Weekly Recap March 24-30

This was an interesting week in which I spent more time on community-related activities than in the schools in my town. As a Youth Development volunteer, my primary responsibility is spending Monday through Friday with students, but because students had national exams, there wasn’t a ton to do at the schools this week. When I was at school, I spent lots of time preparing materials (think cutting out shapes, laminating paper, and glueing stuff) in preparation for activities that will start soon. Next week I’ll officially begin putting on some PE workshops at the escuela, and that’s something I’m excited about. 

In my spare time not spent at the schools, I worked with my previous host mom, who serves as the President of my town’s health committee, on a pair of activities. I met with the committee on Wednesday to learn more about their activities, specifically a health fair, which they hosted on Friday in a more high-risk neighborhood. Because I don’t have a background in public health, they primarily had more help with activities like manual labor and taking attendance at the fair, but it was great to observe the event. On Saturday, we returned to the same neighborhood to discuss with youth and community leaders my plans for a running club and a community race and how we can involve that specific area of town.


Outside of my Peace Corps duties, to absolutely no one’s surprise, much of my time was dedicated to sports. The highlight of this was a 5k I raced in Curridabat, a suburb of San Jose. I ran a time that was very slow compared to my personal record from college but was fairly competitive here. I finished fourth in a field of over 600 runners, so it’s a performance I can live with for now. I also went into San Jose on a couple of occasions to run with my running club and socialize there. After my race on Sunday, I ventured into San Jose as well to hang out with one of my good buddies from Peace Corps who was in town with some of her friends from her community for a festival. Later that night, my host sister put on a party for her friends from church in which she made birria tacos and sopa azteca.



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