E. Coli & Hog Fever (First Week At Site)

In my introduction, I promised transparency, and I’ll absolutely stick to that. I hope this blog can shed the good, the bad, and the neutral of being a Peace Corps volunteer. 

I’ll start with something very positive - my living conditions outside of San Jose are the nicest I’ve seen for someone serving with the Peace Corps. I’m extremely grateful that I’m going to be living in a comfortable space that should allow me to serve most effectively. My host mom at site is super nice, intelligent, and well-traveled and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her thus far.

For a less positive update… As many of my friends hit the ground running upon arrival at their sites, I began to feel pretty under the weather as soon as I got to mine. I didn’t really sleep at all that first night, and knew something wasn’t quite right. Fortunately, being located near San Jose and having access to the Peace Corps’ terrific medical staff, I was able to take a short Uber ride over to the hospital to see what was going on.  I was diagnosed with a couple of bacterial infections, including E. Coli. I have no idea where I got them from, but this wasn’t all that shocking (I’ve had pretty similar experiences traveling before). To be honest, I was kind of surprised it took me 3 months into service to pick up something. But, in some ways, contracting an illness immediately upon leaving our training hub felt like the perfect “Welcome to Peace Corps” moment. I’m absolutely fine now, and I’m sure this experience will serve me well down the road.

Once I overcame my bacterial infections, I was ready to go to school. Although my primary role in my community will be to co-facilitate workshops, I don’t immediately jump right into facilitation at site. Rather, part of the Peace Corps’ approach to development is that we meet communities where they are at and focus on their pre-existing assets. This ensures that we value community input instead of simply imposing our own ideas. Because of this, our first three months at site are simply to become familiar with our communities. We complete a process called CASA (Community and Sector Assessment) which culminates in a deliverable, research report detailing the strengths, needs, and challenges in the community. This should inform potential projects as well as providing historical and statistical data. Much of the report will be gleaned simply from observing classes, interviewing community members, and grabbing “cafecitos” with anyone willing to talk to me. We’ll present this report to the Peace Corps in January. 

So, because I will be primarily working in schools, that’s where I turned to first. I spent my first (healthy) day at the town’s elementary school. I was gifted a Costa Rica t-shirt and some chocolates by the school and have been treated with an outpouring of love and respect from students, faculty, and staff there alike. I spent the day observing a couple of classes. I tried to remain low-key and stay out of the way of the teacher while doing my observations, but sometimes it can be a little difficult as the only “Gringo” in the room. The students had an individual working period, and some came by my desk to ask for help. Once the students confirmed I was American, they immediately wondered if I’d ever seen snow. I indicated that I had, and made the mistake of letting them know I had photos. Needless to say, I was immediately swarmed by around 30 excited students.

The following day I got called into the Peace Corps office in nearby Pavas to help our language coordinators with a training. Given my site’s proximity to San Jose, I won't be surprised if I’m asked to help out with other Peace Corps events or trainings in the future. This was a cool opportunity to reconnect with other volunteers in my cohort after a week on our own, as well as a chance to meet volunteers from the Tico 41 cohort for the first time. Afterwards, my site was close enough that I was able to show a couple other volunteers from my cohort my town and introduced them to my host mom. I’m certainly hoping to visit other volunteers’ sites as well.

On Friday, I got to return to the colegio (High School) for the first time since my site visit. There, I was able to schedule some interviews and observations for the upcoming week to inform my CASA report. The high school I’m at is huge, and I think there will be some great opportunities for collaboration with students and my counterparts there. Friday evening, a local restaurant hosted a lottery ball drawing for an upcoming soccer competition, so I attended that with my host mom who plays a big role in organizing the tournament. More on that event in a bit. Also on Friday, I joined a gym in my town. I’m hoping that gym access will help me both maintain my fitness while here and meet other athletes in my community.

On Saturday, I took a much-needed rest day. Saturday morning, I went running at a park in my town and ran into someone on Peace Corps staff - a reminder of just how close I am to the capital. I really didn’t do much else that day besides watching college football. Fortunately, using a VPN, I’ve been able to watch most American sports thus far in Costa Rica. As many of you probably know, I’m a massive Arkansas Razorbacks fan. (So much so that Razorbacks sports have previously given me stress-induced shingles.) On Saturday night, the Razorbacks beat #4 ranked Tennessee in Fayetteville, securing their first Top 5 victory in 17 years. It was all I could do to keep the volume down, and to not wake up the whole town. However, I can promise you that I was in fact calling the Hogs from Costa Rica that night.

On Sunday, I finally got to check out the aforementioned soccer tournament. In my community, every October they play something called “JUPAS”. I’d never heard of it before, but the general gist is that teams of 2 throw a mini soccer ball up in the air to themselves and try to head it into the other team’s net. To defend, you can use anything but your feet. A ton of community members came out to the tournament to watch the games and tailgate, and it made for a fun afternoon. 

Although it was a bit of a roller coaster first week at site, I’m quickly feeling more and more comfortable, and I’m excited to be here. Pura Vida and Woo Pig Sooie!