First of all, Happy Halloween! Right about this time in the U.S. people are wondering the streets searching for free candy. If I was there, I would be doing the same. Even a few years ago I put on a mask (so the people with candy could not tell my age as well) and I went trick or treating. Hey, free candy people.
Most of Costa Rica does not celebrate Halloween. My host mom says that in certain places of Costa Rica some have started to celebrate because they like to imitate and learn things from the U.S. on some stuff. But nobody in my town celebrates.
This post is coming to you straight from a nice hotel! I traveled to La Fortuna today (about a 2 or 2 and a half hour bus ride from San Jose de Upala) to meet up with Howie and Diane, good family friends (they are family!). They are in Costa Rica on a tour guided trip and I got to go with them today through the jungle/rain forest on a guided tour and then we went to the hot springs! Wow, I am living it large! Now I am staying in the hotel for the night because there are no buses at night and I will return “home” tomorrow. What a great day! It was a little like déjà vu being at the hot springs because it is the same hot springs I was at over two years ago when I studied abroad here. I was so sick when I studied abroad (not sure what from—the water?) and the night we were at the hot springs, I was very sick with simultaneously throwing up and having diarrhea. At the same time. If you haven’t done it before, you should try it sometime. I mean I have heard that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Saturday I had a run in with some bats in an abandoned house. There is a protected laguna/lake near where I am living and there is a group of high school students trying to form a cooperative to reforest and help restore the area (some guy didn’t take good care of it). An abandoned house sits near the lake and so when we went in, bats were flying everywhere (we disturbed their sleep). I am learning to do what the Costa Ricans do (they live here after all and learn to survive) and they weren’t scared and just shrugged it off so I did my best to act cool. Hmmm so I wasn’t very cool about it.
I put some pictures up. They are of the two classes (Thursdays and Fridays) in the high school of the business administration class where they are taught how to start a business and be entrepreneurs. The teacher works with motivation and attitudes we should have to work with people and start our own business. This class gives students a third option besides leaving the community to work (1) or going to the university (if they don’t get in) (2). The universities here are hard to get in to.
Pictures:
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/561183624nlhVvM
That is all for now. Later! -Nick
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Random Life Thoughts
Life is picking up here as I get to know the people better and start doing more things in the community. I taught my first class of English yesterday to a group of about 10 high school students, and tomorrow I will teach another class. They are graduating in December (the school year here begins in February and ends in December, and their summer vacation is December through February) so we are trying to squeeze in a few weeks of English for them, although in reality it takes years to learn English. But—little by little, right?
Sunday, October 14, 2007
The First Month of Peace Corps
Today is a beautiful and sunny day. I love road trips, preferably with friends and family, but my road trip on bus today was still good. The scenery calls your attention and it´s sometimes hard to take your eyes off the greenness and richness of nature here. My favorite is to listen to some reggae music, usually Bob Marley or 311, and drift off looking out the window. I left this morning at 4am to catch a bus from San José de Upala to Upala. From Upala at 5:15 the bus left for the capital city San José, and I arrived here a little after 10am.
We get a couple days each month that we can be away from our sites, and so I´m using tonight and tomorrow night to stay with my host mom from training. Today I will go visit her and her grandkids, who I grew pretty close to in the three months that I lived with them. Part of my trip´s purpose was also to visit Paula, but now I don´t think I will see her because we broke up Friday night. I learned a lot from our relationship and needless to say, my first cross-cultural relationship is over.
Now that I´ve been at my site for about a month, things are moving along in some ways. On Thursdays and Fridays I go to the high school where I sit in on a class on business administration. I really enjoy this class because the teacher focuses on knowing yourself, attitudes, and values first and then moves into more technical business stuff. We have decided that I´m going to try and teach English to these two classes on Mondays and Tuesdays, but I really have no idea what I´m doing or how it´s going to work. I think I´m starting next week! I have to come up with my own lesson plan and how to fill the two hours.
Another project, of sorts, is on Friday afternoons. I have been going to one of the local elementary schools and meeting with some of the mom´s of the students (sort of a women´s group—men are invited but no men come). I´m not sure where the group is going, but we´re talking about small businesses and I think we might throw some workshops in on values or relationships or managing money.
In addition to these projects, I have to work on my community analysis. This is a slow process but I´m trying to do it little by little. When it is finished I will know a ton about the community of San José de Upala.
On Wednesday, I went out to a kid named Luis´ farm. I met him one day at the elementary school and he is sort of an outcast so I was immediately drawn to him. I have since visited him a couple times and am getting to know the family. Their family is very poor. They have an old style house made out of some old 2 by 4s and their house is just a dirt floor. They don´t have potable water but do have a well out back, but I´ve heard it´s very bad for your health because the water is contaminated. They have an outhouse out back along with the “shower,” which is really just three pieces of tin standing up and a bucket you have to fill with water to wash yourself. They are a nice, humble family and I would love to do something with them, but I don´t know anything about agriculture and their dad just tries to farm his land.
Anyways, on Wednesday me and Luis went around and picked some apples and oranges and some other strange fruit that we ate along the way. A river runs through San José de Upala and runs through the backyard at Luis´s house, and so we went fishing. It´s a cord with a hook on the end and you throw the cord in the water by hand and just pull it in by hand. It was a ton of fun!
Overall, the first month was filled with ups and downs. Many days, I still don´t know what to do but I´m hanging in there. This is a crazy experience!
I want to say thank you so much for everyone who has been supporting and encouraging me! I have truly learned so much from you guys, about sacrifice and love and prayer.
We get a couple days each month that we can be away from our sites, and so I´m using tonight and tomorrow night to stay with my host mom from training. Today I will go visit her and her grandkids, who I grew pretty close to in the three months that I lived with them. Part of my trip´s purpose was also to visit Paula, but now I don´t think I will see her because we broke up Friday night. I learned a lot from our relationship and needless to say, my first cross-cultural relationship is over.
Now that I´ve been at my site for about a month, things are moving along in some ways. On Thursdays and Fridays I go to the high school where I sit in on a class on business administration. I really enjoy this class because the teacher focuses on knowing yourself, attitudes, and values first and then moves into more technical business stuff. We have decided that I´m going to try and teach English to these two classes on Mondays and Tuesdays, but I really have no idea what I´m doing or how it´s going to work. I think I´m starting next week! I have to come up with my own lesson plan and how to fill the two hours.
Another project, of sorts, is on Friday afternoons. I have been going to one of the local elementary schools and meeting with some of the mom´s of the students (sort of a women´s group—men are invited but no men come). I´m not sure where the group is going, but we´re talking about small businesses and I think we might throw some workshops in on values or relationships or managing money.
In addition to these projects, I have to work on my community analysis. This is a slow process but I´m trying to do it little by little. When it is finished I will know a ton about the community of San José de Upala.
On Wednesday, I went out to a kid named Luis´ farm. I met him one day at the elementary school and he is sort of an outcast so I was immediately drawn to him. I have since visited him a couple times and am getting to know the family. Their family is very poor. They have an old style house made out of some old 2 by 4s and their house is just a dirt floor. They don´t have potable water but do have a well out back, but I´ve heard it´s very bad for your health because the water is contaminated. They have an outhouse out back along with the “shower,” which is really just three pieces of tin standing up and a bucket you have to fill with water to wash yourself. They are a nice, humble family and I would love to do something with them, but I don´t know anything about agriculture and their dad just tries to farm his land.
Anyways, on Wednesday me and Luis went around and picked some apples and oranges and some other strange fruit that we ate along the way. A river runs through San José de Upala and runs through the backyard at Luis´s house, and so we went fishing. It´s a cord with a hook on the end and you throw the cord in the water by hand and just pull it in by hand. It was a ton of fun!
Overall, the first month was filled with ups and downs. Many days, I still don´t know what to do but I´m hanging in there. This is a crazy experience!
I want to say thank you so much for everyone who has been supporting and encouraging me! I have truly learned so much from you guys, about sacrifice and love and prayer.
Friday, October 5, 2007
The Poor and the Rich and Coincidences
¨Our deepest joy comes from right relationships—with God, neighbor, and the earth¨ I´m realizing that´s one reason it´s been rough here—I did just move to San José de Upala less than three weeks ago, and since my relationships, at least with neighbors and family and friends, are somewhat lacking, the joy has been lacking too. I´m reading ¨Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger¨ by Ronald Sider and he said the above quote in his book. I may have talked it into the ground but I´m realzing here how important my relationships back home were and are. Having a safe place to share your thoughts and know you will still be listened to and loved is a great feeling, and for the time being, I´m still just getting to know these people here in Costa Rica. It´s a slow process, but little by little I am finding some friends to talk to. I am already learning my lesson about small towns—people blab everything about anyone and a gringo is no exception.
I´ve been thinking a lot about the poor and rich and everything in between. For my birthday, one night my host family had their friends (the guy from Switzerland, his wife, and kid) over for a little get together. That same weekend, Paula and her friend Ennio made the 8 hour trek up to see me, and another Peace Corps volunteer that lives about 20 minutes away from me came up to the party too. So the setting is all of us, sitting outside on the porch, telling jokes and cooking food and some people singing karaoke.
They started giving me some advice. ¨If I was 24, knowing what I know now…¨ type advice for the birthday boy. One of the suggestions, from the dude from Switzerland, was to invest now. Don´t wait for my two years to be up before I buy Costa Rican property! This reminded me of accounting classes (and finance classes) where they told us how compound interest is one of the most powerful things on earth, and so we should invest now so our money can compound radically. It´s no coincidence that a few days later, in ¨Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger,¨ Sider quotes C.S. Lewis—
¨Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I made every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.¨
Some good (but crazy and full of mystery) stuff has been happening. I don´t believe in coincidences and I´ve had a couple of moments with my host dad. Okay so they may not be that big of a deal to you, but they were a big deal to me.
First, the same time I was waiting for my book ¨The End of Poverty¨ to come in the mail, my host dad happened to buy it here in Costa Rica (his copy in Spanish). It gave us some common ground and I´m starting to realize there is a reason I was placed with this family. My host dad and I can really relate and we have a ton in common.
Before this happened, my uncle Pat had recommended a few good books that I should check out. One was by Herman Hesse called ¨Siddartha¨ and I had it written down on my desk to think about getting that book. This week I was looking at my host dad´s (Fabian) books and saw that he had an old copy of Siddartha (in Spanish) on the shelf. He received that book when he was about my age. We had been talking about me starting to try and read in Spanish instead of all these books in English and so now I have started to read Siddartha in Spanish!
Despite many great experiences here, a few things I have had to get used to include Costa Ricans (Ticos) perception of the U.S. and people from the U.S. On the funnier side of things is that people often think I´m working for the CIA. They bring it up in a joking way that we are spying on Costa Ricans and people in other countries through the Peace Corps. So that is something that has put a smile on my face here. We only wish we were that important!
Something, however, that actually makes me get a little mad is that many people here think I am here because I´m avoiding the military. They think that in the U.S., we have to join the military or join the Peace Corps. I´ve had a few different people say, you´re here because you didn’t want to go to Iraq, right?
Another thing I just thought of yesterday, and it´s been somewhat on my mind today. The new slogan of Peace Corps is ¨Life is Calling. How far will you go?¨ But their old slogan was ¨The toughest job you´ll ever love¨. Anyways, the reason I´ve been thinking about that is because things have been pretty tough, at times, here. But somewhere deep inside, I know there is a reason for being here and this is where I´m supposed to be. It´s a crazy feeling, amidst sadness and some pain, to realize that you have some purpose here.
I was going to write some stuff I am learning about community and sharing and giving (some good stuff from Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger) but I´m tired. Maybe I´ll write about it later, or maybe I´ll spare people the boredom.
New pictures are up!
http://community.webshots.com/album/560948381WciwOk?start=0
I´ve been thinking a lot about the poor and rich and everything in between. For my birthday, one night my host family had their friends (the guy from Switzerland, his wife, and kid) over for a little get together. That same weekend, Paula and her friend Ennio made the 8 hour trek up to see me, and another Peace Corps volunteer that lives about 20 minutes away from me came up to the party too. So the setting is all of us, sitting outside on the porch, telling jokes and cooking food and some people singing karaoke.
They started giving me some advice. ¨If I was 24, knowing what I know now…¨ type advice for the birthday boy. One of the suggestions, from the dude from Switzerland, was to invest now. Don´t wait for my two years to be up before I buy Costa Rican property! This reminded me of accounting classes (and finance classes) where they told us how compound interest is one of the most powerful things on earth, and so we should invest now so our money can compound radically. It´s no coincidence that a few days later, in ¨Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger,¨ Sider quotes C.S. Lewis—
¨Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I made every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.¨
Some good (but crazy and full of mystery) stuff has been happening. I don´t believe in coincidences and I´ve had a couple of moments with my host dad. Okay so they may not be that big of a deal to you, but they were a big deal to me.
First, the same time I was waiting for my book ¨The End of Poverty¨ to come in the mail, my host dad happened to buy it here in Costa Rica (his copy in Spanish). It gave us some common ground and I´m starting to realize there is a reason I was placed with this family. My host dad and I can really relate and we have a ton in common.
Before this happened, my uncle Pat had recommended a few good books that I should check out. One was by Herman Hesse called ¨Siddartha¨ and I had it written down on my desk to think about getting that book. This week I was looking at my host dad´s (Fabian) books and saw that he had an old copy of Siddartha (in Spanish) on the shelf. He received that book when he was about my age. We had been talking about me starting to try and read in Spanish instead of all these books in English and so now I have started to read Siddartha in Spanish!
Despite many great experiences here, a few things I have had to get used to include Costa Ricans (Ticos) perception of the U.S. and people from the U.S. On the funnier side of things is that people often think I´m working for the CIA. They bring it up in a joking way that we are spying on Costa Ricans and people in other countries through the Peace Corps. So that is something that has put a smile on my face here. We only wish we were that important!
Something, however, that actually makes me get a little mad is that many people here think I am here because I´m avoiding the military. They think that in the U.S., we have to join the military or join the Peace Corps. I´ve had a few different people say, you´re here because you didn’t want to go to Iraq, right?
Another thing I just thought of yesterday, and it´s been somewhat on my mind today. The new slogan of Peace Corps is ¨Life is Calling. How far will you go?¨ But their old slogan was ¨The toughest job you´ll ever love¨. Anyways, the reason I´ve been thinking about that is because things have been pretty tough, at times, here. But somewhere deep inside, I know there is a reason for being here and this is where I´m supposed to be. It´s a crazy feeling, amidst sadness and some pain, to realize that you have some purpose here.
I was going to write some stuff I am learning about community and sharing and giving (some good stuff from Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger) but I´m tired. Maybe I´ll write about it later, or maybe I´ll spare people the boredom.
New pictures are up!
http://community.webshots.com/album/560948381WciwOk?start=0
Monday, October 1, 2007
Quick update and cell phone
My time tonight on the Internet is very short, so I will have to make this fast. I got a cell phone this weekend! The area code for Costa Rica is 506 and my number is 370-5068. The cool thing about the government run cell phones here is that all incoming calls are free, so when people call from the states, it´s free for me to receive it (although you still have to use a phone card to call me). I would love to hear from you. (Thanks for calling tonight grandma!)
Although I barely know the people here, they are really doing their best on my birthday and doing their best to make me feel at home. Thanks so much for the packages and letters! They mean so much. I wish I had more time but I will write more when I can.
We took some more pictures and I will put those up later. There are some great ones of the volcanoes and I went back to farm and saw the alligators again, and my host dad got a couple good shots of them.
I miss you!
Although I barely know the people here, they are really doing their best on my birthday and doing their best to make me feel at home. Thanks so much for the packages and letters! They mean so much. I wish I had more time but I will write more when I can.
We took some more pictures and I will put those up later. There are some great ones of the volcanoes and I went back to farm and saw the alligators again, and my host dad got a couple good shots of them.
I miss you!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
What Am I Doing Here?
Sometimes my new entries come from a happier, more content and peaceful place, and sometimes they come from hardships I may be feeling. Today comes from a rougher patch I´m going through, so this is just to let you know where I´m coming from (in case my thoughts seem a bit crazy).
Today it really hit me how much I miss talking to people about life, about love, about God, about how to actually live what Jesus talked about so many years ago, about how He speaks to us in our culture and time today. It´s a struggle here because I am not very close to anybody here in Costa Rica. A place deep within me longs and misses spontaneous and random (but full of life and passion) talks with mom, Jeremy, people from challenge and CSF, and my good friends. There´s something about connecting with people in a safe place where you can really be yourself and talk about what you are feeling deep within.
Last week a friend of my host family visited them. He invited me to see his farm and eat lunch with him, so the next day he picked me up and we went out to his farm, a couple miles from where I live. The man is from Switzerland and speaks Spanish and French. He has a huge, beautiful farm and a really nice house. Running through his farm is a creek and so he took me down there, being careful to watch for snakes. He said there are a number of poisonous snakes around, but I didn´t see any, that day. What we did see were a couple baby alligators (crocodiles? I don´t know the difference) and a bigger one, about 15 feet in front of us. I think it´s the first time I´ve seen a live one outside of the zoo!
Yesterday I had another first time. It was the first time I´ve seen a snake in the house. I will try and put a picture up on here but they are also up on my webshots.com page. I also uploaded some new pictures I took with my host family´s camera. They are of the host family, their house, my room off to the side of the house, the elementary school next door, and the street where I live. Here´s the website again--
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560825722dUvlqd
Tons of geckos run around at night all around my door and around the house. The other day when I was walking up to the high school I saw some monkeys playing in the trees. They make really loud noises, so when you hear the noises you think they are big gorillas, but the ones I saw were pretty small. Anyways, for those that come to visit we will hopefully get a glimpse of these, and hopefully not a glimpse of scorpions or tarantulas! Luckily I haven´t seen a tarantula yet, but I´m guessing within two years I´ll probably see one.
One thing Peace Corps as us all doing the first few months is called a CAT—Community Assessment Tool. We write it in Spanish, anywhere from 20 to 100 pages of an in depth assessment of the community. It´s one way to get integrated because we have to learn everything about the community. I started that today but it will be a long process.
What is really hard is that the high school principal wants me ¨working,¨ in the traditional sense of the word, right away. Also, my host family is asking me what I have been doing all day. Lots of my training focused on getting to know the community and the importance of this. The training focused on sustainable development, meaning that the work will continue in the community after the volunteer leaves. This focuses on helping the people help themselves and empowering them to take control of their own lives. Peace Corps emphasized that the process is just as important as the end result, and it´s important we don´t rush into projects without first knowing the people. So this has been a challenge for me because I am trying to get to know the people. For example, having coffee at someone´s house and talking about life, the community, family, and culture is considered getting to know the community, and an important part of work. This I love, but it´s hard figuring out how to do this and get to know the community.
My family here is super humble and caring and my host mom cooks great food. I am already used to eating rice and beans at every meal, something I didn´t think I´d ever get used to.
I am realizing how much I took for granted connecting with people and how I need other people to put me in my place. I am realizing, also, how selfish I really am. C.S. talked about how he never had an unselfish thought in his entire life. That´s how I feel. Everything seems to come back to me. It´s like Donald Miller wrote—I am starring in my own movie because I am in every scene. What interests me is trying to get away from this, but the more I try, the more I just think about myself.
Tests are everywhere here, and I am only beginning to realize it. This selfishness one is just one of many that is trying to get me down. I´m not really sure where I´m going with that thought but it´s just something I´ve been thinking about lately.
Friends and family, you have shown me how caring and giving people really can be. I have felt so encouraged here by everyone back home, and I want to say thank you and I miss you tons. You are showing me love and service in new ways.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Brokenness, Hope, Joy
“Brokenness is the realization that life is too much for us, not just because there is too much pain but also because we´re too selfish. Brokenness is realizing He is all we have. Hope is realizing He is all we need. Joy is realizing He is all we want…
“I have spent so much of my life hearing that sort of teaching and thinking of it as true but not immediately necessary to grasp. I now see it differently. I am beginning to understand that the loneliness I have for so long tried to relieve by marrying, by developing friendships, by writing books, by thinking of funny things to say at parties, is really a hunger for God.”
Larry Crabb writes this in his book “Becoming a True Spiritual Community” (thanks to mom for sending it to me!) and as I have been reading it, this is just one of the things that really hit me. I love him as a writer and almost all his books impact me greatly, and this is just one of the things I have been thinking about lately.
Four days ago I arrived at my new site. In Costa Rica the people often end their sentences with “Si Dios quiere” which means “if God wants it”. For example, I say “See ya tomorrow” and they answer “If God wants it”. So we from the U.S. take that to mean that it may or may not happen. Like, hey I´ll be there tomorrow, unless God doesn´t want me to do the work, then I won´t show up. Naw, but I don´t think they mean it that way. It´s interesting because they don´t have a separation between church and state here so people talk about God much more here.
So I tell people I arrived four days ago and will be staying for two years, “Si Dios quiere.” I gotta throw in little things like that so I can try and fit in with their culture.
It´s really hot here and I walk around all day with drops of sweat on my face. I don´t think it´s any hotter than Nebraska in the heat of summer, but they don´t have air conditioning here.
I am settled in to my new room. It has a single bed and a single shelving unit with three shelves. Also, I have little neighbors all over one wall—ants. But they don´t bother me and for now haven´t entered my bed. It´s amazing how I´m not as scared of bugs or spiders anymore. The people live with them here and they survive, so I figure I can do the same. I bought a string to try and hang up in my room so I can hang up some clothes, and I bought some tape to put some pictures up on the walls since everything is bare. If anyone has posters or pictures or anything cool to put on the wall, I´d love you to send it!
Monday I visited the high school. The high school has four main project ideas right now. First, the entire town of San Jose de Upala has no trash pick up. This is supposed to be the responsibility of the nearest town, Upala, but apparently in many rural areas they don´t have the funds or resources to pick up trash. Therefore, every household and school has a pit in the backyard where they throw everything and either bury it after a time or burn it. It´s very bad for the environment. So we are going to try and start a recycling project, but it´s very hard here because people grow up their whole lives throwing trash wherever. It´s hard for people in the U.S. to imagine because we grow up, mainly, throwing trash in the trash can.
The second project is possibly teaching computer classes to the high schoolers, and the third project may be teaching English, although they already have four English teachers. The fourth project is really about 50 projects in itself. Pedro is an agriculture teacher and wants to plant a ton of crops and start a student run cooperative to teach them business and hopefully keep them in the community to start businesses or their own. I talked to a couple kids today and there just isn´t work in San Jose de Upala and so they all want to leave after high school, if they even finish.
Tuesday and today I visited the elementary school that is located right next to my house. I´m actually writing this from the house of the principal, because she invited me over to Upala to her house to use her internet. She´s really nice! I may be teaching computer classes at this school or possibly English.
I´m trying to take it slow and get to know the people. The Peace Corps stresses getting to know the people first. Why do they want to do this project? Will it be sustainable so after we leave the people can continue? After a few weeks are they still talking about this project? For this reason I´m taking it slow and trying to get to know everyone. It´s a little overwhelming but so far, I´ve met a lot of people. My host mom cooks really well and I think I´m going to be fat by the time I return to the states.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with a different elementary school. I think I mentioned it before but San Jose de Upala is made up of about 20 smaller neighborhoods or communities, all very spread out. So tomorrow I will go to the elementary school in La Unión and visit with the parents. They are interested in starting a business. A few mentioned a bread store because they don´t have one in the town. I´m pretty scared for this meeting!
I have to keep reminding the people I´m not here to DO the things for them but to share experiences and learn from them and do the things WITH them. A challenge will be motivating them and empowering them to take ownership of the projects. It´s a bit overwhelming and with so much on the plate, it´s sometimes hard to know where to start eating.
I was thinking today about how overwhelming it can be. But I realized that I am here because I believe one person can make a difference. A teacher I met at the high school talked about Alyssa, a Peace Corps volunteer that lived in her town (Upala) in the early 1990s. This teacher told me all about Alyssa and her projects. This teacher made me realize how much impact one person can have, that 15 years later this woman is still talking about what she learned. It gave me hope.
“I have spent so much of my life hearing that sort of teaching and thinking of it as true but not immediately necessary to grasp. I now see it differently. I am beginning to understand that the loneliness I have for so long tried to relieve by marrying, by developing friendships, by writing books, by thinking of funny things to say at parties, is really a hunger for God.”
Larry Crabb writes this in his book “Becoming a True Spiritual Community” (thanks to mom for sending it to me!) and as I have been reading it, this is just one of the things that really hit me. I love him as a writer and almost all his books impact me greatly, and this is just one of the things I have been thinking about lately.
Four days ago I arrived at my new site. In Costa Rica the people often end their sentences with “Si Dios quiere” which means “if God wants it”. For example, I say “See ya tomorrow” and they answer “If God wants it”. So we from the U.S. take that to mean that it may or may not happen. Like, hey I´ll be there tomorrow, unless God doesn´t want me to do the work, then I won´t show up. Naw, but I don´t think they mean it that way. It´s interesting because they don´t have a separation between church and state here so people talk about God much more here.
So I tell people I arrived four days ago and will be staying for two years, “Si Dios quiere.” I gotta throw in little things like that so I can try and fit in with their culture.
It´s really hot here and I walk around all day with drops of sweat on my face. I don´t think it´s any hotter than Nebraska in the heat of summer, but they don´t have air conditioning here.
I am settled in to my new room. It has a single bed and a single shelving unit with three shelves. Also, I have little neighbors all over one wall—ants. But they don´t bother me and for now haven´t entered my bed. It´s amazing how I´m not as scared of bugs or spiders anymore. The people live with them here and they survive, so I figure I can do the same. I bought a string to try and hang up in my room so I can hang up some clothes, and I bought some tape to put some pictures up on the walls since everything is bare. If anyone has posters or pictures or anything cool to put on the wall, I´d love you to send it!
Monday I visited the high school. The high school has four main project ideas right now. First, the entire town of San Jose de Upala has no trash pick up. This is supposed to be the responsibility of the nearest town, Upala, but apparently in many rural areas they don´t have the funds or resources to pick up trash. Therefore, every household and school has a pit in the backyard where they throw everything and either bury it after a time or burn it. It´s very bad for the environment. So we are going to try and start a recycling project, but it´s very hard here because people grow up their whole lives throwing trash wherever. It´s hard for people in the U.S. to imagine because we grow up, mainly, throwing trash in the trash can.
The second project is possibly teaching computer classes to the high schoolers, and the third project may be teaching English, although they already have four English teachers. The fourth project is really about 50 projects in itself. Pedro is an agriculture teacher and wants to plant a ton of crops and start a student run cooperative to teach them business and hopefully keep them in the community to start businesses or their own. I talked to a couple kids today and there just isn´t work in San Jose de Upala and so they all want to leave after high school, if they even finish.
Tuesday and today I visited the elementary school that is located right next to my house. I´m actually writing this from the house of the principal, because she invited me over to Upala to her house to use her internet. She´s really nice! I may be teaching computer classes at this school or possibly English.
I´m trying to take it slow and get to know the people. The Peace Corps stresses getting to know the people first. Why do they want to do this project? Will it be sustainable so after we leave the people can continue? After a few weeks are they still talking about this project? For this reason I´m taking it slow and trying to get to know everyone. It´s a little overwhelming but so far, I´ve met a lot of people. My host mom cooks really well and I think I´m going to be fat by the time I return to the states.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with a different elementary school. I think I mentioned it before but San Jose de Upala is made up of about 20 smaller neighborhoods or communities, all very spread out. So tomorrow I will go to the elementary school in La Unión and visit with the parents. They are interested in starting a business. A few mentioned a bread store because they don´t have one in the town. I´m pretty scared for this meeting!
I have to keep reminding the people I´m not here to DO the things for them but to share experiences and learn from them and do the things WITH them. A challenge will be motivating them and empowering them to take ownership of the projects. It´s a bit overwhelming and with so much on the plate, it´s sometimes hard to know where to start eating.
I was thinking today about how overwhelming it can be. But I realized that I am here because I believe one person can make a difference. A teacher I met at the high school talked about Alyssa, a Peace Corps volunteer that lived in her town (Upala) in the early 1990s. This teacher told me all about Alyssa and her projects. This teacher made me realize how much impact one person can have, that 15 years later this woman is still talking about what she learned. It gave me hope.
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