Chepe Chronicles

Despite being half a world away from Beijing, Costa Rica is home to a robust population of Chinese immigrants and Ticos with Chinese ancestry. In San Jose, the capital, there is a burgeoning Chinatown, known as Paseo de los Estudiantes . Additionally, one of the most popular dishes nationwide is a type of Chinese Fried Rice, usually served with meat or shrimp, called Arroz Cantones . There is Chinese influence throughout contemporary Costa Rican society. With that being said, the most indelible mark that Chinese immigration has left on modern Costa Rica is through shopping. Costa Rica has a ton of convenience stores officially called mini supers or pulperias . But informally, Ticos refer to these stores as “ Chinos ” with frequency. At first blush, usage of this term may sound a bit xenophobic, and it probably wouldn’t fly in the US to refer to a store solely based on a specific ethnic background. However, I really don’t think Ticos see it that way. A large, large percentage of the...

The prior academic week was much more chaotic due to student elections, but fortunately, this week reflected a more typical work schedule. I settled back into my routine at each institution, conducting my PE classes and “life skills” workshops at the escuela while meeting with my servicio comunal groups at the colegio .  The biggest change was that I started facilitating “Assertive Communication” lessons with escuela students in the life skills workshops, which replaced the previous session on teamwork. I was anticipating co-teaching these classes with a counterpart, but she got roped into some other tasks, so I had to adapt on the fly a bit. Some of the topics were a little difficult to explain in Spanish, but I think that (hopefully) the students got something out of the sessions. Soccer PE sessions have been fun with the students; however, I’ve been trying to have them work on passing and dribbling techniques. All they want to do is play in a mejenga , or pickup game, so that...

Serving in the Peace Corps isn’t always glamorous. Volunteers aren’t in communities they necessarily chose nor are they sustained on diets they personally curate. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer isn’t exactly the most lucrative stop on the career path either. However, one of the major, major perks we receive as volunteers is robust, free healthcare. Peace Corps hires local physicians known as Peace Corps Medical Officers (PCMOs) who are our points of contact if anything medical-related occurs. We also have access to hospitals in every region of the country. This includes a state-of-the-art private hospital in San José, where I go in the event of a medical issue. PCMOs also handle our prescriptions and can give volunteers refills when necessary. Serving at sites that are often remote and exotic, this kind of free service is vital for volunteers around the world, especially since we don’t make a lot of money for our service. You never know when something weird may come up just by the natur...

In a rare occurrence, I started the week away from my site in Guanacaste. My race last Sunday took so long, and I was so exhausted that it made it really difficult to return that same day. Fortunately, my counterparts were flexible, and some other Peace Corps volunteers had already reserved the airbnb for a second night, so I was able to return to site Monday instead of Sunday. I woke up early on Monday and traveled all the way from Tilarán to my community near San Jose. Por dicha , I made it back in time to spend that afternoon in the colegio despite quite literally running on fumes. Over the course of the week, I was able to meet with each of my groups of students conducting community service projects, and I’m happy to report that they all seem to be making good progress. I’d finally rotated through all of the second cycle (4th-6th graders) sections for my PE classes at the escuela , so this week marked a new activity for them as I began my second round robin with them. I’m helping ...

A unique aspect about serving in Costa Rican elementary schools, or escuelas , is that they operate in cycles. More specifically, students generally come to school for half of the day. Most escuelas have two cycles. Primer ciclo , or first cycle, is first grade through third grade. Conversely, s egundo ciclo is fourth through sixth grade. One cycle comes in the morning from about 7:00 to 11:30 while the other is in the building from around 12:30 to 5:00. These schedules alternate days: younger students may come in the morning on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays while older students arrive in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Because it can take a bit of extra training and temperament to deal with really young students, Youth Development volunteers like myself are instructed to work primarily with older students in the segundo ciclo . However, we are also allowed to teach the younger students as well. In general, I try to arrive at the escuela when the older kids are in class.

Apologies to anyone anticipating a Sunday post - I got a bit delayed with my travel schedule over the weekend. This was a fairly typical school week, just with a slightly higher workload. In the colegio , I continued to tutor students in their Servicio Comunal Estudiantil service projects. Sadly, I’m having to scrap one of my projects (creating a school mascot) because the group simply doesn’t have enough people to do that kind of project justice. However, it should be pretty easy to fold those students into other projects I'm leading so I’m not too worried.  At the escuela , things were particularly busy. I had roughly 4 classes per day including both PE and some team-building exercises. On Thursday, I joined several educators from the school in the teacher’s lounge to watch the announcement of a new Pope. Once the white smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel, church bells started ringing throughout my town. That was a reminder of Costa Rica's strong Catholic tradition and made f...

If you’ve ever heard of the phrase “Island Time”, the concept of “Tico Time” is very similar. That might not be surprising given Costa Rica’s tropical nature. The phrase probably originated from disparaging gringos , so take this gringo ’s perspective with a grain of salt too. In Costa Rica, like the majority of countries around the world, time is a little less rigid than it is stateside. If a meeting is scheduled to begin at 12:00, it could very easily begin at 12:05, or 12:15, or even 12:30 and it wouldn’t be that weird. Ticos value social interactions and family time tremendously, so often extra time spent catching up with friends and family delays the start of an event or activity. That being said, in more formal and professional institutions, like schools, punctuality is still an expectation. You’d most likely run into an incident of “Tico Time” for something more informal like a cafecito or a fiesta . It really doesn’t halt the flow of day-to-day activity here whatsoever, but it...

At the schools, nothing was too crazy this week. I continued meeting and planning with my servicio communal students at the colegio and similarly continued my workshops at the escuela . I was also gifted with a holiday as Thursday was Labor Day in Costa Rica. I didn’t really need a holiday so close to Easter, but hey, I’m not complaining.  The most interesting thing that happened at the centros educativos was my Peace Corps site visit. In total, Peace Corps staff from the volunteer’s program team (for me, Youth Development) visit each volunteer’s site 3 times over the course of the two-year service. This was the second of three visits at my site. Forgive me if I explained this process in a blog after my first site visit, (I honestly can’t remember) but these site visits are pretty comprehensive. The member from the program team visits both academic institutions and meets with counterparts at each with both the volunteer present and without the volunteer there. Additionally, the s...

If you’re a loyal reader of my blog - first of all, thank you. Second, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I use the term “counterpart” a bunch in my weekly recaps. “Counterpart” is a term that is ubiquitous in the Peace Corps lexicon. In short, a counterpart is anyone in a community who a volunteer collaborates with on projects. A hallmark of the Peace Corps model is that volunteers don’t work alone, nor do they impose their own ideas and projects without community input. Rather, volunteers first complete a diagnostic report, meet with community leaders and stakeholders, and then must determine potential projects and project partners. Then, volunteers must co-plan and co-facilitate projects with these partners in the community, who are known as counterparts. Working with counterparts ensures that our projects are sustainable long after we depart the host country. Because I’m a Youth Development volunteer, most of my counterparts are teachers at the schools where I teach. Howeve...