Settling In

My home, San Isidro de Aguas Claras

I've been here in SIAC for eight days now, and what an amazing time it's been! Here's a comprehensive breakdown of what's been going on:

English Classes

On my first full day here, Friday, I had a decision to make. I woke up and had a nice chat over breakfast with the host parents about networking in the community, and they shared that they wanted to set up a meeting with some of the bigwigs in the area sometime soon. Great start, huh? Well. Although I'm learning with great tenacity the value of patience and waiting, I still wanted to do something. So I grabbed my laptop and headed for the Internet Cafe with one thing in mind: English classes.

See, I'd wrestled with the notion of whether or not I wanted to offer them in-site. I'm a Community Economic Development volunteer, after all, right? I'm not here to teach English! Right. I remember sitting in my room during my site visit less than a month ago pondering my first few projects, and I was struck by the notion - convicted, really - that my ability to speak English is a gift in this place. Really, who am I to keep that to myself? I printed off 15 copies of a little announcement about free English classes and posted those suckers all over town.

Naivety personified.

I was so happy when I got my first message requesting information. Little did I know what I was about to get into. As of today, Saturday, May 28th, one week later, I have a list of 74 people who've asked to be added to the English class. I am, in this moment, experiencing what it means to have bitten off more than I can chew. Really, though, I think it's going to be fine. I expect around 65-75% of that total to actually show up, but we'll see. I'm going to give them a pre-test of sorts to gauge their individual levels, and then I'll divide them up based on their results. I'm more than likely going to end up with three classes, but obviously it all depends on who shows up. Either way, I'm pretty darn excited to get that ball rolling. I think this'll be a wonderful way to meet a lot of different people from the community.

Introductions

One of my favorite parts about the concept of integration into my community is the one-on-one interactions I get to have with literally whomever I please. Every day I try to walk to and from the center of town. I live about a 15 minute walk away from the middle of it all, so my daily walk affords me plenty of opportunities to meet all kinds of people as often as I want. Take Otto, for example. On Monday, I was walking back to the house after a cafecíto (coffee time) and I passed by a man working feverishly on shaping a pair of massive logs into columns for his front porch. Normally I'd leave him to his business, but I'm here to meet people, dang it.  I stopped, admired his handiwork a moment, and struck up a conversation with him. I came to find that he who owns a farm with cattle, chickens, and goats, sells rough-cut lumber, works in construction, and owns his own fast food chicken store ('Otto Pollo', if you're ever in town) across the street from his house. Over the five or six minutes that we chatted, a smile crept across my face as I realized, "This is how it happens. This is exactly how I'm going to get to know these people. In this moment, I am exactly where I'm supposed to be doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing." Although it takes this battle-tested introvert a little extra self-persuasion at times, I'm learning quickly the value of openness.

Otto's ranch, w/Volcán Miravalles in the background.

Projects

The day I met Otto, I was on my way back from my first ever cafecíto with a wonderful woman named Floribeth. Floribeth is the owner/operator of Soda Flory, a quaint little restaurant not too far from my house. She's worked in food service for a long, long time, and it shows in her professionalism. For more than 21 years, she's been in SIAC, cooking up some of the most delicious casados (typical Costa Rican dish with a main meat, rice, beans, and veggies) you'll ever have. During our discussion, she mentioned that one of her more popular things to make is batidos (smoothies), and she even gave me one with mora (blackberry), my favorite flavor. <fist pump> I asked her what her dreams are for Soda Flory, and she was beyond excited to share. It starts simply enough with a table-top menu, but my heavens does it expand. Before the end of our time, she was telling me about having customers from other countries coming to eat right here in SIAC. I'm elated to have the chance to work with Floribeth!

Dreaming together @ Soda Flory! 

Speaking of working with Sodas, I had a pretty neat moment happen on Tuesday. I was passing out these little papers I made with a brief biography/description of what I'm doing here, and I dropped one off in the Soda next to the bus stop here in SIAC. I continued down the street, stopping at each of the businesses, having a brief conversation to explain the paper, and went along my happy, sweaty way. It wasn't 30 minutes after having dropped off the information in the Soda by the bus stop that I received a call from an unknown number. Would you believe it? They invited me to share a cafecíto with them. We ended up having a two hour conversation about their family, their challenges, and their desires moving forward. Their situation is different from that of Floribeth's, but I'm just as excited to face those challenges with them and see what comes to pass.

Other than these two projects and the English classes, I've begun working with the local ASADA (Water Utility Company) on helping plan their gigantic Water Fair coming up next month. It's an all-day event, and I got to help their administrator, Zaylin, who also happens to be my host sister, design some flyers to hang up in and around the community to get the locals interested in attending. It was fun to see the passion in her eyes as we talked about seemingly minuscule details on this flyer, and I could tell immediately that her passion is real for this work. It's contagious, too, because I find myself beginning to get pumped about this Water Fair as well!

On top of that, I've had the pleasure of helping my counterpart's oldest daughter, Jimena, practice for her upcoming Spelling Bee. She's brilliant, and I'm not so sure she actually needs the help, but I had a blast walking through the various words. And you know what's more? I even learned a little Spanish in the process. Pond = Charca. And now you know. Jimena's Spelling Bee isn't until Tuesday, and I've got an appointment in San Jose on Monday, but I'm going to do my absolute best to get back in time - even if that means grabbing the 5:30AM bus out of town to do it. Either way, I know she'll do a great job!

She probably knows more English than I do.

Climate

I'll keep this brief, because the climate here is pretty much perfect. Other than the occasionally super-sunny day, this place is perfect for me. Even then, I have my sunblock and umbrella. There's almost a constant wind out of the east that brings cool, semi-dry air from over the mountain/volcano. Oh, and then there's the rain. Sometimes I feel like I'm back in Pensacola in late July. I feel like I could set my watch to the rain here. And I'm not just talking about light sprinkles. I'm talking about monsoons, 15 minutes at a time. The great news is that, after each mini-tropical storm, the temperature drops at least a few degrees, if not more, making it much cooler.

Probably my only complaint here would be the bugs. Once the sun goes down, if you stand still for more than 30 seconds, you will be consumed, bite by bite, by a million tiny mouths. Thank God for OFF spray and fans, otherwise I'd never sleep.

On the bright side, there's a beautiful river in my backyard that feeds into one of the two hydroelectric plants near the community. I've taken my fair share of walks out to sit down on the bank and ponder, and it's quickly becoming one of my favorite places in this community. It's incredible tranquil, and I enjoy the peace and quiet it offers.

Here I find my peace.

Food

Oh, the food. Every morning I'm greeted with a hearty "Buenos Días! Como amanació?" (Good morning! How'd you sleep?), a massive plate of gallo pinto (traditional Costa Rican fare of rice and beans w/herbs), and a piping hot cup of coffee. Lunch and dinner vary, but it's usually an enormous portion of gallo pinto again, along with some form of beef or chicken. Just the other night I was invited to dinner with my counterpart and his family, and I'll be darned if they didn't have costillas de cerdo (pork ribs)! My host family also lives on what must be the most fruit-diverse acre of land I've ever seen. You name it, they've got it. Every meal, I'm treated to a different variety of fruit juice. I've had mango, fresh-squeezed orange juice, apple juice, and many others. There's also a huge aguacate (avocado) tree in the backyard, and I was taught the process of collection. I was super impressed by my host dad's abilities to scale the ladder and climb among the branches, poking at the ripe ones and dropping them down to the ground below. My host sister's husband, Elmer, was stationed underneath the broad tree with a sack stretched across two metal bars, ready to catch the falling avocados. And that's how you collect 'em.

Gotta work for those avocados, man.

7 years?

Twice in as many days, someone mentioned to me that they felt like I was going to be here in SIAC for seven years, five years more than my service with the Peace Corps. First, I was hanging out with José, my counterpart, and he half-jokingly told me he expected me to stay in the community after my two years was up. When I laughingly asked him how long, he told me he legitimately felt like I'd stick around longer, for five more years. Then, just this morning, I was having breakfast with Doña Jeanneth, my host mom, and she started telling me about a dream she had about me and my role in the community. In the dream, she saw me passing a soccer ball among a few of the youth in the community. I asked her what the ball represented, in her opinion. "Esperanza y Luz" (Hope and Light) was her response. Then she said she believes I'm going to stay in the community, long after my service with the Peace Corps is over. When I asked her how long, she said, "Seven years."

                                                                                           Hmm.

In any case, here's to getting underway!