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!
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