Peace Corps service lasts at least 2 years for good reason: the first year is about figuring out what the *$&% you are doing, forming relationships, and making mistakes, so that in your second year you are more comfortable about what you’re doing, utilizing the relationships formed, and learning from the mistakes previously made in order to facilitate community-based development that is (most importantly) sustainable. Teaching kids hip hop moves or giving a group of teens activities during the weekend are all fine and good, but let’s face it, the majority of my work right now is not sustainable when I leave. It is time to change gears.
In Peace Corps Costa Rica, our various projects are typically categorized on one of three levels: work with individuals, work with service providers, or work with community groups/organizations. Most of my work has been done on the individual level thus far, and while that type of work is lovely and most enjoyable for me, I can reach more people by training service providers and collaborating with community organizations. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of getting more involved on the community group level.
I recently started working with a community development association, the members of which are introducing me to people in the municipality and other community leaders who have more pull (and access to funding) than the average Jose. I will be helping them to turn the community’s new basketball/soccer court (built with the help of the PC volunteer I replaced) into a multi-use space with a roof, electricity, water, etc. Not only will kids be able to keep playing during the rainy season, but we will be able to hold community dances, meetings, exercise classes, and a host of other activities with the new additions. They also want to construct a small computer lab with internet access and a playground so I will be supporting those projects as well in the new year.
The government just installed lights and a fence around the court which is to be locked every night to keep the area safe from up-to-no-gooders. This upset a group of young people who like to use the court at night. One group of young people started to vandalize part of the court in response to the new regulations, which is quite unfortunate, but the Association’s response was priceless. Instead of upping security and trying to catch the valdals and get them into trouble, they decided to invite all of the adolescents that hang out there at night to have a dinner on the court and talk to the Association members in order to come up with a peaceful solution and compromise. The (adult) members of the Association spend all afternoon cooking chicken and rice, and sure enough the teens showed up for the free food offer. The Association took advantage of their captive (and hungry) audience by laying out the problem and asking the young people for their input and support in coming to a peaceful resolution. The two groups came to an agreement on the hours during which the court would be open, and even made priority hours for littler and bigger kids. In the end everyone enjoyed dinner together and there haven’t been any more problems (knock on wood) since the meeting about 3 weeks ago. I loved the idea and the way it turned out.
My biggest project right now is organizing a Christmas Party for the children and families in the shantytown community near my house. The biggest challenge is obviously getting donations, because the community itself has zero funds. The municipality is going to give me a sound system and ice cream for the nearly 100 children. My youth group (which consists of adolescents who live in the shantytown) helped me deliver over 60 letters to different businesses in the area, so I’m hoping that at least 10 will actually come through and donate something. I am also trying to work with the company that is working on a HUGE hydroelectric project here in the south of Costa Rica to see if they will donate a toy to each child (they have a LOT of money for social projects because they are destroying so many communities and killing so much wildlife in the process of creating enough hydroelectricity to fuel the country’s rapidly growing need (it baffles me that we aren’t powering the country with solar power instead, but that is a whole other topic).
I have 2 weeks left of working as hard as I can before I take my first official vacation days to relax in the mountains with my 2 aunts, 1 uncle, 1 (and only) brother, and a partridge in a pear tree for Christmas. At the end of this week I will work with 4 other volunteers in the south to bring about 30 kids together for an activity called Arte por la Paz. Another volunteer and I will talk about the history of hip hop and how it started as a nonviolence movement of a young generation, and then teach the kids some choreography. Other volunteers will work with the kids on making/playing instruments and painting a peace mural. We have all been working with these groups in our own communities on different workshops related to themes of peace, and this event will be the culmination of their hard work. It should be (as we say in Costa Rica) “tuanis.”
Over vacation I will try to post about more specific projects that I have going on (a community service camp and the construction of 2 small walking bridges are 2 of the new ones), but for now my head hurts because they just fumigated the school to kill all the mosquitoes and stop the rapid spread of dengue which is taking over my town (as a mosquito flies right in front of my face). I can feel my brain getting smaller by the second as a result of the chemicals…que rico.
Peace, love, and pura vida!
