Chepe Chronicles

The week started off with my birthday on Monday. Since I celebrated on Sunday evening with my girlfriend, Keily, and her family, I didn't do too much to celebrate that day, although over the weekend we did celebrate some more. Rather, I just went to the colegio , wrote a reference for a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, and took it easy. On Tuesday, I had a busy day. I facilitated 6 PE classes and then met a friend in the Peace Corps for coffee in San Jose. Wednesday, I was back at the  colegio  to work on some community service projects, and then Thursday was a jam-packed day. I hosted my final youth clubs at the escuela where students celebrated with cake and a pizza party. Both of these clubs were new to the elementary club that accompanied my arrival, so I'm really proud of them. Later in the day, I went into San Jose to say good bye to a lot of my friends in the Peace Corps who officially closed their service on Friday. On Friday, I took off with Keily for a mini vacation to...

One of the unique things about the Peace Corps is how different the experience varies from community to community and country to country. No two Peace Corps services are the same, and that makes it particularly special. I'm very close to my fellow volunteers in Costa Rica and in many respects, I feel much more attached to Peace Corps Costa Rica rather than the organization as a whole. There just simply isn't any real contact or crossover with programs in other countries at the volunteer-level. However, that doesn't stop volunteers from joining online forums like Reddit where services are frequently compared. Because countries and communities vary so much within Peace Corps, sometimes volunteers in places that are more associated with being "hardships posts" feel as if their service was tougher and perhaps more authentic than others. Certainly, there are sites in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the South Pacific that are much more rugged and remote than mine. Oftentimes,...

My Peace Corps service comes to a close one month from today, but I'm remaining busier than ever. This week, in particularly, I was equally involved at both institutions. At the colegio, on Monday, I was invited to attend a 10th grade executive customer service English class where students presented on etiquette in different professional settings. The students did a great job with their English and were super receptive to feedback from the local gringo. And then, on Wednesday, I hunkered down in the administrative area of the high school to finalize a bunch of documentation for students related to their community service projects so that they have everything they need ready to turn in once I live the country. One of my community service groups finalized their project, which was related to connecting with senior leaders in the community and subsequently making a physical presentation to display in the high school My other group, a running club, hosted a running club session Saturday...

There are so many amazing things about living in Costa Rica: the nature, the weather, and the lifestyle are all second-to-none. In fact, Costa Rica is routinely named one of the happiest countries in the world. However, if there's one thing that Ticos and visitors alike are frustrated by in Costa Rica, it's the traffic. In Costa Rican dialect, " presa " (which generally translates to "dam") means traffic, although most Spanish-speaking countries say " trafico ". One of the great things about Costa Rica is that it puts a lot of its federal spending on things like education, health, and pensions. But there's only so much money to go around. As Costa Rica has undergone rapid urbanization, (2/3 of its population lives in the greater San Jose area) infrastructure hasn't caught up. San Jose relies on buses for public transport. There is a commuter railine to some suburbs, but its range and schedule is extremely limited. This causes pretty extrem...

"Roll with the punches" and "expect the unexpected" are pretty common mantras for Peace Corps volunteers, particularly those of us who work within the school setting. I cant't tell you how many times during my two years of service that classes have unexpectedly been canceled or students/teachers didn't show up to something without warning. This week had a little bit of all of that. I went to the high school on Monday to work on my community service; however, from Wednesday through Friday, no one was at the colegio due to teachers' union meetings. Simiilarly, at the escuela, students weren't in class on Tuesday because of a math workshop elsewhere, and on Thursday, students left early due to water shortages in the community. This meant that I was only able to host one PE class this week, on Wednesday. However, I was able to use the extra free time during the week to get ahead on some closing documentation for Peace Corps and also ran and went to the g...

The United States is a bit of an anamoly when it comes to texting. In the States, by and large, we rely on standatrd messaging services, whether that be iMessage or using the carrier's texting platform. Typically, we pay lots of money for messaging plans. The rest of the world is a little bit different, including Costa Rica. Here, everyone relies on WhatsApp to communicate. WhatsApp, is a social media app primarily used for messaging. But, through WhatsApp, you can text, call, or even videocall people around the world without a messaging plan. You simply must be connected to the internet (or have a data plan) to do so. WhatsApp is how I communicate with my counterparts here in Costa Rica, but also how I stay in touch with family back home. It's a lifesaver for communication across borders. Similarly, the texting and communication culture in Costa Rica is quite different from the United States. In the United States, oftentimes we as Americans are focused on efficiency. If we...

The weeks are starting to fly by now as I close in on my final months of service, but I'm staying busy as ever. At the colegio , I helped out a couple of English classes this week alongside one of my counterparts. I'm not an English teacher, but it was fun to step in and help students with some conversation and pronunciation practice, particularly with words related to environmental issues. Meanwhile, at the escuela , I didn't have any youth clubs this weeks, I was singlehandedly focused on PE classes there. I stole an idea I'd seen at the high school earlier in the year in which students had a massive team-based rock, paper, scissors competition. Although they were hesistant to play it at first, they ended up having a blast. Over the weekend, on Friday night, I went to my girlfriend Keily's house. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and some orange chicken for dinner before she had to teach an online class. On Saturday morning, I hosted a community run club with my high ...

As I wrote about in my weekly recap blog on Sunday, last week I accompanied my girlfriend Keily and her family for an event called " La Romeria ". La Romeria is one of Costa Rica's most famous cultural traditions. Each year it's estimated that between 1 and 2 million Ticos make the pilgramage on foot to the city of Cartago, which lies about 15 miles east of San Jose. 1 to 2 million is a TON of people considering Costa Rica only has around 5 million citizens total. Ticos make the pilgramage to the country's most iconic church called La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles . In the church lies a small black sculpture known as " La Negrita " or " Virgencita " which depicts the Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus. The legend states that a young girl discovered the statue during Costa Rica's early colonial history, and it's become a national symbol ever since. The most common pilgramage path starts in San Jose and then pilgrims continue on...

The end of July and the beginning of August brought a really busy and fun week in my community. At the escuela , we had better weather this week, so fortunately, I was able to have all of my classes outside as scheduled. My students played Capture the Flag. It’s something I introduced to them earlier in the year, and as they’ve gotten more familiar with it, they’ve gotten much better at it. I also co-hosted the Amigos sin Fronteras International Club this week at the escuela . Students virtually traveled to East Asia where they learned about China, Japan, and South Korea. They learned their Chinese Zodiac animals and subsequently made paper lanterns. At the colegio , I was much more involved with English this week. After helping with a couple of English classes this week, I also assisted with the high school’s annual English Festival, which was on Friday. This year, English teachers paired up and transformed their rooms into Escape Rooms. Students had to use their English skills to re...