"Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy. There will be no salary and allowances will be at a level sufficient only to maintain health and meet basic needs. Men and women will be expected to work and live alongside the nationals of the country in which they are stationed - doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language.
But if the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps - who works in a foreign land - will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace." - JFK

Sunday, April 28, 2013

PCV Visit


Now that I have wifi I can actually post some updates I wrote awhile ago...


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

          IM BACK…I certainly haven’t had a moment to be bored lately, which I’ll take as a good thing (most of the time).  Last week was certainly stressful…3 full days of Spanish (ugh) and we had to give our first lesson, so that took quite some preparation.  We also interviewed a local teacher (in Spanish…poor her) and had to figure out all the logistics of holding a community English class that we’re going to teach for the next 6 weeks.  Busy.  Needless to say, the weekend was much needed, though it supplied zero rest.  It was PCV visit this past weekend, which meant we 20 PCTs were shipped all across the country to go visit actual PCVs for 4 days to basically see their lives and get a sense of the different types of sites. 

          So early Saturday morning Naty and I met up with 2 other PCTs in San Jose who were headed to the same region of the country, Guanacaste.  After an almost 5 hour bus ride dying in the heat…we all arrived in Guanacaste and were taken to the most culturally diverse place you could imagine…McDonalds.  There we met up with our respective PCVs we were staying with.  We had some gelato and walked around Liberia, which is an extremely large town where my PCV lives.  I believe it’s the second largest city in Costa Rica after San Jose.  One other PCT and her PCV stayed with us, so the four of us had some drinks at a very nice restaurant before heading to her barrio (neighborhood).  Liberia is certainly not what any of you are picturing as a PCV site…we looked up movie times at the McDonalds with their free wifi.  Her barrio is certainly smaller with dirt roads, but it is still not the type of site I hope to end up with.  She certainly makes it work, however, and seemed very integrated in her community.  She lives alone and is certainly lacking furniture but she DID have an air mattress and a fan, so all was great.

          We met up with the 2 other PCTs and their PCVs at a GORGEOUS waterfall on Sunday.  It was a pretty long walk down a barren dirt road for quite some time, so I was extremely skeptical that a waterfall was actually at the end of this journey (I mean, I’m so confused ALL the time, it wouldn’t have surprised me to not understand what was happening even though they were all speaking English)…BUT there was a waterfall and we all had a fantastic time swimming, jumping through said waterfall, and just relaxing.  Afterwards we headed to the other PCVs site so we could see that.  She lives about an hour north of Liberia, about 7km south of the Nicaraguan boarder.  It was by far smaller than Liberia where I was staying, but still had a small downtown.  The next day we headed to the beach about 20 minutes away.  Again, it looked like a barren desert when we got off the bus, but lo and behold, there was actually a beach about 100 meters away.  Now whatever gorgeous Costa Rican beach you’re probably picturing right now… yup, it looked just like that.  Not a soul around with mountains on either side…yea, not such a tough weekend.


            I headed back to Liberia with my PCV that afternoon to get ready for her community class that night.  Despite the ungodly heat, I put on my standard “formal-ish” uniform of pants and a polo and headed to the school.  We sat there for about 45 minutes before conceding that no one was coming.  I hope she has better luck next week!  We did run into a bunch of her students on the way home who asked for help studying for their English test the following day, so we sat outside the PCVs house and helped her host sister study.  The girl would say the days of the week or months of the year in English…and I’d say them in Spanish; it was a win-win.  One French toast dinner later and an hour of completing the homework we were given for the visit, it was time for bed.  It wasn’t hard to wake up before my alarm due to the heat and we set off to meet up with everyone again to observe their conversation club at a local school.  Teachers from all over the region come for a series of 5 day-long sessions and ultimately receive credit and a raise for completing their course.  It was interesting to see and was certainly helpful to get an idea of the projects we may be doing in out sites.  We hopped in a cab…took a 5 hour bus…ate McDonalds in San Jose…took another bus…and was finally back “home” and I couldn’t have been happier to embrace the cold.
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