Feb 17-23: Settling in at School + a Weekend in Puerto Viejo

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 was my schedule formalized this week, but a lot of my activities have started to develop. At the escuela, the directora, or principal, must approve all new projects and lessons. Because of that, my counterparts and I must submit pretty detailed lesson plans to her for approval before initiating anything. I spent a lot of my week lesson planning for clubs and activities related to PE and international studies that could span the remainder of the year. As weird as it was to think about planning lessons as far out as November, it provided further clarity, structure, and vision for my projects, and thus felt like a really productive exercise to do so. Similarly, at the colegio, I further planned programming related to community service and student government that should get off the ground in the next few weeks. I also joined my counterpart’s English classes to help students with greetings.

On Friday, my counterparts were nice enough to let me take off from the community early to use my two in-country vacation days for February. I headed to Puerto Viejo, which is a town in the Caribbean in Limón province. I previously went to the same province in October for Carnaval in Puerto Limón. This part of Costa Rica is quite distinct culturally and demographically from the rest of the country, which makes it a neat escape from the Valle Central where I live. Puerto Viejo is about 75 minutes south of the city of Limón, where I went last time. It’s a little harder to get to, (about a 5-hour bus ride from San José) but Puerto Viejo has much more infrastructure for tourism than Puerto Limón. When soliciting travel advice for Costa Rica, I often ask Ticos where their favorite beach is. Puerto Viejo is easily the most popular response, so this was a destination I was really excited about.

I met a few of my friends from Peace Corps in Puerto Viejo on Friday afternoon. We stayed at a beachfront hostel that had some serious hippie vibes (lots of people were in hammocks and tents). Most of our time in Puerto Viejo was spent relaxing on the beach. Other highlights included eating traditional dishes from Limón like Rice and Beans, Patí, and Plantinta, hiking around Punta Uva, and listening to some reggae and calypso music, which are particularly popular in Limón. In my opinion, the food we ate in Puerto Viejo is the best I’ve had in the 7.5 months I’ve been in Costa Rica. Sadly, my Peace Corps schedule and my limited budget prevented me from spending too long in Puerto Viejo, but it’s a place I’d love to go back to and can’t recommend enough. But for now, it’s back to San José, and back to work. Pura Vida.