New address coming soon (hopefully)

Tomorrow I leave for a week long trip. The first two days we are at a retreat center (I think) with our counterparts. If I understand correctly our counterpart is the person who helps get us started at our site, although volunteers usually branch off and work with other people and other groups during their service. So I will (hopefully) be meeting my counterpart, who is a teacher at the local high school in San Jose de Upala. On Friday, I will travel with him and all the other trainees will travel with their counterparts to their respect future sites for a five day visit.

I will meet the family and get to know the area, among other things. I am 15 KM west of the town of Upala, and in Upala there will be another Peace Corps volunteer. Today we talked and we are going to try and share a P.O. box in Upala where we can receive our mail.

Right now and during my service here, you can still send mail to the current address in San Jose (the capitol city). However, this means the mail goes to the Peace Corps office. As I mentioned in my previous post, the office is about 10 hours, or a day long trip, from my future site, so I will not be traveling there very often at all. It will be best to send mail to my new address, which I will hopefully have in a couple weeks.

This is all to say that this weekend I will try and open up a P.O. box in Upala where I will hopefully go once a week or so to get mail and maybe use the internet. So for now, it may be best to hold off on letters or packages until I get you that new address, because I will only be living at my current address for about two more weeks, and then I move up by Nicaragua.

Monday my first time ever teaching English went really well. We did some fun activities. I ended up getting thrown into a class of 25-30 seventh graders. Things went really well and I got a good evaluation, so that helped with my confidence a lot.

After I get back from my site visit next Wednesday, we have less than a week and a half before we swear in (cross our fingers) as official Peace Corps volunteers. The next day we move! As all these crazy changes are occurring, I appreciate so much your prayers. I think it will be like starting all over again here in Costa Rica, about how I felt in late June/early July with everything being new and scary.

I hope all is well there with you and you are in my thoughts.

The Wait is Over...

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.

Penguins?

Although I have had tons of changes lately, it feels as if the big one is to come. Or at least one of many big ones. On Saturday I leave for Cano Negro, a little town in the north central province of Costa Rica. It is very close to Nicaragua in about the far north central part of Costa Rica. I will be there from Saturday (whenever I arrive) until Tuesday. I am not looking forward to the bus trips, where I will change buses three times and it will take about 6-7 hours to get there. I heard it is really beautiful there (okay where isnt it beautiful in Costa Rica?). A few other volunteers have been there and they said there is a big river and lake, where you can swim and take boat rides. Apparently alligators are in the water so I doubt I will be getting in, but we will see.

All 35 of us trainees are going to different places, alone, so I just happened to get assigned this site. We are each visiting a current volunteer who has been here at least a year. I think mine has been here two years. We get to hang out with them for a few days, see their work and projects, meet the people they live with and around, and ask any questions we want. It should be really cool to see another volunteer hands on and ask some questions of an actual volunteer, as opposed to the Peace Corps staff here.

But this is not the big change I am talking about. I am still waiting to find out where I will be living, starting September 15. I get back Tuesday from the trip to Cano Negro, then have a couple interviews with the business staff, and on Friday, we all find out where we are going. I am super anxious and excited to find out where I will be. Probably by my next post I will know where I will be for two years! My stomach is kind of churning thinking about it.

It feels weird to think that the school year and all that comes with that will be starting soon. For the first time in my life I am not going back to school in August (first time since before pre-school?) but yet it does not feel like work to me here. But this is good, to me, because I still feel like I can make a difference, so I hope that it continues to feel like a great, mysteriously awesome thing where it is a "job" but does not feel like one, if that makes sense.

From the other posts you probably know I have been reading much. I am even going back through some books I have read in the past couple years that were my favorites and I always wanted to go back and read them, but never took the chance. I am now going through "Blue Like Jazz" by a guy named Donald Miller, and I love it the second time around too.

In one of the chapters he talks about how he saw (on public television or something like it) a program on penguins. He explains to his friend, over coffee, that the penguins have this big pilgramage (spelling?) to far away from their homes, and they start making these noises. The noises are to find a mate. So, they find their mate and have their penguin sex (this is the title of the chapter) and then the mom lays the eggs and leaves. I guess she just leaves for a while and the men stay and take care of the eggs, their kids.

The crazy part, he goes on to explain, is that a few months later the mom randomly comes back, right before the eggs are hatched. So they take this long hike to this place, mate, the mom leaves, and then finds her way back miraculously right before her kiddies are born. What a good mom (and dad).

So Miller talks about this internal radar the penguins have to just get there and back, a radar that cannot really be explained. Earlier in the book he talked about love, and light, and beauty, which are all rational things people believe and feel, but cannot be proved scientifically. But they are real. He used this to describe his faith, and I really like how he talks about it. He says that these penguins have this radar to mate and find their kids, so maybe he (or we?) have this radar towards our Creator, to God, that many times we cannot explain.

I really like that.

Before I go I wanted to say how awesome it has been to hear from you. Yesterday was the influx of mail (the first time in a week and a half--so sorry if it takes so long!) that Peace Corps brought us. So you can send a letter, two weeks later it gets here, and a week later Peace Corps gets it to me. But I still love letters. Again thanks so much for the support. I will talk to you soon!

Also, my camera is dead, I think. I had it in my backpack during a downpour of rain (which happens practically daily) and it got wet, so it does not turn on anymore. This is to say that I hope you enjoy the pictures that I have posted here and on the webshots.com because it may be a while before we get anymore. At least over 100 are on webshots!

I miss you guys and I hope to talk to you soon. Until after the trip, Nick.

True to Yourself

“The thing inside of me was so strong I had to act on it. Can you relate to this feeling? That sense that there is something deep in the fiber of your being that you have to do, and if you don´t do it, you will be violating something…or somebody?

Better to try and fail, because at least you are being true to yourself.”

Well this is one of my inspirational quotes for this week. I´m reading through another book by Rob Bell, this one is called “Velvet Elvis.” Before this quote Bell is actually talking about his vision for a church…a church where people actually want to be there, where they are alive and full of passion and happy, and this is was his vision when he started a church—to pursue what living like Jesus taught was possible would look like. However, I like to apply the quote to my experience here in Costa Rica. Being here is just something I had to do that in some ways I can´t explain (others I think I can). This keeps me going—that I know I´m here for a reason. And I have to try this, going out with a bang and taking a risk so I can be true to myself and live with few regrets. I guess I wanted to write this to remind myself but also to give people a glimpse of why I´m here…because I do miss everyone so much!

I think I´m getting addicted to coffee, because my host mom here has a huge cup waiting for me every morning when I wake up. If I´m home later in the afternoon, Costa Ricans (ticos for short) usually have a coffee and snack then also. But this coffee addiction has replaced my previous pop addiction, mostly. So that makes me feel better.

Now for a few things I have been up to. I think I wrote in another post that we change language facilitators (fancy word for teacher) every four weeks or so, for various reasons. Well we (me and the three other gringos in my town) were supposed to have one Spanish class last week and one yesterday, but neither time did our new teacher show up. Today we found out he quit. So I missed two Spanish classes, but I think I´ll be okay. I really enjoy talking with the people around town more. You learn so much by being forced to listen and speak in the language you are trying to learn! But that was interesting, and nice to have the day off yesterday. I spent it playing with Josue, the 7 year old grandkid. We played soccer and also a game where I chase him and pretend he´s a monkey and I get to throw him around. I didn´t see him at all this weekend and realized how much I missed him.

Also I´ve been doing my coaching activity where I sort of shadow a local small business owner and learn from him while also trying to see where I can put my business stuff to the test and see where he may be to improve. We are becoming friends as he took me into San Jose with his son last week! He has a really well run little shop where he sells odds and ends like pop, food, ice cream, milk, coffee, and other stuff. His dad has his own store in town so they have some entrepreneur blood in the family.

This past weekend I went into San Jose along with the other 35 trainees for a project fair. There were six current volunteers that we went around to and talked to about their projects. What I think is really cool about the Peace Corps is that what we work on is mainly up to us. For example, one of the volunteers has worked on starting an internet café in his town. Two others worked a lot with women´s groups, like on making their own jewelry to provide income or starting an ice cream shop. Sounds like fun! And yummy. Another volunteer and his wife teach a ton of English classes. Lastly, one volunteer works mostly with kids. It was really encouraging to see that I can focus where my passions are. Of course these volunteers do other things, but they were presenting our possibilities as future volunteers. That´s good to know if I really want I can work a ton with kids, or if I want I can teach a ton of English (not likely) or work mostly with micro entrepreneurs or even various community groups.

This week isn´t too busy. I checked our schedule, and now that we are at the halfway point (a little more) for training, the rest of training gets intense. Not this weekend but next weekend we all go to visit a current volunteer. Unlike last time, we all go to visit a volunteer one on one, just me and the other person. We spend five days with them! The after that, two weeks from this Friday, we find out our own sites. Right after that we go for a five day visit to our future site and meet our future family. We return to our communities and September 14 we swear in as official PC volunteers. I hope to keep updating in the next few weeks, but I will be out of town a couple times and be busier, so I will do my best. Thanks everyone for all the letters and emails and messages! Don´t be afraid to keep them up even if I haven´t updated for a while!

“Better to try and fail, because at least you are being true to yourself.”

“And the worse thing would be to live wondering, what if?”

“…Because without pain, we don´t change, do we?” –Rob Bell

Right now things are a bit tough, which I haven´t really shared, but at the back of my mind I´m not wondering “what if I did the Peace Corps?” because I´m here. Thanks so much for everyone for encouraging me to step out in faith and take a risk with this journey. It´s not easy now, although there is much to love, but I´m here.

Alright we´ll see if this works. I heard about this website from other trainees called webshots.com where you can upload pictures for free and other people can view them! Try clicking on the link below. I uploaded all 116 pictures I´ve taken so far, so hopefully this works. Also, if they work, apparently there are 8 videos. Check below and let me know if it works!

http://community.webshots.com/album/560204070aVlHqC

A few pictures

I dont know how these pictures are going to show up...to the right of my typing, to the left, above, below...so I will attempt to describe them. The one with all the people--on the left is my host mom, Carmen. Her grandson who I play with a lot is named Josue and is in the middle, in the green shirt. The others are family friends!

The other picture with me in it has my host moms grandson, Jorge Andres. He is 12 and that day we went on a hike with our friend Grettel. She took us all around and it was really cool. Hopefully later Ill upload more pictures.

The other two nature pictures are of my two visits a few weeks ago to see two volunteers. So I dont live at either of these two places, but I liked the pictures.

Three weeks from this Friday and Ill find out my site placement, where Ill be living for 2 years! So im excited about that--to find out if ill be near the beach, the mountains, a volcano, near nicaragua or panama, and finding out if ill be in a community of 300 people or a couple thousand.

My health is a lot better and im feeling great, as far as health goes. Its a little crazy that im used to getting up before 6am and going to sleep around 8 or 8:30. I get three COOKED meals a day...crazy! Who would have thunk people cook three times a day. No fast food! But i like it. I feel healthy and good.

Quick note--if you send a package (hint?) send it through regular U.s. postal mail, not through FedEx or whatnot. Some people here have received some packages and they come through customs fine (no payments or holds) through regular U.S. postal mail!

Today I started my coaching activity. This is to identify a local entrepreneur-micro enterprise owner and meet with them once a week to learn about their work, prices, distributors, and everything. Today was really fun and I learned much! Also today we had another visit with the local principal of the elementary school. Discipline here is way different--ill have to write about it sometime. i sat in on a math class and observed and it was really interesting. The idea was to sit in on a class because probably when i get to my site ill be teaching a couple english classes. yikes.

My spanish is improving!

Alright this session has to be short, as it seems it usually does. I hope everyone is doing well! We will talk soon.