Sep 1-7: Beginning of Pasantias and Trips to "China" & Tamarindo

This was a busy week in many regards, and a not-so-busy stretch in others. During this part of the school year, students at both institutions are beginning to wind down. In the escuela, students had exams all week long, meaning that I couldn’t conduct typical sessions for physical education and life skills. Equally, 11th and 12th graders at the colegio have begun their internships or apprenticeships, also known as pasantias. Since these students attend a technical high school, it is extremely important that they gain real-world experience in their specialties, so this part of the year is dedicated to that. This means that about a third of the colegio isn’t there, so the hallways aren’t quite as loud or as crowded. Despite the lack of availability of students at each institution, I was still able to help out with some English classes and I co-led another session with the escuela librarian for our International Club, Amigos sin Fronteras. This week we went to “China”. Students briefly learned the basics about Chinese history and culture before the librarian led them in activities related to Chinese zodiac signs and paper lanterns.


Outside of class, this was a bit of an odd week in that I spent quite a bit of time away from my community. In the beginning of the week, I had to make a couple of trips to the other side of San José - one for a medical appointment at the Peace Corps office and another for a new volunteer leadership role I recently assumed. I’ll probably expand on this role in a separate sidebar at some point, but in the meantime, it was great to return to Escazú to reconnect with volunteers from 4 different cohorts as well as the admin from Peace Corps Costa Rica.


During the weekend, I took off for a new place: Tamarindo. Tamarindo, located in Guanacaste, is one of Costa Rica’s most popular tourist destinations known for its beaches, surfing, and nightlife. It is also home to one of Costa Rica’s biggest running races: the Tamarindo Beach Marathon, which is why I made the trip up. Many of the races I’ve run in Costa Rica have been on the longer end: 10ks, half marathons, etc, so this time I wanted to play more to my strengths as a middle-distance runner, so I just ran a 5k. My body was pretty banged up from a surfing injury in the couple weeks leading up to the race, so I couldn’t train quite as hard as I would’ve liked. However, the field wasn’t incredibly fast either, so I was able to scrape together a second-place finish and bring a cool little trophy home as a souvenir. The rest of the weekend, I enjoyed hanging out on the beach with a few other Peace Corps volunteers who had also made the trip up to Guanacaste for the race. Tamarindo had been on my Costa Rica Bucket List for quite some time, so I’m glad I finally went - a race was the perfect excuse. But, after 2 trips across the country over the last few weeks, I’m glad I can spend the next month or so back at my site. 

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