Friday, September 21, 2007
Last Post
Well, I may as well get this over with. This is my last post. Due to personal reasons, most importantly a situation at home, I am no longer in Costa Rica. Since I have no idea who is reading this, I am not going to elaborate any further. I think it is the right decision for me though.
Monday, September 17, 2007
at my site
Hey hey. So, first of all, I am an official Peace Corps volunteer. We swore in at the Ambassador's house (which, by the way, is quite impressive) on Friday. Basically, we all got fancied up, listened to a few speeches, and swore to defend the US Constitution, so help us God. We got to invite our host families, and my host parents came. Oh yeah, the weekend before we had a family party for all our host families, which turned out really well. We were responsible for planning the whole shabang, from finding a room to taking care of the food, and everything in between. It was just for the CYF families, but still, that added up to about 100 people. My job was to be in charge of the money, which by the way, was about $400. So basically, this party ran at $4 a head to cover decorations, a room, food, entertainment, and even a homemade pinata. We ordered a bunch of pizza and then made some other stuff to go with it, like salad. Wow, I never want to make a 100-person salad again—it took about 4 people to chop up all the veggies, and my hands were still sore afterward! Oh also, the day before, I helped make the cakes. We made four sheet cakes, and each one was a different shape (one being a heart). All in all, I would say it was a success.
Anyway, back to swearing in... so, after that I had to go back to the office and reconcile all our receipts from the family party, then I went to a grocery store to get the stuff I needed to make dinner that night. I wanted to say thank you to my host family, so I made them spaghetti and meatballs with homemade sauce. It turned out pretty good, I think. Mainor and Maryuri and their three kids came, along with Esterlyn and Karen. They all said they liked it, although tico spaghetti usually involves a much sweeter sauce, sometimes tuna, and always rice and beans mixed in.
So, Saturday I said goodbye to my host family and took the rest of my belongings to San Jose. The VAC dinner (basically a dinner for all the volunteers in CR) was that night, so everyone comes into the capital and stays at the same hotel, goes to the dinner, then goes back to the hotel, then goes out in SJ. It was cool to meet some of the other PCVs and to hang out with everyone from training one more time before going to our sites. I got to my site around 1:30 in the afternoon on Sunday and found that my host dad had already called my boss and my training host family to find out where I was... (of course, neither party would have had the answer to that question).
Anyway, I started unpacking my stuff (fun fun), and then in the evening, I went with my host family to a birthday party up the road. Then we just hung out and watched a movie. I really don't know what I am going to do this week. Some people say that the first week in your site is the longest week of your life.
Anyway, back to swearing in... so, after that I had to go back to the office and reconcile all our receipts from the family party, then I went to a grocery store to get the stuff I needed to make dinner that night. I wanted to say thank you to my host family, so I made them spaghetti and meatballs with homemade sauce. It turned out pretty good, I think. Mainor and Maryuri and their three kids came, along with Esterlyn and Karen. They all said they liked it, although tico spaghetti usually involves a much sweeter sauce, sometimes tuna, and always rice and beans mixed in.
So, Saturday I said goodbye to my host family and took the rest of my belongings to San Jose. The VAC dinner (basically a dinner for all the volunteers in CR) was that night, so everyone comes into the capital and stays at the same hotel, goes to the dinner, then goes back to the hotel, then goes out in SJ. It was cool to meet some of the other PCVs and to hang out with everyone from training one more time before going to our sites. I got to my site around 1:30 in the afternoon on Sunday and found that my host dad had already called my boss and my training host family to find out where I was... (of course, neither party would have had the answer to that question).
Anyway, I started unpacking my stuff (fun fun), and then in the evening, I went with my host family to a birthday party up the road. Then we just hung out and watched a movie. I really don't know what I am going to do this week. Some people say that the first week in your site is the longest week of your life.
Monday, September 10, 2007
site visit
I suppose I should put an update in here. I will just state the facts (not that I have been lying in the past or anything, but I just mean it will be brief).
I went to my site. I met the family. There is a mom and dad, a great-grandma, a 16 year old girl (Cherry), an 8 year old girl (Charon), and a 4 year old boy (Abraham). They also have a puppy that likes to bite, and his name is Benji. My site is in the country, up in the mountains. It is really beautiful, with lots of tropical plants and such, and it has a dirt road. About 6 km away is the bigger town which has about 10 000 people and all the basics (post office, bank, etc). I can work in my site and in the bigger town, since my site has nothing but a pulperia in terms of non-residential stuff. (A pulperia is basically a gas station minus the gas pumps).
Some of the animals I saw: a snake, a toad, roosters, cows, horses, a goat, and obviously dogs. All animals were alive except the snake, thank God.
Some of the things I did: played an entire game of Monopoly, looked at a whole box of the family's pictures, ate hot dogs for 4 meals straight (I have no intentions of eating another hot dog again...ever), watched “in Pursuit of Happyness”, walked through my entire town (the far part is know as “Infiernillo” aka “Little Hell”, due to the cholos and guaro...cholo means unintelligent country person prone to fighting, and guaro is hard alcohol). Anyhow, I also went to the PANI office and the high school in the big town, went to the church, and went to a local Tae Kwon Do class with my host sisters.
Oh, I also negotiated the “terms”, if you will, of my living arrangement. This was one of the objectives for our site visit. That was fun. And by fun, I obviously mean awkward. Let's just say my host dad called the house from the bigger city while he was running errands and asked how much I'll be paying and when. Fortunately, I had already tactfully informed my host-mom that I wanted to take care of my own food, but still. Oh yeah, I might get back on the 16th and find out that half of my room there has been turned into a bazar (basically a dollar store). They're thinking about it.
I went to my site. I met the family. There is a mom and dad, a great-grandma, a 16 year old girl (Cherry), an 8 year old girl (Charon), and a 4 year old boy (Abraham). They also have a puppy that likes to bite, and his name is Benji. My site is in the country, up in the mountains. It is really beautiful, with lots of tropical plants and such, and it has a dirt road. About 6 km away is the bigger town which has about 10 000 people and all the basics (post office, bank, etc). I can work in my site and in the bigger town, since my site has nothing but a pulperia in terms of non-residential stuff. (A pulperia is basically a gas station minus the gas pumps).
Some of the animals I saw: a snake, a toad, roosters, cows, horses, a goat, and obviously dogs. All animals were alive except the snake, thank God.
Some of the things I did: played an entire game of Monopoly, looked at a whole box of the family's pictures, ate hot dogs for 4 meals straight (I have no intentions of eating another hot dog again...ever), watched “in Pursuit of Happyness”, walked through my entire town (the far part is know as “Infiernillo” aka “Little Hell”, due to the cholos and guaro...cholo means unintelligent country person prone to fighting, and guaro is hard alcohol). Anyhow, I also went to the PANI office and the high school in the big town, went to the church, and went to a local Tae Kwon Do class with my host sisters.
Oh, I also negotiated the “terms”, if you will, of my living arrangement. This was one of the objectives for our site visit. That was fun. And by fun, I obviously mean awkward. Let's just say my host dad called the house from the bigger city while he was running errands and asked how much I'll be paying and when. Fortunately, I had already tactfully informed my host-mom that I wanted to take care of my own food, but still. Oh yeah, I might get back on the 16th and find out that half of my room there has been turned into a bazar (basically a dollar store). They're thinking about it.
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