Jan 6-12: Post-Holiday Grind

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 a workout on the track with an expat friend I’ve met in the running community here. On Thursday night, I ran with a (new to me) running club in Desamparados that I stumbled upon on Facebook. (Lots of communication is Facebook-driven in Costa Rica.) I don’t love running in the dark, so I don’t know how often I’ll join them, but it was great to run with a new group and meet some more runners in my area. Several of them are going to races around Costa Rica, so hopefully I'll attend at least a couple of those events. Finally, on Sunday, I joined several friends for a run with Un Club Secreto where I capped off my biggest mileage week since arriving in Costa Rica 6 months ago.


In the middle of next week, I’ll head to Colombia on a short solo trip. Colombia has been on my bucket list for a long time, so I’m super excited to finally travel there. Because of that, I might not have a blog up next Sunday, but rest assured I’ll have a thorough recap pronto.



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