PST

March 27, 2013

 Alright, compared to my Australia days, I think I’m doing quite well with the blogging…I mean, it has only been a little over 2 weeks, but still! The major difference between my last post and now is that we are now in full blown PST (pre-service training….PC just like every other government agency loves its acronyms). So a normal week consists of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday being Spanish class days and Tuesday and Wednesday being either Tech or Core days in San Isidro. Tico 25 is spread out across 5 communities all relatively close to one another (granted I couldn’t tell you how in the world to get to anyone else yet, but we are assured we’re close to each other). The communities were formed based on everyone’s Spanish levels since we have Spanish classes in our communities, and since almost everyone here is quite good at Spanish, my community consists of only me and one other person, Nateara. So we have definitely taken up the buddy system and don’t do anything without each other…which would be slightly more helpful if one of us spoke better Spanish, but o well. Anyway, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Naty walks to my house and we head to the bus stop together. Granted this has only happened twice so far because the first week my host dad drove us both times because I think he had little faith we could navigate the bus system (which was true….but we totally got it down now). SO, we walk about a block to the bus and stand next to a horse that always seems to be wandering in the area, hop on the bus and about 10 minutes later we’re in San Isidro for a day of classes. On tech days we’re basically being taught things related to our specific project, TEFL, and on core days it’s more like, general Peace Corps things. So that’s my normal week in a nutshell.

 Hmm…some highlights of the week. On Thursday I got home pretty late because I finally got CR service for my iphone so yes, I now have internet, though often a pretty bad connection…but anyway, if I’m worth 99 cents to talk to for the next 2 years, download whatsapp so we can text! Anyway, I got home late and my family asked if I was hungry…since it was around 7:30pm…yes, I was hungry. So my host mom whips out 2 freshly made cinnamon rolls. Now, cinnamon rolls are fine and all, but I kinda wanted dinner…but my Spanish is no where near good enough to ask, “Are we having dinner soon? Or is this dinner?” So I just ate them. Then I was asked if I was still hungry…so now I thought I’d be served a real dinner, so I said, “Si!” Nope, I was then given 2 rolls (also homemade…Mom, are you taking notes! My host mom makes EVERYTHING from scratch ☺ ) So, at this point I assume that this is dinner so I eat the rolls, have an apple, and call it a day. About an hour later, my host mom comes out into the living room and says, “Cena!” (aka dinner). I was sooooo confused. But I walk into the kitchen and lo and behold, there is dinner waiting for me…JUST ME…as per usual…not sure what that’s all about, but anyway. So I sit down to my plate of yellow food…an egg, yucca, and a plantain. At this point, I’m full and don’t particularly like any of these foods on my plate, so I kind of pick for awhile until my host brother walks in a asks if I want to go somewhere with him. Its after 9pm at this point so I really should go to bed soon, but I figure if I go with him I won’t have to eat my dinner…so I go. Do I have ANY clue where I’m going? Nope. Tis my life these days. But it turns into a family affair and the mom comes with us and the dog. Turns out we were going to pick up the dad and sister. So now we are 5 people and a dog in a very small car…and we pull up to a McDonalds and they ask me if I want dinner. Yes, if you’re keeping track this would be about the 4th dinner of the night. They know I really like chicken so they just keep saying pollo but I insist that I’m not hungry but we pull into the drive thru line anyway to get the rest of the fam dinner. Somewhere in the waiting in line they family decides they don’t want McDs…and the dad proceeds to get out of the car. To go where? Beats me. Wish I could ask in Spanish, but I’m getting used to just not knowing what’s going on. Anyway, its about a 20 minute wait in this McDs line that we cant escape and then we drive a bit and arrive at where I guess they decided they should get dinner…KFC. About a 30 minute wait later for food…we are on our way home. Upon arrival (yes, at about 11pm) they sit down to dinner and are surprised that I don’t want to join. I mean I’m all for family bonding, but not over KFC at 11pm. But don’t worry…2 pieces of KFC chicken was my lunch the next day.

 Friday was actually a pretty big day…we went into San Jose for the first time. Naty and I made it and met up with the group just fine (which we were QUITE impressed with ourselves for). We were then broken up into groups and sent on a scavenger hunt of the city. I honestly didn’t do much since I let the Spanish speakers lead the way, but it was nice just to get a taste of the city. No pictures or anything though since 1. It’s a pretty dangerous place so we were told to leave everything of value we own at home and 2. We’re trying to not act like tourists. We were shown how to take the bus to the PC headquarters, tour HQ, and then were sent back home on buses to ensure we didn’t stick around San Jose since we’re not allowed in the city by ourselves yet as trainees. I also received my first piece of mail on Friday… THANKS MOM…I showed it to my host family and they absolutely loved the dog on the cover!

 Sunday was another big day…it was the first time the fam took me to do something touristy, so I was pumped! I thought we were going to a volcano…but when we were leaving, everyone else was still in their church clothes, so I started to panic thinking that “Vulcan” does not translate to volcano and I actually have no idea where were going…so I started frantically pointing to my clothes and they seemed to think it was fine so off we went. Turns out it was a volcano and I was the only one appropriately dressed. Pictures to come on facebook, promise. Afterwards we went out to lunch/dinner for the first time and I somewhat successfully ordered a hamburgesa, bien cocinado (well done of course). It was much more pressure having to interact with a waiter than with my fam at home so im hoping we don’t do that again for awhile.

 I’ve also decided I’m going to start tracking the amount of movies I’ve watched in Spanish. This weekend was:
1. The Hangover
2. Ratatouille
3. Four Christmases
4. Sherlock Holmes

 We’re supposed to be integrating with the family, which usually means I just in the living room and make my presence known, aka watch movies with whoever is sitting there as well. Considering I cant think of the last 4 movies I ever watched in the States, it is taking a while to adjust to a much, much slower pace and realizing that besides learning Spanish…I don’t have much else to do (hence really long blog posts when I reach a certain level of boredom).

 I am officially on a 4 day break though for Semana Santa…so tomorrow morning I’m going to go on a hike with some of the other trainees…so I’m looking forward to that! Speaking English for a solid chunk of time – awesome. Understanding what people say around me – awesome. I think I’ve conveyed to my host family that I’m going somewhere in the morning…but I’m not going to be surprised if they start freaking out when I walk out the door because perhaps I really didn’t tell them anything in my Spanglish…but we’ll see.

 Pura Vida!

So much Spanish

Monday, March 18, 2013 Well I had my first full day of Spanish class. The classes are actually at my house, so that makes my life super easy and there is actually only one other person in it, so a student:teacher ratio of 2:1 will hopefully get me speaking Spanish in no time. Class starts at 8 and by 7:45am my teacher was in my kitchen telling me in Spanish that I wasn’t appropriately dressed. My bad, I didn’t think Peace Corps business causal dress code was in effect when I was in a class with grand total 2 other people and in my own house? So anyway, I changed and begun a fun filled day of nothing but Spanish. We walked around neighborhood and I had to introduce myself to anyone we met on the street and describe Peace Corps to them…I think I got pretty good at it by the 10th person, but that’s about all I can say. Me llamo Brittany. Soy un aspirantee de voluntario de curpo de paz. El curpo de paz es un organication de gobierno de estados unidos ensenar los estudiantes y la professoras ingles por 2 anos. Gracias! It was also a fun reminder of how seriously PC takes the fact that we are NOT volunteers yet…we are only aspirantes. Someone from PC delivered our 8 books each and also desks, a white board, etc…so we are all set for 3 more months of classes. During these classes, I really need to learn how to say some foods. Last night, they kept asking me what I wanted to eat because the family was each eating their own thing, but I had no idea how to say anything and I wasn’t going to have them cook me something…so I had a dinner that consisted of a banana, a peach, and a pear. I don’t actually know the words for any of those either, but I knew how to say fruta. Oh, and I think im also doomed to eat bread for breakfast every day, because again, the first day they asked me what I normally eat for breakfast and all I could think of in Spanish was “pan.” So now they have fresh pan for me each morning. Could be worse! Pura vida!

The First Few Days...

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Well I finally have a free moment to actually start posting on this like I said I would.  I got an email from my Mom toward the end of orientation that said something like, can you please respond to my questions, I don’t understand how you could possibly be so busy.  Well Mom, I was, I promise, I wasn’t ignoring you.  PC doesn’t mess around as many of you know from my numerous stories of the application process.  Well, to start at the beginning…

Our staging for Tico 25 (Costa Ricans call themselves Ticos FYI) was in DC, which couldn’t have worked out better to go down and see everyone one last time.  It was about 6 hours of ice-breakers, an introduction to Peace Corps in general, and all the administrative stuff that had to be done before they shipped us out of the country.  They also found out it was my birthday, so it also involved being sung to by a group of people I had just met.  As soon as it was over I headed back to the Hill to meet up with friends for one last night together and the final goodbye.  Needless to say that was a rough night, but I couldn’t be more grateful to have people in my life that I would miss so much.  I arrived back at the hotel around 12:30am and realized no other trainees were sleeping either due to our ridiculous 1:30am check-out, so I talked to a few people, went up to the room, changed into my “business casual” clothes we had to wear for this plane ride, washed my face, packed my things back up, and it was already time to leave.  We boarded the buses at 2am and the orientation leaders parted ways with us there, leaving us with a Ghandi quote and a “good luck getting to CR.”  We arrived at the airport minutes later, and then just had to wait until the airport basically opened back up at 4am…so that was thrilling.  We actually almost missed our 6am flight due to the fact that we had 20 people and so much luggage, etc. BUT we didn’t and we arrived in Miami before we knew it.  We all spent the 2 hour layover getting our last bit of American food and making our final phone calls back home.

We were greeted in San Jose by the PC country director and many other PC staff members  before they brought us to our retreat center where we would stay until Saturday.  It’s called the “Bridge to Pre-Service Training” so aka, pre-pre-service training.  Here’s just an overview of the some of the sessions (so you can see why I was so busy Mom!):

·      Introduction of training team

·      Ground rules

·      PCCR overview

·      Medical orientation

·      PC approach to development

·      Why TEFL in CR

·      History of CR

·      Diagnostic Spanish interview

·      Administrative procedures (getting our immigration papers signed, opening up bank accounts, etc)

·      US Embassy visit

·      PCCR volunteer’s professional standards

·      Personal security and risk reduction

·      Country briefing and incident reporting

·      Geography of CR

·      How do we track progress

·      Commitment to PC

So basically a typical day was breakfast at 7am, sessions started at 8 and went until about 7pm with a lunch break.  It was a bit tedious but it was all information we needed.  It was also a great way to slowly transition from the US to CR, since we were basically at this isolated retreat center only interacting with other trainees and PC staff.  We still had wifi and hot showers, so it was great.  It was also a great chance to bond with the other trainees who are all fantastic.  On the first day, our training facilitator made a very interesting point by saying, “you now no longer have to justify your decision to join the Peace Corps to anyone, because you are surrounded by people who understand.”  We were definitely forced to do a lot of reflection on “Why Peace Corps” over the week to reaffirm our commitment, so I’ll hopefully work on actually typing up my response one day.  But TICO 25 is definitely a very diverse group and we are all excited to be in CR!

As the last activity we did before we moved out to our host families, we were broken up into groups of 4 and had to discuss the person or people it was hardest to leave behind and why we did it anyway.  Well, needless to say basically the entire room was in tears (yes, even me) by the end of it and we were not at all happy with the facilitator who made us do it, but it was probably a good thing to do for the reasons they told us…we all have feelings that we are most likely suppressing during this first week and we can’t do that for the long term.  It was also good to hear everyone else’s fears about the people they left back home and to realize we are all worried about the same things.  So that was a ROUGH hour or so. Alright, alright, enough with the sad stuff…

So the first big milestone while we are here is finding out where we are put for training.  We were grouped by our language level and since almost everyone is fluent…my group consists of only myself and one other person who are both muy mal a espanol, but even she was put at novice-mid…and I was novice-low, aka the lowest of the low…so I have a LONG way to go to intermediate-mid which is what I need to place at to swear-in.  Anyway, the two of us were placed in Los Angeles…and no, of course it was not as simple as them just telling us.  First we stood in a circle and they put colors on our backs and we had to group ourselves without talking…once grouped we had to do a word scramble to figure out the community name….then we had to come up with a chant for said community (los angles los angleles, we owe our Spanish to you, los angeles los angeles, teach us how to say blue), and THEN we were given our host family information.  I think I lucked out because im the worst Spanish speaker, because my family is great.  There is a mom, dad, 2 sisters, and 1 brother.  Thank God the brother speaks a bit of English, so THAT is super helpful.  Aunts and Uncles come and go as well, AND there is an adorable tiny dog.  The house is actually really nice AND there is hot water.  Granted it just comes out of a pipe, but don’t care.  3 more months of hot showers sounds great to me.

On my first night we went to a fiesta…I think it was a birthday party, but I have no idea which person I met the party was for.  If I thought understanding Spanish was difficult while we were chatting at home (ok, they were chatting, I was awkwardly sitting trying to figure out what they were saying) it was IMPOSSIBLE at the party with loud music.  Finally they gave up trying to talk to me, because I literally couldn’t understand a thing.  But it was good to be there and meet many people of the community.  At some point during the night a drum line rolled in all dressed in red silk, followed by…I don’t even know how to describe them besides dancers….not wearing much, in matching green and yellow outfits with large yellow feathery hats.  After they danced a conga line was formed that I was thrown into, as well as going under a limbo pole.  It was quite an overwhelming night one.  I came back early with my host sister and it was the first night I realized I couldn’t just check Facebook, send a few emails, or call Mom…so that definitely hit me that I really am living in another country and can’t always be in contact with people when I want to be.  But all in all, everything is going super well!  I know this is way more information than any of you needed or wanted, but hey, I don’t have a phone or internet and there is only so many movies you can watch in Spanish with your host family…

And I know I’ve said thank you a billion different ways to many of you…but one more time…

Michelle sent me a Winnie the Pooh quote that couldn’t sum up the situation better…

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

If you took the time to read this, you are certainly one of the people that made saying goodbye so hard…but as many of you have reminded me, it’s not goodbye at all.  These 27 months will fly by and I really can’t thank you enough for everyone how has already emailed, facebooked, texted, etc. It means so much and thank you so, so much for the support and encouragement to take on this crazy adventure!

Pura vida!