All the Cool Kids are Doing It: Service Learning

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead

April 22 marks Global Youth Service Day. Here in Buenos Aires, we be gettin' our volunteerism on early this year....

Today was one of those days when I felt genuinely proud to be a Peace Corps volunteer, and reassured me that perhaps something impactful and sustainable can come from a collaboration between myself and my community. This job provides me with countless opportunities to share meaningful and dynamic experiences with young people, and I am truly thankful to be able to observe and learn from their creativity and fresh perspective. For the past few months I have been working on a service learning training program which combines several of the resources being used by Peace Corps today, but in what I hope to be a more comprehensive, user-friendly manner. My ultimate goal is to have a document (or set of documents) that can be given to any other peace corps volunteer, community leader, teacher, or young adult, and allow him/her to train others in the design and management of service learning projects. Service learning is different from community service in a number of ways, namely that it involves a much more involved process of assessment, research, analysis and follow-up than simply completing an act of community service. As a result, participants are able to achieve more profound learning objectives and gain much more, both personally and intelectually, from the experience.

The materials I've been working on were put into use for the first time today. Along with the help of my friend and fellow volunteer Chamisa, we trained 19 leaders from 6 different community youth groups in the concept of service learning and the design and management of service learning projects. The idea is that they will go back and train the rest of their respective youth groups in the methodology, complete a project action plan, execute their projects, analyze the results, and come together in July to share what they did and what they learned with all participants from all of the other groups by means of creative presentations. The final event will also be a way to celebrate their successes and discuss follow-up plans for the projects.

The training today went extremely well, and even though it lasted for 5 hours, the most commoon feedback I received from the participants was that they wished it had been longer! It was inspiring to wacth these young people working so diligently and in such a collaborative manner as they made plans to improve their communities. So often society tries to take power away from them, and with so few opportunities to do something positive with their time it's almost no wonder they seek refuge in drugs, violence and unsafe sex. It pains me to hear adults complaining about the negative behaviors displayed by young people here, as if those same young people are completely at fault. In most cases, it is the adults who are at fault for neglecting to provide these youth with opportunities to make positive contributions to society. If young people are not given this power they are not likely to become aware that it exists on their own (and in this adult-run society I cannot blame them). Okay but before I get too off topic, what I loved most about this workshop was that the young participants were so participative, articulate and creative with their ideas, excited about the potential to make positive changes in their communities, and enthusiastic about sharing the information with their peers. I am definitely looking forward to providing support to all of the groups as they train their other members and design and execute their projects, and I expect the closing activity in July to be something quite memorable for all. Together the 6 groups cover every different part of my own community, plus Chamisa's neighboring community, so the hope is that the projects cover a lot of ground.

I have several more trainings to do (including all 98 11^th graders from the technical high school and all of the teachers from three different elementary school), and getting the first one over with has been an extremely beneficial experience (the stress nearly killed me, but I'm a firm believer that what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger). I hope to write soon with updates on my other projects. It looks like water and definitely a bridge will be coming soon to the shantytown (fingers crossed! Knock on wood! wear your pajamas backwards!…..), and my 150 kindergarteners are probably going to be fluent in English by the end of this year (that was a lie but the stuff about the shantytown was true). Lots going on as usual, but I plan to make service learning my focus in this second half of my service. Pura vida!

Any Given Sunday

There are lots of good reasons to do interval training: boosts your metabolism, burns up calories, improves speed and endurance, gets you to the next level, blah, blah blah. When I came here and hurt my hip and wasn't able to run long distances anymore, I pretty much became hooked to interval and body weight strength training workouts. Then, right when I thought this type of exercise couldn't get any better, I discovered that most people were fascinated (and definitely confused) by the local gringa's crazy, spastic, motions in my backyard, and that they secretly wanted to join in on the fun. So when you walk by my house on any given day, at some point you are very likely to see something like the following...enjoy.

Día Internacional de las Mujeres

March 8, 2010

¡Feliz Día Internacional de las Mujeres! Happy International Women’s Day! I hope everyone takes a minute to celebrate or at least think about the economic, political and social achievements of women in the past and today, and what we can do to secure equal rights for men and women everywhere in the future. Many of you probably know that Costa Rica recently elected its first female president, Laura Chinchilla. This is a big deal, especially given that Costa Rica is notorious for its machismo culture. Laura didn’t just win- she basically beat the pants off of her male competitors.

Disclaimer: As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I am not allowed to promote any one political party over the other. My decision to recognize her on my blog does not in any way signify that I support her politics, but the fact that the people of Costa Rica elected a female president does represent an achievement on their part, particularly given the disparity between men’s and women’s rights in this country. Therefore, I found this day to be an appropriate forum to provide people at home with some quick facts about Costa Rica’s new president-elect, Laura Chinchilla:

1. Her birthday is the same as my host grandpa’s…March 28. It’s comin’ up!

2. She served as the current administration’s Minister of Justice and one of the two vice presidents to President Oscar Arias.

3. As the National Liberation Party’s 2010 candidate, she won 46.76% of the vote.

4. After receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of Costa Rica she headed to the best city in the world, Washington D.C., to receive her master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University.

5. She’s big on safety, anti-drug and anti-crime policy reform, and is a supporter of free-trade policies which were a big focus of the current administration.

6. Her husband is OLD!!! I mean, he’s a handsome and smart, successful dude, and they seem very happy together, but he definitely looks like her Papa instead of her Poppa.

7. She is a social conservative (one would be hard-pressed to find a social liberal in office here). Last year she participated in the church-organized “March for Life and Family,” which voiced opposition to the legalization of abortion and granting recognition for civil unions to same-sex couples. Civil rights leaders, not so amused by this. Oh and if you’re looking for a morning after pill don’t ask her for one. I plan to talk about all of this with her next time we do coffee….

8. She looks and sounds like she’d be good at arm wrestling.

9. Like most Ticos, she says church and state are like peas and carrots (or rice and beans, cuz they don’t really eat peas and carrots mixed together).

10. Regardless of her politics, she worked her butt off to get to where she is today, and is an inspiration to many women and girls in Costa Rica who now feel more powerful or capable of following their dreams.

Gallo Pinto and Ruining Delicious Foods

Rice and beans – when cooked with some garlic, onions, peppers, cilantro and Lizano English Sauce even the hungriest, most active person is nourished, satisfied, and still left with enough money to buy that weekly lottery ticket. This is probably why “gallo pinto” is part (or all) of nearly every tico meal. Gallo pinto is the most traditional of all Costa Rican dishes. The word gallo means rooster and pinto means speckled/spotted. When the broth or caldo from the beans is mixed with the rice, the combination is the color of a speckled rooster. It is often served with fried plantains (which sometimes have squeaky tico cheese melted on top) and an egg that is fried or scrambled.

Another look at these ingredients might cause one to ask, “If Ticos live mostly off of rice and beans, why are diabetes, heart disease and cholesterol problems so prevalent?” It’s all about the ways things are cooked here: fried, fried, and fried a lil more. Gallo pinto, for example, is usually prepared in the morning using the rice and beans left over from dinner, but instead of leaving it as is to heat it up, it is fried in oil or margarine. It pains me on a regular basis to see people ruining foods that are healthy and delicious in their natural form by cooking them in a way that destroys their nutritive value. Not only is it unlealthy, it's more expensive!

Just take the preparation of white rice, for example. Most Ticos have a rice cooker, the advantage of which is my opinion is that you can make perfect rice without having to add any fat. You just add water, right? A tico would tell you, “wrong.” My host mom adds a half stick of margarine AND vegetable oil AND lots of salt to the rice cooker. The rice tastes good, but I would argue that it would taste just as delicious minus the 3,000 added calories. I’d rather get those extra calories from some ice cream and cookies. I went to a friend’s house for dinner the other day and she was making her own tomato sauce for pasta. I was stoked about the sauce until I saw her pull out a tube of lard and put half of it in a saucepan. I thought to myself, “Surely she’s not gonna….” I then watched in shock and sorrow as the delicious and healthy tomato sauce died a slow, painful death in the hydrogenated animal fat. It took all my strength not to scream out, “No!!!! Why?????? Why????????”

Why does this happen? I would argue for two main reasons: strong tradition and failure to actively seek out quality information. I love and fully respect that tradition is at the core of the Tico value system. Families are united, children learn to respect their elders and help around the house (well, girls do anyway), and everyone takes pride in all things and activities that are purely “Tico.” While having strong traditions is all fine and good, but it can get one into trouble if new ways of doing things are not also taken into consideration. Besides the trashy newspapers, people in my town basically never read, and while I cannot speak for other areas of Costa Rica, I’ve been told that this is very true throughout the country. It’s not that they cannot read (the literacy rate is over 97%), but it is not a part of their daily lives. Most of the information they receive comes from the television, which we all know is not the best source for accurate information. Today my host mom provided the perfect example of how misinformed people are about food due to what they hear on TV (she actually provides perfect examples of this all the time, bless her heart): She put a stick of margarine in a saucepan to make mashed potatoes and literally said to me (exact translation), “This doesn’t have any fat. It’s a healthy alternative to butter.” I politely told her that it did in fact have fat, and she gave me her usual, “Do you think so?” as though I was offering an opinion and not a fact. This type of conversation happens ALL the time here when it comes to conversations about food and exercise.

I guess my point is that it's a shame that Costa Rica, which is a Mecca of a million fruits and vegetables, has the potential to offer its people the healthiest of foods at a very low price, has medical professionals, large corporations, and a government that just don't seem to be making the necessary effort to provide people with the information they need to live healthier lives. I know this happens in the States as well, but even in some of the poorest areas back home there is better access to accurate information about nutrition and exercise than there is here. There are also more fast food restaurants and opportunities to live an unhealthy lifestyle in the States, but at least the information to life healthier is in exsistence.

I always try to incorporate nutrition and exercise information in my projects and daily conversations when appropriate, and take advantage of the fact that people often seek me out for this kind of information. It's a slow process but there are lots of people in my host family, exercise classes, and schools who have taken big steps to become healthier and are thrilled about the results. Women in my exercise class are now showing up 30 minutes BEFORE class to jump rope with me. My host newphew who never used to eat anything that wasn't white rice and egg now LOVES fruit (apparently because his gringa auntie does). My host parents caught on to my addiction to apples, and often reach for those instead of a fried empanada in the afternoon (they still eat plenty of empanadas, but still...it's something).

To get off my soap box, here’s a healthy recipie for making gallo pinto, which really is delicious. Costa Ricans usually make it with black beans, but sometimes with red beans (which is more common in Nicaragua). Go all out and have it with plantains and an egg. Hot sauce is also an excellent choice. ¡Buen provecho!