Chepe Chronicles

After a week off from school, it was a bit difficult to get back in the swing of things. On Monday, I didn’t actually go to class. Rather, I traveled with 2 other Peace Corps volunteers in my area to the city of Desamparados to meet with the regional director for the Ministry of Public Education (MEP). We’d met with her previously to explain more about the Peace Corps since this is the first time Peace Corps Costa Rica has had Youth Development volunteers in this particular region. This time, we presented our CASA diagnostic reports and talked about the projects we’d started in the community. Considering we were all busy during Semana Santa , we hadn’t really had time to prepare together for the meeting, but I think it went really well all things considered. Afterwards, I went into San José to hang out with my friend Ben in Barrio Escalante before we boarded a train to Alajuela for a soccer game. We went to El Clásico Nacional , which I’ve written about before. The match is contested ...

As one might assume, Costa Rica is a Catholic country by tradition. I think religiosity varies tremendously by region and by demographic, but culturally speaking, Catholicism still permeates Costa Rican society quite a bit. Because of this, Semana Santa , or Holy Week, is a big deal in Costa Rica. Public school classes are out all week, Monday through Sunday. Additionally, Thursday and Friday were public holidays nationwide, meaning that most people were off work those days. Some Ticos choose to spend the week at home, partaking in religious events or activities, but many take advantage of the holidays to travel around the country (Peace Corps Volunteers included). Traffic, or presa , in Costa Rica is always an issue, but the roads to the beach are particularly clogged up during Semana Santa . From my experience traveling to Guanacaste during Semana Santa , it felt like there were much more domestic tourists than normal, and fewer gringos than normal, which must be a result of the pu...

School was out all week in Costa Rica for Semana Santa , or Holy Week. I'll plan on publishing a sidebar next week with more detail in all that Semana Santa encompasses, but it didn't impact me all that much besides freeing up my schedule quite a bit. Monday-Wednesday my plan was to knock out some Peace Corps administrative work and to run some serious mileage. However, due to some mild bug or food poisoning, I was fairly bed-ridden those initial days. Honestly it had been like 6 months since my last illness, so it was only a matter of time before my body reacted to being on a foreign diet. Fortunately, I was able to get a lot of my Peace Corps work done, but I can't say the same about my running. The rest of the week was a lot more fun. Since Thursday and Friday are federal holidays in Costa Rica,  Semana Santa is a perfect time for Peace Corps volunteers to take the time to travel. My good friend and teammate from Rhodes, Ben, came down to Costa Rica to visit me this wee...

A quick disclaimer before reading this: I am in no way considering terminating my Peace Corps service. I’m very happy here in Costa Rica. Rather, I felt like this would be an important “FAQ” about serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer and would be a good thing to address in a sidebar blog. Peace Corps service is tough and isn’t for everyone. As much as I’d love to see everyone who matriculates as a Peace Corps Volunteer complete his or her 27-month service, that simply isn’t the reality. Peace Corps has taken many steps in recent years to address retention, and that’s something I applaud. However, it is still natural that each cohort loses at least a handful of volunteers by attrition. The first way a volunteer’s service may end is by early termination (ET). While interviewing to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, and throughout the process, it was made clear that anyone can resign his or her post, at any time, without penalty. This is what ET is - a voluntary resignation. Peace Corps will pay f...

In the colegio this week, I continued to focus my work for the time being around Servicio Comunal Estudiantil . I touched base with each of my project teams and continue to be on standby for any help students may need. Additionally, as I hope to branch out and work with more levels outside of just the 11th graders, I started to brainstorm with a counterpart what it might look like to initiate some English conversation projects or clubs in the near future. I met with a trio of English teachers on Monday in order to help co-plan an English festival that will take place in June. Hopefully, prior to that festival, I can get an English conversation club off the ground so that students have the chance to practice informally before participating in language competitions. My week at the escuela , as has been the norm, was much busier than at the colegio . For the first time, alongside my primary counterpart who is a special education teacher, we initiated “life skills” workshops. These are “s...

Although some Ticos may name their favorite player from Costa Rica’s 2014 World Cup team as their national hero, the general consensus is that Costa Rica’s national hero is a man named Juan Santamaría. Unlike the United States, Costa Rica didn’t have a long, violent fight for independence. Nevertheless, there were some smaller skirmishes that assured Costa Rican sovereignty. About 30 years after its official independence, an American filibuster named William Walker assumed a power vacuum in nearby Nicaragua and was motivated to spread slavery throughout countries in Central America. In order to combat Walker’s threat to Costa Rica, and following a public cry from their President for Costa Ricans to take up arms, troops marched north to Rivas, Nicaragua in 1856. There, a military general suggested that a soldier set Walker’s stronghold in Rivas ablaze. Juan Santamaría, a drummer in the Costa Rican Army, volunteered and sacrificed his life in doing so. In the decades following, he becam...

This definitely felt like a breakthrough week at both of my schools, or centros educativos . At the escuela , physical education classes officially started this week. This is a project that I’m particularly excited about. The elementary school didn’t have any formal PE classes prior and lacks recreational opportunities for students. Throughout my diagnostic process, students and teachers alike mentioned how much they wanted PE at the school. I feel like creating recreational opportunities for students is a big reason why my community requested a Peace Corps volunteer in the first place. The Netflix show “Squid Game” is incredibly popular amongst Costa Rican students, so my initial classes this week for fourth graders were themed around the show. We played red light, green light alongside a memory game called “glass bridge” or “rainbow bridge”. As simple as that may sound, they were so excited to run around and compete that things were a bit chaotic. Overall, the classes were definitely...

In recent blogs, I’ve mentioned that a large part of my work at the colegio , or high school, revolves around Servicio Comunal Estudiantil . I figured it might make sense to dive a little deeper into the topic in case I neglected to properly explain it before. Servicio Comunal Estudiantil is a program mandated by MEP , Costa Rica’s public education ministry, required for graduation. At my colegio, students range from 7th to 12th grade. Although Servicio Comunal is a graduation requirement, because my high school is a technical one, many students are particularly busy during that 12th grade “senior” year with internships, apprenticeships, etc. Accordingly, Servicio Comunal is traditionally done by 11th graders, that way it is finished a year prior to graduation. Students work with a “tutor”, who is usually a teacher at the colegio , or me in this case. Under the tutelage of said tutor, students complete a community service project of their choosing. In total, students must spend at le...