Site Assignment

Well it’s official, I know where I will be living for the next TWO YEARS…well I can't say exactly where it is online for security reasons, but it is in GUANACASTE! So, why am I super pumped with my site assignment?  What I know thus far…

It is a very small community of about 1,000 people.  Located in the outskirts of Santa Cruz, it offers multiple opportunities to work in development.  There are only 2 roads, a gravel one and a paved one.  The gravel road takes you straight to the only school in the community.  It is fairly small of only about 100 students.  There are not many resources and I should not expect to find books or materials.  It is a poor community with small humble households.  Most people commute to Santa Cruz to work and return in the evenings.  There are 2 part time English teachers who also work in neighboring school and therefore there is potential to also collaborate with other schools in neighboring towns.  It is a good place for hiking, long walks, bike riding, and horseback riding.

During a Mother’s Day skype date I was trying to calm my mother’s nerves about my new host family so I read off some of the housing checklist factors that were checked off for my new digs such as: the house is not located next to bars, a known prostitution area or a drug distribution center, check. The house has a distance of more than 50 meters away from a river bank, potential landslide area, or high-risk flood plane, check.  The roof does not show visible sings or rot and/or missing pieces, check.  The PCV’s bedroom has a bed, check.  The space between the outside walls and the roof in the PCV’s bedroom should not be wide enough for a person to enter or see in from outside, check.  I mean, sounds good to me…I think it actually just freaked mom out more that some of these things were factors…

So that’s what they’ve told us thus far.  I believe I will be the first PCV in this site so that shall certainly add an interesting dynamic/challenge to my service.  We go for a site visit next week and I am certainly eager to check it out (though not eager to need to bust out a heck of a lot spanish by myself...).  I am in a cluster of volunteers thankfully so Richard, Tara, Lauren H and I are certainly going to be keeping each other sane. There is another cluster of 4 more volunteers about an hour or 2 away so, 9 in total are headed to Guanacaste! I’m very thankful to have other volunteers just a bus ride away and yes, I am quite close to beaches so get ready to start buying those plane tickets to come visit!

The Guanacaste Crew!

Tara, Lauren W, Me, Alicia, Abby, Taylor (VAC Rep), Lauren H, Richard...and the 2 Toms

As always, I'm missing everyone back home so much and I can't say thank you enough to all of you who text / email / facebook.  I love knowing what you all are up to and the constant communication is certainly keeping me sane when my head literally starts to hurt from all the Spanish!  But in response to my mother's constant question, are you still happy?  Yes, I am still happy down here surrounded by fantastic new friends and excited about the next step in this adventure!