On pain and becoming an official Peace Corps volunteer

Friday we officially committed the next 24 months of our lives to Costa Rica...legally, I am bound to serve this country until May 29, 2011. This means training has ended and we are finally beginning what we have come here to do.....be Peace Corps Volunteers. Here’s some pictures from the big ceremony.

The ambassador and the Peace Corps Costa Rica Country Director:

Adrienne and Chase becoming official:

That´s me becoming official:

Okay, I´m official!

This is the group of Children, Youth and Families volunteers with program managers and spanish language facilitators:

So with that being said (and shown), today, Sunday, all of the new volunteers are going to their sites all scattered throughout the country. That is, everyone except me. Why? you ask. Well, the answer is in the two trips to the hospital, the two shots in the buttocks, the two xrays, the one abdominal sonogram, the five types of medicine, and the two blood tests I have had over the past week. Don’t be alarmed. It sounds worse than it is.

Earlier this week, I left our second to last Spanish class due to the beginnings of an illness: cramping and pain in the abdomen and pain in the lungs. Later that day it all worsened. By nightfall, it was unbearable, and instead of trying to force myself to sleep in loads of uncomfortable pain, I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer and told her I would be escorting myself to the ER in San Jose. Trying to explain the type of pain I was having in to the doctors at the hospital in Spanish must have been entertaining. I think it probably translated to something a little bit like this in English: My lungs hurt. I can’t breathe. There is pain in my abdomen. It feels [motion with hands a symbol that is supposed to mean tight]. I can’t breathe strongly. I cant be flat in my bed. Needless to say, they got the point and sent me to the ER for an xray. I thought my Spanish was pretty good until the point when the xray technician left the room for me to change for my xray. There I waited eagerly for him to return in my hot pink bra, anxious to know the source of my pain. He opened the door and quickly said "No, no, no, camisa SIN braseirre," meaning shirt no bra. I understood the opposite: bra no short. Ha, I’m sure he got a good laugh at that one…the gringo that came in and wanted to have an xray done topless.

Anyway, long story short, I was told I had an infection of the lining of my lungs…inflammation that caused those breathing pains, oftentimes known as pluerisy. Fast forward to Thursday, after being on three medicines and not getting better, I take myself back to the hospital. More tests, and pokes and prods later, I was told some ambiguous thing about my lungs and nerves and given two more medicines.

I made it to my swearing-in ceremony early the next morning eventhough I was in extreme pain as I took the official oath. So here I sit, in my training community, the last, the only Tico 19 former Peace Corps TRAINEE left. Though it’s loud and cars and motos buzz by and the rain pounds on the tin roof above me, it is so silent. All my training mates have scattered throughout this land, eager and ready to embark on this adventure we all came here to do. Soon, with a little more rest, TLC, and a few more days of these meds, I will be back on my feet, heading south to my new home as well, ready to insert myself into the little community of 400 in the mountains of Costa Rica.

Read below to see where you are going to come visit me.

Friday was site assignment day.

This means two things:

1) After much ambiguity during this whole Peace Corps process, and months of people asking where I am going and not being able to give them an answer, I finally know where I am going to be living. So here is your answer.

2) More importantly, this is the post where I get to brag about my site placement so I can entice some visitors my way!

Where to begin? Well, first, due to publicity of this blog, I am unable to post the specific name of my site for Peace Corps security reasons, so I posted a picture below showing you where I am going. However, don’t be discouraged. I will tell you plenty so that you will shut down this computer and be on the next plane to Costa Rica.

So, here´s where I am going:



Okay, okay, here´s more: On May 30th I will be packing up my life from the past three months and head south. For the next two years I am going to be living in the Los Santos region of Costa Rica about an hour and a half from the capital of San Jose. Now, for this I am grateful: close proximity to the capital, the beach and national parks (more on this later).


Here´s a picture from the Internet of the general region:



And here´s a picture of a church in one of the communities:

But that´s enough photos for now....since I didn´t take them, and I will be visiting in a week. So stay tuned for more.

First, the Los Santos region is mostly known for it’s coffee plantations (some of the best coffee in the world comes from this region) and stunning topography (very mountainous) and scenic beauty. When my program manager announced this site, he said it was a photographer’s playground, and before I knew it I was walking to the front of the room to add my name to the map of Costa Rica. I guess I will begin to explore landscape photography…

So, more specifically my site…I am located in the Los Santos National Forest Reserve at about 6,200 hundred feet elevation next to Tapanti National Park and not far from Chirripo National Park (the highest mountain in CR is located here, so for all you hikers out there…). Not only I am one of the coldest Peace Corps site, but I am also thrilled about the fact that I will get to wear all my scarves and fleeces and an occasional beanie at night. I was beginning to wonder how I was going to handle this heat for two years, now I don’t have to! Also for those who like birds and watching them, you can come spend time at my site looking for the elusive Quetzal, a rare bird that is prolific in this area. Also, this region is one of the best trout fishing regions in Costa Rica. Aside from coastal sport fishing, this is where people come inland to fish for trucha, or rainbow trout in the many clear mountain rivers. Rare to most other parts of Costa Rica, this region is also rich with apple trees, avocado trees, and peach trees. And I am only a couple hours from some great beaches and four hours from Panama if you like crossing borders. Not to mention there are several mountain lodges scattered throughout the valley, so there is no lack of places to stay. The Internet described my site as a once in a lifetime experience you will never forget…a dream town that you would think it never existed. But it does.

But folks, don’t get me wrong, I am in the Peace Corps, not the Posh Corps and they place us in these communities for a reason. So yes, it sounds wonderful, and I’m sure it is, but as with any place, it also has its problems. And this is where I hopefully come in.

But if mountains, forest reserves, national parks, birds, quality coffee, fishing, stunning topography, fresh fruit trees, beaches, cool weather in an incredibly hot country, and me, doesn’t entice you, I don’t know what does. My door is open!

Freckles and Del Monte Pineapples.

I’m not sure if it’s the food, the water, the sun, or the culture. But the other morning as I was diligently smearing my usual SPF 100 all over my face, I noticed, for the first time in my life, I have freckles. My nose is covered in a mask of spots and part of my cheeks as well. No matter how many times I got sun in the past, I never developed freckles as a result. But now I have. I just think it’s interesting. And there’s really no other point to the story than that.

Can you see my freckles? I´ve got ´em on my nose:

So now I will begin with my real blog post…

Living with host families can be awkward. And by awkward I also mean draining, uncomfortable, humorous, challenging, unfamiliar, confining, tricky, precarious, entertaining, wacky, and sometimes just downright ridiculous.

This past week, I spent time in the southern part of Costa Rica on a site visit visiting two different current volunteers. The purpose of the visit is to get us into the field to see the ins and outs of being an official Peace Corps Volunteer. During these visits, we stay with host families. So, I left behind the comforts of my own home and family near San Jose that I have been living with since March to go be a stranger in the house of two new families for a few days each.

The first site visit was a small indigenous community of about 700 people near the larger city of Buenos Aires. Here the roads were made of stones and dirt….rich, crimson-colored dirt that was contrasted with the lush rolling emerald Costa Rican countryside, the two complimentary colors unknowingly bringing out the beauty in the other. The houses were spread far apart, cars were few and far between, the soccer field was the town’s hang out, there was one small school, one high school, lots of roosters and chickens, and no grocery store. But since this is about host families, back to that…my host mother and father were a married couple 4 years younger than myself…23, married one year, and with a 4-month-old baby who didn’t cry once during the night of the three nights I was there. Their house was simple. Made of cement. The walls inside were more like partitions made of wooden planks. They didn’t reach the ceiling, but rather left space so that the tin roof that covered the entire structure could be seen throughout the whole house. Not to mention any noise could be heard throughout the whole house as well. My room had a mattress on the floor and an old wooden closet. It was simple, basic, and extremely different that where I live right now during training. The couple was young, seemingly educated, and more than willing to go out of their way to make me feel comfortable.

Mid week, we moved 30 minutes down the road to a neighborhood of Buenos Aires called Santa Cruz. Here you had many more than 700 inhabitants, more like 5,000-ish. Pineapple and sugar cane fields surrounded the city, and high numbers of people, including my host father, worked at Pindeco, the company that packs and ships Del Monte pineapples to the US. Because of this, every meal not only came with rice and beans, but also with pineapple. And if you didn’t get pineapple in slices, you got it in a juice form. And if you didn’t get rice (wait, that never happened)…correction, in addition to rice on the plate, you also got it in juice form mixed with the pineapple – fresco de piña con arroz, a delicious, refreshing drink. My host mother was a generous, older, caring woman of short stature with a hint of eccentricism. She willingly offered to wash my nearly completely dirty weeks’ worth of sweaty clothes. The awkward part came when she came to me after lunch two different times once day holding two of my shirts up to her commenting how much she liked them, asking me if I like them, and continuing to stand there with a questioning look on her face. Now, in a culture of indirectness this was to be interpreted as “won’t you please gift these shirts to me?” At the time, I knew what she wanted with this seemingly innocent compliment, so with my American ways, I played ignorant and just thanked her profusely for the compliment and for washing my clothes. Phew, crisis diverted (all in Spanish, not to forget). Well, not so fast. Later that week, one of those two shirts mysteriously disappeared from my clothes pile. Again, I played ignorant, of course to not accuse her of stealing my shirt, and simply asked if she had taken it to iron. When I did, she quickly said yes and grabbed the shirt from her bedroom and handed it back to me. Upon my departure, after 20 questions of how I liked living in her house, she gifted me a small trinket of Mary and Jesus on a wooden base…something that she obviously pulled off her shelf and handed to me with all its nicks and bangs and dust. She gave me well wishes for Mary and Jesus to protect me always and sent me on my way, not without her phone number and a promise from me to call her.

Here is a comparison of my two rooms during my site visit:

The point is, these two experiences couldn’t have been more interesting…and awkward. From the quieter young couple to the eccentric woman in her 50s, I have had a lot of awkward moments…just in the past week (too many to even retell). I can’t explain how good it felt to get ‘home’ to my training community and be back in the comforts of my own bed, my own family, my usual food, my room with walls that reach the ceiling, and the thought that things are starting to feel comfortable. But just when they are really starting to feel that way, we up and move to another host family. In just one week, I find out where I will be placed for the next two years. And in four weeks I will move yet again to go start over with that new host family in my new site.

When you think about it, it really is interesting how so many families let complete strangers (Peace Corps volunteers) into their house in countries all around the world. Inevitably, when two different cultures collide, there is bound to be some tiredness (always trying to speak Spanish); some uncomfortableness (indirect, culturally different questions); some humor (figuring out how to open a Costa Rican lock at 11 pm when all the people are already all in bed); some challenge (figuring out how to not eat the 4 pounds of rice they give you); some tricky situations (figuring out how to get your clothes back); some entertainment (the mountain of people in the house at all times); and sometimes things that are just downright ridiculous (all of it). But the biggest lesson I learned this week is to laugh and embrace this awkwardness, because with time, things will change. Besides, by the time I make it to my fifth host family at the end of this month, I should be an old pro.

A few pictures from the site visit.

Those fields are fields of Del Monte pineapple. If you´ve ever eaten one of those, chances are it came from here! Eat up:

Government housing in Costa Rica:

We did a group project of painting recycling bins and shared the importance of recycling:

This was my and my friend Josh´s group of girls whom we helped....they had the best bin by far:

Then we hiked to the top of a mountain and saw pineapple and sugar cane fields for miles:

And finally, did our fair share of goofing off:

The end.

Friday, I find out the fate of the next two years! Hope it´s somewhere good!