I am the luckiest girl in the world.

There is wireless internet in the elementary school at my site!! Mind you the school has 12 kids and one classroom, but it also has wireless internet!!!!!

Photos!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.613853685455.2115143.32404648&l=55b3e69ff9


http://www.flickr.com/photos/usembassysjo/

It is still hot

Oh life in rural Costa Rica. Here are some stories of the past week. First of all I will freely admit that reading has taken up a good majority of my time. Some pleasure reading, but a lot of reading materials for potential counterparts and projects. I sit on the porch (in the rocking chair that I move outside every morning, and inside every night) and read. The public payphone is in my house, so people are always coming by to make calls, so I get to meet people just by sitting on my front porch. That’s been nice.

So there are buses that leave my community! Yay! But they are mostly student buses and they are infrequent and a pretty long walk. But that exist, thank goodness. Also I am more clear on where the sites of my peers are, and how I am able to get to those sites, which is amazing, because Lord knows I am going to need to visit my friends.

I almost died (huge hyperbole, Mom don’t freak out) on Thursday. My counterpart was driving and he car almost rolled into a ditch. No one was hurt. Gracias a Dios. The funny part was that (I swear this is not an exaggeration) the next car to pass us was a HUGE tractor that pulled us right out of the ditch, as though nothing had happened. Some of my favorite details about my counterparts car are: that he can take the key out and the engine doesn’t stop, that there are literally holes in the floor and sides of the car that have covers that you pop open for air conditioning, he does not turn the engine off when we fill up on gas, and there are only 4 gears (one of which is reverse).

Right now I am in bed, in my tent, which is kind of like a cocoon. I like it, it makes me feel artificially safe. There are animals, zorros to be exact (but not all that exact, because zorro translates to fox, and these are more possum like animals) that scrape at the outside wall of my bedroom during the night. And there are birds that must have a nest in the outside wall of my bedroom as well, and they chirp during the night. The moral of this story is that those noises used to be frightening and now they aren’t. That’s progress, my friends, progress.

So things about my community. There are 70 people. I didn’t’ count, but I read the community diagnostic of the volunteer who was here 5 years ago and it said there were 72, but I am sure that there are less now because this is not a community that has experienced much growth in the last decade. The kids play football behind the school in the afternoon and today I joined them, it was lots of fun. I have attended two meetings of organized community groups and those both went well. I think I am going to begin visiting houses and filling out my diagnostic next week.

It is hot here. I know I have said that before, but its still hot. Really hot. I sweat all the time. Sometimes I get out of the shower and it is impossible to dry off, because I am already sweating again from the heat. Oh! There is now a shower curtain in the shower, which is possibly the best news of the week, because before there wasn’t a shower curtain and I am pretty sure that everyone could see me showering from the staircase. Thank God for shower curtains.

I also found three fruit trees so far. Which is wonderful. And one of them is a new type of fruit. I am told that it is the fruit that people make chocolate out of, but not 100% certain on that.

Also! The dog (who according to my host mother is 20 years old) that was preggers had her baby and she is hiding her puppy so that dog that eats puppies doesn’t eat it. I found the puppy today and he is black and cute and hidden. I hope he lives so that I can adopt him. The dog who eats puppies likes me a lot, and he follows me when I leave the house. Today he followed me to the soccer field and I had a hell of a time trying to play soccer with this dog following me.

All for now. Loves

First Week as a PC Volunteer, officially

Things that have happened in my life in the past week:

-I packed up my possessions and moved over halfway across the country of Costa Rica.

-I finished moving into the house that I will be living in for the next while.

-I said goodbye to all of my fellow volunteers and training family members. Which was very sad and I won’t lie- there was a lot of crying.

Some things that are newly a part of my life:

-Heat, heat and heat. Someone with more resources (or more mathematical intelligence) than I can translate this into Fahrenheit, but in Celsius the low is 24 degrees and the high is 28 degrees. Just to give you an example of the heat- I drip, it’s a whole new level of sweating. And that  just when I’m sitting still.

-Chickens, pigs, horses, dogs, hidden puppies and toads

-I also live in a house that contains a public payphone. Which means the phone rings constantly and there are always new people coming over to use the phone. 

-Dr Oz. My host mom (90 year old women I live with) watches Dr. Oz every night from 6-7pm. Its very comical – the situation, not the show.

-An intense amount of time. My only project for the next three months is to learn about the community and write a diagnostic. Learning about the community if a process and I can’t force it, I just have to be here.

-Reading on the porch time. Speaking of, if anyone has book suggestions I am open!

-Answering personal questions when meeting strangers: do you have  boyfriend, what religion are you, etc. This is commonplace here and not considered invasive. I’m working on my answers but so far my favorite response is “Mejor sola que mal companera” which means “Better single than bad companion”

Some things that are no longer a part of my life:

-Access to Internet

-A supermarket

-Regularly scheduled transportation

-A personal life (sad, but a reality of Peace Corps professionalism when living in a town of 72 people)

-Access to a post office

-Ability to add prepago (prepaid) minutes to my phone in town

To quote a fellow PCV who just swore in: OH MY GOD We are Peace Corps Volunteers! Its kinda like being a real person again, but with limited language skills. During training I felt like we were overgrown toddlers, but now its like we are adults again, with an asterisk. 

Chelsea

Peace Corps Volunteer*

*unable to effectively communicate in any language.

For someone who keeps signing up for it, I sure don't like transition

Today is Saturday May 14th. Yesterday I swore in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. Tomorrow I leave for my new community where I will be spending the next two years living. What a weekend.
A little bit more of a recap may be necesarry.
-Last weekend was the family party. An event that the volunteers organize to thank our host family's for everything they have done for us. There were probably about 80 people there and the party was a sucess. We rented an awesome property for the day that had an outdoor covered area, grill, pool and soccer field. We spent the weekend buying/preparing food, making decorations and just generally making important decisions. The families loved our hamburgers and the pool was a huge hit! It was close to raining all day, but never actually did - which was amazing! My nuclear family came as well as all of my aunts, uncles and cousins.
-There have been these beautiful lightning storms behind the mountains that I live in, so at night the sky is illuminated and the moutains are backlite. It is breathtaking.
-Spanish classes are over, super sad. But the great news is that I passed the Spanish level that I needed to swear in. Now I'm off to use my Spanish.
-Just in general I have been having an amazing time with my fellow volunteers. There are 16 of us total in the RCD Tico 22 group and we have all become amazing friends. Its rough to be seperating, but I'm hopeful that we will keep in touch. But we have been living in up this past week, staying in San Jose a few nights, getting together in our communities and just in general soaking up our last days together.
-There are buses that leave from a community near to my community!!! Yay!! I will not be trapped. Exstatic about this one.
-I survived my first earthquake. Yesterday around 5pm there was a 5.9 earthquake that hit Costa Rica. Swearing in was over and a group of friends and I were spending the day in San Jose before we went out that night to celebrate. We were in a 4 story mall watching a movie in a movie theather and things shook pretty intensly. But everyone survived to live another day.
-Yea I am moving to my new community tomorrow and that is going to be rough. I am super excited to begin my work there and to get to know the people, I think it is going to be an amazing community, but I have put down some roots in my training community and it is always painful to pull those up. My training family has been amazing and it has been so amazingly supportive living so close to all of the other volunteers in my Tico class. But alas, change is perhaps a good thing.
-I now have a cell phone, on which an American phone can call me for relatively cheap. Pretty spectacular huh? So shoot me an email if you want the number, I would love to recieve some calls to catch up with everyone.
-Jenna you are wonderful and your package made me endlessly happy. Although no one sings out loud with me here while we are just chillen and finishes song lyrics that I begin - entonces, your missed.
-Mom and Dad your packages arrived. Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you. And I promise to call you after any more earthquakes to ensure you of my safety.
Just to close I wanted to let everyone know that my internet access from here on out is extremely uncertain. I am thinking good internet thoughts, but we shall see. But I am pretty certain that these next few months are going to be rough and if you have an extra minute to send a letter or make a phone call I will appreciate it more than you will probably know. Sending loves.
Chelsea

Lessons learned, and learning

As far as lessons I am learning some pretty important ones.

-Live in the moment. Learn from the past. Worrying about the future isn’t worth the time I spend doing it. I am happier if I slow down and focus on right now.

-It is okay to have opinions and voice them. Preferences are important and sharing my perspective on life is valuable. Accommodating everyone else all the time isn’t fair to me.

-I’m not afraid to take chances. Risks are invigorating.

-Physical exercise and spending time in the environment make me really happy.

I am still learning a lot about:

-Balancing solitude and community                        

-Defining the lines between personal and professional while in the Peace Corps

-My self-image and the source of my confidence

Time slows down and speeds up.

Animal Debrief: Last night on the way to the bathroom there was a very large toad blocking the entrance to the bathroom. And this morning I killed a spider on the outside of my mosquito net. Which means that my mosquito net is effective at keeping out spiders! I also saw a rat/mouse running up the wires out a hole in the ceiling while watching news today. The good news is that right after I saw the rat/mouse I saw a preview on TV for Grays Anatomy in Spanish. Taking the good with the bad. And the two large dogs that live at my house accompanied me on the my this morning. It was quite a site. It is strange for me to see the chickens and the dogs coexist peacefully, but my host mom said that the big dog eats kittens and puppies. Sad!

Rundown on the comings and goings of my first site visist:

-I am meeting new people. My host mother has another son, whose wife and three children came over today. The two girls are teenagers and attend the high school a couple towns over. They are really sweet! One has already promised to give me dance lessons :-)

-I also met two young women who are part of the local government. One of them spent a day walking me throughout my community and an adjacent community. She is super super sweet, she is 17 and had her wedding the day that I arrived in town. We knocked on everyone´s door and spent 5-10 minutes introducing me, my purpose and answering any questions. We went to 12 houses and the school in my community. Did I mention there are 14 students in the one room school building! When I get back we are going to visit the other two communities that are more or less close to me. We are going to ride on horses to one, because it is an hour on foot. Yes, this is my life. 

-This afternoon I had a meeting with the local government to introduce myself. It went well. There were 10 people in attendance and everyone was very nice. I am hopeful that they have energy and are ready to work hard to improve their community.

-Today the daughters of my mom´s son (figure that one out) invited me to play a pick up soccer game. We had at least 15 people ranging from ages 5 to 25 playing soccer in the plaza for two hours. It was a blast! They are all thrilled that I am interested in playing soccer, I am going to join the local womens team when I get back to town.

I´m on my way back to training and in two weeks that we be over and I will making this journey again. 

Loves, Chelsea

Living on the rural side of life

And so I have arrived in the town wherein I will be living for the next two years. There are so many things I have to learn still about my community. But even just being here I have learned so much. The town is tiny, tiny, tiny. At least that is how it feels today. I am sure that once I begin tackling the task of meeting everyone I am going to feel overwhelmed by the supposed 250 people who live here. There is a plaza that is pretty overgrown, two small corner stores, and a one classroom school (with apparently 15 students). There are houses spread sparsely throughout the farms, my counterpart says there are about 15 houses in my town.

From the paved road (which has a decent sized town) we got off the bus, took my counterparts car for an hour down a dirt road, (Jolynn: please tell the kiddos that the car I rode in looked just like the one we sat in at the zoo last summer) and after driving through four of five smallish towns we arrived here. I met my new host family this afternoon! There is a grandmother who is at least 90 years old and her husband (but she isn’t married, I will explain this when I understand it). The grandmother is the mom of my counterpart, who lives in a farm 100 meters up the road on his farm.

Here are some details about my new home. It is a two story wooden house with a cement floor. You enter into the living room and there are sofas and rocking chairs, a television and an altar. Then there is the door to my room, which has a window, shelves, bed and a mosquito net. There is also a skylight in my room and when I asked what happens when it rains my grandmother had my uncle tape the ceiling back together. The walls in my room are built of two by fours and plywood. Past my room is the kitchen/dining/laundry/bathroom area. The kitchen has a sink, some burners and a refrigerator. The dining room has a table and a few chairs. The laundry room is a laundry machine and drying line. The bathroom has cement walls that are 5ish feet tall and a toilet and shower. The ceiling in the kitchen is two stories tall and the exterior walls are only 6ish feet tall. From 6-20 feet there are wood slats every 2 or 3 feet. The roof is made of corrugated metal and makes a beautiful noise when it rains.

I live here with 4 dogs (one who is pregnant) and approximately 10 chickens of various ages and sizes that run around the house. There are large holes in the walls by the floor and that is how the chickens and other farm animals get in and out. Thats all for now, I´m sure pretty soon that everything that seems so different will seem normal. Sending loves, Chelsea