Yesterday we all found out where we will be living starting September 16 of this year through 2009. I received a whole packet of information and I will let you guys know some of the exciting and scary info. below!
My site is called “San Jose de Upala” (it´s not the capitol city of San Jose but has the same name). San Jose de Upala is way up in northwestern Costa Rica, right next to the Nicaraguan border. Some maps may have the city of “Upala” on them if you want to try and find it. I am about 15 KM (what´s that like 9 miles or something?) west of the city of Upala. It doesn´t say but I think I am within 10 miles of Nicaragua.
My “counterpart,” or the person I will be working with a lot, is a professor at the high school, so it looks like I may be working much with kids.
San Jose de Upala is very far from the capitol city of San Jose—226 kilometers. Right now for training, I am in Vuelta de Jorco, which is about an hour to an hour and a half SOUTH of the capitol city of San Jose. So I will be about 8-10 hours away from where I am living now.
The new site, San Jose de Upala, has about 5,000 people with warm temperatures and high levels of humidity. My information says their main source of income is agriculture, like beans, corn, and cattle. I will be located fairly close to three volcanoes!
This site is very near, if not on, a river. Sounds like flooding is common. The info. says there are earthquakes and there is a risk of volcanic activity, but they always say this stuff to be safe. Costa Rica is so small anyways! Everybody is at risk but it hardly happens.
My new host family have three daughters that are 13, 4, and 1 month old. Two brothers are older and don´t live in the house.
Anyways, I will have to tell you more information when I move there. I´m excited and anxious and scared! But first I have to make it through training.
Monday I have to go to the high school here in Vuelta de Jorco to teach an English class. My boss will be there to evaluate me and I have to use non formal education principles and everything I´ve learned. I am scared because I have to be able to keep control of the class and keep things running smoothly. I still am not sure what topic I will talk about.
My visit to Caño Negro was great. Caño Negro is way up north too, a little east of San Jose de Upala. Me and the volunteer there really got along and I learned a great deal. He lives right on the river where fishing is big and we went fishing a little. I wonder if my future site will have lots of fishing? I´ll find out soon enough. I found a scorpion in my room the first night, and he talked about bats and tarantulas around. Since my future site is near where I visited, I think I will be having these kinds of visitors at my house too.
These last few weeks of training are going to be really hectic. I am teaching English Monday, hopefully without getting kicked out of Peace Corps, and Tuesday and Wednesday we have more training together. Thursday I leave for a two day retreat with my future counterpart, the person I will be working with a lot. Straight from there he will take me to my future site for five days to meet the family and get to know the town and what I will be doing. That is a week long trip and I will only have a few days left of intense finalization of training after that before we all move to our new sites!
Things are overwhelming, crazy, mysterious, but I´m hanging in there. Sometimes it seems the culture and life here are very similar to us in the U.S., and other times it seems drastically different. It´s difficult to get used to.
Hopefully this post wasn´t too boring with me talking about my future site, but it´s where I will be spending two years of my life, so I got a little excited! I hope all is well at home and thanks so very much for keeping in touch. It really means so much to me to hear from so many of you that I was and am so close to.
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