July 28-August 3: "Trips" to Nicaragua and Escazu

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 Nicaragua. Our session took place the week after Costa Ricans celebrated the Annexation of Nicoya, a historic event in Costa Rican-Nicaraguan relations, and a week after my own parents traveled there. I wish I could take credit for that timing, but it was simply coincidental. In the session, students briefly learned about Nicaragua’s history and culture, before drawing their ideal plate of gallo pinto, (a dish shared by both Costa Rica and Nicaragua) and then practiced fielding grounders in baseball with a ball and glove I brought from home. I’ve never been to Nicaragua, and several of my students have Nicaraguan heritage, so I learned as much from some of them as they learned in the session which was really cool. Sometimes Nicaraguans can face xenophobic rhetoric in Costa Rica, similar to what many Latinos experience in the US, so it was great to learn about Nicaragua purely in a positive light - respecting different cultures and expanding the worldview is what our club is all about.

On Friday, I spent the day in Escazú, where I lived and trained for my first 3 months in Costa Rica. The new cohort of Youth Development volunteers just began their own training, and the YD team asked some of us to come back and help facilitate some of the teaching. I, alongside another volunteer from my cohort, led sessions related to life skills, sports & recreation, and clubs. Part of the day included putting the trainees through a demonstration of a PE class I’ve done. It was a little weird (and probably patronizing for them) to have adults play red light, green light, but hopefully it was helpful for them to see some of the work we actually do in our communities as Youth Development volunteers. After spending all day in the classroom, I ventured over to my previous host family’s house, where I reconnected with them, met the new volunteer living with them, and played some bola (soccer) with my little host brother.

Over the weekend, I needed to recover a bit after an especially busy week, but I made time for running of course. I had a fun Saturday morning with my colegio students who led our community run club and even brought some members of their family who wanted to practice English with me. And on Sunday, I returned to San Jose to help pace the 5:30/km group for another running club, which has started to become an integral part of my routine. Some weeks are slower than others, there’s no doubt about it, but this was one that was especially fulfilling and a reminder of why I’m here.