May 12-18: Fútbol, Field Day, and Student Leadership

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 with PE in large part because students don’t have many recreational opportunities outside of soccer, or fútbol. However, during my first rotation through the various sections, un montón of students asked me if we’d play soccer. So, I decided to go ahead and scratch that itch for them and we started some soccer sessions this week. Hopefully they enjoy it and it’ll pave the way for participation in other sports soon.


This was an interesting week in the centros educativos because a lot of time revolved around student government activities. Unlike the US where students primarily participate in student government at the high school level, or occasionally in middle school, all grades are required to elect classmates to gobierno estudiantil positions in Costa Rica. Recesses were extended all week so that students could campaign, and schoolwide debates and elections were held on Thusday and Friday, respectively. Friday also included a field day of sorts for students at the escuela. I had to man the hula hoop and ring toss station. The chaos surrounding those activities meant I had to cancel a couple classes unfortunately, but I’ll be able to recoup those classes next week. 



After traveling last weekend, it was nice to stay at home Saturday and Sunday to relax a bit. On Saturday, I joined a trio of servicio comunal students in a local park who are leading a project to initiate a community-wide running club. We practiced the itinerary they drafted up and I offered up some revisions before we go public with the club (hopefully in the next couple weeks). The students need to do a bit more marketing of the club and some other preparation before I’d feel comfortable opening it up to the whole community, but I’m super excited about the club’s potential. 



On Sunday, I bussed into San Jose for the only time this week to run with my Sunday running club. The rendezvous point for the club was on the other side of the city from my bus stop, so I did a bus + running commute to the group run and turned it into a long run (and saved lots of money on an Uber). Later that day, I watched another edition of El Clásico Nacional soccer match with my host family. It was a crazy back-and-forth game which featured a long delay because the field had giant puddles from a mid-game aguacero. In all, it was good to spend a solid week in my community; I feel really optimistic about the way projects are developing at site.



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