Back From PANAMA

This is going to be short and sweet, but I will write more about the trip later.

I just got back from Panama. It was a wonderful and amazing experience, until the last day, when I woke up with severe gastrointestinal problems. Spent a day at an ER in Panama City getting IV fluids and am now a lot better, but still a little sick. I will be spending the weekend in San Jose to hopefully fully recover. We think it was food poisoning or a parasite of some sort, but I'm on anti-parasite medicine now. The vacation was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had (we stayed on these islands in the Caribbean with indigenous people and slept in huts and ate fish and went to beautiful islands every day) but I think getting sick from lack of proper hygiene was the price I had to pay.

Will give a more detailed report soon! Love!

I realized I never put up any pictures of my construction project, so here you are, in before and after format...

The above is a picture of the court before we put a roof on it.


And after...

At Long Last

Hello all!

Yes, I am still alive, although my blogging history wouldn't vouch for that fact. In the past 3 or so months since I've updated, lots of things have happened... Mom and Dad came to visit in March, I went to California to visit Stanford and Elisabeth in April, and I have been working like crazy in my site. I can't believe I am almost done! These last few months are really flying by.

A big new group of volunteers began working a few weeks ago, and I had the luck to get one of them just for me :), so now I have a site partner who will continue to work in my town for the next two years. His name is Dave, and he is a social worker who is, coincidentally, also from Iowa. What a glorious state. :)

We sort of made international news last week when a big tropical storm (Alma) hit and did a lot of damage all over the country. Some volunteers have been evacuated from towns that have been nearly destroyed, and a lot of the major highways are blocked by mudslides/avalanches. In my town, we were experiencing a major drought so bad that about 500 cattle died and they were worried about a big public health crisis (disease spread, etc.). The problem is that there's no aqueduct system and the really poor people use these very shallow dirty wells, which dried up after an unexpected month of no rain. The national water ministry has been sending out trucks with water tanks for the poor people to go fill up every day. People here keep saying we are in the "end times." Kind of scary.

I had a fun incident happen yesterday when I got home from work, about to head into my bedroom (which I keeped locked with a key), when my host parents informed me that, no, I would have to wait a few hours, because they chose yesterday as the day (for the first time in 6 years) to pump out the septic tank at our house, which, incidentally, as I learned yesterday, is located right at the door to my room. After a few rancid-smelling hours, I was able to enter my room, only to encounter the floor covered in a wet, bad smelling liquid whose color I will not describe here. Wondrous.

In another piece of news, I decided about a month ago to attend Yale Law School this fall, after months of agony which usually accompany my decision-making. I will be back in the States in August to move out to Connecticut on August 27th for the first day of orientation.

Tomorrow about 8 volunteer friends and I are heading to Panama, the last sightseeing trip I have planned here. Because of our tropical storm, the main highway is closed due to landslides so we will be taking the "long route" on the coastal highway (Pacific Coast) which apparently will add another 12 hours onto an already 17 hour bus trip. Funnn. Pray for our safe arrival in Panama City on Friday. I heard that this coastal highway, La Costanera, is like one big fun traffic jam because of the highway blockage situation, and it is unpaved and has lots of one-lane bridges. And now apparently many beggars from towns hit hard by the storm come up to cars on the road asking for food. Wish us luck.

If all goes according to plan, we will spend two nights in Panama City and three nights at the San Blas Islands, which are in the Caribbean and are inhabited by indigenous people. It is supposed to be quite beautiful. And I'm excited to see the canal.

In work news, I have been doing my usual projects--self-esteem preteen girls group, school drop-out prevention, English classes, etc. plus lately I have been working on writing a grant to expand the Children's Center where I have spent a lot of time.

Also, we're planning a national youth conference for July (I'm on the organizing committee). As it turns out, we are in need of monetary donations to buy the materials we need to make the conference happen. If you want to donate, I would really appreciate. Here is a little description of the project:

The conference, "Building Promising Futures," is a national youth leadership conference for young Costa Ricans from marginal communities throughout the country. We will invite 80 youth based on their participation in local community committees "Juntas de Proteccion" and on leadership potential. The conference will be in the form of a camp where kids from all parts of the country will come together for three nights of activities in a campsite in the Central Valley. The objectives of the camp will be:



1. Leadership training through such workshops as: Sexuality, Life Planning Skills, Leadership and Motivation, and Community Project Planning.

2. That the youth use their training to work more closely with their local community groups (i.e. Juntas de Proteccion) with the goal that they design and then implement a small, youth based project in their communities when they return from the camp.

3. To offer the youth an enjoyable camp experience and memorable event that they may never have had, but deserve as youth.

IF YOU WANT TO DONATE:

The direct link to the PCPP is: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=515-138

You can copy and paste that link.

If that doesn't work, you can arrive there by going to the Peace Corps Website, www.peacecorps.gov, choose the "Donate Now" tab on the left side of the page, then select "Donate to Volunteer Projects," and search by country (Costa Rica) and select the project: "Building Promising Futures" submitted by M. Washington, project number 515-138

Any donation, however small, would be greatly appreciated.

OK, after shamelessly asking for your money, I should probably get going. It has started to rain again. Down here, rain storms (which happen every afternoon in the rainy season) are kind of like snow storms in the States in that they give you an excuse to just do nothing, stay inside, and drink coffee (I think I may have adapted too much to Tica culture!). Love to all!

Chirripó!

Just got back from the trip to Chirripó yesterday. It was absolutely gorgeous and we had perfect weather the whole time. And it was pretty pleasant for the most part during the actual hike, but now (2+ days later) I am REALLY feeling it.

Ben, Max and I got to the base of the mountain and checked in at the ranger station (in San Gerardo de Rivas) on Friday afternoon. We stayed at a hostel right across from the trailhead, I guess so as to save ourselves from even a few steps of extra walking the next day. :) We packed up our stuff (bringing, we found out later, WAY too much food) and went to bed really early.

On Saturday morning we got up at 4AM and were hiking by 5AM (pitch black still, with flashlights) to get a headstart. The first 8 K were relatively easy (or we were just not tired yet), but then, as we got to a higher altitud and the going got rougher, it started to be a little tough. Of the entire trip, I found kilometers 8-10 to be the hardest. I had some breathing difficulties reminiscent of athsma(!) but after that we made it to the hostel at 15K pretty easily. Spent the night there and got up the next morning (Sunday) at 3 AM to start the 5 K hike to the summit. It was freezing but absolutely gorgeous at the top. We were way above the clouds and got to the sun rise from 3800 meters (12,500 feet).

Then we hiked alllll the way back down to the base of the mountain, meaning in a short 2-day hike we did 40 K or about 30 miles. The scenery was stunning and it was fun to see so many terrain changes as the elevation changed.

We got back around 1 PM to the base, took showers and hopped on a bus back to San Jose.

It was a great trip and something I am very glad I got a chance to do during my time here. Am now back in my site working on women's self esteem workshops, parenting classes and starting up my adult English again on Friday... I am also looking forward to my mom and dad's visit in early March!

Love to all.

FINISHED!!!

I think my last blog entry probably sounded kind of negative, so I wanted to give an update to announce that the roofing of the basketball court was FINISHED last week, on Tuesday. Turns out once you have sand and rocks you can really move fast :).

It is a big relief to be done with that and to be able to turn into the grant foundation the final financial reports (not sure how to say that in English). We would still like to add some bleachers, new basketball hoops, lights, and a couple other miscelaneous things to the court, but for the moment I can rest and feel good that I got something accomplished in January! (when no one gets anything done, generally, since there is no school, etc.)

My January hasn't actually been all that bad. I went to the beach with my host family last weekend for our first ever family vacation and it was really fun. We went to some really beautiful spots on the Pacific coast, camped in tents at night, and ate lots of food that they packed along. There were 17 of us jampacked into 14-passenger van. It was kind of funny going to the beach with Ticos, because none of them know how to swim and most are quite afraid of the ocean (as they should be, I guess), so I was the only one in the group who actually got in the water and swam around a little bit.

Right now I am at an internet cafe in the bus station on the way back to my site. I left yesterday for the regional volunteer meeting that happens a few times a year. It was fun to see other PCVs but as always an exhausting bus trip... (5+ hours to go about 70 miles).

Next week I will be hosting a community meeting looking for possible host families to take in the next volunteer (who will come in May). I have been running around for weeks asking people if they are interested. It's a harder task than it might seem: the people who are really warm and friendly generally don't have an extra room (almost no one has an extra room) and those few that do are willing to do it for the extra money more than for the experience.

Then in February a few volunteer friends and I are going to climb Chirripo, which is the highest peak in all of Central America. It's apparently pretty tough, and I am not that in shape, so I will let you know how it goes... They say that on a clear day you can see both coasts from the summit...

Also looking very much forward to Mom and Dad's planned visit for the beginning of March. YAYYYY. Haven't had any visitors since when Anna and Paul came down last May.

Hope everyone is enjoying a good start to the new year. Love to all.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hi all,

I know it has been shamelessly long since I last updated this thing, but I guess it could be a new years' resolution to do a better job!

I am back in Los Chiles after spending ten wonderful days at home over Christmas. Now, as other volunteers often say, we are in the final downhill stretch till close of service in August/September. It doesn't really feel like the final stretch yet though!

January is a rather difficult time to come back to Costa Rica because there is NOTHING going on... No school, no childrens' center, and very few kids around, as January is their summer break and most of the kids, at least the ones I work with, take off by the end of December to pick coffee with their families in the higher elevated areas of the country and don't return until school starts in mid February or March.

Soooo. Things have been a little slow here. My main project during summer break is to get started on the construction of a roof for a basketball court at the kids' center where I work. I helped to write a grant for the materials and we were approved and everything arrived ready to go in December. So you would think work could get started... Unfortunately, as I have to continually relearn here, things are just not that simple. Every small little thing, which you(or at least I) would think would be easy and quick, takes FOREVER.

Case in point: all of the materials for the construction project came in early December, but we still needed two small things: sand and rocks to mix with the cement to form the bases for the roof. We had solicited and been granted a donation of these materials by the local government in early December. And these materials, a pile of sand and rocks, have been sitting two blocks away from the kids' center for months. All that was needed was a five-minute favor in which a machine loaded the stuff into a truck and the truck brought it to the center. But it took a MONTH to get this to happen. And I don't mean by waiting passively. I probably spent 300 hours talking to the mayor, talking to the truck driver, reminding the mayor, talking to the machine owner, sitting in the government offices, making calls, reminding again, in order for this to happen. FINALLY, after spending this entire past week insisting (and everyone in the local government office surely so sick of me they just gave in), YESTERDAY finally they made this trip for us and we are FINALLY ready to begin work on the project.

Looking back on it, I am amazed to think that I spent countless hundreds of hours securing a donation of materials worth LESS THAN A HUNDRED DOLLARS. In effect, getting paid like 10 cents an hour, although obviously that's not really accurate since I don't get paid at all. But it did make me feel like me and my time are worth absolutely NOTHING.

Anyway, enough complaining. Perhaps it is evident how frustrated I have been over this, but thankfully, through some miracle of God or simply the mayor's desire to get rid of me (or a combination of the two), the sand and rocks arrived. I can now focus on the next step of the project: execution!!!!

In other news, the youth volunteers in Costa Rica are planning to do a national summer camp in June or July and I am on the planning committee. So I'm really excited about that!

I will write more soon, got to go! Love to all!

Cultural Festival

Hi all,

I know it has been a realllly long time since I last wrote an entry (before I went to Nicaragua!!!) and I need to once again start writing regular entries on the blog. We once again have internet at our house (after about 8 months of not having it) so that might make things easier.

Things here have been quite crazy in the last few months, first with Nicaragua, then with a good volunteer friend deciding to leave the Peace Corps and go home in early September, then with a weeklong training in San Jose in the end of September, and throughout with a HUGE amount of work to do and also law school applications!

As I may have mentioned on earlier blogs, I have been in the process of applying to law school this fall (not too easy to do from rural Costa Rica, I have found). Í'm actually almost done now (hopefully by mid October I will be all done) but it has been a lot of work, with writing resumes and personal statements, getting recommendations set up, filling out applications, but mostly just managing the 12 schools where I am applying and all their requirements, paperwork, etc. I know that sounds like a ridiculous amount of schools, but I am hoping that more equals merrier in terms of financial aid possibilities. I will keep you all updated about that.

Next weekend (12th, 13th, and 14th) is a cultural festival that I have been helping to organize in our town for the past few months. We are hoping that it will be a big success (the first time anyone has done something like this in my town) and are expecting about 100 artists, musicians, etc to come perform from other parts of the country and Nicaragua. We are in the last-minute preparation stage now, and I hope that once it's done I will be a little less stressed!

I have to go now being as I am on the home computer and they need the phone. I will write more soon, I mean it this time. Please continue writing and calling, it is keeping me sane! I love you all miss you and the States a lot!

Love,
Rebecca

Another pilgrimmage

It has once again been a long time since the last blog entry. Things have been pretty loco here over the past few weeks. It seems like every time I finish one thing, I start something else with no time in between to think!

The last few weeks of July were spent in a huge stressful rush trying to organize a community trip (on a rented bus) from my site to Cartago, to take part in the yearly pilgrimmage to the "Negrita" (the patron saint of Costa Rica). Our intentions were simple: the Boy Scouts leader and I wanted to take the Scouts (boys and girls)there. For these kids it was something unlike anything they had ever experienced, since many have never even left my town, have never been to a city, and certainly have never seen the Basilica of Cartago. This pilgrimmage (as some of you may remember from last year, when I did it with other volunteers) is a HUGE national event, and hundreds of thousands of people participate.

Well, in order to afford the rented bus, we had to sell tickets to people in the community to go along with us. This idea sounds simple enough, but it turned out to be a huge headache. Since hardly anyone in my town has ever been to Cartago (or a city, or so far away from home), most people were scared at even the idea of taking a trip there, and we had a really hard time selling enough tickets to make it a go. As usually happens here, things came down to the wire and I ended up collecting the last 10 or 20 dollars a few hours before departure time on the day of the pilgrimmage. I have rarely experienced such a sense of relief as I did when I handed the driver our hard-won $360 dollars.

The trip is about 6 hours, through the pineapple fields and sugar cane and then the mountains and coffee plantations, and when we finally made it there it was 9 PM. We watched the fireworks (with about 300,000 other people at the church), got something to eat, and walked to a community building which had been lent to us to sleep in. The next day people hung out around the church, watched the mass and the procession of the Virgin leaving the church, and collected holy water in big jugs to take back to their families. As we all piled into the bus to head home and I counted 30 (the same number we came with), I felt pretty joyous. All the stress and struggle was worth it: I think (hope) that we started a tradition in my community of participating in the Romeria, and hopefully now that it has been a success once, more people will want to go next year.

So the other big thing that has been going on lately is ENGLISH CLASSES. I decided to hold an information, sign-up meeting at the beginning of August with the intention of restarting adult English classes here. My adult class (which has been going on since October) is finishing finally and people constantly approach me about starting new classes. I am not a huge fan of English classes (meaning I don`t love teaching them) but I know it is something many people want and something I can do, so I feel sort of obligated to teach. And I usually end up liking it. Plus it`s a really good way to meet people.

Still, I was more than half hoping that no one would show up and I would be off the hook. I could say to people, "hey, I had a meeting and no one showed up, so you`re out of luck." Well I posted a few little signs announcing the meeting around town and showed up at the designated place and time. And much to my surprised EIGHTY PEOPLE showed up to sign up. Now I am in week two of English classes with 50 students (25 beginners, 25 intermediates) and I had to turn away all the other people who showed up to the meeting (and about 20 more who have been calling and showing up at my house and at my classes since then to try to gain entry). It`s hard to be so popular :).

I just got a call yesterday saying that my keyboard has been FIXED!!! It has been out of commission now for almost three months. I am still looking for music, but I am hoping to start a choir with the children at the children`s center where I spend a lot of time. I will give an update on that soon.

I have to go help some high schoolers study for an English exam. (since when did I become the English volunteer?) and then in the afternoon I have to administer the final exam for my old adult class. English, English, English. I can`t complain, I guess, because it has been keeping me BUSY.

Next week I am going to Nicaragua with Ben. I will update the blog after that, hopefully with pictures, to show you all how it went.

Love to all! Send me emails and letters please!