Nov 3-9: Closing out Servicio Comunal at the Colegio

Although generally I seem to spend more time at the escuela than at the colegio, this was a week that felt quite a bit more skewed towards my work at the colegio. This was mainly because my primary project at the colegio, Servicio Comunal Estudiantil, is set to close Monday, November 10th. By this date, students must have completed 30 community service hours, they have to turn in all of the appropriate forms, and must write a short written report as well. Naturally, as high school students do, many of my students procrastinated a bit on these tasks. So, in many ways, this week was a scramble to help them out. Some students still lacked community service hours going into the week while others simply lacked a signature on a particular form. Either way, I tried to make myself available as much as possible to help close this process out and ensure successful projects. This included scheduling some last minute running sessions with my community run club, including practices on Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Tuesday, we were able to practice outside of school students and teachers had off for an impromptu día asueto to celebrate the anniversary of the cantón of Desamparados. I’m happy to report that by Sunday, all of the students I tutored in these projects completed their hours.


The week had several other highlights in my community as well. On Monday, I helped out at an English class in which students made “Shark Tank”-like pitches. Afterwards, I hosted a successful lunch with several English teachers. Their level of English is already incredibly high, but I think they appreciate having the chance to practice with a Gringo speaker. I also continued with American football sessions at the escuela, although it has become increasingly difficult to find times to do my PE classes. As the year winds down, the class schedule gets even more chaotic, and there simply isn’t a whole lot of time for the type of workshops I would lead. For example, despite being the beginning of November, I had to postpone some sessions for a “Christmas inauguration” assembly that took place on Thursday. On Friday,  a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer who was in town came to my site to see what my community was like. It is always fun to show someone who is living in a different part of the country, but with a similar service, what my day-to-day looks like as an urban volunteer. 

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