Chepe Chronicles

Before it was time to take off on some much-needed vacation, the first 3 days of the week were spent in my Peace Corps community. There, I finalized my diagnostic report of the community to turn into Peace Corps. As I’ve alluded to in other blogs, I will soon be placed in a new homestay. I’m still not 100 percent clear with who or where I’ll be moving, but I also spent a lot of time packing in preparation for the forthcoming move. I also had to run some errands like setting up my banking, SINPE (Costa Rican venmo), and DIMEX (temporary residence).  However, the second half of the week was much more exciting. On Thursday, I took off for Colombia! This is a country that’s been on my list for a very long time. While studying International Relations and Conflict Resolution in grad school, Colombia was often a country we read about as a successful case study in post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. It’s also a country I researched during my time at the United States Institute...

As I alluded to in last week’s update, this week was mainly a transition period: holidays are coming to a close and the deadline for my Peace Corps diagnostic report is quickly approaching. Because of that, I don’t have too much to recap from this week.  Every day this week I spent at least a little time working on the diagnostic report, called the CASA project (Community and Sector Assessment). I may do a separate sidebar post on the CASA process at some point, but generally speaking, it is a large paper providing background on my community and Youth Development sector in which I propose potential projects for my service. The deadline to turn it into Peace Corps is the 20th, but I tried to wrap it up this week so that a counterpart I work with at the escuela can verify my findings and correct any Spanish errors I may have made. Outside of working on the CASA, the most exciting parts of my week were related to running. On Wednesday, I ventured into San Jose’s La Sabana Park to do...

iSalud! I previously wrote about Costa Rican gastronomy, so I figured it’s only fair to discuss the other side of the coin too. In general, my perception of the drinking culture in Costa Rica is that it isn’t too dissimilar to the United States. Like I wrote about in a couple other sidebars, most Ticos drink cafecitos or frescos during meals or social events, and these, along with soft drinks, are common. On occasion, alcoholic beverages are present at social or family gatherings, and despite Costa Rica’s Catholic tradition, there isn’t any significant faux pas with drinking in public.  In my community, per Peace Corps’ recommendation, I have chosen not to drink. My town is small enough that I feel it is best to not be seen drinking in public, particularly by my students. Even if it is socially acceptable, I’d hate to give anyone the wrong impression about my professionalism. Although I primarily work Monday through Friday in the schools, my role as a representative of the Peace C...

2024’s penultimate day was spent at Manuel Antonio National Park. The park is Costa Rica’s smallest national park but is one of its most popular tourist destinations due to a great combination of beautiful beaches and biodiversity. On my tour of the park, we spotted sloths, howler monkeys, tree frogs, and more. Although it was a pretty touristy atmosphere, Manuel Antonio was a stunning area. It was really cool to see Costa Rica’s ecotourism prowess in full force. Also of significance on Monday - I clinched a Fantasy Football championship in my Peace Corps cohort’s inaugural league. Tuesday was another travel day as I returned to the San Jose metro area. Tuesday was also New Year’s Eve. I assumed Costa Rica’s capital city would be party central for the holiday, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Even in San Jose’s trendy Barrio Escalante district, almost all the bars and restaurants were closed. After consulting some fellow volunteers and some Ticos, it became clear that New Y...

This was probably one of my least productive weeks as a Peace Corps volunteer given that the whole country was focused on the holidays. Since there wasn’t any major holiday to start the week, Monday was my most typical workday. I caught up on writing my community report and prepared some blogs for the future. Tuesday was Christmas Eve, also known as La Nochebuena in Latin America. I worked in the morning before enjoying Christmas Eve festivities later in the day. I don’t normally go to church, but by nature of growing up in Southwest Missouri, I feel at least “culturally Christian” and wanted to experience the religious side of Christmas in Costa Rica. So, I attended Christmas Eve mass with my host mom. It lasted about 2 hours and was a very nice ceremony including Christmas songs and an impressive Nativity scene, called a portal in Spanish. After mass, we went to a home around 30 minutes away for Christmas Eve dinner with a friend of my host mom’s. We had pork leg, rice, and salad, ...