Chepe Chronicles

This was a pretty eventful, roller coaster of a week! Usually working with young students keeps me on my toes the most, but it was everything outside of the class that really made things interesting. In fact, I didn’t really host any formal classes due to tightened schedules because of townwide celebrations for Dia de San Juan - my community’s trademark event.  This week took off with some humble beginnings. On Monday, there was a community-wide water shortage. Later in the week, we had back-to-back days with power blackouts because of blown transformers nearby. We’ve entered the rainy season, and I’ve been told these are pretty common phenomenons this time of year, so it’s something I’ll need to adjust to. (My living situation is still undoubtedly luxe compared to other Peace Corps sites around the world, so I am in no way complaining.) Tuesday was my town’s Super Bowl, El Dia de San Juan Bautista . I was originally slated to host the second session of our new Amigos Sin Frontera...

In the US, there are really two types of high schools: private and public. Anyone in the public school system doesn’t really have a say in where they attend school except for rare circumstances, like when a parent works at an institution outside of their home district. It is a little different in Costa Rica. Students have, at minimum, a couple of different options within the public education system for high school. Elementary school, or escuela , consists of grades first through sixth. For the most part, education in escuelas is fairly standardized. However, as students finish sixth grade, that is when students and their families must make a decision.  The first option students have at their disposal is to enroll in a liceo académico . A liceo is pretty similar to the traditional high school experience in the United States. Students take basic subjects like Spanish, Math, Science, Social Sciences, Foreign Languages, etc. This reflects much more of a generalized, liberal arts-styl...

We’re approaching the mid-year break for public schools in Costa Rica, and you can sense it from teachers and students alike, as well as with all of the events happening on the academic calendar. Schools I teach at are all juggling English festivals, science fairs, business expos, art festivals, and exams, (all in addition to town-wide Catholic celebrations for San Juan Bautista , the patron saint of my town) so things haven't been as consistent the last couple weeks.  In fact, although I taught a couple of my typical lessons, a lot of my time was dedicated to the aforementioned events. At my colegio , I helped with the English festival’s “living museum”. There, I acted as Christian Pulisic, an American soccer player, and gave a brief “autobiographical” speech on his life and career. I also got invited to a different colegio , over in Escazú, where my host aunt is the principal, or directora. There, I served as a judge in a business expo in which students gave Shark Tank-like pitc...

" Pura Vida" i s the motto, slogan, and greeting all wrapped into one that permeates Costa Rican society. If you’ve been to Costa Rica before, you’ve certainly heard “ Pura Vida ”, and even if you haven’t been, I’d wager you’ve seen some kind of advertisement about Costa Rica with it. You probably don’t need a background in Spanish to glean that “ Pura Vida ” translates to “Pure Life” in English. On the surface, “ Pura Vida ” is all about going with the flow and enjoying life to the fullest regardless of the twists and turns it may take. With Costa Rica’s focus on nature, ecotourism, and vibrancy, “ Pura Vida ” is an easy marketing tool for the country. You’ll see it on signs and shirts everywhere. Even a bracelet company adopted the name. Linguistically, it’s used in a variety of ways in Costa Rica. Something good happens? “ Pura Vida ”. Someone asks how you are, whether you’re doing well or not? “ Pura Vida ”. It is a common way to say hello and goodbye, but also yes or no ...

Once June hits, the rainy season returns in Costa Rica. We’re in for six or so months of pretty steady rain every day, particularly in the afternoon. I might need to invest in a heavier-duty umbrella in the near future; however, I’m happy to report that I was able to get some new projects and lessons off the ground this week without taking a rain check. Last week, I finished my second rotation of PE classes and “life skills” workshops with students at the escuela , so that meant I started new lessons this week. Students learned about empathy as a life skill and played an American game called “Gaga Ball” which I learned about several years ago in a youth club on a cruise ship. Gaga Ball doesn’t require a ton of athleticism, so this was a welcome change for the students who weren’t as excited about playing soccer last time.  However, the most notable change at the escuela was that I finally started a new afterschool club called Amigos Sin Fronteras , or Friends Without Borders, in E...

If you’re anything like me, the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a Peace Corps Volunteer is probably someone doing manual labor in a remote and exotic location. I do think that was the reality of service for a long time. Images of Peace Corps Volunteers helping build schools and wells and wielding machetes were fairly prominent early on in the organization’s history. However, the agency has changed a lot, and I think my service is a reflection of some of those changes. As I’ve alluded to before, I serve in a community just outside of San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital. And although my town officially only has 12,000 people, the boundaries between cities and neighborhoods in this area are somewhat blurry, so it feels much more urban than that. Depending on the mode of transportation and traffic, it takes me anywhere between 20 minutes and an hour to arrive in downtown San Jose, or Chepe . I think serving in a more urban area has both perks and drawbacks. First and foremost, ...

This week got off to a particularly slow start… Many teachers in Costa Rica belong to unions, and when the unions meet, they don’t go into work. Costa Rica also lacks substitute teachers, so that means classes for almost all of my students were canceled on Monday. Fortunately, I had some errands to run, (I needed to get a flu vaccine) so it worked out to kind of have Monday off. Ironically, this lack of substitute teachers affected me again a second time later in the week when I hiked to the escuela early on Friday morning to teach a single class there before I was set to return uphill on the opposite side of town to work at the colegio . Upon showing up to escuela , the class was empty and other teachers told me that they didn’t show up because the teacher was sick. I’d woken up at 5:30 to get ready for this class but never had any indication it wouldn’t happen. This kind of improvisation is pretty typical working in the Costa Rican public educational system (particularly as an outsi...

I’ve mentioned on several occasions that I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer in Youth Development, but what does that mean? In layman’s terms, I’m kind of a teachers’ assistant, but it is a little more nuanced than that. Youth Development is a pretty broad sector and volunteers are given quite a bit of runway to conduct unique projects. In Costa Rica, we are tasked with creating projects related to 3 categories: promoting youth wellbeing, facilitating youth participation in the community, and strengthening youth support systems. As you can probably tell, those are fairly general topics which give us lots of flexibility to create activities that align with our backgrounds as well as community needs. What is not officially part of the YD framework is teaching English. We are allowed to help with English informally, but we have not been trained to do so and Peace Corps Costa Rica has a whole different sector of volunteers dedicated to English Education. More often than not, YD volunteers work alo...

I really don’t have a ton of interesting content to report this week, but that’s life as a Peace Corps Volunteer sometimes. In reality, I’ll take my lack of news as a good sign because I think that means because my projects and activities have become more consistent and that I’m in more of a rhythm as a volunteer. Highlights at the centros educativos included hosting some more PE soccer sessions and some workshops at the escuela and further developing community service projects with students at the colegio . My colegio is huge (over 1000 students), and I’ve been a little frustrated with my lack of headway in regards to starting projects and forging meaningful relationships there. So, I also spent time brainstorming other ways to get more involved in the building. I came up with a project proposal that I’ll present to the principal next week for approval. In last week’s blog, I mentioned that the second leg of the Gran Final for Costa Rica’s first division of soccer was set to take...