Chepe Chronicles

Unsurprisingly, Tico families have household pets just like we do in the United States. And similarly, the most common pets I see in Costa Rica are dogs and cats. In my homestay, my host family has 3 dogs: Kira, Lana, and Fili. They are quite loud and cause a scene every time someone enters the property or there’s a car nearby; however, it has been a fun part of my service having dogs at home. Meanwhile, my girlfriend, Keily, has 3 cats: Benito, Kitty, and Yolanda, and a dog, Thor. It’s always fun to hang out with them too. So without having the responsibility of caring for pets on my own, I’ve been surrounded by pets throughout my service. Peace Corps volunteers are permitted to have pets, and several volunteers in my cohort have formally or informally adopted pets at their sites. However, it is the responsibility of these volunteers, on their limited stipend, to care for these pets and to have a plan in place for the pets once service comes to a close. (One friend of mine is taking ...

With “winter break” over, this week was a pretty standard one at site. As my service comes to a close in around 2 months, I’m trying to cram in as many classes and clubs as I can, as my students likely won’t have any type of PE or extracurricular spaces for the remainder of the year once I depart Costa Rica. In total, I facilitated 9 PE classes this week and 2 youth clubs: my reading club and the Amigos sin Fronteras international club. In PE, I had my students play handball once again. To me, this has been one of the most successful activities they’ve done to promote teamwork. I made a rule that they can only run with the ball for 3 steps at a time which has forced them to share the ball and work together. Unfortunately, a handful of outdoor classes were suspended for the rain, but fortunately I had dodgeball as a backup indoor activity ready to go in that case. My international club students “virtually” traveled to Colombia, a lesson I’d repeated from the previous year. Meanwhile, m...

Throughout my service, you’ve read about my work as a Youth Development volunteer. Youth Development is one of 3 sectors in Costa Rica along with English Education and Community Economic Development. As a YD volunteer, my role is pretty open-ended; however, my projects all revolve around strengthening life skills (soft skills) in youth. English Education volunteers have a less malleable role. Primarily, they work alongside one specific, designated counterpart - an English teacher. They are assigned to an elementary or a high school and just work there. Conversely, I have a small army of different counterparts and I work at both the elementary and the high schools. I think there are advantages to both: I have more creative liberty in my work and have the opportunity to work with more students and teachers, but English Education volunteers likely make more of an impact on specific students, teachers, and classes, and have more streamlined, defined tasks. Whereas YD and English Education ...

As I alluded to in last week’s blog, Costa Rican students continued their 2-week “winter” break this week. Last week was spent at the beach, whereas this week I was entirely at site in the Valle Central . If this blog is on the shorter side, it’s because this week wasn’t too jampacked, and honestly, I was grateful for that. I mainly focused on relaxing and enjoying my final extended time off in Costa Rica while also preparing some documentation and other items for the final months of my service.  However, I didn’t use all of my time off simply sequestered in my house. Throughout the week I tried to go to the gym and run a bit more than the weeks prior. I also went into town a few times. On Thursday, I bussed into Desamparados to buy some shoes and to meet my girlfriend, Keily, for some pizza. On Saturday, Keily and I met up in San Jose to go to the independent theater, Cine Magaly, where we watched The Odyssey. It was incredible and absolutely lived up to the hype. Then, on Sunday,...

There are many ways in which the US iand other countries nfluence daily life in Costa Rica. One of these influences is through the labor market. Many US-based companies have their regional headquarters or operations based in Costa Rica due to the country's strong economy and stability. Others simply hire Ticos for tasks related to work in the US. This is a practice commonly referred to as outsourcing. Transnational companies turn to outsourcing in order to reduce labor costs. Despite a relatively similar cost of living to the US, (maybe slightly less) Costa Ricans perform the same jobs as US Americans (think accounting, customer service, etc.) for a fraction of the salary. Outsourcing becomes an increasingly big political issue stateside when unemployment is low. These Ticos  who are employed transnational companies work in areas known as “ Zona Francas ”. Zona Francas are usually buildings, compounds, or designated areas in which transnational companies receive special tax, cust...

Starting on Monday, public school students and teachers in Costa Rica began a two-week long break from classes in-between semesters. For Peace Corps Volunteers in my cohort, this is the last time in our service that we’re permitted to take our annual leave vacation. That means that most volunteers (including me) took this opportunity to squeeze in one more domestic or international trip while we’re here. I didn’t do much Monday-Wednesday. I mainly just took the opportunity to catch up on some computer work, went to the gym, and did some running. And then on Thursday morning, I took off for the western, coastal province of Guanacaste, which was the lone province of the 7 in Costa Rica that my girlfriend, Keily, hadn’t been to prior. Because of this, visiting Guanacaste with her has been a priority for us, and we settled on the charming beach town of Sámara to make that happen. Although there are direct buses from San José to Sámara, the timing didn’t work out great for Keily and I, so w...

My week started off still in the suburb of Escazu, where I checked out of the Peace Corps hotel and said goodbye to my friends. The rest of the day was a busy one, with 3 different stops scattered across San Jose: a physical at the Peace Corps office, a trip to the hospital to get some lab work done, and a visit to the dentist's office. Fortunately, I could get all of my appointments taken care of, had nothing come up on my medical tests, and I was able to arrive back at my house fairly early in the evening, whereas many other volunteers had to trek across the country to return to their communties.  On Tuesday morning, it was back to reality. I had six PE classes that day, which was the perfect way to be thrown back into the fire. The rest of the week, I tackled a fairly normal work schedule at my institutions. I continued with community service projects at the colegio and focused on my PE classes and clubs at the escuela. Unfortunately, I had to cancel the reading club and interna...

Unlike most positions, Peace Corps is a little bit unique in that there is a ticking clock - it's not a career for most volunteers. Service is a 27-month stint, meaning that upon finishing service, it is important for volunteers to have an idea for what's next. For a lot of volunteers, grad school is an extremely viable option. In fact, many grad schools offer what's known as a "Coverdell Fellowship" which gives certain financial benefits to students who are Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs). Other volunteers pursue the job market. Since I've already completed my graduate degree, I fall into this bucket. Although the job search has been a little bit difficult to navigate from Costa Rica, I'm hoping to announce my next steps soon. Finally, some other volunteers may look into Peace Corps response positions or may use their readjustment allowance to travel before reintegrating to life in the US once again. There isn't one single path that volunteers...