JumpStart Santa Cruz

Well JumpStart Santa Cruz is officially more than half over and I can honestly say it’s flying by.  We have a lot going on here in Santa Cruz.  First of all, we have two camps with roughly 20 students in each camp.  We have a MEP English teacher in each camp and while I am co-teaching one camp, we are lucky enough to have 2 volunteers from Oregon come to help with the second camp.  Also on our staff list are two fantastic science teachers who come and teach a mixed science / English lesson on Thursday afternoons.  So with plenty of teachers around, it can certainly be chaotic but there’s also a heck of a lot of English learning going on!

We have students participating from 4 different schools in the Santa Cruz region; El Cacao, Estocolmo, Lajas, and San Juan.  And while I assumed most kids lived at least generally near those schools, I was sadly mistaken on day #3 when we taught “Where do you live?”  With the plethora of answers to the question, I realized that many students were staying with relatives for the month in order to participate in this camp and I’ve truly been astounded at their dedication for giving up not only 4 weeks of their summer vacation, but for all giving up being with family during that time.

Unfortunately I lost most of week one’s photos when my phone broke a few days ago (always remember to back things up!), but week one’s science lesson was for sure a hit.  In groups, the kids made bubbles out of 4 different kinds of soap and using the scientific method, tested their hypothesis of switch soap would create the most bubbles.  It was great to see the kids so engaged and they all enjoyed calling out “shampoo!” as the test’s winner.

Getting all the bubble ready

The science teachers making wands

The kids working on the experiment

This week’s lessons moved on to slightly more difficult topics such as physical characteristics, personality traits, and body parts.  The science lesson for the week involved animals and a discussion of their physical characteristics before a discussion in Spanish regarding slightly more in depth topics regarding animals such as different habitats and endangered species.  It was quite amazing to teach vocabulary such as “whiskers,” “horns,” and “fin” and have the kids actually remember which animals posses those characteristics (in English) during a game shortly after the lesson.  Even more impressive was during the review activities we did today, they even incorporated some of their animal vocabulary into their drawings of monsters.  It’s great to see them learning in a fun and engaging way.

Unscrambling sentences

On the bus ride home today with some of my kids, one of them asked if we could do JumpStart for a whole month more.  While I would love to do it, they’ll just have to settle for showing off their new English skills when they head off to high school in a few short weeks!

Home.

Disclaimer- I've been spending days trying to fix the formatting of this...I've given up. No idea what happened.

So after exactly 9 months and 2 days, it was time to head "home for the holidays."  While so, so many things have worked out incredibly well regarding my Peace Corps service, one of them happened to be the proximity of Costa Rica to the United States.  I'm not in Mongolia as originally thought, and the cost of plane rides are much more feasible from Costa Rica than anywhere in Asia, and I was therefore fortunate to be able to fly home to spend Christmas with friends and family (and most importantly, keep my promise to Mom that though I would be gone for over 2 years, I'd never miss a Christmas).

So as the days dragged on toward December 13th, I found myself so busy with life in Costa Rica that I wasn't even fully getting excited about home.  I was having fun visiting other volunteers, doing 42 pre-interviews for my JumpStart camp, working out transportation logistics for JS, helping the community get ready for the upcoming 6th grade graduation on the 12th (the day before I left), and preparing my final community class of the year.  All in all, I was busy and I found myself actually getting slightly annoyed at having to pack and organize everything to be gone for over 2 weeks.  Mom even started getting worried when we talked on the phone that I wasn't excited to come home.  Of course I missed everyone but honestly, things were good down here and I wasn't feeling so miserable that I needed a countdown until home and honestly, I think that's a good thing.

But home I did go!  Perhaps the excitement didn't really hit me until I reached Atlanta and the Peace Corps friend I was traveling with and myself just stared in amazement at all the food options at the airport. She also commented that there were more people in our terminal than lived in my entire town, which was a very accurate statement.  The excitement continued as I deboarded my plane in Newark around midnight, walked as fast as possible out of the terminal, and finally saw one of my best friends, Joe, standing at the end of the hallway.  A giant hug later, I couldn't have been more thankful that I chose to come home.

A fellow PCV, Taylor, & I flew to Atlanta together.

First meal in America! Plenty of buffalo sauce

Joe had all my favorites waiting :)

JOE!

While my Mom knew I was coming home, I had told her I was coming home Sunday at midnight when I was actually in New Jersey Friday at midnight.  Saturday afternoon her friends and family gathered at one of our favorite restaurants for a surprise 60th birthday party.  You only turn 60 once, Mom...everyone needs a big party to celebrate!  It was a fantastic way to kick off being home.

I spent the rest of the weekend in Jersey catching up with friends and hanging around with Mom.  While I had thought I would have a few signs of reverse culture shock (even though I had only been gone 9 months), I was surprised how normal it felt to be back.  Driving a car, hot showers, any kind of food you could desire...are all things that don't exist in my life but I adjusted just fine to having them back :)

Monday was off to DC by train.  Two days with college friends back in the old apartment building where a bunch of us lived senior year and it was simply amazing to be back together and simultaneously catch up but also act like no time at all had passed.  A day out in Virginia with another college friend and then it was onto the Hill to catchup with work friends.  Happy hours on Capitol Hill and our favorite country bar were exactly what I had been missing and it simply felt great to, for albeit a short amount of time, slip back into the life I loved so much in DC with such amazing friends.

College Crew!

Best co-workers I could have asked for

Too soon it was back to NJ where I did have minor freakouts at the grocery store (do you know how many new flavors of triscuits there are in the past 9 months?!) but it was great to just be surrounded by friends and a familiarity that will just never exist for me in CR.  Thanks to everyone who made my time at home truly amazing and while the "see you laters" were no easier the second time around, I feel very fortunate to be able to keep in touch with many people due to the wonders of technology.  I'll be back real soon guys!

 America has deliciousssssss food...

Target. No explanation needed.

So lucky to have such amazing friends to come home to.

I flew back to CR on Dec 31st (cheapest available tickets) and thankfully I headed right to a friend's house to spend New Year's with a bunch of PCVs.  It made the whole transition easier knowing I had them to come back to and while it was quite a shock to go from delicious food, a comfortable bed, and hot showers right to a cold shower that wasn't even worth getting clean, french fries for dinner, and sleeping on a concrete floor on only a yoga mat...I also reminded myself that the people I was surrounded by I didn't even know 9 months ago.  Peace Corps can be such a roller coaster, no greater example being from going from America in the morning to rural Costa Rica that afternoon, but I am still so happy to be on this crazy adventure and even happier I get to go through it with great new friends. 

This was our grand attempt to watch the ball drop.  We were unsuccessful.