched a movie, I could tell that my host mom was putting her heart and soul into something big in the kitchen. We usually eat in their big bed, but this time she asked us to turn off the movie and come out to eat in the dining room, where she had prepared a beautiful candlelit dinner. I was a little sad that we weren’t eating our last dinner in their bed, but it was really quite lovely, and my host mom was very pleased with herself, which is what made me happiest of all.

I am now in Buenos Aires, this time to stay. Although I could not have felt more ready to move here and begin working, everything is quite overwhelming right now. There is an incredible amount of work do to, so figuring out where to begin is going to be an enormous challenge. Another challenge will be prioritizing projects, because my community is quite large. A major strength of Buenos Aires is the energy and motivation possessed by its people. Many people have good ideas about changes they would like to see, and seem willing to participate in and offer support to the community development process.

To give you all an idea of how easy it is to find potential projects, after just one day I was asked to teach exercises classes, coach soccer, help with parenting workshops, teach two adult English classes, teach English to kindergartners, help run a mentorship program in the high school, start a leadership group for young women, help construct a public playground, organize a swim camp…the list goes on.

Our first 3 months are supposed to be spent getting to know the people and collecting data that allows us to write a diagnostic analysis of the community. The diagnostic is to be used to prioritize projects and form an initial work plan. As one can imagine, it needs to include a ri-hog-ulous amount of information (e.g. history, demographics, health, education, social issues, social institutions, recreation, and gender roles). Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am a big nerd, so I’m looking forward to the process of data collection and analysis, and also a little nervous about getting everything done while simultaneously working on projects.

Did I mention that it is hot here? Cuz it is. I might melt into thin air before I have the chance to return home. The best part about living in a place this hot is that ice cream is always in season, and there is absolutely no guilt linked to eating it because every time it feels like the best idea you ever had.