Chepe Chronicles

After 10 months of classes, this week marked the first week of summer vacation for students and teachers (and Peace Corps volunteers in Youth Development). It’s nice to have more free time, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I enjoy having more of a structured schedule sometimes. Work wise, my main primary for Peace Corps this week was reporting my data for the school year. I’ll probably write a separate sidebar for this at some point, but quarterly, we must submit data to the Peace Corps regarding our projects and activities in our communities. This plays a large role in general oversight and can provide evidence to Congress on what Peace Corps volunteers do. Our reporting deadline isn’t for a couple more weeks, but I wanted to aprovechar some extra free time to turn mine in before the holidays roll around. Fortunately, I was able to finish this part of the job here since I’ll be traveling home next week and I don’t want to worry about that while I’m stateside with family. Despi...

During my second year of Peace Corps service, I’ve had the opportunity to serve on something called the Volunteer Staff Collaborative, or VSC. In short, VSC is a space in which Peace Corps Volunteers maintain a formal dialogue with Peace Corps staff, particularly at the administrative level. This is a forum for volunteers to present feedback and suggestions, and equally, for staff to share ideas, critiques, observations, etc to volunteers. Each sector within each cohort has a single representative on VSC. Thus, I am the Youth Development representative for my cohort, Tico 44. VSC meets four times a year - twice in-person and twice remotely. This week, we had a virtual meeting. As someone who studied domestic and foreign policy during my time in DC, getting to engage in these conversations with country leadership is something exciting and fulfilling for me. I take the role seriously, and I hope that I can help play a small part in ensuring that the agency remains as strong and effective...

This week was primarily a formality work wise. During the prior weeks, I wrapped up all of my workshops for the year, so I didn't have much to do at the schools besides offering to help set up and take down decorations for the end of the year and for graduation. Thursday was the last day of school, officially, and I was able to attend the graduation for 12th grade students at my colegio . This wasn’t a group that I’ve worked with a ton, other than perhaps having an occasional English conversation; however, it was still a nice event to attend to close out the year. Side note: graduation ceremonies here appear to be more or less the same as what we do in the United States. There weren’t any glaring differences that I noticed. Students have a longer “summer” break than normal this year - classes will resume February 23rd. So, expect any updates here for the next couple months to be a little less focused on my Youth Development work. My life was a little bit more exciting outside of cl...

As my school year finishes this week in Costa Rica, I figured how volunteers spend their “summers” might be a pertinent question. Since Peace Corps volunteers in Youth Development and English Education follow the academic calendar, that means we have roughly 2 months of “Summer” in which there aren’t activities in which we are required to do. Peace Corps volunteers don’t submit work hours or anything, so technically, there is nothing stopping a volunteer from taking these couple months almost completely off and unwinding. And, in reality, many of us will take a step back and recover a bit during the school break. Accordingly, this is a time in which many volunteers will use their vacation days to travel abroad or back home since we don’t have firm commitments at school. However, we are here to serve, and I think most volunteers are intrinsically motivated enough that we don’t want to take these months completely off either. Service is only 2 years, and we don’t want 2 months of that to...

The week prior concluded all of my formal sessions at the centros educativos in my community. I don’t really have much to do at my schools at this point in the year, so it’s not necessarily a requirement to be there. However, looking at 2 months of “summer” vacation ahead, it’s my preference to at least go to the buildings, show my face, and chat with students and counterparts while I still have the opportunity to do so, so that’s primarily what I did this week. Both the colegio and the escuela went through matricula this week, which is a form of enrollment for the next school year. Students don’t receive schedules at this point, rather parents arrive to cover some fees, ensure student information is up-to-date, purchase uniforms, and take photos. Almost all of the staff was roped into helping out with the enrollment process, so on those days, there weren’t really formal classes. When I wasn’t at school, this was a really fun week for me. On Wednesday, the Costa Rican soccer team I s...

The namesake of this blog series, “Chepe Chronicles”, relates to “ Chepe ”, which is a nickname for San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. More formally, this part of the country is known as the Gran Area Metropolitana , or the Greater Metropolitan Area - “GAM” for short.  The “Central Valley” is also a common descriptor. The vast majority of the country’s population and political and financial power emanates from this part of the country. Of the 5 million or so Ticos living in Costa Rica, roughly 3 million, or 60 percent, call the GAM home. All of the major soccer teams in Costa Rica are based here. This part of the country is also Costa Rica’s transit hub and is marked by temperate weather, high levels of development, and a lots of presa (traffic). Our Peace Corps Pre-Service Training took place in Escazú, a suburb within the GAM ; however, most volunteers aren’t traditionally placed in this region (my placement was an exception). The GAM isn’t particularly crowded with tourist...

Despite the school year winding down, and not a whole lot of classes taking place, this week remained a pretty busy one at the schools. At the colegio , hardly any students were in the building this week. During this time of year, most students don’t have to go to class unless they are there to take a final exam. Additionally, on Wednesday, there was a nationwide teachers’ protest towards the Ministry of Public Education (MEP), so most teachers weren’t there either. However, the colegio must submit documentation to MEP about the 11th grade servicio communal estudiantil projects I helped organize this year, so I went to school a couple times this week to help complete some administrative work connected to those documents. Meanwhile, at the escuela , I held my last PE classes of the year. Furthermore, Friday was the escuela ’s big Christmas festival, so I went there, helped set up and close down the event, and was in charge of handing out coffee that members of the public purchased for...