I often write a lot about very little, instead of offering up how it is that I actually spend the majority of my time. So, here’s a little bit about a lot - a summary of the projects I have going on right now to give a slightly better answer to the popular question above.
Most of my days are spent walking (very fast, I’m told) from one place to another, doing work jobs that are often completely unrelated to each other. Here is a sample daily schedule, taken from Monday of this week:
5-5:30am: Wakeup, cook/eat a HUGE bowl of oatmeal with raisins and mango
5:30-6am: Cold shower, get dressed, gather materials for all projects for the day
6:20-6:30am: Walk to the elementary school
6:30-7am: Practice hip hop dance with my 5th graders who are not remotely ready for their 7am performance, but it will still be better than all the other performances (sorry, but it’s true)
7-8am: Perform with my kids because not enough students showed up, and watch the other performance for the acto civico (civics act)
8am-11:30am: Arrive 30 minutes late to the training at child protective services (which is okay because we don’t start until 30 minutes after I arrive), participate in the training, and apologize profusely that I cannot stay for juice and ham sandwiches with ALL the mayonnaise (I had planned on the training starting on time, which was just plain dumb of me)
11:30-11:50pm: Speed walk to the school (again), carrying an umbrella to protect me from the beaming, steaming, angry sun.
11:50-12pm: Quickly Coordinate with school counselor and 6th grade teachers regarding 5 antiviolence workshops that use art to promote peace
12-12:30pm: Help my group of high school girls with their costumes and makeup for a performance about values at the elementary school
12:30-1pm: Watch and assist with the performance
1-1:30: Walk/run home, put a boiled egg in my mouth and grab an apple (which was probably imported from the US and so it’s already soft and disappointing), change my clothes because I’ve been sweating too much already, grab materials for the rest of the day.
2-3pm: Hustle over to the place where I make copies (i.e. spend all my money), spend 30 minutes revising my diagnostic of the community (a 40 page document we write, in Spanish, to give to community members with whom we work), quickly plan English class, pick up my copies, and make my way over to the other elementary school, which is much smaller and has very few resources (see photo above).
3-5pm: Facilitate a meeting of Chicas Poderosas (Powerful Girls) with the 5th and 6th grade girls. Today is the first meeting, for which I spent most of the weekend planning and preparing materials. The project will last until the end of December, and each week includes activities about a different theme (e.g. leadership, communication skills, sexuality, gender, exercise and nutrition, boyfriends, working in a group, etc.).
5-5:30: Walk/run back to the first elementary school
5:30-7:30: Teach English to a group of adults/high school students
8:00pm: Arrive home and immediately grab jump rope and resistance bands
8-9pm: Workout in front of my host sister’s house because it is nice and hidden and people stop and watch me everywhere else. I’m sad because she is moving in 2 weeks!
9-9:30: Cold shower (feels sooooo good), eat a big bowl of beans, an egg cooked with cauliflower or green beans, and salad, and talk to host parents.
9:30-10:30: Go to my room and plan/prepare materials for tomorrow’s adventures
10:30-11: Read about 5 pages of whatever book I am currently reading (The Red Tent by Anita Diamant right now) before pass out with the fan on full blast.
Here are some of the projects I’m working on right now:
In the colegio (high school) I am still trying to finish up the mentor program. I am trying to start a women’s soccer team for next school year (which starts in February), so we’ll see how that goes. I also still have my 10th grade girl’s dance group. I’m teaching them hip hop right now, which would sound ridiculous to anyone in the States who has ever seen me dance hip hop, but here most kids have hardly even seen hip hop dance, so they don’t know that I’m terrible at it (and I’d like to keep it that way). The Patronato Nacional de la Infacia (PANI), or our equivalent to Child Protective Services, just asked me to choreograph a piece so my girls can perform at a huge recreation and cultural diversity event they are hosting.
In one of my elementary schools I just started a group called Chicas Poderosas, which originally created by another PC volunteer several years ago, and is now used throughout Peace Corps Costa Rica to empower 5th and 6th grade girls as they engage in a 12 weeks series of activities related to self-esteem, communication skills, sexuality, nutrition and exercise, working in groups, leadership, service, etc. The group I have is definitely more challenging than they are innocent and easy-going, but I like it that way, and think that if I can keep them engaged then they will benefit more from the program than would an easier group. The conditions in this school are completely unsatisfactory, which has also been a challenge. Yesterday I was left without a key (long story, but not my fault), so we had to get creative in order to find a meeting space. One of the walls of the cafeteria is much shorter than the others and is no longer enclosed with wire, so we had to throw one girl over the wall. She then found a small desk inside and climbed one of the tables to pass the desk over to us on the outside. We then used this desk to help get all of the other girls over the wall more easily, leaving me at the end to get the desk back over and haul myself over the wall. We then held a pretty successful meeting in the very wet, rainy, and muddy cafeteria, and then went outside to the muddy plaza where they taught me a bunch of games I had never played before, and ended with about 30 minutes of straight up foot races (bare foot races, of course, which involved removal of some pretty big thorns). And now I’m back to saying a lot about really little….
At the other elementary school I am working on a series of workshops called Art for Peace, which combine nonviolence teachings with art projects, and will end in a big regional event that is being organized by some volunteers who live about an hour away from me. I just finished teaching dance to a group of 5th graders for a school-wide civics performance, and I’m still of course teaching English to kindergarten every week. I taught them how to play “I Spy” today, which was a big hit. In one of my classes is a girl who is a girl who is quite high on the autism spectrum, and the understanding, patience, and sensitivity displayed by these 6 year olds in response to her needs is truly something to be admired.
In the shantytown my youth group is going strong. We went to the river the other day, and besides nearly giving me a heart attack every time one of them did a back flip off of a cliff, it was a wonderful time. They took me on about an hour-long walk deep into a valley and across a wirey bridge that has a sign warning that no more than 2 people cross at the same time, to a beautiful swimming hole where the water was deliciously cold. It is the first time I can remember being cold here. I took great pleasure in spending the day walking, swimming, laughing and eating cookies, with a group of kids who are smart, witty, fun, and full of energy. It is such a shame that most of them have dropped out of school, but I’m hoping that being a part of this group, which usually includes participation in nonformal educational activities, will inspire them to go back in February. Several of them have already told me that that’s their plan, so we’ll see what happens. My community meetings with the adults are less frequent these days but when they happen they are productive. Some ideas we are playing with right now: community fruit and vegetable garden, dance marathon at the colegio to raise funds they need for paperwork to apply for government housing, community bike ride to the river.
My adult English class has now started in full-swing. I teach twice a week, and even though I don’t typically like teaching English, this is the first group of people I met in my town, when I came to visit the volunteer I replaced, even before I knew I would eventually live here. They are incredibly motivated and wonderful company, so I love teaching them simply because it allows me to be in their company.
I’m still teaching exercise classes twice a week in the community center (or shack). I love all of my jobs, but this one might be my favorite because it relieves me of my stress while the others (wonderful as they are) often bring me a great deal of stress. I usually have about 20 people come to class, which I’m happy with because people here do not typically like to do exercise on purpose.
I’m trying to plan either a recreation camp (tennis, swimming, dance, basketball) or a triathlon camp for the end of January with one of the high-ups from the pineapple company here. Hopefully it will happen. I’m also starting to talk to the Community Development Association of a neighboring town, trying to see if I can get a playground built next to the basketball/soccer court that was initiated by the volunteer I replaced. More to come on both of those…..
Other smaller projects are always going on, but those are the biggies at the moment. Each day presents new little challenges, mistakes, and successes, and all of them build on each other in order to make this one gigantic learning experience. Okay, it is WAY past my 9pm bedtime, so this needs to end. If you made it this far in this blog entry I would like to congratulate you. Tuanis!
