Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Today woke up at 8, ate breakfast (bread with butter and coffee). At 9:30 I went to the school to talk to the director about planning a Read-A-Thon. This is an activity that was always put on by my elementary school together with the local library. Its simple; the student who reads the most pages in a certain period of time wins a prize. I want to do the activity here because the kids in school hardly ever have homework, are always running around in the streets or doing nothing, and have terrible reading skills. Sooo, as I said, I went to talk to the director of the school (who after 10 months of me living here still can’t get my name right). I must say he isn’t one of my best friends in town. Whenever I am able to get him to sit down with me for a minute he always looks for the worst in things, goes on the most ridiculous power trip, and is just unpleasant in general. So, I proposed my idea to him and gave him and immediately he says, “yeah…..well….the thing is…..you would have a problem….how are you going to make sure that the kids that say they are reading books actually read them?” After trying to convince him that there exists such thing as honesty and suggesting that we require a parents signature after the kids finish each book he agreed, but only partially. My idea was to have this competition and include all the kids in the elementary that can read and want to participate. However, he is only willing to do it amongst the first, second and third graders. His reasoning is that the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders have too much work to do (which is a complete lie because they are the ones that run around doing nothing the most). It frustrates me so much when people use the power they have to make things difficult for people. And the worst thing is that from now on in the process of planning the activity the director probably wont do a damn thing because he’s so lazy. So what does he even care about what grades we do it with! We left off in that I will coordinate the activity with the librarian to see what kind of books they already have and if there are enough to do the read-a-thon.
At 11:00 am, I had a meeting with 11 of the fifth graders to try to plan a community project. The meeting was to decide which project to do. We did a brainstorm and they had a ton of great ideas (plant trees, paint benches, make new trash cans, paint a mural, and more). However, the project they ended up choosing was to paint the lines on the basketball court. Right now they are completely worn out and the court is really dirty. They were so excited to start that right away we went to talk to a woman who is in the Sports Committee to ask if we could propose the idea at their next meeting. She told us that going to the meeting was not necessary and to just go ahead and do it! Woo hoo! Tomorrow we are going to meet again to plan fund raising activities for the paint and other things we will have to buy.
Later on I went to the school to put some finishing touches on the world map that I am painting with the sixth graders. We are almost finished and I am starting to put together a presentation of photos that I have been taking throughout the process to play at the inauguration of the map. All that we have left to do is label a few more islands and countries and then it will be done!
It is 7:00 right now. I just finished watching some TV and now I will probably just hang out in my house for the rest of the night.
Until next time,
Emily
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Today I woke up at 7:30 and ate breakfast which was coffee and an “arepa;” a pancake-like thing consisting of flour, baking powder, sugar, and water and cooked in a frying pan. At 9:30 I headed off to the elementary school to sit in on a charla that my counterpart was giving to a group of students about the basics of recycling. The kids were in 5th and 6th grades. They pretty much didn’t pay any attention so throughout the charla I wrote down quiz questions on little slips of paper and at the end we formed a circle and played hot potato. When the music stops, the person holding the item (in this case a scrap piece of ceramic) has to answer a question. To my surprise, they were able to answer many of the questions. Maybe they are all little experts on recycling and I underestimated them!
After the charla I talked to the 6th grade teacher to coordinate a day and time to take a group photo of the world map painting and the students. That is set for next Wednesday morning. I also wanted to talk to the teacher to propose an idea for a world fair kind of activity. The idea is that we put the map to use now that it is finished. In pairs, the students will choose a country and do an investigation to find all kinds of information about it (size, population, replicate the flag, name of capital city, natural resources, political system, tourist attractions, weaknesses, founding date, typical food and clothing, etc). Then, during the world culture day, which is in October, they will put on displays for each other and the rest of the school. The teacher liked the idea so we will continue to meet to start planning.
Then I talked to the librarian about coordinating the Read-a-Thon idea. She likes the idea a lot and is on my side that all grades should be included. We left off in that she is going to try to convince the director to change his mind about only wanting to include grades 1-3. We also talked briefly about the idea of making a garden behind the school to use the vegetables and herbs within the cafeteria and then use the organic waste produced in the cafeteria to make a compost pile to fertilize it! How exciting!
Then at 1:00, I had a meeting with the group of 5th graders that want to repaint the basketball court. According to the local hardware store, we will need about $30 to buy the paint, the masking tape to make the lines, the brushes with rollers, and the tools to clean the court before we paint. We decided to do a raffle of a basket of staple food items like rice, beans, sugar, coffee, etc. We left off in that we will meet on Tuesday to put the basket together (each kid will bring something to contribute) and divide up the raffle numbers to sell.
After this, I ran some errands with my host sister. Her grandma who lives right next door is ALWAYS screaming for one of my host siblings to go to the supermarket to run her errands for her. We went to the supermarket and bought a packet of instant soup and delivered it to her. Then we went up to the other grandma’s house in the next neighborhood over just for the fun of it. They just put asphalt down a huge stretch of the road in this neighborhood, which I don’t like. The dirt roads were not that bad and were far more charming. So, we arrived at the other grandma’s house where the members of my host mom’s women’s group were meeting with people from the ministry of agriculture about trying to obtain a donation or loan to construct a second green house to plant mini-vegetables. After the presentation was over at about 6:30 pm we headed back to the house and got caught in a downpour about half way there. None of us had brought an umbrella so by the time we arrived home we were all soaked. It was the first time I had really been soaked by a downpour in a long time so it was surprisingly refreshing!
Friday, June 27th, 2008
Today is my 1-year anniversary in Costa Rica! It really seems like it’s only been 6 months or so, I can’t believe its gone by so fast.
Today I woke up at 7:30 and took an 8:30 bus to the nearest big city which is a 45 minute bus ride that costs about $1 each way. I went to check my mail, to the bank, to buy some pens, and then to do a crap load of stuff in Internet. I had to send a work report that documents all the work I have done in the past 4 months. I also looked for maps of certain areas of the world that have been difficult to label in the painting I’m doing in the elementary. I had to find the names of the Hawaiian Islands, the Aleutian Islands, and those of the Islands in Polynesia, Micronesia and Indonesia. I finished at about 1 and wandered around trying to fill time until 3 when the bus left to go back to my community. I bought some Pejibayes, which are probably in the nut family but are hard to describe. They are red or dark orange golf ball sized and grow in trees in all zones of Costa Rica. You have to cook them and then peel them. Many people eat them with a little bit of mayonnaise and lemon juice or with cream cheese…they are sooooo good. When I got home it was raining and I was starving so I broke out the Pejibayes right away. Within about 30 minutes they were all gone. I estimate that the bag had about 20 and I ate 3….needless to say my host family isn’t shy about digging in, haha.
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
Today woke up at 8:00 and ate breakfast (bread with coffee) and then at 10:30 I went door to door with my host sister to sell the newsletter that I make every 3 months or so. I sell them for 100 colones, which is about 20 cents. I use all the money from the sales as well as the placed advertisements to make copies of the next newsletter. This time around had enough money from the last newsletter to make 185 copies. First, I put as many as I can in stores around my town so that the people buy them there. Then the owners of the businesses pay me according to how many newsletters they sold. Then, with the amount that is left over, I go door to door. I don’t really like doing this because I feel like people are going to think that I am making money off the newsletter because they are paying me directly. This would be really bad because it’s a cardinal rule of Peace Corps that I can’t make any money on the side because I’m a volunteer. I would just rather be able to sell all the newsletters through stores in my town. So, at 10:30 we started going door to door and had 73 newsletters to sell. We finished at about 2:00 after selling every one of them.
I must add a note here about some terrible bug bites that I have. I don’t understand what kind of insect it is, but I have been getting these mosquito/spider like bites that are painful and end up leaving scars. It either happens when I am sleeping in my bed, or when I put pants on that have been stored in my closet. I always check my bed before I get in it to sleep and never find anything and shake out my pants before I put them on but the bites keep coming. Now my million dollar legs are ruined because I have a ton of bug bite scars all over!
Later that night, I went to a dance in the local bar/salon with my host cousins and some of their friends. We danced cumbia and merengue for about 3 hours. It is such great exercise because the salon is really hot and you sweat a lot. I am usually not a dancing fan, but I really do like the rhythm of the Costa Rican/Latin music and the fact that you dance in pairs instead of by yourself.
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
Today I woke up at around 7:00 am and ate breakfast (bread with coffee). The day started off really hot and sunny but then at around 1:30 pm it started raining really hard. At 2:00 pm I went into the town center for my first day of “English help.” From now on (or for a while at least), I will be in the community building from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm receiving people who have questions about English, want help with translations, students in the elementary or high school that have exams and want to do a review, etc. I decided to do this because a TON of people want me to give them individual English lessons or want me to come to their houses every week to help their kids with English. This isn’t something that is really appealing to me and I honestly don’t have the time to run around to different peoples houses helping individually. Because of this, I decided to start a help session where people can come to me and I can define in advance exactly the amount of time that I want to dedicate to being “the town English translator.” Today one girl came to ask for help preparing for an exam she has this week. I’m hoping more come next week…
After “English help” I went with my family over to the next neighborhood to my host mom’s mother’s house. Every Sunday night my host family visits her and I like going too because it’s a nice tradition. Families here are definitely 1) bigger and 2) more united which makes for great family gatherings. I like my family a lot but there are definitely times when I wish that I could walk over to my grandma’s house every weekend instead of having to take a 2-hour plane ride.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Today I woke up at 8:00 am and ate breakfast (arepa and coffee) and went to the elementary school to hand out little announcements about the beginner computer classes I am trying to organize. I handed out about 100 of them for the kids to take home to their parents (because it’s the parents I want in my class). Then I went up to the nearby community El Humo to hand out more and to talk to the director about doing the read-a-thon. He was MUCH more receptive of the idea than the director of the elementary in my community. I am going back on Thursday to talk to him more about it and so that we can plan it in more detail.
At 12:30 I had a meeting with the 5th graders that are going to paint the basketball court to collect the food items they are contributing to the basket of staple foods we are going to raffle off. It started pouring buckets 10 minutes before the meeting so unfortunately only 5 of the 14 of them showed up. And of the 5 that showed up only 3 brought their food items. We left off in that we will meet again on Thursday to turn in their food items. I am also writing a few letters to businesses in town asking for donations of things like brushes for painting, bleach and soap for cleaning the surface before painting, and a broom to scrub. On Thursday I will have them sign the letters and then we will take them to the businesses.
Every Tuesday at 1:30 I teach English to a group of women that make souvenirs in bamboo. They work in a part of my community that is pretty far from where I live. Usually I ride my bike out there but it was still pouring when I had to leave so I took the bus instead. Today was the 3rd class I have given to them. So far, they have learned how to say “I am” “You are” “She/he is” “they are” and “we are” and are able to present themselves to others and introduce other people. We also learned the days of the week and are now finishing with the English alphabet. Today we practiced spelling the names of the women in the group. They learn pretty fast and are having a lot of fun…so far so good!
After we finished with English, we talked about starting to do activities from the Project Development Workshop that one of the group members attended with me two weeks ago. Right now, the two of us have everything fresh in our minds but we need to teach the things to the four other women in the group so that together they will be able to plan projects better. We decided that from now on, on Mondays from 1:00 to 2:00 will be English class and from 2:00 to 3:30 will be activities from the workshop. The workshop was about the process of planning projects and putting them into action. We learned about establishing a vision, objectives, goals, doing priority rankings, feasibility studies, looking for resources within the community, monitoring projects, evaluating, and more. I really enjoyed the workshop and learned a lot of things that will be useful when working with groups and planning projects for the rest of my life.
I got back to my house at about 5 and watched a soap opera called Patito Feo or “ugly duckling.” It comes from Argentina and is SUPER popular here. Its about a girl in high school who is the ugly duckling. She has braces and big glasses and is nerdy, and then there is the gorgeous guy she likes….and then there is the dream guys terrible girlfriend. Within the high school there are two main cliques; the Divinas (made up of the terrible girlfriend and more terrible people) and the Populares (made up of Patito and all the nice people). These two gangs battle it out through dance and singing. They sing the same songs over and over so now everyone here has them stuck in their heads (smart marketing tactic). Because the show is filmed in Argentina where there is a really strong accent I hardly understand a word they say but I get by more or less.
After the show was over I met with my counterpart to review my quarterly work report and then returned home, ate dinner, and went to bed around 10:00.
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
Today I woke up at 7:30 and ate an arepa and coffee for breakfast. Then at 9:00 I rode my bike up to the nearby community “El Humo” to talk to the director of the elementary school more in depth about the read-a-thon idea. He is very enthusiastic and wants to start planning immediately after the two-week vacation they have that starts tomorrow.
After I talked to the director I came back down into my community and went to visit a lady that sells ice creams out of her house. This is a micro-entrepreneur that I would love to help out because she’s got a great reputation and makes good quality ice creams that people come out of their way to buy. She lives on the outskirts of the community, which is kind of a disadvantage because people have to go to her to buy ice cream. I have tried several different approaches in trying to suggest things that could improve her sales and each time I get shot down by her pessimistic husband. One day, I proposed that she contact various supermarkets or snack stores within the community to sell her ice creams in their stores. Her husband, who is always slumping around the house, said that the idea would never work because the owners of the supermarkets and other stores only want to rob their money and would never agree to buying the ice creams at a price that would be profitable for them. I tried my best to ask them questions to find a solution to this problem but they were so focused on the negative that nothing came of it. The lady that makes the ice creams is super friendly and outgoing, but her husband is such the extreme opposite that when it comes to subjects like this she takes his side and turns negative as well. Another time I suggested that they rent a stand in the town fair to sell ice creams and they said no because they said they don’t like leaving their house to go into town because if they do people will come in and rob them (which is totally not true, there are hardly any cases of robbery here). Its frustrating because I want to help them and they are always complaining that they are poor and stuff but then when I try to suggest that they do something they shoot me down completely. I have realized that I can’t force anyone to do something they don’t want to and that some people just like wallowing in their misery.
Now when I go to their house I just go to buy and ice cream and to talk. They are perfectly nice people as long as we don’t talk about their business.
I came home to eat lunch (rice, black beans, and cut up platano).
At 1:00 pm I had a meeting with the 5th graders about the basketball court project to collect more food goods to put in the basket we are raffling. My host sister is in the group and after we met, all of the mothers of the 5th graders had a meeting with the 5th grade teacher to talk about various things. When my host mom arrived home she told me about the meeting. She said that some of the mothers were mad and thought that I had excluded their kids (because only about ½ of the 5th graders are participating in the project). This makes me mad because when we first started with the project I went to the kids class and made a general announcement to all of them that those who were interested in doing a community project could come and sign up with me. Now, I’m going to have to do some sort of damage control.
After the meeting I came home at around 3:00 and had coffee and made a crown out of construction paper for my friend here who’s birthday is tomorrow. Later, I watched Patito Feo and ate dinner (rice, black beans, and noodles).
Friday, July 4th, 2008
Today I woke up at 6:45, ate breakfast (bread with homemade cheese and coffee), and ran over to the high school to give my friend (who is the English teacher) his fabulous birthday crown. Then at 8:30 I caught the bus to go to the nearest city, Turrialba. A volunteer friend of mine and I had made plans to meet at the university satellite campus and swim in the pool. We finished swimming at around 12:00 and went to grab some lunch. Then she had to take a bus back to her community while I stayed longer to run errands. I had to hit the bank, then internet to print out some things, then run to an office supplies store and then finally went to check my mail. It turned out that the care package that my parents had sent me arrived! I was soooo happy and couldn’t wait to open it and ripped right into it the second I got home. It had a pair of jeans that didn’t fit me before and now do (yay for losing a bit of poundage!). Among the other things included were peanut butter, a swimsuit for my host sister (who didn’t have one), magazines, a shoulder bag, a belt, plastic popsicle maker, and a plethora of chocolate candy!!! Needless to say, right now my host family and I are on an incredible sugar high. I think the package was just the thing I needed right about now to have a taste of home.
I also received a package from the class of 4th graders in Duvall that I am doing a culture exchange with. They sent pen-pal cards as well as a group picture. Although right now in the US everyone just started summer vacation, the school year here is only half way over. Right now they just got out for 15 days of vacation celebrating the half way mark. As soon as they go back to school I will bring the cards and the photo to share with the kids here. The class in my town that is participating in the culture exchange is the 5th graders. This includes my host sister, Kimberly, and 25 others.
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
Today is my host mom’s birthday. Everyone forgot…but birthdays here are not really a big deal. I, however, felt terrible because for my birthday they got me a cake and a present. I decided to bake her a cake last minute. I used brownie mix, nuts, and caramel sauce for frosting. We sang happy birthday and all was glorious.
My host father has finally let my host mother work with the womens group again. He had not let her go for about 6 months because he says that she is wasting her time and doesn’t make any money for the family when she works with the group. I guess its not important that she be doing what she loves. Anyway, for now she is able to work with them. They plant and sell sweet peppers. They have a big greenhouse (800 square meters) and sell their products to an intermediary in a nearby city who sells to supermarkets, hotels, and restaurants. I have found it hard to find ways to help them because all of the technical help that they need is provided by the government. Because they are a womens group and have been together so long (13 years), the government pays a lot of attention to them, gives them donations, trainings, etc. Some of them were in my computer class and started out in my English class, but because they have so much help from these other institutions they are kind of lazy. They didn’t want to come to class but want me to give them the certificate of completion….weird. Today, I went out to see how everything was going and to hang out with them. The pepper plants had grown really tall since the last time I had been there. They were picking peppers and weighing them and then putting them into bags according to size.
At about 1:00, I came back from the greenhouse and ate lunch (noodles, rice, and beans). Then, at 3:00, I went to have coffee at a house where a girl from Seattle is staying temporarily. She was an exchange student in Costa Rica in 2001 and has been back several times since. She is a high school Spanish teacher near Mount Rainier. Right now she is working on her masters in Spanish at the University of Washington. They are on vacation so she is here visiting and is staying with her old host family. We talked about general stuff and I told her about some of my projects here. It was interesting to hear her talk about what my town was like in 2001 when she first came here. No pavement, fewer houses, smaller in general.
Thursday, July 11, 2008
Today I woke up at 7:30 and ate breakfast (arepa and coffee) and hung out at the house for a long time. Eventually, I went with one of my host brothers (Diego Armando) to the abandoned coffee processing plant. I had never been inside and he knows a lot about how it used to work. It’s always been one of my favorite places in my town and I think its got a ton of potential to be turned into a museum and tourist center if they preserve it and do it right. However, its owned by the town cooperative, which is focusing on a livestock project and doesn’t consider the plant to be an asset much less a priority. The plant would require a lot of money to restore it, but it still has a lot of artifacts inside it and is really interesting to just walk around inside and imagine how it must have been when it was functioning. After the plant, we rode around to different places until about 4:00. Then came home and spent the rest of the day here.
