Good Water?

The time has come, the stage is set and the PCTs are ready!  Yesterday was the big day folks!  The day that everyone looked forward to, the day that was marked on all calendars--SITE ASSIGNMENT DAY!  On this day, PCTs find out where they will be living/serving the next two years.  PC CR cleverly named it Site Assignment Day (SAD).  Yes, I did not make that up, the acronym is SAD.  You think PC could have conjured up some other name that didn’t have such a gloomy acronym, like Location Assignment Day (LAD).  But before I reveal my site, I am going to bore you with some details from the past few weeks (Reading ahead is encouraged!).

It has been a busy couple weeks for me and I finally have some time to sit down and put all of last week’s work into perspective.  At times, it helps if you take a step back and reflect on what you are doing and why you are doing it... especially when you are in PEACE CORPS! (haha)

Last week, our entire group had a change in plans.  Because of the torrential rains and landslides, we could not travel to our Tech Training site (in Southern San Jose) to visit a volunteer who is serving.  Instead, we slept in our training communities during the night and the CED group met in Tarbaca during the day.  Tech training is a week devoted to training in your respective field.  Since we actually could not train in a volunteer site, the facilitators came up with a different lesson plan.  My CED (Community Economic Development) group had to create a hypothetical business that would most likely succeed in our training communities.  We used the same business planning process that Junior Achievement uses all over the world.  All of us could be facilitating a group of students in our communities with the Junior Achievement process.  The objective of the process is to teach students all the steps it takes to start a business.  Each of us had to facilitate one of the steps to our CED group.  Through random selection, I was put in the Marketing Department.  There were 5 departments altogether (marketing, finance and accounting, HR, production and administration).  Specifically, my task was to facilitate the generation of a Market Survey (encuesta) for our service.  I facilitated  a few sessions and it was a great experience for me.  I do not have much experience facilitating NFE (non-formal education, Peace Corps’ teaching strategy that is less formalized and poses questions to the class, rather than telling them or lecturing) and it was good to get in front of everyone and face my fears.  The main objective of all of this was to look at the process from the student´s perspective.  In addition, most of the teaching was in Spanish, so everyone learned a lot of Spanish business vocab.

After the long week, our group decided we needed to celebrate.  Tbest place to do that is in the beautiful city of Puerto Viejo.  Puerto Viejo is on the eastern side of CR in the province of Límon.  It has some of the best beaches in Costa Rica.  The whole group rented a bus made the 4 hour trip.  It was awesome!  The beaches were perfect and it is exactly what everyone needed.  For me, the highlight of the trip was wrestling the other 6’5” behemoth in our group, John, on the beach.  John and I have similar body builds so it was a fair match.  I took him down the first round, he took me down the second and I finished him off the third.  Other group members wanted to wrestle so more matches ensued.  It wasn’t very “peace”ful but everyone had fun.  It was nice getaway after being in the same community for 6 weeks. 

Wow…if you got through all of that, I commend you.  Now, it is time to reveal the real reason everyone is reading this, my site assignment: 

MY SITE IS AGUA BUENA! 

Here are some quick, fun facts about Agua Buena.  Literally meaning “good water” in Spanish, Agua Buena is a community located close to the Panamanian border (10 KM) and near PILA (International Park la Amistad).  It is in the district of Agua Buena, county of Coto Brus and province of Puntarenas.  The population is approximately 5,200 people (big for a compared to other PCV cities).  The district of Agua Buena has an area of 61.18 km2.  Agua Buena is at an average altitude of 1,060 meters above sea level and the topography is mountainous.  The climate is chilly (chilly for ticos is different for Minnesotans) and cloudy.  The local economy is primarily agriculture-based with coffee, cattle farms, vegetable and commercial activity.  In Agua Buena, there is a super market, pulperia, vegetable fair, common salon, water system, futbol field, internet café, kindergarten, primary school and secondary school.  Talk about “Posh” Corps…



I will be closer to Panama City than San Jose.  Here I come cheap Panmanian goods!


My main counterpart will be the Damas Unidas (United Women) that are involved in a recycling project, tortilla factory and selling a traditional food cookbook.  I will support the women’s group, strengthen their managerial and operational business skills, group leadership and conflict resolution capabilities.  In the community, there is also a ECC (Empresa de Crédito Communal.  A community-based, micro-finance organization that gives micro-loans to start-ups.).  I will support them with feasibility studies and writing business plans.  It has been in the community for only two years.  There are also a group of farmers organizing a vegetable fair (Feria del Agricultor) and they need support to organize, run and administer this venture.  The community is also in need of ICT and English classes for the ECC members, women’s group and youth. 

I will be living with Yolanda Mana Solóranza.  She has a daughter that attends a university named Pamela and another daughter named Ana Luisa that lives in the US.  I am going to have a lot of Estrogen in my life; living with only women, working with a women’s group…..help me GOD!! Haha just kidding.  My CED coordinator, Luis, told me they are a really nice family.   

It is crazy to think that in exactly 23 days, I will be sitting on a different bed in Agua Buena thinking to myself, “wow, what the heck do I do now? How can I put this training into practice?”  It is a little scary to think about but it is exciting at the same time.  The time has come, I am ready to serve.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

Warm Regards,

Elliot

Aguacera

Family and Friends,

The rains came on Wednesday and didn’t stop for three days.  It was literally aguacera (pouring rain) for three days straight..  It was unlike anything I have seen before; the streets turned into rivers, the thick soil turned into wet mud.  Instead of snow avalanches, there were mud avalanches.  Sadly,  a mud avalanche killed 20 people in San Antonio de Ezcazu.  It was sad to see people who had little before, lose everything.  Laura Chinchilla, the president of CR, declared Costa Rica in a state of emergency until the rain stops.  As of today, the rain has stopped and the weather is beautiful.  Now it is time to clean-up the damage and there is a lot of it.  Roads, power lines, water pipes, and houses all need repair.  

Landslide in Escazú

Thankfully, my community, San Gabriel, is in the mountains and did not experience any flooding or landslides.  We did lose power for a couple days, and we are still without water.  As a result, I have not showered in days, the street dogs think I am one of them.  That will change as I am planning to take a bucket bath soon. 

Peace Corps has taken steps to assure our safety in CR.  Right now, we are in what the emergency action plan called “standfast.”  All that means is we have to stay in our communities and we have to be ready to evacuate if the situation gets worse.  If the weather would get worse (which it won’t), we would have to consolidate at a given location, a safe haven.  Because our professors have to travel from San Jose to our communities, the Peace Corps canceled our classes on Friday and this Monday.  There was also a picnic planned for Saturday at the Country Director’s house in San Jose, but it was canceled as well.  It is unfortunate because other PCVs were going to be there.  It would have been a nice event to get to know other volunteers already serving.  Tico 21 (my group) also put together a soccer team and I was going to be the goalie.  Unfortunately, no one will see how good (and by good I mean BAD) I am at soccer.

I was also fortunate to leave my PCV visit when I did.  For those of you who didn’t know, I visited a fellow PCV volunteer in San Jose de Upala, Alajuela (6 KM from the Nica border).  The day after I left, Upala experienced major flooding like Ezcazu.  If I hadn’t left when I did, I would still be there, SOS.

My PCV visit was a great experience though.  I visited Eric Smith, he is from Jersey but went to school in Vermont and considers Verm (not Vermillion ha) his home.  He has been living in San Jose de Upala for the past six months.  San Jose de Upala is a small town of about 500 people or less.  It is very flat, hot, muddy, rainy and humid.  It is different from the mountain town I live in right now.  Sixty years ago, the town was completely rainforest.  That changed though when the ganarías (ranches) came and cut down the trees to make room for pasture.  I found myself in a full sweat 8 hours per day.  Eric said when he first arrived at his site, he would sweat all the time too.  After a month or so, his body was accustomed to the heat.

Eric is doing many projects right now in the town.  The main project is teaching English classes.  He has a class of about 12 people ranging from high-schoolers to homemakers.  I had the opportunity to help him teach part of the class.  I introduced myself to the class and then was in charge of doing the dynamico (icebreaker).  I had a lot of fun teaching and I managed to get a few good laughs out of the students (maybe they were laughing at me, I couldn’t decipher).  Students will respect you if you are enthusiastic and sometimes just plain goofy (goofiness is universal).  Eric does a good job at this.  He wants to make sure the students are not only learning English but having fun.  The class is still very basic, so if you speak it has to be slow and methodical. 

Eric is also starting a recycling collection center in his town.  The waste management system is in the dark ages compared to the United States.  The “system” is to basically throw the trash on the ground or burn it.  There is no company that comes around and disposes of your trash.  People burn everything including plastic and spray-paint cans.  Eric has symposiums to try to educate the people on the importance of recycling and disposing properly.  He also started a recycling collection center.  The town can bring their recyclable items here and  a company (Coke, Pepsi or Dos Pinos) will pick up the recyclable items and the contributors will receive a small payment.  It is just in its initial stages but it seems like a good idea.

The town also used be covered with cacao trees.  It was the main cash crop of the area.  About a decade ago, a fungus came and wiped out all the trees.  It has made the town poorer than it used to be.  Since the market price for cacao has been high for a long time and there are now cacao seeds that are immune to the fungus, Eric is talking to some farmers about growing the tree again.  It will be a difficult task since the project is considered long-term, but he has received some positive feedback.

I was also looking forward to seeing all the wonderful flora and fauna on my gira (trip), but I  saw only long-eared cows.  It is okay, I know there will be plenty of time in the future to explore Costa Rica’s amazing flora and fauna.  My Spanish teacher told us some good bird-watching areas in the country, I hope to visit them soon.  I already saw some pretty hummingbirds, Costa Rica is a hotbed for these amazing creatures. 

I think of you all often;  I find myself flipping through my letter-book,  retracing all the wonderful memories it brings me.  These are consecrated in my thoughts, and whenever I am down, they will bring me joy.  I hope this post finds you all with happiness and love in your lives.

Pura Vida

Elliot