Chepe Chronicles

Monday was my last real day in my community as a Peace Corps volunteer. I woke up early to take one last run around my beloved Parque La Libertad before making my way to the colegio . There, I gave my counterparts some letters and some cookies called alfajores that I commissioned from my host sister who runs a dessert business. The English department gave me a custom water bottle and treated me to lunch. That afternoon, I went to the escuela where I gave my counterparts there the same thing. I said goodbye to all the students over the microphone at an assembly and then received hundreds of hugs and high fives from them afterwards. It was a really special moment that I’ll cherish forever (I almost cried but I promise I didn’t). That evening, I bought some fried chicken for my host family at their favorite local establishment and we reflected on the past 2 years. They were a great host family and I’m super grateful to them.  Tuesday was a long and heavy day. On Tuesday, I made the...

After a few weeks at home in Missouri after gonging out, I will be moving to the Los Angeles, CA area to start a new position. I will be working as a Project Coordinator and Operations Associate for the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI) based out of Manhattan Beach. I will work under the tutelage of Robert J. Abernethy, a philanthropist who chairs CSDI. Mr. Abernethy serves on the board of many different international relations organizations including Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institution, and the Atlantic Council, among many others. I’m so grateful to have landed a position post-Peace Corps that allows me to pursue my professional passions while relocating to a new, exciting city. I’ve really never spent any meaningful time in California, (other than a brief stop by Disneyland when I was little) so I am preparing myself for a bit of a culture shock. Meanwhile, with direct flights from Los Angeles to San José, I plan on returning to Costa Rica as much...

In Costa Rica, volunteers hit a gong to symbolize that their Peace Corps has formally concluded. I’ve seen volunteers in other countries ring a bell or strike a tire, so there’s no uniform practice that each post uses; however, just about everyone participates in an official ceremony to mark the end of service. For us, our program managers said a few words about each volunteer before the volunteer had a short speech in Spanish and struck the gong. Afterwards, there was a brief cafecito allowing volunteers and staff to catch up. Mainly, we as volunteers had to meet with specific staff members (Country Director, Program Manager, Doctor, Finance Team, etc) to make sure all documentation was in order before flying home.

Peace Corps requests that we keep our specific communities’ names private while serving in-country, primarily for security reasons. I wanted to respect that guidance as much as possible. After officially doing the “gong out” my service I thought that it might be fun to do a “site reveal” for the community I had the privilege of calling home the past 2 years. My community is called “Patarrá”. The town sits just outside of the capital, San Jose, in Desamparados canton. In Patarrá, I served at two different public school institutions, an escuela (elementary school) as well as in a colegio tecnico profesional (technical high school. In many ways, Patarra reminded me of places I grew up in. Its population size (roughly 12,000 depending on which neighborhoods are included) is extremely similar to my hometown of Nixa, Missouri, and like Nixa, “Patarrá” is the only town of its namesake. Similarly, I attended college in Memphis, TN. Like Memphis, in many ways, Desamparados has garnered notori...

After writing about my shortcomings and potential regrets from service, here's the other side of the coin. I'm overall quite proud of my Peace Corps service, and these are some items that make me feel that way. Making it the Full 27 months Peace Corps isn’t easy. I never thought I’d be proud of simply surviving the full 27-month service, but I absolutely am. Out of the 34 volunteers in my cohort who got on the plane to Costa Rica, only 17 finished the entire two-year term. There were a variety of reasons why some of my peers had to leave early: medical issues, personal resignations, mental health, administratively separated, etc. However, I am proud of the resilience, determination, and responsibility I showed to make it the distance. It was important to me to serve out my term for my community, and I’m glad I did. Safety and Security Serving an urban site, there were some legitimate safety and security concerns. However, I was never the victim of any crime, and I’m proud of th...

Peace Corps instructs us to not beat ourselves up about service. Probably no Peace Corps volunteer has ever accomplished everything in their given community that they had their sights on. I think it’s healthy to focus on the positives: the vast majority of Peace Corps Volunteers only get one chance at a Peace Corps service, so why dwell on what you didn’t accomplish instead of what you did? However, Peace Corps isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and I’ve tried to be as transparent as possible with this blog. I also feel like it might be a helpful thought experiment to shed some things that maybe didn’t go as I’d imagined in my two years in Costa Rica. So, below are some items I regret and/or wish I could’ve accomplished in my service but didn’t. Projects at the colegio (high school) My time at the colegio is probably what leaves me the most disappointed in my Peace Corps service. As part of the country’s Youth Development model, like other volunteers in my cohort, I served at 2 different...

My penultimate week in Costa Rica was a noteworthy one from start to finish. The week started off with an important milestone on Monday as my girlfriend Keily and I officially celebrated one year together. To mark the occasion, we went to one of our favorite Italian restaurants, Sapore Trattoria, and had some delicious pizza and pasta. Meeting Keily has been the highlight of my time in Costa Rica, so I was thrilled to be able to celebrate our anniversary together.  On Tuesday, Costa Rica celebrated its 205th independence day. Its celebrations largely take place inside of the schools, which is quite different from the States. That meant Tuesday was a “work day”. I went to the escuela and also brought Keily to introduce her to my counterparts and to partake in the celebrations. There was a big assembly in which they sang national hymns, performed some artistic and cultural displays, and then at the end, surprised me with a plaque and an impromptu speech. It was a special way to end m...

In June, my cohort had our “Close of Service” conference. One of the workshops/lectures we had was on the importance of saying goodbye. To be honest, this hadn’t been an area I’d thought too much about prior as it related to my service, but in the cultural context of Costa Rica, it’s extremely important. Whereas in the US, sometimes it is common to “Irish Exit” a position or an event rather than draw attention to oneself, it would be seen as much more offensive in Costa Rica to leave without the proper send-off. Because of that, I’ve tried to be really intentional during my last few weeks of service to carve out time to thank people who had an impact on my service and to say goodbye. Equally, people in my community have been incredibly gracious in sending me off. Both my host family and high school organized goodbye lunches for me, my elementary school gifted me a plaque, and I had the chance to run one last time with a couple of my running groups.

Something that I referenced on a few occasions in my weekly updates is that on occasion, I have to submit project data to Peace Corps. Although my role as a Peace Corps volunteer is pretty ambiguous and flexible, as a Youth Development volunteer, there are certain types of objectives and projects I’m instructed to report. Lots of my day-to-day interactions and cultural exchanges aren’t “reportable”, but my more formal projects, particularly related to “life skills”, are. 4 times per year we are tasked with finalizing data in an online portal (known as the "VRG") for our program team’s review. We describe our projects, the certain objectives related to Youth Development that are being met, and track data points like attendance, age, and gender. This type of data is crucial for Peace Corps reporting to Congress, who funds the agency.

Our recommendation from Peace Corps was to wrap up our classes and projects with around a month left in our service. While I finished reporting my acitivities at about a month remaining in Costa Rica, I pushed my classes a bit further out because I didn't want to rob my students of PE time. It's also not like I have anything else more important to do in my community besides saying goodbye and packing. So, in the colegio , I stopped by a couple of English classes and made sure I had everything prepared for my students to submit community service hours after I leave. At the escuela , I conducted the aforementioned PE classes and let students pick what they wanted to play since it may be their last chance to do so in school for the foreseeable future. They also finished off the pick up soccer tournament, the series of mejengas I organized, which was a big hit. The following week is a busy one celebrating Costa Rica's independence, so it made since to wrap up my classes during...

Most major American fast food chains are found in Costa Rica in 2026. Costa Rica has a lot of American influence and also many expats live here. Living in the capital, San Jose, I’ve had access to many of these “amenities” and comforts of home. For those curious, a list of American chains that I’ve come across in Costa Rica are: McDonald’s, Burger King, Dunkin, Starbucks, Popeye’s, KFC, Arby’s, Taco Bell, Subway, Quizno’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Domino’s, Little Caesar’s, Olive Garden, Chili’s, Outback, and Johnny Rocket’s. However, the reality is that most of these places are only really found in the Greater San Jose area, known as “GAM”. Regional cities may have a McDonald’s or Subway, but most smaller towns have their own local restaurants called “ sodas ”. On the other hand, there aren’t too many fast food chains that are Costa Rican, although a few come to mind. Perhaps the most ubiquitous fast food chain unique to Costa Rica is actually an ice cream place called “Pops”. There ar...

As I inch closer to the end of my service, I anticipate this will be a question I’ll receive by peers, colleagues, and people who are interested in the Peace Corps. And in short? I think Peace Corps service is an incredible opportunity for the right kind of person. I’ve had an amazing experience, and I’d recommend it to most like-minded people. For someone straight out of college, I think Peace Corps is a perfect way to begin a career or to discover oneself if not sure where to start. Similarly, for someone who is frustrated with his or her work and is tired of the mundane with minimal commitments at home, Peace Corps is an ideal reset. I’m coming away from my Peace Corps service with the thought that if every single US Citizen had served in the Peace Corps, our country would be a much more open-minded, global place. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend Peace Corps service to certain archetypes of people. If you are someone who is afraid to leave your comfort zone, Peace Corps isn’t...

The week started off with a holiday as Costa Ricans celebrated Dia del Afrocostarricense on Monday. This day pays homage to its black community which plays a significant part of Costa Rican culture, especially on the Caribbean coast in the Limon region. This meant that there was no school on Monday. The rest of the week wasn't particularly jam-packed either. For example, at the colegio , I only popped in on Wednesday to help with an English class. As my service winds down, my work load has eased a bit. But, I've tried to be as present and active in my community too.  During the entirety of my two year service, students at the escuela have begged me to play soccer, especially pick up games, known as mejengas . Using my best judgment (and advice from other teacher's) I've tried to focus on activities outside of soccer. Students tend to be a bit aggressive when playing soccer and it's something they all aleady know how to play and have regular access to, so I prefer t...

Most of my blogs over the past two years have been focused on my time on the ground in Costa Rica as a Peace Corps Volunteer. However, as my service wraps up, I'm starting to reflect back on the entire journey. It was quite the burden navigating the application and bureaucracy to even get on the plane to Costa Rica in the first place. In case anyone following along with my blog may be interested in becoming a Peace Corps volunteer someday, I figured it might be helpful to outline the process of becoming a Peace Corps volunteer. Like pretty much everything in 2026, Peace Corps has an online application. When choosing to apply to Peace Corps, there are a couple options. First, you can apply to serve wherever you are needed most. This means that if selected, Peace Corps will match you to a sector in a certain country. This process has the highest likelihood of acceptance. The other primary pathway is by applying to a specific program in a specific country. This puts the choice in the...

The week started off with my birthday on Monday. Since I celebrated on Sunday evening with my girlfriend, Keily, and her family, I didn't do too much to celebrate that day, although over the weekend we did celebrate some more. Rather, I just went to the colegio , wrote a reference for a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, and took it easy. On Tuesday, I had a busy day. I facilitated 6 PE classes and then met a friend in the Peace Corps for coffee in San Jose. Wednesday, I was back at the  colegio  to work on some community service projects, and then Thursday was a jam-packed day. I hosted my final youth clubs at the escuela where students celebrated with cake and a pizza party. Both of these clubs were new to the elementary club that accompanied my arrival, so I'm really proud of them. Later in the day, I went into San Jose to say good bye to a lot of my friends in the Peace Corps who officially closed their service on Friday. On Friday, I took off with Keily for a mini vacation to...

One of the unique things about the Peace Corps is how different the experience varies from community to community and country to country. No two Peace Corps services are the same, and that makes it particularly special. I'm very close to my fellow volunteers in Costa Rica and in many respects, I feel much more attached to Peace Corps Costa Rica rather than the organization as a whole. There just simply isn't any real contact or crossover with programs in other countries at the volunteer-level. However, that doesn't stop volunteers from joining online forums like Reddit where services are frequently compared. Because countries and communities vary so much within Peace Corps, sometimes volunteers in places that are more associated with being "hardships posts" feel as if their service was tougher and perhaps more authentic than others. Certainly, there are sites in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the South Pacific that are much more rugged and remote than mine. Oftentimes,...

My Peace Corps service comes to a close one month from today, but I'm remaining busier than ever. This week, in particularly, I was equally involved at both institutions. At the colegio, on Monday, I was invited to attend a 10th grade executive customer service English class where students presented on etiquette in different professional settings. The students did a great job with their English and were super receptive to feedback from the local gringo. And then, on Wednesday, I hunkered down in the administrative area of the high school to finalize a bunch of documentation for students related to their community service projects so that they have everything they need ready to turn in once I live the country. One of my community service groups finalized their project, which was related to connecting with senior leaders in the community and subsequently making a physical presentation to display in the high school My other group, a running club, hosted a running club session Saturday...

There are so many amazing things about living in Costa Rica: the nature, the weather, and the lifestyle are all second-to-none. In fact, Costa Rica is routinely named one of the happiest countries in the world. However, if there's one thing that Ticos and visitors alike are frustrated by in Costa Rica, it's the traffic. In Costa Rican dialect, " presa " (which generally translates to "dam") means traffic, although most Spanish-speaking countries say " trafico ". One of the great things about Costa Rica is that it puts a lot of its federal spending on things like education, health, and pensions. But there's only so much money to go around. As Costa Rica has undergone rapid urbanization, (2/3 of its population lives in the greater San Jose area) infrastructure hasn't caught up. San Jose relies on buses for public transport. There is a commuter railine to some suburbs, but its range and schedule is extremely limited. This causes pretty extrem...

"Roll with the punches" and "expect the unexpected" are pretty common mantras for Peace Corps volunteers, particularly those of us who work within the school setting. I cant't tell you how many times during my two years of service that classes have unexpectedly been canceled or students/teachers didn't show up to something without warning. This week had a little bit of all of that. I went to the high school on Monday to work on my community service; however, from Wednesday through Friday, no one was at the colegio due to teachers' union meetings. Simiilarly, at the escuela, students weren't in class on Tuesday because of a math workshop elsewhere, and on Thursday, students left early due to water shortages in the community. This meant that I was only able to host one PE class this week, on Wednesday. However, I was able to use the extra free time during the week to get ahead on some closing documentation for Peace Corps and also ran and went to the g...

The United States is a bit of an anamoly when it comes to texting. In the States, by and large, we rely on standatrd messaging services, whether that be iMessage or using the carrier's texting platform. Typically, we pay lots of money for messaging plans. The rest of the world is a little bit different, including Costa Rica. Here, everyone relies on WhatsApp to communicate. WhatsApp, is a social media app primarily used for messaging. But, through WhatsApp, you can text, call, or even videocall people around the world without a messaging plan. You simply must be connected to the internet (or have a data plan) to do so. WhatsApp is how I communicate with my counterparts here in Costa Rica, but also how I stay in touch with family back home. It's a lifesaver for communication across borders. Similarly, the texting and communication culture in Costa Rica is quite different from the United States. In the United States, oftentimes we as Americans are focused on efficiency. If we...

The weeks are starting to fly by now as I close in on my final months of service, but I'm staying busy as ever. At the colegio , I helped out a couple of English classes this week alongside one of my counterparts. I'm not an English teacher, but it was fun to step in and help students with some conversation and pronunciation practice, particularly with words related to environmental issues. Meanwhile, at the escuela , I didn't have any youth clubs this weeks, I was singlehandedly focused on PE classes there. I stole an idea I'd seen at the high school earlier in the year in which students had a massive team-based rock, paper, scissors competition. Although they were hesistant to play it at first, they ended up having a blast. Over the weekend, on Friday night, I went to my girlfriend Keily's house. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and some orange chicken for dinner before she had to teach an online class. On Saturday morning, I hosted a community run club with my high ...

As I wrote about in my weekly recap blog on Sunday, last week I accompanied my girlfriend Keily and her family for an event called " La Romeria ". La Romeria is one of Costa Rica's most famous cultural traditions. Each year it's estimated that between 1 and 2 million Ticos make the pilgramage on foot to the city of Cartago, which lies about 15 miles east of San Jose. 1 to 2 million is a TON of people considering Costa Rica only has around 5 million citizens total. Ticos make the pilgramage to the country's most iconic church called La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles . In the church lies a small black sculpture known as " La Negrita " or " Virgencita " which depicts the Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus. The legend states that a young girl discovered the statue during Costa Rica's early colonial history, and it's become a national symbol ever since. The most common pilgramage path starts in San Jose and then pilgrims continue on...

The end of July and the beginning of August brought a really busy and fun week in my community. At the escuela , we had better weather this week, so fortunately, I was able to have all of my classes outside as scheduled. My students played Capture the Flag. It’s something I introduced to them earlier in the year, and as they’ve gotten more familiar with it, they’ve gotten much better at it. I also co-hosted the Amigos sin Fronteras International Club this week at the escuela . Students virtually traveled to East Asia where they learned about China, Japan, and South Korea. They learned their Chinese Zodiac animals and subsequently made paper lanterns. At the colegio , I was much more involved with English this week. After helping with a couple of English classes this week, I also assisted with the high school’s annual English Festival, which was on Friday. This year, English teachers paired up and transformed their rooms into Escape Rooms. Students had to use their English skills to re...