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