A day in the life of Amy

I've received many questions as to what I do here in CR on a daily basis. I know I have been holding out on everyone. So to deter any of you from thinking that I spend my days on the beach soaking up the sun (I haven't even seen the beach yet) and my nights at the bars, I figure it's time to tell you the real deal. I've joined a convent! Or after two years here, it might feel like I have. OK, ok.....no really. No more chisme (gossip). On a good day, I wake around 8am after my mama tica has gone to work in the cafeteria at the local high school. Usually she has prepared me breakfast...some assortment of scrambled eggs, rice and beans, bread and butter, yogurt or fresh fruit that isn't so fresh, and tea or juice. Usually not all on the same day. I'm starting to teach her that I don't normally eat that much for breakfast. After showering in the shower that now has a shower curtain and taking my good old time getting ready for the day, I usually study Spanish to prepare for my afternoon class. From time to time, I accept phone calls from my mom in the States during the morning hours while I have the house to myself. I don't feel as rude speaking English if no Spanish speakers are in the house. My mom tica comes home around noon and prepares me a big lunch...usually some kind of meet, rice, salad, and something else that is fried on the stove like plantains, potatoes or another kind of carb. I scarf this down before running to my 1pm Spanish class which is held in a community building in my barrio about a 10 minute walk from my house. Spanish class is semi-private with only one other girl from my training group, Rebecca. Rebecca has become a good friend during training and we usually hang out when time permits. When class ends at 4pm, I head home for "cafecito" with my mom tica. I usually take tea. Basically it's just an excuse to talk and eat. On Wednesday nights I have a girls group that I facilitate at my house. This is a group of about 12 girls between the ages of 8-12. I'm supposed to be teaching them something worthwhile. Preferably about self-esteem or the like but usually I just struggle to get my point across in Spanish and try hard to understand what they are saying. This girls group is just a trial run for groups I will be facilitating in my future site. Which btw, I find out this coming Monday (Aug. 29) during a day in the country with my fellow PC trainees and the PC CR staff. So that is my average day with lots of Spanish studying in the off time.

On a bad day (every Friday and usually every other Saturday), I wake around 5:30am to catch the bus at 6:30am to make it to my PC training at a medical university in San Jose by 8:30am. Yes, 2 different buses and about 2 hours of time. Training is all day on a multitude of different topics such as the politics, economics, and culture of CR, job training for my future site, some kind of medical lecture on STDs, HIV or malaria, and always a shot or two to boot. The day ends at 4:30pm. It is after this time on Fridays that I can usually find a little bit of time to use the internet for free at the medical university. By the time I get back to my house in a suburb of San Jose (Dulce Nombre....the name of my barrio), it is usually 9pm and I am ready to crash.

Field trips to local vocational schools, museums, and health facilities round out the week. This entire training experience has been punctuated by two field visits and soon a third where we go visit current PC volunteers in their sites and see what kind of work they have been up to. But those are all stories in their own and will have to wait for the next blog.