SITE ASSIGNMENT

I now know where I will be living for the next two years!

Zona Norte, near the city of San Carlos and in a pueblito of 300 people in COOPE ISABEL.

Coope Isabel
Pineapple Farms and Cattle Ranches.
300 people living in a town that has a kindergarden, primary school, pulperia (local store), soccer field and salon (place for community events)
The address to my house is ¨75 west of soccer field¨
My family: a mother and her son.
Fairly close to Nicaragua...road trip!

Teaching
I will be THE ENLISH TEACHER for three elementary school. I´m excited but nervous. I´ll beable to control and run my classes as I please, but that also means I am in charge of organizing, planning and teaching everything to do with English. (I always have that teaching degree to fall back on, oh wait, no I don´t.) I also can´t wait to buy my bike, which I´ll use to get to my school...please no mountains.

Looks like I will not have many resources at all to teach with...hey friends, school supplies are much appreciated!

I officially move on the 18th but I get to visit next week!
TBC...

The Week in Review

Nov 19-22
BEACH TRIP to Puerto Viejo in Limon. Slept at Rocking J´s Hostal in HAMMOCKS!

Nov 23
My Birthday. Feliz Cumpleaños. Package arrived from my parents, woohoo!

Nov 24
Site Assignment Day!
Saw Harry Potter 7, in English, in a movie theatre!!
Peace Corps Thanksgiving lunch :)

Nov 25
Happy Thanksgiving
...hmmm my stomach hurts. ¿Donde easta el baño?

1 Month In, 26 Months To Go

Pura Vida people, Pura Vida…

Friles, Costa Rica

Since I’ve been so bad about updating my blog, (I have no internet in my house and Peace Corps doesn’t give too much free time) I’ll do one big update.

10/09/10

I moved in with my host Family! (Friles, Costa Rica) I live an 1 ½ hours outside the capital, San Jose.



My House

10/10/10

Went to abuela’s house for lunch, delicious. After, the fam and I went for a walk to the Laguna. Great thing about Costa Rica is there are fruit trees everywhere and the fruit is yours for the taking, snack time!

10/11/10

Happy Birthday Mama

First Day of Spanish Class

10/12/10

First Day of TECH Training- 6:30 am bus to Tarbaca, which takes an hour…9 more weeks of awesome motion sickness. Much respect to Tico bus drivers, they navigate the heck out of mountains and pequenito streets.

10/13/10

Stopped counting my mosquito bites…I can’t wait for my mosquito net.

Spanish Class- in order to get to know the town and practice speaking we were assigned to go up to total strangers and start a conversation…estuve nerviosa y quise vomitar, but it ended up being fine. Ticos are extremely nice and seemed to want to talk to the new gringos in town.

Darty or dance party with my host family that night, we are so cool.

10/14/10

Teeth brushing is an art form here. My family checks that I brush my teeth after every meal. You don’t just quietly brush in the bathroom but foam up with everyone around the more fuerte the better.

Learned about Leichmaniasis, Malaria, Dengue Fever and Bot Flies in Medical Class today, I’m obsessively checking my mosquito bites.

10/13/10

My brain is so tired. I can’t think in Spanish let alone English. Mornings and after dinner forget about it, I’m a drooling pile of mush.

10/20/10

Day trip to San Jose! Peace Corps split the 44 of us into groups for a scavenger hunt. We were given a map, a time limit and told to find all the black dots on the map. First thing we found was a crime scene and a body, interesting but definitely not what we were looking for. Over all it was a good trip, got lost a few times, we were the most obvious gringos ever. We were so happy to be out of our communities and looking at something new, even if San Jose leaves something to be desired. I think I will be avoiding that city as much as possible, but it is the place to go when you can’t find something in your community you really need. Note: DO NOT GO TO Bario Amon, Coca Cola, Western San Jose, DO GO to Bario California, East San Jose and the Pedestrian Blvd.

10/23/10

Learned to wash lettuce, broccoli and the like with salt because slugs will kill you if ingested, awesome.

10/24/10



Volcan Irizu



Volcan Irizu!

All of the volunteers of Friles, our families, and a few volunteers from other communities, rented a bus and went to Volcan Irizu. Awesome time, first ever volcano for me. Sunburn, yes. Post volcan we stopped at a shut down sanitarium used for TB patients…not so cheery.



Sanitario



10/28/10

MOSQUIOT NET!

10/30/10-11/02/10

Agua Temales

Went to Herradura de Rivas to visit a current PCV. It’s a 1 ½ outside San Isidro and took us 5-6hrs in total to get there. Rivas is gorgeous and close to the highest mountain in Costa Rica, Chiripo. I felt like I was climbing Chiripo the whole time I was there, but had a great time getting sucio on our walk to the waterfall and slipped down the cliff (aka the road) while on our way back from Agua Temales. (natural hot springs)

Rained the whole time…had no idea it wouldn’t stop until a week later. Friles lost power that night.

Herradura de Rivas

11/04/10

One month anniversary…I feel like it was been waaaaaay longer (but in a good way most of the time)

No school, No power, No water- Raining like crazy.

Love my headlamp!

11/05/10

More Rain

No Shower

Flooding, Landslides and looking bad for parts of Costa Rica. Friles has all this on a minor scale, I feel very lucky everyone is safe.

Power came back late that night

11/06/10

Rain has stopped but still no water, which means no shower and I’m starting to huele mal.

I had a very entertaining afternoon. Since everyone was starting to get a little ripe, we took this whole no water thing into our own hands. My Tica Mama, sisters Julissa and Sharlin and I went for a “little walk.” I thought we were going to someone’s house that does have water, wrong. There was a way better plan in place. After walking down a steep, secluded and dirt covered road we came to a little steam on the side of the road.  Next to the stream was a big cement block with a spigot and fresh water. On the other side of the block was a hose going into the ground that we could take out and had running water. Yup this was our shower. Great news…no idea when water with be back. I’m going to become great friends with that stream

Darty, dance party, in celebration of showering! Jealous? I think so.

11/08/10

Surprise! Water is back and I showered! Buuuut now its disappeared again

Peace Corps Costa Rica, Training Group in Friles

Why is Peace Corps in Costa Rica?

When I received my invitation to Peace Corps with my country of services listed as Costa Rica I was first relived that I was officially going somewhere and then surprised because most people think of Costa Rica as a vacation destination. Many other people I spoke with before I left had similar reactions, “Costa Rica that’s amazing, I went on vacation there!”

Now after being in country for a few weeks and being a part of Peace Corps country debriefing I have a much better idea of what Peace Corps does and why Costa Rica is still apart of their agenda.

Peace Corps has been working with Costa Rica from early in the organizations history and in many ways is a Peace Corps success story- build up of infrastructure, access to clean water, electricity, basic education and healthcare are standard around the country. Costa Rica is a great environment for volunteers to efficiently and effectively work because resources needed for survival are already in place. However, as far as Costa Rica has come over the past 40 (+) years there is still a need for Peace Corps development. Fundamental weaknesses exist that could compromise the successes made by past Peace Corps Volunteers.

Why I am here:

o   Costa Rica and the U.S. have good diplomatic relations, without which Peace Corps could not send a volunteer oversees. Also, since 9/11 the States needs to keep and maintain international friendships.

o   The government of Costa Rica has set a national standard for all students to be bilingual by 2017 and has enlisted the help of the U.S. government and Peace Corps. (TEFL program was implemented specifically to help with this goal.)

o   High school graduation rates are EXTREMELY low. Somewhere between 20 and 30 percent. At age 14 a student may choose to leave school and work in order to support their family.

o   Teen pregnancy is at an all time high.

o   College degrees are even less common than high school diplomas.

o   English provides people with the ability to enter into jobs in the tourism sector, which is hugely important to the country’s economic stability.

o   As we have witnessed with Mexico (drug wars), Costa Rica is seeing a rapid increase in the smuggling, distribution and use of illegal substances. School is a major tool to fight the influx of cartels. Keep students in school, motivated and prepared for a future in an ever changing, modernizing and technologically advanced world.

o   Right now 40% of the total population of Costa Rica lives in slums- tourists will never experience this side of Costa Rica.

o   Rural areas lack major resources like hospitals or medical clinics. Costa Rica has huge mountainous regions where roads wind up and down mountain sides, making driving a short distance in miles/km take hours. This country is also prone to earthquakes and landslides that frequently damage and block major roadways. Not having a clinic or hospital in rural areas is a major setback for people without cars and when ambulances can’t get past dirt covered roads.

Peace Corps is about sustainable human development, where you give a community the education and thus the ability and confidence to overcome challenges. My focus as a TEFL teacher is to support educators, students and communities in a way that will enhance their English language skills. By doing this, teachers can more effectively pass on knowledge of English; students can turn their education into a means of self sufficiency through work. These students will be a part of communities that produce well educated citizens who can invest into the growth and success of Costa Rica as a whole.

Not a lot of time...

So I know I said my next post was going to be about why Peace Corps is in Costa Rica, but I wanted to share some other information.

I don't have much time to write and don't know when I'll have internet next but here are some awesome thing that happened to me in that last two days...

Visit to Cartago- my first trip to a city
Last day at Tres Rios- big group dinner that involved lots of dancing...Irish Step Dancing- believe it
Earthquake
Host Family- 3 new sisters! annnd 3 dogs! I meet them today yay!

The End

What does the Peace Corps do?

Since I will be eat, sleep and breathing Peace Corps for the next 27 months I thought I should give people an insight into who I work for and why it is so important.

The Peace Corps was founded by President Kennedy with projects in Costa Rica begining in 1963.

The mission of Peace Corps is to promote world peace and friendship by:
1. Helping people of interested countries meet their need for trained men and women.
2. Help promote better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served.
3. Help promote a better understanding of other poeple on the part of Americans.

Development is the first goal of PC, but their is a difference between what the industrialized world and America (in general) thinks of development and Peace Corps philosophy. In many ways development is seen as purely economic (writing a check), building a product through raising infrastructure or modernization of an underdeveloped region. This is a partial picture, but not how Peace Corps chooses to promote development. Yes, money is needed to create projects and needed to fund the Peace Corps, but where other organizations use money as their resource for development, Peace Corps uses people.

Peace Corps is a grassroots, people to peaple and relationship centered organization. It facilitates activities by creating sustainable projects that passes education, skills, and ownership of projects to the people they serve so development can continue long after the volunteer is gone.

My role in the Peace Corps is as a TEFL Volunteer or Teacher of English as a Foriegn Language. This is a pioneer program not seen in Costa Rica for generations of Ticos. It is an experiment in teaching and learning for both Peace Corps and Costa Rica that will hopefully expand and continue until it is no longer needed.

RIGHT NOW:
October 5-9: The group of Tico 21 volunteers (my group) has been in Tres Rios for a Pre-ServiceTraining introduction to the Peace Corps, volunteering and living in Costa Rica. Within the volunteers I am orienting with their are 2 groups-TEFL (me) and CED (Community Educational Development)
October 9-December 17:  All volunteers move from the Pre-Service Training to In-Service Training where, based on our level of Spanish language ability and program (TEFL or CED) we are put into small clusters and into host families for 3 months. We will be in intensive language sessions, security training and for TEFL volunteers, English job training.
Dec 17: Officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer and the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.
Dec 18, 2010-Dec 17, 2012: I move into my perminent community. There will be three schools I am responsible for where I interact with elementary, high school, technical high schools or a combination of all three. I work with teachers already present in schools to teach or improve their English. I then work as a co-teacher in their classrooms. The hope is that the Tico teacher will learn the skills to effectively and correctly teach English to their students. In some cases schools may not have an English teacher. In those instances I may become the primary English teacher, but must work with other educators so that once I leave, someone in that community will have the ability to take my place.

I am also responsible for creating a community project where I address a specific need not covered in my daily role as a TEFL Volunteer.

Although I have only been a Peace Corps volunteer all of 3 days, I have learned a tremendous amount about the organization and its global impact that I cannot do justice to in words. This will be an extremely personal experience where the relationships I form with communities and my intigration into Costa Rica will determine my success. Although I still have 3 months of training before I have students, I feel love for them already.

There is so much to say it is hard for me to sum up this experience.

My next blog will be, Why is Peace Corps still in Costa Rica? I got that question a lot before I left and didn't have a great answer for it...but now I do!

Bienvenido! I have arrived!

Running on two hours of sleep makes for an interesting travel day, but I made it bags and all. WOOHOO! COSTA RICA! My group will be in the mountains until Saturday when we go to our host families. I have a lot to say but lack of sleep is making it extremely hard to type and think so I will continue this post on another day...Hasta Luego

PVC Julianne Davis

1 Day to go

For all you facebook, twitter and blog stalkers out there...

October 4
Monday: 6am flight from Manchester, NH to Washington D.C. ($700 ticket, and they make me pay for checked bags...lame!)
               Find a shuttle to hotel
               12p-7p Peace Corps Orientation
               7:05p Pass out
October 5
Tuesday: 2am wake up call
               7:20 am flight to Miami...why are we up at 2am?
               12:05 pm flight to SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA

               12:50pm arrive in SAN JOSE COSTA RICA
               12:51pm Officially working as a Peace Corps Volunteer

I'm not freaking out at all...

I'm leaving for Costa Rica in HOW MANY DAYS?!?!?!

It was recommended to me that I should set up my Peace Corps Blog before I leave the U.S. So here it is...no worries though I'm planning on spicing up my entries once I'm actually in country. See y'all back here October 4th!!