Here are some pictures of my site, Pejivalle de Turrialba!

It is hard to believe I have been in my site for more than a month already! It feels like much shorter. I encountered my first ¨hard¨days this past week. For the most part everything is going great, however, I think the language barrier caught up to me a little bit. I just got frustrated because I would be sitting in meetings that community groups have and at times I would have no idea what they were talking about. I have a hard time getting myself to say, ¨wait a second! I dont understand!¨ because I dont want to hold the meeting up to explaine things to me. However, I realize that this is absolutely necessary and I am working on getting better at politely interrupting for clarification.

I finally got matched up with my old 4th and 5th grade teacher, Miss. Feller, for the Paul D. Coverdell program. This is a correspondence program where I can mail letters, artowrk, photos, etc. to her current class in the US. This program is in place to help achieve the third goal of Peace Corps which is to promote exposure of Americans to foreign cultures. I am really excited about this program and plan on mailing a letter to her class each month covering all aspects of my life here and exploring the similarities and differences between the US and Costa Rica. I also want to involve kids from my community that are of the same age as those in Miss Feller´s class. This way they can have actual contact with someone who is similar to themselves yet so different.

I am definitely loving all aspects of my community. It is incredibly beautiful. I have found a ¨happy place¨(for you, DAD, haha) which is sitting by the river (I took the picture at right titled Río Pejivalle from this spot). I love to go here, sit in the sun, put my feet in the water, listen to the river, and think.

I will be getting a bicycle soon from the Peace Corps Office! This will be great because there are a few other communities that are technically located in Pejivalle but take a long time to walk to. I will be working in these communities so having a bike will make it much easier to get around.

Hope everyone is doing well! Much Love!

Emily

Hey all,

Things are going pretty well. I am still working on getting around my community and meeting all the different groups. Some of them meet only once or twice a month which is kind of difficult.

Projects that I have been working on are a community newsletter which has advertising from business in the town as well as articles written by community groups about what they are doing or activities they may be having. I am working on the first publication right now and hope to have it done by November 1st.

I am also in the process of starting my first english class for adults. I planned my first meeting to give more information about the program we will be following as it is through an organization called IPEA and the students will have to pay $5.00 for the book. The other volunteer who was in my community, who has since finished her service, told me to expect about 50 people at the meeting. Only 10 people came.....I attributed this to the fact that it was raining cats and dogs on the night of the meeting. However, since then the class has grown to 23 people. I am now working on getting everyone to pay me before I actually order the books.

I have to go because I need to catch my bus back to my site! More to come later!

Much Love!

Emily