Chepe Chronicles

To be completely honest, this wasn’t the most jam-packed or interesting week of my service, but that was a welcome respite. After a busy week with activities and travel the week prior, and another chaotic one on the horizon for next week, a calmer stretch was just what the doctor ordered. This week, I was able to conclude my rotations in the escuela on conflict resolution “life skills” workshops and my PE session on relay races and tag. Both of these sessions were fun for me and well-received by students, so I’m hoping I can recycle them for next year. Similarly, I was able to work with some of my students at the colegio to close out their hours for their community service projects. So, even if it wasn’t the most exciting week in the class, it was nice to bring some closure to my projects. Reeling a little bit physically and financially from my trip to Santa Teresa, I didn’t do a ton outside of class either this week as I tried to recover as much as possible. I was able to run with b...

This sidebar is a little different, I like to joke that although I majored in Spanish in college, speaking “ Tico ” is a different language for me. So, for this blog, I’m simply going to share a few of my favorite words and phrases that are unique and ubiquitous in Costa Rica. Pura Vida = “Pure Life”, “Great”, “Whatever”, “All Good”, etc Si Dios Quiere = “If God wants it”, usually means “Yes” or “Maybe” Gracias a Dios = “Thank God” Por Dicha/Que Dicha = Luckily/Thankfully/How Fortunate ¡Qué Chiva! = How cool! Tuanis = Awesome/Cool Mae = Bro/Dude Tico/Tica = Costa Rican Chepe = San José  Mejenga = Informal soccer game Yodo = coffee Chunche = thing Pila = sink Choza = house ¿Cómo amaneció? = “How did you dawn?”, Good Morning ¡Qué vacilón! - How funny! There are a bunch more - several inappropriate for a public-facing blog, but this list would be a great starter set to try out the next time you’re in Costa Rica!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but this was another chaotic week at the public schools. I really only worked 2-3 days this week due to more teachers’ union days, other school meetings, and personal travel. When I did go in, I did more of the same with PE, life skills, and community service. This was a week in which my time outside of class was much more exciting than my time at school. On Thursday, several Peace Corps volunteers came into San José for a variety of reasons, so I was able to grab a quick afternoon cafecito with those friends. Then on Friday, I used my domestic vacation days for August to travel to a new part of Costa Rica. I woke up super early on Friday morning to catch the only direct bus from San José to Cóbano, which is a small town in the Southern part of the Nicoya Peninsula. Cóbano is the gateway to Santa Teresa, a burgeoning surf and wellness town heavily populated by expats from Argentina, Israel, and the United States. My birthday was Sunday, and Sant...

Naming conventions are important in Tico society. How someone refers to a family member, friend, or colleague can be a significant indicator of their relationship. When there is a close relationship between people, diminutives are often used to demonstrate affection or friendliness. Most commonly, this is done by adding an - ito or - ita suffix to a name or noun, depending on the gender. For example, my name would likely become Brendito in this case. It’s also pretty common to just drop the end of the name entirely. For me, this could be “ Bren ”, meanwhile a person named something like “Francisco” or “Fernanda” may become “ Fran ” or “ Fer ”, respectively. I hear diminutives like this on a daily basis here. Another particularly ubiquitous development when it comes to naming is nicknames. In the US, it’s perceived as problematic sometimes to describe someone based on physical characteristics, but that’s not the case in Costa Rica. It would not be uncommon for someone to be referred ...

My colegio is so structured and comprehensive that I often find it difficult to facilitate my own projects or start new activities. There just simply isn’t too much time or interest. That is part of the reason I’ve latched onto the servicio comunal estudiantil community service program I’ve previously mentioned - it’s a mandatory program for 11th graders and there’s a robust need for new projects and ideas in that space specifically. However, something that I’ve found is always in demand is my English. There are double-digit numbers of English teachers at my colegio, and they are always interested in looping in a native English speaker. This demand manifested on Monday - I was called in to help create audios for a listening exam in English. I played the role of a voice actor reading off various scripts. It was a little goofy, but I’m always happy when I can help use my American background to promote intercambio in any manner. The rest of the week was a bit more complicated. The most...

By nature of living in an urban community in a highly-developed country, I am able to purchase pretty much all of my needs as long as they align with my budget. Shopping is pretty easy in Costa Rica - many American brands and stores exist. In fact, Walmart owns most of the major supermarkets in Costa Rica although a few of them go by different names like Palí and Mas x Menos . The main difference I’ve noticed is that Ticos don’t rely nearly as heavily on delivery services like Amazon. Because of this, going to the mall is much more popular here. They are popular places to spend pay checks in Costa Rica. Another difference between shopping in Costa Rica compared to other Latin American countries is the lack of haggling. Usually, when I travel in the region, it is common to go to a traditional market and haggle for basic goods and services. Although a few markets like that still exist in Costa Rica, it’s a very industrialized country and haggling isn’t very commonplace or accepted. In f...

This was another fun, interesting week at the centros educativos . At the colegio , as I’ve referenced before, students study a specific specialty ranging from accounting to tourism to telecommunications. However, the educational process in technical high schools kind of works like our college journey - the first few years are dedicated primarily to “gen ed” courses before students begin to specialize. In the case of my colegio , students spend grades 7-12 there and choose a specialty during the end of their 9th grade year. This week, students in 9th grade went to a fería to learn about all of the different specialties offered before they choose one. Each specialty subject had a different fun themed room as teachers attempted to convince students to select their speciality. For example, the English department turned a couple of rooms into Hogwarts. Since this was pretty different from anything I had during my high school experience, I really enjoyed hopping from room to room and hearin...

  A hallmark part of the Peace Corps model is that volunteers integrate into their communities abroad. Volunteers speak the host language and live at the means of everyone else in their site. Volunteers naturally stick out to a certain extent, but generally they try to become part of the community rather than to rock the boat too much. This is important for safety, security, trust, and reflecting the US well in the host country. Accordingly, a critical tool to help volunteers integrate is through living with a host family. Staying with a family allows the volunteer to have access to community experts who can help them network, provide additional safety and security, and give the volunteer another consistent outlet to develop their fluency in the target language. I think there are a few Peace Corps countries in which volunteers are not required to live with a host family. However, by and large, the host family experience is ubiquitous throughout the organization. In Costa Rica, livi...

Each week in Peace Corps service, and especially as a teacher, can be completely different. After a pretty mundane week last week, the past 7 days felt a lot more jam-packed and fresh. At the escuela , I started a new round of life skills and physical education workshops. Students learned about conflict resolution for this month’s “life skill”, and participated in a variety of relay races in PE class. Looking back on it, this week’s activities were unintentionally skewed towards my own interests considering my academic background in conflict resolution and my history running various relays. However, personal biases aside, I was happy with the participation and energy the students demonstrated in each. Another cool moment during the week was on Thursday, when I co-hosted the third session of an “ Amigos sin Fronteras ” club with the school librarian. After previously “traveling” to the United States during the previous class, students this week got a stamp in their passport for Nicaragu...

If you’re American, and you’ve visited Costa Rica on vacation, there’s a good chance you visited Guanacaste. Guanacaste is a province located in Costa Rica’s northwest corner on the Pacific coast bordering Nicaragua and encompassing much of the Nicoya Peninsula. Guanacaste is paradise: it is home to many of Costa Rica’s most famous beach towns like Tamarindo, Sámara, and Nosara, just to name a few. Equally, most of the all-inclusive resorts in Costa Rica are also nestled in Guanacaste. Costa Rica depends largely on tourism, so because of its beaches and resorts, Guanacaste plays a significant role in bolstering the national economy. But what if I told you that Guanacaste wasn’t always a part of Costa Rica? For a brief period of time in the 1800s, following independence from Spain, the Nicoya Peninsula (mostly modern-day Guanacaste) was its own political entity. Central America gained independence from Spain in 1821, meaning that prior provinces like Costa Rica and Nicaragua emerged as ...