It's been just about 11 weeks now since I arrived here in Costa Rica and I'm happy to say that training is almost over and next Friday, I swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. I have reached the level of an intermediate-medium Spanish speaker; the minimum required to swear in as a volunteer. That's a lot of improvement since I came here as a beginner-medium speaker.
On the 2nd of October, I will move to my official site in Santa Cruz. SC is about 4.5-5 hours away from where I am now. I went to visit my new town for 6 days about a week ago. I stayed with my new host family the Ugartes and had a pretty good time after I adjusted to the constantly high weather temperature. It was probably in the 90s every day and there is no AC. The sun is really intense and I battled headaches the first few days. After that, I kept myself really well hydrated and tried to stay in the shade during the sun's most intense hours. I also got bitten by more bugs on this visit than I have in my entire life. And this was a day when I had applied bug repellent 4 times already. Fresh blood. They should get over me soon I hope.
In my family I have a dad who owns a mini-grocery store which is connected to the house. He sits on the front porch from 5am-9pm everyday waiting for customers to come. He is also the President of the community's development association (hence the reason I am living there). My new mom is an "alma de casa", literally, goddess of the house, much like my real mom. This said, both of my parents will be home ALL THE TIME! I also have a 17 year old brother, Emillio, who lives in the house as well. Apparently I will be overtaking his room, sending him to sleep with his mother in her bed for the next year. And every other week, they are joined in the bed by my 7 year old nephew! It's a common thing here but I feel really bad about this arrangement since I am hogging a double bed in the next room. It is also so hot at night to sleep, I don't know how they do it. I think I am going to become a form of resentment to my new brother. Not to worry, I've had experience.
The roads in my barrio are unpaved and very gravely. Everybody from Estocolmo (my barrio) rides bikes to the center of downtown Santa Cruz (about 10 min. on bike, 20 min. on foot) to do shopping at bigger grocery stores, go to the bank, post office and what have you. There are also restaurants, hotels and two internet cafes. Once a week I will be working at an orphanage in the downtown. I went for two hours the other week and the kids were all over me. There are about 10 children all under the age of 10, many siblings, and they have all been the victims of sexual abuse. Very sad. They were so needy for attention and you could tell they had severe behavioral problems.
During my visit I took many walks and met tons of people who live in my barrio. There are about 2000 in all. I am really good at remembering names so this impressed people. I would come back after my walks and tell my dad (Manuel) about all of the people I met. He couldn't believe the list of people I'd rattle off as it took him 4 days to remember my own name. But everyone in my barrio was really friendly and look forward to my return in a week. Especially the children.
There were many special events during my 6 days in my new site. The first one being my birthday. I could only imagine how horrible this day was going to be in a new town where I had only been for 2.5 days. Missing all my family and friends. But much to my disbelief, I had a really good day. I actually escaped my barrio and spent the entire day with another PCV who lives in a neighboring barrio. I had only met her one other time before this day and then, it had only been very briefly. Her name is Dearing and she is from Nashville. She is just about to finish up her two years of service in Dec. I am really going to miss her after that. We visited my PANI office which is the host agency I will be working with during my time here. It is an agency run by the state and it is like our Child Welfare Protection Agency. So I met my counterpart who I will be working with and was introduced to other people in the office. For lunch, we went back to Dearing's barrio where we ate peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches, pringles, bananas and oreos for lunch. It was a real treat since I had not had any of that since arriving to CR (OK, minus the bananas). Afterwards, I attended a cooking class with Dearing which her host mom teaches at the local high school. We made "Drunk Cake" but unfortunately the electricity went out so we were unable to bake the cake. In the evening I went to a group that Dearing has put together as part of her PC service where she teaches pre-adolescents about abuse (sexual, verbal, physical, psychological, etc) and incorporates an art project into the lesson. For dinner she took me to a nice restaurant in Santa Cruz and surprised me with a necklace and earrings that she had made out of irridescent green seed beads. It was such an unexpected surprise since we didn't really know each other well. But she helped to make my day special and for her, I am thankful. She is a really sweet person.
This same week, was Costa Rica's Independence Day (Sept. 15) so there were lots of events going on leading up to this day. The same night of my birthday, the "Entorche" was passing through Santa Cruz so we watched that after dinner. The Entorche is an event every year where a torch passes through towns, like a huge bike race, throughout all of Central America before it arrives to it's final destination of San Jose on the 15th. The following night thousands of people gather in the streets with their children who carry hommade lanterns that hold a candle as they parade though barrios and downtown Santa Cruz. It reminded me of Halloween for some reason. It was neat to see all of the illuminated lanterns. Then the next morning, the big day of the 15th, all the children from all the area elementary and high schools gather in downtown Santa Cruz, dressed in their school uniforms accented with their country colors of red, white and blue to dance and perform in a parade for all the townspeople. It was quite the event. Very hot and lots of pushy, rude people. Kinda reminded me of inauguration time in DC. Low and behold, I was glad when it was over and it was time for me to prepare my bags to head back to San Jose for my last two weeks of training.
So, here I am, about the finish week my last week in the San Jose area. Tomorrow we are having a huge thank you party for our current host families. There will be about 200 people and we (the trainees) have planned it all. On Tuesday night I have my last meeting with my group of pre-adolecent girls and we will be having a mini party as well. It will be sad to leave our current families but I am really looking forward to getting to my new town and getting integrated. Signing out from San Jose, I'll update you next from Santa Cruz. Thanks for all of the cards, love and support. XOXOXO
