Sunday, June 26, 2011

Oh goodness gracious.

More fotos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.618875890915.2117363.32404648&l=df553dc594

Sugar is adorable and brings me lots of joy. He has a bed (handkercheif) and food bowl in my room. And he sleeps outside my door when I'm not home. Its pretty cute. He is still very fat, but I'm okay with that. I also give him flea killing baths at least two times a week, but he still has little bugs. We are working on that. He hates his baths too, and afterwords he shakes like the world is ending.

English classes have been a major source of activity and productivity in the past week. I am really enjoying getting to know the community through my English classes, I have around 36 students who show up regularly and so far everyone says wonderful things about my classes.

I am planning a meeting in the community for Wednesday when my boss comes to visit. If all goes well there should be 2-5 community leaders from each of my 4 communities and we are going to do a priority ranking activity. I am very excited because the local government came together to support my meeting and provide a small amount of food and drink (which is a huge part of Costa Rican meetings).

More than anything I am getting used to the pace of life here, the food, the heat, the routines, the people, the language. Just about everything. I am sure this will only improve with time, but I feel like I am making good process. Better get going, I have been telling the kids that I will come play soccer, and they are getting anxious. Gonna walk Sugar home, put my computer away and play soccer.

Momma and Pops I'll call you after dinner, if you read this before then.

Loves,

Chelsea

Saturday, June 25, 2011

I think the theme of the last week should be “Things I wouldn’t have done in the States.”


1.     Spend an hour chasing a horse around a field to catch a horse to get to a meeting in a neighboring town on time.  Had to ask the man in the corner store to come help me, was very difficult to swallow.
2.     Go fishing for the day with spools of fishing line to fish with, a machete to catch worms with, and a stick to spear the caught fish with and carry home.
3.     Get stuck in a neighboring town because there are no buses to my town during the weekend and my ride rolled his truck on the drive back to town (don’t worry everyone is fine, and its not uncommon to roll cars)
4.     Wear a skirt and flip-flops, be invited to a soccer game, and borrow everything I need to play.
5.     Watch fifteen grown men chase a pig slathered in lard run around a soccer field. (Side note: The man who caught the pig was in the car that I came in, that means I returned in a car with a pig on the lap of the man next to me)
6.     Hold community meetings in everything from a health center, a community room covered in horseshit and the front porch of family’s house.
7.     Convince twenty-four kids to attend a focus group in a room with a tin roof in the middle of an insane downpour.
8.     Find an amazing third or fourth hand clothing store where everything is two dollars and has ancient goodwill tags.
9.     Attend a family party (of a fellow volunteer) with people of all ages (infants to 90 year olds), a roast pig, dancing, karaoke, pin the tail of the bunny and piƱatas.
10. Miss the bus, and have to wait five and a half hours for the next bus. Spend the five and a half hours loitering at a restaurant at the bus station.
11. Attend an art performance at an elementary school in a neighboring town with everything from traditional dance, Shania Twain, Michael Jackson and unedited hip hop songs.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

“Do not depend on the hope of results, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite of what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything” Thomas Merton


This week I began my English classes. I teach a class for adults, high schoolers, youth and in the elementary classroom. That is a total of 7-8 hours of teaching English per week. I am hopeful that I will build strong relationships through offering this service for the community.
Also I have organized two general community meetings for this week. I am going to meet with the people of my satellite communities, introduce myself, administer a survey and begin building relationships with community leaders and organized groups. Hopefully they go well.
There is a half eaten chicken walking around the house today. He got attacked this morning when he tried to eat out of the dogs bowl. He has exposed flesh on his left side, his head, and his left wing is a bone. It’s a little crazy that he is still walking around the house, and that this is indeed part of my life.
80 degrees here. 80 degrees is a glorious temperature. I am infinitely grateful for the rain (even if no one can hear anything over the pounding of the rain on the tin roofs). Infinitely grateful.
Now for some great quotes from a book I am reading about cross cultural adjustment.
“I don’t really know what happens next-one so seldom does” – E.M. Foster
“ I should say, looking back calmly upon the matter, that 75% of West African insects sting, 5% bite, and the rest are either prematurely or temporarily parasitic on the human race. And undoubtably one of the worst things you can do in West Africa is to take any notice of an insect. If you see a thing that looks like a cross between a flying lobster and a figure of Abraxes on a Gnostic gem, do not pay it the least attention, never mind where it is; just keep quiet and hope it will go away-for that’s your best change; you have none in a stand up firght with a good, thorough going African insect.” –Mary Kingsley
“It is so very HOT I do not know how to write it large enough” – Emily Eden
“It was not like other bad roads which incommode you with continuous and petty malice. Look how far you can go, they seem to say, as you crawl painfully along them, and still be called a road. You hate them the more bitterly for the knowledge that they will keep certain bounds. They will madden you with minor obstacles, but in the end they will let you through.
But with the road to _________ it was not like this. It had no quarrel with us. It took no count of us at all. It did not fight a sly, delaying action, raising our hopes only to dash them, but always keeping them alive. It did not set out to tantalize us or gall us. It seemed, rather, preoccupied with its own troubles. It had never wished to be a road, and now it cursed itself for not refusing its function before it was too late. It lashed itself into a fury of self-reproach. It writhed in anguish. It was certainly a tormented thing. “ – Peter Flemming
And Happy 1 Month in Site to me! Sending loves,
Chelsea

Wavering


Monday morning:
Sitting on my bed. Gentle (artificial) breeze mitigating the heat. Rain falling on the tin roof. The smell of rain mixed with freshly cut wild grass, which smells like cilantro here. Some moments I am certain in the deepest parts of my being that this is where I am supposed to be right now.
Wednesday morning:
Just finished eating a mango. About three quarters of the way through I went to slice off a bit of brown part from a piece that I was about to eat. When I sliced it off a tiny translucent worm crawled further into my piece of mango. Think he had friends? These are the moments when I wonder why I chose this.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Just a reminder...

I really like comments :-)

The flies are too fast, I cannot kill them with my bare hands and it’s a shame. Because if I could, I would.


The week in a recap:
It is still hot here. Maybe hotter than before. I am still sweating. It may never stop. June is supposed to be winter and the rain is supposed to be pretty consistent and strong. But this entire week there has been no rain. Only heat. I have a thermometer in my multifunctional Eddie Bauer alarm clock (thanks Mom) and I finally learned how to switch the temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit. This week is has been 88 degrees in the middle of the night and 97 in the middle of the day. And that’s the temperature in my room, Lord only knows how hot it is out in the sun.
My puppy is alive and I have informed everyone that his name is Sugar. They all think this is strange, but generally I am considered the strange gringa, so that’s no change there. I bought him a collar, leash and flea killing soap. He hates baths, but fleas have got to suck, so I’m sure it’s worth it. He still doesn’t walk around or really DO anything. But he is cute, really cute. And when he does walk around he is so fat that his belly drags on the floor. That’s what happen when a really old dog has only one puppy and he doesn’t have to share his momma’s milk with anyone J
Woke up on Wednesday to holes being made in my bedroom walls. My counterpart told me he was trying to make it more difficult for the rain to enter the house. At first I was very confused about why he there needed to be more holes in my walls, so I sat on my bed and said every few minutes out the window “No more holes.” Luckily there were no more holes and now there is some corrugated metal siding on a part of the house that used to be open. Which means a few things. The house is kind of like an oven now, in that the meal exterior heats up and the people inside cook. There is also less natural light from the exterior, which is sad. The benefit is that when it rains the inside of the house will stay dry, and I guess that is why we have walls. Also the animals now have a harder time trying to get from outside to inside.
I taught my first class in the school. Half English and half environment. Am going to be doing this every Friday. Went really well. Definitely challenging teaching a class to students ranging in ages from 6-13, but at least when it comes to English and the environment all the students seem to have the same level of knowledge. None. I’m excited to make a stronger partnership with the school. Adult and high school English classes begin next week. Wish me luck! I think I am getting myself in way over my head with them. But a little bit of busy can’t hurt.
I rearranged the furniture (my bed) in my room and now there is space for a yoga mat in my room. I also swept and spent the morning scrubbing my floor to find the concrete under the dirt. Found it! And now I have enough space in my room to twirl around with my arms out. Very exciting. Also discovered a oscillation function on my fan which works great for the new room set up.
Humor is very cultural. And my humor is very sarcastic, which does not translate well to other cultures. Here laughter is very openly used, especially in tense, awkward or uncomfortable situations. The problem with this is that I don’t like being laughed at in uncomfortable situations. So for a while my response was the phrase “its not funny.” Little did I know. Now “its not funny” has become a Chelsea saying and is used freely by extended family members. The irony – not sure if it is really ironic or not – is that we all now laugh about the saying ‘its not funny.’ Oh cultural adjustment.
Went to Guatuso on Thursday. Biiftu is amazing and we have a spectacular time together. Maybe best day yet. Also I took the bus both ways and made friends with the bus driver, a good friend to have when you have to walk an hour to the bus stop. While in the big city (that has only 1,500 people) I bought ice cube trays! I remember in my parents house when we upgraded to an ice machine in the fridge. It was wonderful. Then I went to college and thought that I had downgraded substantially when I had to use ice cube trays. Now I am so grateful to have ice cube trays. Its all a matter of perspective.
All for now. Loves to all. Pray for rain- I may be melting. And I don’t know how to saying melting in Spanish, so no one will know what is happening.
Chelsea

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

New Fotos

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.616248311605.2116236.32404648&l=ba32e8d374

Time will do the talking


Back from first day trip out of sight. Some friends and I went to a tourist spot about 5 hours away  to catch up and clear out minds. We stayed at a pretty nice hostel with a swimming pool, internet and air-conditioning at night! The highlight of the trip was going to the grocery store and buying a ridiculously expensive box of sugar cereal. It was great to get to share stories and hear how everyone is doing. 7 of us were able to get there and I can confidently say that we all appreciated the time to recoup. 
Then I spend the night in a friends site, which is close to mine (an hour away by car). It was nice to have her share her community with me, it made me excited for showing other people my community! On the way home I traveled to my community for the first time without relying of friends, family, strangers for a ride. I took the bus from the larger town near her site. The bus ride was a hour in an old school bus, and then when I got off I had about a hour walk to my house. I was pretty sure I was going to die during that walk, it was noon and the sun was so hot I was sweating pretty intensely. But I made my own shade with my umbrella and just kept chugging along. Eventually I made it home, took a cold shower and spent the afternoon sitting on the front porch watching the cows graze, the thunderstorms roll in and waiting for my body to stop sweating (it took 3 hours to go back to my normal resting sweating amount).
Sunday I read an entire book and chatted with the family back home. I also  found out that my favorite TV channel plays American movies dubbed on Sunday nights at 7pm, so last night I watched Ella Enchanted.
Today I am going to meet with the local government this afternoon to chat about a project that are hoping to apply for funding from the federal government for. Also I made a map of my town with my counterpart, we drew all of the houses and listed all of the people that live in them. In my town proper there are 50 people living here. That’s 20 down from 5 years ago when the other volunteer was here.  After I counted all of the people and thought in my head (wow! What a small number) my counterpart said “Wow, a ton of people.” Good to know we are on the same wavelength. But actually my counterpart and I are getting along really well, we have been teaching each other different card games after dinner and it’s a lot of fun. Also we are now able to joke about our different sense of humor. I usually say ‘its not funny!’ when someone is laughing at something that I think is serious. Now he says that “its not funny” is a Chelsea saying and we can laugh about it. Yay for progress. 
I have officially named my puppy in hopes that it lives. Its named Sugar after the puppy in India that I named, but that got stolen. Right now Sugar is fat and lazy. He eats and sleeps all day long. Today he officially started walking and when he walks his belly touches the ground. He also tries to make noises, but I wouldn't exactly call it barking. Super cute.
All for now, gonna read some manuels on teaching English and prepare for my upcoming classes. Loves
Chelsea

Cows sound like Dinosaurs in the morning


I don’t feel like paragraphs today. Sometimes my thoughts in English just come so quick that bullets make so much more sense. Sorry, I know already that this will be pretty scattered.
-I love my mosquito net. It is like a fort I get to sleep in every night. And even though it is very thin and flimsy I feel like I would be protected from nuclear war inside my mosquito net.
-There is a novella here called A Corazon Abierto, which is the Costa Rican version of Gray’s Anatomy. Which is wonderful. It has mostly the same characters and some of the exact same plot lines. Which is spectacular because it makes understanding what’s going on a lot easier. Also, Gray’s Anatomy airs here on Channel 7 at 9pm on Tuesdays in Spanish!! Its old episodes from Season 6, but I love it. It makes me feel less homesick.
-Dona Fran taught me how to make cheese. She makes it every morning from the milk that my counterparts gets from milking the cows every morning. Then she makes cheese and yesterday I helped. It was quite the bonding experience.
-Puppy is still alive. If her makes it to a month I am going to name him Sugar, after my puppy in India.
-So the rats were not a one time sighting. After the sun goes down the rats like to run the rafters. So far they don’t seem to bother anyone. But I’m still looking into getting a cat.
-There are these bugs here called abejons, which means junebugs. And at night (at least tonight) there were a million of them! They like the light, just like all the other bugs, which is a scientific something I don’t understand. And after they hit the light they fall on the ground and I swear there must be 100 junebugs on the ground under the light.
-Winter has started here. Which means rain. And rain like I never knew in Seattle. The sky literally opens here and the water just falls in an amazing quantity with an amazing force. It reminds me that I am such a small part of such a big world and that there are forces so much bigger than me. And it smells amazing, my favorite part of rain.
-I had the first meeting of my English class yesterday and there were 32 people there! Which let me tell you, in a town of 70 is pretty impressive! (Ok that’s  little misleading, because people came from other small towns close by to sign up too, but still, I like to think I am that impressive). I am going to have to 2 classes, one of adults and one for youth. I am hold four one-hour long classes each week.
-I am still playing soccer with the kids in the afternoon and its wonderful, absolutely wonderful.
-Ok, so for the most wonderful news ever. The elementary school has wireless internet! Its public and I can use it when I want. Wonderfullness.
I feel like there are million more things that I am forgetting, but this all I have got for tonight. Miss everyone a lot. And bookstores, I miss bookstores a lot too. Sending smiles and hugs.
Chelsea

Your gonna make me lonesome when you go


Today marks the end of my first bout of awful sickness in Costa Rica It was only two days, but it was stomach related, and was miserable. I had a fever or 102 and felt miserable and bed bound for three days Also at night while I was using the bathroom there were rats, which is frightening, sick or not. But now I’m better, and the world looks a little brighter. Gracias a Dios.
The puppy is still alive and today my host gma moved the puppy and mama inside, they get to live in the laundry room. And the puppy opened his eyes, which in Costa Rica means that the puppy is 15 days old, which also means that it was approximately born on the day that I showed up May 15th. Which seems like a sign to me, that it should be my puppy and it should live! Fingers crossed, toes too.
I am continuing to adjust to life here. Today I officially did nothing all day and I think I can say confidently that I have remember how to be comfortable with doing nothing. It was the first lesson Puthumai taught me in India, and it took two weeks to relearn, but Ive got it again. Tomorrow I have a meeting of my English class and I think that things are going to pick up after this, but it is good to know that I am comfortable with the pace of life. Even if the food is still giving my body the run around.
Sending love and receiving any extra patience anyone wants to send ;-)
Chelsea

“Human beings have always been prepared to work hard to enhance a natural ability. We doubtless learned to run and jump in order to escape from our predators, but from these basic skills we developed ballet and gymnastics: after years of dedicated practice men and women acquire the ability to move with unearthly grace and achieve physical feats that are impossible for an untrained body. We devised language to improve communications and now we have poetry, which pushes speech into another dimension. In the same way, those who have persistently trained themselves in the art of compassion manifest new capacities in the human heart and mind; they discover that when they reach out consistently towards others, they are able to live with the suffering that inevitably comes their way with serenity, kindness, and creativity. They find that they have a new clarity and experience a richly intensified state of being.” Karen Armstrong


I like that quote. I am working on compassion and intention this month. Because the chickens shit in my room. And I can’t kill the chickens.
A week in review:
I joined the women’s soccer team and we have games on Sundays. My cousins told me the games were supposed to start around 11ish. We began playing on Sunday at 4pm (this is what we call Tico time) when the other team finally showed up in their bus. We played in the rain in the jerseys that the men’s team had just finished wearing. I kept telling myself that the jersey was wet with rain and not sweat. Mind over matter. *Side note: Mind over matter also served me well with the pigs feet. They were in the fridge and one day after lunch when I checked they were no longer in the fridge. Mind over matter* The game was a ton of fun! I am not very good, but I’m learning. And my cousins and extended family are very supportive.
Monday I spent the day in the closest larger town with a few Peace Corps friends. The only bus leaves at 530am and the stop is about 45 minutes away, so I left at 430ish. I got into town at 7am and caught the afternoon bus home at 430pm.  During the day I used the internet, had breakfast and lunch at a restaurant, bought supplies for my English class and went to the bank (which is air conditioned!!). It was great to see Peace Corps friends and spend the day in the ‘city’. We also met up with a volunteer who was finishing her last week in Peace Corps, it was so strange to talk with someone who was finished her service when we are all just starting. Right now 2 years seems like a lifetime.
In the middle of the week I got sick, just a little cold, but I decided to stay in bed and rest up. There are so many changes I think my body needs some more time to catch up. The best part about being sick was when my host mom told me in the evening that the kids from the school had come to the house to see if I could play soccer with them. It was so great to hear that the kids were actually coming looking for me!
Wednesday I went to my uncle’s house for dinner. I played a pick up soccer game with my 3 cousins were are quickly becoming wonderful friends. (they are all in high school mind you, but also very kind and helpful) After the soccer game they held a dance lesson for me in their living room. I learned cumbia and merenge. We had a great time, although I don’t think I have sweat that much ever in my life. It was great to spend the evening in a family environment with so much energy and activity.
Thursday I was planning on cleaning up the teacher’s house with is vacant and is going to serve as my classroom for English classes. I roped my cousin into helping me, but I thought it was just going to be the two of us. So we found the keys and went over the school to grab the cleaning supplies. The school kids were playing soccer in the field behind the school and they quickly asked if I would join them. I said that when I was done cleaning I would love to. Then I invited them to help clean. All 12 of the kids pitched in, and with the CD player that the neighbor brought it was just like a dance party. We took everything out, and cleaned the place from top to bottom. It looks so much better now, but more than anything I was so thrilled with the support I got from the community. It makes me extremely hopefully about my prospects for a youth group. Oh! And there were bats in the house, which may be the first time in my life I have actually seem a bat close up. Apparently if you kill one bat the others will ‘get the idea and leave’. So as the bats are flying around in circles and the kids are swinging the brooms at them as though part of some twisted game of baseball. Highly entertaining if you aren’t afraid of bats. I still am, afraid of bats that is.
Today is Friday and I’m going to head over to the school to chat with the teacher about how I can help out in the school. Wish me luck! …later that evening… Went well. I gotta ask for permission next time I wanna use the empty teachers house, but I can do that. And I am going to teach English classes and have an Environmental club every Friday from 11am-1pm in the school. I am excited and so are all the school kids. It is great to be wanted! This afternoon I went horseback riding with my counterpart. Today is his birthday, so he took the afternoon off from planting. We rode down to the river and rode along the river for about 3 hours. It was really beautiful and natural. There were monkeys in the trees and crocodiles in the river. He told me it was a great river for swimming, and that the crocodiles don’t bother you. Hmm, not sure its THAT hot here. It was a lot of fun riding horseback and seeing some of the natural beauty that is so close. He told me I can use his horse whenever I want, so I think I may make a habit of riding down the river and reading in the afternoons, pretty picturesque.
That’s all for now. Sending love and peace.
Chelsea