Chepe Chronicles

In my last sidebar, I discussed the finances of being a Peace Corps Volunteer, so on a related note, I figured I’d talk about money and currency in Costa Rica. Although some countries in Latin America use the US Dollar, Costa Rica isn’t one of them. In really touristy places like La Fortuna or Manuel Antonio, they may accept USD, but it isn’t ubiquitous throughout the country. Instead, Costa Rica uses colones . It’s roughly 500 colones to 1 US Dollar which actually makes for a relatively easy conversion. (Just multiply by 2.) Costa Rica is also an extremely modern and industrial country. Unlike some other neighboring countries, you can get by on a day-to-day basis without a lot of cash. Almost all businesses accept cards, and many also take something called SINPE . In short, SINPE is connected to phone numbers and transfers money through bank accounts. To me, it resembles Venmo most similarly. You must be a Costa Rican resident to have access to SINPE . Once I received my temporary re...

My first three or four months at site were a bit chaotic as I finished my diagnostic report, or “CASA” report, about the community. Fortunately, counterparts at my respective academic institutions were in frequent contact and communicated to me on the onset of each week how I should divide my time between the schools. However, since classes resumed in February, a more formal schedule has begun to crystallize for me. I’ll spend Mondays and Wednesdays at the high school, or colegio , and Tuesdays and Thursdays at the escuela , or elementary school. Fridays will alternate between them so that I can ensure I split my time evenly at each institution. Although having that schedule seems like a small development, it feels like a bit of a breakthrough in my service to establish more day-to-day consistency. Being the first Peace Corps volunteer in my town’s history, all of this is still relatively new for everyone involved, so getting all parties on the same page feels like a win. And not only...

To answer the titular question, no, I don't really make money as a Peace Corps Volunteer. No one volunteers with the Peace Corps because it is lucrative. Our position's label as a "volunteer" is very intentional: although we are expected to serve for 2 years, volunteers are not salaried employees by the U.S. government and our service can be terminated at any time either by the organization or by our own volition.  However, that isn't to say that we aren't compensated as volunteers either. I certainly couldn't pay completely out of pocket to serve with the Peace Corps, and I assume most of my peers couldn't either. One of the great things about being a volunteer is that although we aren't living in luxury necessarily, Peace Corps covers all of our basic necessities. Every month, Peace Corps deposits money into our bank accounts. We use this money to pay host families a set rate negotiated by Peace Corps. That rate includes a private room, 3 meals a...

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week were spent at the colegio. Students and teachers alike (and Peace Corps volunteers) are still getting in the swing of things and navigating new schedules, so this week was primarily spent planning for upcoming projects. At the colegio, in the coming weeks, I will start helping implement programs related to Student Government, or Gobierno Estudiantil , and will serve on the school committee for Servicio Comunal Estudiantil , which is a community service requirement that students must complete before graduation. In the latter, I’ll be a lead tutor for students completing various projects. I’m hoping some of these will be sports and recreation-related. Also at the colegio this week, I co-taught some English classes alongside a counterpart in which students had to use basic phrases to present some facts about themselves. On Thursday and Friday, I went to the escuela . There, I had a couple of really productive days as I identified a more concrete sc...

One of the biggest adjustments of living in Costa Rica has been using addresses. Street names exist in many cases but houses and buildings often aren’t numbered like they are in the US. Rather, to give directions to a location, even for mail, addresses are described in relation to various landmarks in the town. For example, the address for my first homestay in my community was “300 meters south of the elementary school”. That’s it.  I haven’t witnessed a lot of confusion navigating instructions like these, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there are occasionally address mix-ups (especially for gringos like me that aren’t great with meters). And although the Peace Corps office has an office, we’ve been instructed to avoid receiving mail if possible because it can sometimes be unreliable, particularly when coming from another country. Thankfully, because Costa Rica has most modern amenities, a ton of American products, and I live close to the capital, I really haven’t needed to receive...

Following our Peace Corps “Reconnect” event, this week was spent fully at site and was my first week with my new host family. Previously I’d lived with a woman in her 60’s and now I’m living with a 26-year-old woman who serves as the primary caretaker for her abuelo in his 80’s. The family dynamic has been quite a bit different than my previous homestay, but it’s been great to have a change of scenery and to meet more people in my community. Monday and Tuesday were full-day meetings for teachers at my school. I was advised by some counterparts that my presence wasn’t required, and I’d probably be bored (I really appreciated that heads up), so fortunately I was able to spend those two days unpacking and settling into my new home.  Wednesday was the first day of classes for Costa Rican students across the country. I spent the day at the colegio , where 7th graders went through their first day of high school. The day started off with an assembly, or acto cívico , where I was asked to...

This goes for anything I post, but as an added reminder for this blog in particular, the views expressed here are solely my own and do not reflect the views of the Peace Corps nor the U.S. Government. Furthermore, I do not have any inside information on forthcoming organizational developments. Rather, this is pure speculation based on my interest in government, policy, and international relations. “Do you think the Peace Corps could get eliminated?” is a question I've been asked by friends and family on several occasions since President Trump was elected in November, so I figured it’d be worth addressing. It’s certainly a question that has been on volunteers’ minds, especially since the Trump Administration signaled sweeping changes to USAID earlier this week.  My personal answer to whether I think the Peace Corps is in danger of being cut? It’s certainly possible, but I think it’s unlikely. It’s important to remember that the organization has existed for over 60 years and is activ...

Apologies for failing to post a weekly update last Sunday. I was at a Peace Corps event and was pretty busy. My schedule will return to normalcy in the coming weeks, so expect regular programming featuring a weekly recap on Sundays and a sidebar blog during the middle of the week. After returning from Colombia on Tuesday the 21st, I had a few days to recoup some much-needed sleep and to pack up my things before moving in with a host family. And although I'd had it ready to go before my trip, I also officially turned in my community diagnostic report that I'd been working on for my first three months at site after receiving some revisions from my counterpart at the escuela . This is considered a living document, however, so I'll continue to make updates to it throughout my service. On that Saturday, I moved out of my initial living situation and met my new host family. (Nothing bad happened with my first living arrangement, my host mom was simply too busy to commit to hostin...