Sep 15-21: Independence Day and Post-Holiday Slump

This week began in atypical fashion with Independence Day on Monday. However, as I referenced in Wednesday’s Independence Day sidebar, I still had to go to school that day. Public schools are the primary conduit for patriotic celebrations, so it’s vital that everyone in the academic community shows up. Because of those commitments on Sunday and Monday, students and teachers had Tuesday off. 

The week settled back into normalcy by Wednesday, where I was back at the colegio again and students were back on their typical schedules. However, in the name of transparency, I’d be lying if I said that this wasn’t a week filled with many frustrations too. But, that’s the high and lows of being a teacher and also of being a Peace Corps volunteer. 

On Wednesday, I had planned on hosting my second session of English “charlas” with students at the colegio; however, I think because of exams, hardly anyone was at school that day. Unfortunately, I was not privy to that information prior to arriving at school. So, sadly, despite waiting around for an hour, no one came to my chat. But, having heard from other volunteers in my cohort, no-shows for activities are pretty routine in Peace Corps service, so it’s not anything I take personally. 

The latter two days of the school week I was back at the escuela, but ran into similar scheduling troubles with exams. Counterparts suggested that September might be difficult to host workshops, but I figured it was an exaggeration and that I’d be able to resume normal activities after Independence Day on the 15th. I was wrong. In fact, this week I received confirmation that I won’t be able to facilitate my regular sessions until the 30th at the earliest. So, I still went to the schools, showed my face, and worked on lesson planning and other administrative work, but I don’t have a lot to report otherwise. However, a cool thing that happened on Friday was that the escuela hosted a mandatory training on autism for all faculty and staff. Having co-led a running club in college for youth on the autism spectrum, (which was an impetus to volunteering in the youth development sector) it was really interesting (and useful) to sit in on this training. 

Much of my weekend revolved around running, to the surprise of absolutely no one. On Saturday, for the first time since their apprenticeshipships began, my community service students elected to host our local run club. Unfortunately, word about the practice circulated kind of late, so no one outside of the high school showed up. But, at least 3 of my students came and spent their Saturday morning in the park, which to me is a small win. Similarly, on Sunday, I ran with my San Jose-based running group. They collaborated on a really unique event with the French Embassy in Costa Rica. The run began at the aptly-named "Parque Francia” and culminated at the French diplomatic mission where runners were fed with French pastries and were taught a little bit about French history in Costa Rica.