Three Vignettes of Successful Projects

Recently, I was asked by my Program Director to provide three vignettes of success Rural Community Development Projects in our sites.  To give an update on some of the work we've been involved in I've provided a copy of my report to him below.  These projects have come at the expense of much fear and loathing, but in the end Melinda and I feel very proud and accomplished after having perservered to be able to see the results.  Indeed, we are at a stage in our service now where much of the groundwork we've laid over the past year and a half is starting to pay off.  In addition to the projects mentioned below, we've also got two other grants pending, one to replace the ceramic tile in our school and another to help buy materials to support a garden project there as well.  We've also almost finish a World Map mural project at the school, which we've used to teach elementary kids geography (pictures to come in further post).

I hope that you enjoy reading about the work you see below and know that your support of our Peace Corps service has helped make these successes possible, whether it be all of the assistance in our preparations pre-Peace Corps to just reading and following the blog and inspiring others with the positive actions which you perform in your individual lives for your family, friends and community.

Vignette #1:

 

When Melinda and I first arrived in Hone Creek, we were surprised to find that the Corredor Biológico, my counterpart organization, had not incorporated the Hone Creek Elementary School into its Environmental Education Program.  We asked Karla Murillo, the Program Director, why this was the case and she said that a couple of years back the school was involved in the Program, but that there was a fall-out from an incident where she had planned a school field trip complete with transportation and food, but when the bus showed up to pick up the kids on the day of the event, nobody was at school and she had not been notified.  When she confronted the teacher about it, the teacher said it had never been planned for that day and when brought to the attention of the school principal, the principal sided with the teacher.  Consequently, the Corredor decided to pull its support for environmental education for the school.

Fast-forward a few years into future - Melinda and I have had our first few meetings with the Principal and they have been fairly icy and unwelcoming.  We're not sure we want to work with the school at all and Melinda is concerned as this is the only school in our community and she is a Youth Development volunteer.  We've been told by the Corredor and other parties that the principal is difficult to work with and it is almost impossible to collaborate there.  We think about giving up. 

We finally schedule our first few environmental classes and they appear to go well and the principal warms up to us a bit, but not too much.  Over time, we persist as the principal treats us unpredictably, some days quite bruskly, not having time for us to communicate what we want in another language, which then makes us all the more anxious to communicate with her.  But we keep persisting, continuing with our environmental education classes.

In February of the 2012, we finally receive a donation of recycling bins that I had been working hard on for now more than 4-5 months from Florida Bebidas and we finally begin a nascent effort to recycle in the school.  Melinda and I receive a donation of materials to paint a world map mural on one of the school walls and we sand and re-paint the wall in preparation for the mural.  The school principal is finally starting to see results which we've worked very hard to achieve over our previous year of service and she's finally starting to smile.  She invites us to a parent / teacher meeting where we're able to introduce ourselves to the families of the kids in the school and ask for their support in our projects.  We're also invited to administrative meetings with teachers to present some of our projects.  Doors are starting to open and we're starting to finally feel accepted.

In April we are in the principal's office and she mentions that she's got a meeting with the Corredor Biológico that day.  She didn't explain why so we didn't think much of it at the time.  We scheduled some environmental education classes and went about our day.  Later that week we run into Karla from the Corredor and ask her what the meeting was about and she tells us that they've reincorporated the school back into the Environmental Education Program and we know that this has happened with the effort we've taken to make the bridge between my counterpart organization and the school.  Nobody thanks us for our effort, but it isn't necessary.  We're just happy because the work that we've been performing with the school is leading to sustainable environmental education once again which will hopefully last long after the time we COS.

Vignette #2:

 

Melinda and I arrived in Hone Creek with the challenge from my counterpart organization, the Corredor Biológico Talamanca Caribe (CBTC), to help them start the first domestic recycling pick-up program in Talamanca and perhaps all of Limón.  As those that have worked in the field of solid waste management well know this task doesn’t come without significant obstacles, especially given that our community has a population of 1,500 and is located in the poorest canton of Costa Rica, according to the United Nations Human Development Index statistics from 2009.

Melinda and I, and our counterpart Karla Murillo, who is in charge of the Environmental Education Department sent out 50 invitations to the neighbors of the CBTC to our first presentation on solid waste management after about 3 months of time integrating in our site.  We ordered snacks and had a coordinated presentation ready, but unfortunately not one community member showed up.  After significant hard work in putting together the invitations and developing the presentation, our expectations were significantly deflated, but not broken. Our counterpart organization and we decided to go back to lick our wounds, go back to the drawing board and reassess our approach.

 Approximately six months later we decided to start a pilot recycling program in one of the streets in Hone Creek.  We coordinated with a local pastor to allow us to use the space in his church for the presentation.  We sent out invitations to everyone who lived on the street, which also happened to be the same one in which Melinda and I live, giving us a better chance to draw attention to our project knowing that the neighbors knew us better than the previous group we invited to our first presentation.

 As the hour arrived to start the discussion, we sat in the church with the first attendee, an 8 year old girl from our English class.  Karla Murillo showed up, but had to leave as she very obviously appeared to be ill and to our dismay we were concerned we would have to do the presentation on our own.  Fifteen minutes passed by and we’d had a couple of others pass by and one elderly lady who decided to stay.  At this time, I decided to take the matter into my own hands and walk house to house dragging people out to attend the meeting, including a neighbor, Don Justo, who quit his work in chopping down bananas to join us in the discussion.  We sent around the attendance sheet and 17 community members were now present, but we were still concerned that we’d be doing the presentation alone; however, as soon as we were about to start, Viejo (Don Cruz, but he prefers solely Viejo), who is in charge of the local recycling center in Patiño, a neighboring community to Hone Creek, showed up to support us and help make consensus on how we would approach the pilot initiative.

The pilot project turned out to be a success, but we changed our strategy from merely having community presentations, to going door-to-door education and bringing awareness to the benefits of recycling and proper solid waste management.  We expanded the project street by street, until we had currently covered the entire center of Hone Creek, approximately 200 houses visited with 33% participating in the project frequently, while another 17% participating inconsistently (a total of 50%).  We’ve also including businesses including one of the Internet cafés, the local Palí and the local banana plantation at the entrance of town.

As a part of our work, we’ve created brochures regarding the reasons why and what can be recycled and a pick-up calendar so people can remember the dates.  As a demonstration of the sustainability of our project, our counterpart organization has used the data of our work in meetings regarding the 5 year Talamanca Municipality Plan to Manage Solid Waste.  We have been asked by the indigenous Bribri community of Shiroles to share our successes and failures so they can replicate the project in their community.  We’ve trained the Junior Red Cross Volunteers and new Peace Corps volunteers in the regions on the education aspect of the project so they can perform the same work in their communities.  There’s still plenty of work to be done, especially inside the Hone Creek School, but we have 9 months left before we close service and this project now has some serious wings and our community is on the verge of flying. 

Vignette #3:

 

In early 2012, Moises Leon, Program Director of the Rural Community Development Program and Stephen Lanning, Rural Community Development Volunteer in Hone Creek, Talamanca, sat down with Stephen’s counterpart agency representatives, Rosa Bustillos Lemaire (Executive Director) and Juan Carlos Barrantes (Director of the Agroecology Department), of the Corredor Biológico Talamanca Caribe (CBTC) with the idea to install solar panels to highlight the disastrous effects of climate change, promote the use of safe and clear energy alternatives and to encourage the adoption of other conservation practices to moderate the effects of global warming.

After more than 9 months working with his counterpart, Stephen Lanning has facilitated the allocation of funds to support this project from two Peace Corps grant sources, CRUSA and ECPA, which cover the majority of the projects cost of almost $14,300.00, with a third source of funding pending in a collaboration in the project from IBM as a part of their “Building a Smarter Planet” initiative with a tentative start date to install the panels in November 2012.  Purasol, the solar panel provider, has offered to arrange for a 10% discount on the materials and installation, given various community contributions arranged by the CBTC.  The solar panels will also be connected to the ICE energy grid by a two-way meter, and any surplus energy supplied by the CBTC will be sent back to the ICE grid for use by the greater ICE network, with energy credits given to the CBTC to help pay for any energy cost incurred during low solar production periods.  The panels themselves will be connected to a real-time Internet tool which will show the actual energy savings generated by the panels, which will be key in both auditing the energy savings, as well as for an educational tool to be used in classrooms and demonstrations.

As a pre-requisite to the project, the CBTC must attend an energy conservation workshop presented by the Peace Corps office and IBM, as well as provide materials, lodging and manual labor the day of the installation.  Additionally, the CBTC will use its network of 19 member organizations and its 15 member schools in its Environmental Education Program to bring awareness to climate change and encourage other organizations, communities and individuals to take steps, both small and large, to confront one of the substantial issues of our time, with the holistic approach that it will take the initiative of every citizen to mitigate the effects of global warming.  Moreover, the CBTC will promote the project and education on global warming on their website, as well as provide demonstrations and information regarding climate change, alternative energy and solar power to their more than 1,000 annual visitors at their headquarters. 

Sustainability is at the center of the project, given that solar power is one of the most sustainable sources of clean energy.  Additionally, the panels themselves have a lifetime of 20+ years.  Indeed, the CBTC does not see this project as merely the installation of the panels and the saving of funds on electricity expenditures which they can re-direct to other projects, but in the years of education and demonstrations that they will provide regarding climate change, which complement their several other projects regarding global warming including reforestation in the Sixaola and Carbón river basins, promoting seed banks and food security, encouraging sustainable cacao production and the diversity of agricultural production, and their Payment for Environmental Services program ( Pago por Servicios Ambientales – PSA) which reimburses regional farmers for conservation practices which preserve the biological corridor in which plants and animals migrate between the upper Talamancan mountain range to the Talamancan coastline.  Given the sustainable nature of this project and the wide network local, regional and national scope of the project, including the participation of IBM in both financing and collaborating in the project, this project has a tremendous ability to bring awareness to thousands of individuals and organizations regarding climate change.

Our Life Between Two Worlds

My apologies it has taken so long to post another update.  We’ve been busy in site and although with the quiet here you would think I’d have much more time to reflect and do some writing, but the truth is that when I’m not working, I like to slow down and do little to nothing.  I’m not very disciplined when it comes to writing and when I sit down to write I don’t want to think of it as a chore.  So, I just sit and wait for an inspiration to come or something else to stir me to pick up the computer and scribble down a few words.

Anyway, since taking a little over two-week vacation back to the States to see our friends’ (and former Peace Corps volunteers who met while serving in Peru) wedding in Big Sur and to visit our families, and then returning to Costa Rica I’ve had this feeling that I’m somehow living between two very distinct worlds.   The trip was a whirlwind, never leaving us in one place for more than 3 days at a time, which was probably good because we wouldn’t want to feel too settled.  We want to thank our good friends, Charlie and Erika, who hosted us the majority of our stay in the Bay Area, for their incredible generosity and hospitality during our stay.  Erika, the thoughtfulness of putting water on the nightstands near the beds was an incredibly thoughtful gesture, among all the other kind considerations including the multiple trips you and Charlie made taking and picking us up from BART, not to mention the Bay sail which Erika took us on to commemorate our last night in San Francisco.

We also want to thank our families: First to my mother who coordinated renting a houseboat at Lake Shasta and invited all of my family, 15 in total, to spend three days/nights swimming, jet-skiing, fishing, eating and generally spending good, quality family time with each other.  We’d also like to thank Melinda’s family for hosting us, inviting over her brother and family for dinner and for treating us to a movie and ice-cream sandwiches in downtown Sacramento.  All in all, the experiences were overwhelming decadent and made us feel much loved.

We also want to thank our friends Ryan and Ashley for inviting us to their lovely wedding in Big Sur.  We got to know Ryan and Ashley the year before we left San Francisco for the Peace Corps, as Melinda and Ashley worked at the same high school.  With our shared interest in social justice, the environment, stimulating conversation and the coincidence that Ryan and Ashley are former Peace Corps volunteers themselves, we immediately bonded with them and were very honored that they would invite us to their wedding despite the short time which we’ve known each other.  They got married under a stand of redwood trees in one of the most beautiful parts of California and the wedding was a picture perfect representation of them as a couple and we wish them nothing but the best in their marriage together as well as wishing them a safe and wildly fantastic adventure in Nepal and beyond during their year off together (what a honeymoon!).

So, back to being between both worlds…

When we touched down in San Francisco in the evening on June 27^th my first observation was how parched the coastal hills were and how the sun was still shining long after it would have gone down in Costa Rica (more or less 6 pm every day).  Going through Customs was also quite an odd experience, the throngs of people, the flat screen TVs with subtitles in French walking visitors through the Customs check process, and not to mention the paperwork in which we were unsure of what address we should list, despite the fact that we were calling ourselves “residents” of the United States.  Given the omission of address we were asked to go through a separate security check, which we were quickly rushed through when the officer noticed that we were Peace Corps volunteers.  Yes, it had been 17 months since we’d last been on US soil and it would take just a little getting used to.

So, I won’t go into a play-for-play of every day while home, but here are images which stood out which reminded me of how different our two worlds are:

-Taking BART in the East Bay looking over stretches of housing, to the Bay and all the way to the San Francisco skyline, all of this input barraging me at breakneck speed as the rush-hour train bolted toward downtown Oakland from MacArthur station with throngs of people packed onboard, listening to music, reading books on their Kindles, playing with their iPhones and/or generally trying to stare in some direction trying to avoid too much eye contact.

-The quarters that came out of the BART ticket vending machine seemed so small.  What is this?  Generally, the change in Costa Rica is much larger a heavier than US change.

-Looking upward in downtown San Francisco Financial District, once again in awe of the skyscrapers which had once been a part of my daily trek to work.

-The choices, whether it be at a coffee shop or in the gourmet grocery store.  Instant gratification on so many levels, but also could be paralyzing to make a selection with so many options.  For example, Melinda and I went through a drive through café with free flavored syrup for the coffee and Melinda asked if they had sugar free alternatives and yes they said that they had “only” 8 options.  It was difficult not to get caught up in the consumerism which we’d done such a good job of shedding in our experience in Costa Rica.  We’ll have to ponder how we’ll maintain this consumer independence when we move back as the urge to spend and consume is so strong, especially after a couple of years of having less choice, which is not such a bad thing.

-We had to remind ourselves that people are generally on-time.  We also found ourselves rushing around to make it to the many appointments, chores, visiting friends/family, etc.  Was this the pace we sustained before our PC journey?

-We found ourselves appreciating the humidity of Costa Rica.  Our lips were chapped and our skin dry.  I also had a ton of allergies which I didn’t have in Costa Rica (strange with all the foliage in CR).

-The roads are so efficient and so flat.  We drove a newly paved stretch near Emeryville in the East Bay and it felt like heaven.

At the end of the day, whether we have one foot in Costa Rica or the other foot in the US, what I realized from our trip is that perhaps the most important element which I will take from my Peace Corps experience is appreciation.  Simply put, when you have less and when you see others have less, you appreciate more.  I believe the yoga practice that Melinda and I have also taken up during our service has also reinforced this sense of appreciation.  We, especially as Americans, have so many things to be thankful for.  There are aspects of living in the States which are far from ideal, equally with living here in Costa Rica.  However, both places offer something different, something unexpected, but sometimes so evidentially essential that you wouldn’t notice it if you hadn’t taken the time to stop, listen and allow yourself the opportunity to feel grateful.

Once again, thanks and much love to our family and friends who’ve supported us along this journey.

Here Come the Ants!

The rainy season has come late to the Province of Limón this year.  Usually, the rainy season lasts from December to January, but this year it didn’t rain much those two months and instead has picked the end of February to middle of March.  They say that here you used to know that it was the beginning of December when the rains started coming and not anymore.  Some folks see it as the beginning signs of a more threatening climate change.  Despite the possible future ramifications, for us it is an present unexpected welcome, because as Melinda recently posted in Facebook:

Dear Hone Creek,

Thanks for not being excruciatingly hot and humid. My friend rainy season can stay as long as she likes.

Love,
Melinda

Speaking of rain, we were recently warned of an impending rain by an “hormiguero” – a legion of army ants (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_ant).  Actually, the invasion of ants came not just once this week, but twice.  There is a local belief that an invasion of army ants portends precipitation.  The ants come in the tens of thousands and march in a steady single file line, entering your house looking for other bugs to eat.  They often seem to appear without noticing and leave without warning, nor goodbye.

Army Ants on our front porch

Another benefit, other than foretelling rain, is that because the army ants devour bichos of every kind (cockroaches, termites, spiders and can even eat small vertebrates), your house gets an uninvited, yet much appreciated cleaning.  However, if you get in their way, the hormigas (ants) do bite hard (not to be confused with bullet ants that we’ve also found in our yard which when bitten can actually make you sick with fever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_ant). 

Bullet ants (hormigas balas) encountered in the field with Corredor Biológico

 

First reaction says to get out your RAID and start going to town on the suckers, but given the benefits its actually best to abandon your house, or at least their path as they don’t stray far, and then come back in a few hours and they are usually gone.  One interesting fact via Wikipedia is, “Army ants do not build a nest like most other ants. Instead, they build a living nest with their bodies, known as a bivouac. Bivouacs tend to be found in tree trunks or in burrows that are dug by the ants.”

Below are pictures of the second invasion we had, which actually was much less severe than the first.  As we have a house that is primarily made of cement and not of wood, the ants had no interest in anything except our wood roof where most of the bichos – termites, etc – hide.  The second time around which is documented in the photos, they didn’t even enter the home and just used our front porch as a marching ground to move onto their next battleground.

The ants go marching two by two hurrah, hurrah!

Legacy and Change

Yesterday marked the last day of a visit from my family.  Their visit also happened to coincide with our 1 year anniversary of life in Peace Corps Costa Rica.  My wife and I hugged my mother as she readied to take the hotel shuttle to the airport and I couldn’t help but to think about all the changes that had occurred during our past year of service, both here in Costa Rica and on the homefront, back in San Francisco and Medford, OR.

When we arrived one year ago, we arrived as a group of 32 eager volunteers ready to take on whatever challenges lay ahead.  We had no idea of our site placement and came in with an intermediate level of Spanish, just enough to be generally conversational, but lacking in fluency and comprehension.  Now, we are a group 23 volunteers, some having left for medical reasons and the others having left for personal ones.  Gone is our unconditional eagerness, and in its place is a sense of realism that the visions that we once had to change the lives of the people in our host communities has met with the obstacles and the difficulty of bringing change to a foreign community without the change happening organically from within the community itself.  We’ve adjusted our expectations, oftentimes at the expense of our full personal satisfaction of our service, but at the end of the day we maintain the same ideals that brought us here: We are soldiers of peace and compassion and that we as a global community are connected.  We hold true to the fact that through our service, we can change lives, even if it is just one at a time and that those lives that we change have the ability to multiply, as people pay it forward to others in their lives.

These days we are able to switch fairly easily between our native English and Spanish and although we don’t always comprehend everything, we’re able to place a context and ask relevant questions to ascertain meaning.  With the time spent in our community and our improvement in communication we’ve been able to integrate better with our community, and love to come home from a long weekend trip to the “saludos” from kids and families in the community that we know.  Almost always, we see someone on the bus that we know from ours or a nearby community, and stop and chat – usually about the weather “¡Qué calor!” or when the next English class will be occurring.  With this integration, some of the projects that we came in dreaming are finally starting to be realized.  Communication and community integration have and will be a key to the successes that we hope to achieve in our brief stay here.

On the homefront, my nieces and nephews are growing and going to school, my sister is changing jobs, my mother retired and traveling constantly, friends having babies and everyone aging.  I spent my 35^th birthday in Costa Rican last April 12^th and will have the luck to be able to experience three birthdays while in country.  I will leave Costa Rica at the ripe old age of 37, no longer a jóven, by Costa Rican standards, which lasts until 35 years of age.  Instead, I will be a viejito, with the obligation and responsibility to condense my life experience and extract packets of wisdom which will guide me and my family in the years to come.  Life may seem to move slowly, but every moment we have on earth, represents an infinite amount of change.  I find a beauty in this change, a somehow ordered chaos, as each thing, both living and non-living, adjusts to these sometimes minute, other times sudden and violent changes, as if through some sort of sophisticated dance.

My mother remarked to me during a dinner that my sister commented to her after my father passed away that she is thinking more about what her legacy will try to imprint on the world before she to leaves the earth, as we all must do in the end.  Aging, and through aging, change, is something through which we all experience, and oftentimes fight, while trying to come to grips with what we may call the enigma of the human experience.  We all have ways to cope and manage with this experience, and some more healthy than others such as religion, meditation, writing, exercise and setting and achieving of goals.

Legacy was actually the theme of our last All Volunteer Conference last October as Peace Corps celebrated its 50^th anniversary (in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy).  Melinda and I will also be lucky to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Peace Corps Costa Rica, which began in 1963 in the final months of our service before we head home in 2013.  I think of all the volunteers who have sacrificed more than 2 years of their lives, believing in the same ideals which brought me and 31 other volunteers here to Costa Rica (and more than 7,000 worldwide).  I think about all the projects completed, schools built, relationships made, children taught and health improved, mostly through very simple initiatives.  Small efforts together equal enormous change.

So, I think both of my legacy as a Peace Corps volunteer and as a citizen of the planet.  I struggle to keep perspective on the big picture, that all the little things that I am accomplishing, as small as greeting someone with a smile, a hug and the intention to bring that person love and understanding in the face of the unknown, that all these small things we do, may seem small, but when aggregated together over the term of two years, or for a lifetime for that matter, is immensely positively powerful especially when multiplied by the people we touch.  I have to remind myself of this constantly, as small and as little as we may feel, we are also very powerful as free agents of change, that we are the masters of our decisions and the way we approach life.  The paradox of this opposition is that it can render us incapable, undeserving and powerless, but if liberated from this thinking, it brings this incredible sense of ownership and strength over our journey through life.

So, I guess the take home message I’m trying to get to here, is don’t get too fixated on the small things, especially the mistakes that we unavoidably all make.  Focus on your intention and think of how the positive small things that you do relate to the big picture.  If you like what you see in the big picture then you are likely on the right path.  As far as legacy goes, I’m not sure that in my case it may be as easily deducted as I would have hoped, but rather so far it is focusing on the quality of the experiences, relationships and work that I do – all small, but important details, which when added and multiplied are bringing positive change in our world of uncertainty.

What do Peace Corps Volunteers Really Do?

So now that they’re approaching our 1 year anniversary as volunteers (March 1, 2012), you’re probably thinking – well, I know that Melinda and Stephen are Peace Corps volunteers, but what do they really do?  Below is a summary of some of their projects to give you an idea what they’ve been up this past year.

March 1 – May 15^th – Training in Central Valley

May 15^th – Present – Working in site

When they first arrived in site, Stephen & Melinda were tasked with writing a community diagnostic detailing what they learned about during training regarding the strengths, resources, weaknesses and opportunities that exist within the community.  Generally, Peace Corps volunteers do not start many, if any, projects during the first three months in site and focus their efforts on getting to know people in their community, drinking coffee with neighbors and community leaders, interviewing community members, getting to know the institutions and organizations that work within our pueblos and the people and power structures which make it tick (or not).   After the first three months, volunteers are supposed to deliver a first draft (which usually winds up being a minimum of 30 pages).  Between months 3-9 the fine-tuning and revisions are done and finally a final draft is printed to be presented to the counterpart organizations and community as a whole.  As this report was to be returned all in Spanish it presented a major challenge for both Melinda and Stephen.  They are happy to report (no pun intended) that their finally copy was finally printed (87 pages!) and they will be presenting it shortly to their counterparts and other interested local citizens and organizations.

Melinda and Stephen started two projects during our first three months, both of which they are still currently working on: Guías y Scouts (the Costa Rican version of Boy & Girl Scouts, Guías being “chicas” and Scouts being “chicos”) and a basic English class for 7-12 year olds.  The Guías y Scouts group represents the entire canton of Talamanca (roughly the size of a couple large counties in the US) and they currently have 40 members between the “manada” (herd) group, which are between 7- 10 years old, and the “tropa” (troop) ages 11-15.  Melinda and Stephen work with the tropa group.  One highlight during last year was that the tropa group was able to locally raise enough funds to participate in the first regional Guías y Scouts camp to be held in the southern part of the province of Limón.

Limón Campamento in Octobrer 2011

In addition to attending the camp, they have organized workshops with the local Cruz Roja (Red Cross) teaching the Tropa group about First Aid, taken trips to entertain the elderly in the community of Bambú during the holidays in the Talamanca Indigenous Reserve at the “Hogar de Ancianos” and went out into the community to raise funds for a children’s hospital in San Jose during the annual “Teletón”.  Below are a few pictures of both the Guías y Scouts group and our English class.

Our first students - we taught in both houses and a neighborhood church

Guías y Scouts learning first aid at the local Red Cross

As Stephen may have mentioned in a previous blog, Melinda and he are also working together in the elementary school doing environmental education, oftentimes in conjunction with his counterpart NGO organization, the Corredor Biológico Talamanca-Caribe (The Talamanca-Caribbean Biological Corridor).  Melinda and he have also worked with them in the field of solid waste management with a focus on recycling, but also getting people to be able to separate their organic and non-organic waste correctly as this lack of separation attracts bugs and disease and invites stray dogs to tear open and scatter trash in the streets as they look for something to eat.  They have performed numerous community-wide clean-ups in many towns across Talamanca and this month we are starting our first domestic recycling initiative in our own barrio.  This is a unique project and will be the first time in any town in Talamanca to have a domestic recycling pick-up system.  As they perfect their pilot plan, they will then extend the program to include the entire community.  This is a huge goal in a region where a large portion of the community still burns their trash and where the Municipality still does not have a consistent garbage collection system.

Recycling campaign in Shiroles/Suretka - two communities in the Talamanca Indigenous Reserve

Separately, Melinda has worked in the elementary school with a counterpart from the Health Ministry providing recreational activities and hosting “charlas” or talks around such important issues as self-esteem and stereotyping.  She also has had a young women’s support group in a nearby community which also dealt with similar subjects until the high school in which it was being held was closed for health concerns.  Note: The high school was being held in a community center which did not have proper walls (plastic), ventilation or a proper sanitation system and Melinda had to facilitate the charlas on the basketball court for lack of sufficient space.

Melinda and local counterpart faciliating an activity about stereotypes at the local elementary school

Stephen continues to use his IT skills as a member of the ICT Committee supporting other Peace Corps volunteers in all things technological, including writing up documentation to help volunteers navigate the online banking, internet and telephone networks here in Costa Rica.  Melinda and Stephen are also both active in their regional Limón volunteer support network.  They also

They have worked with a fellow Peace Corps volunteer in a neighboring community on a Community Map mural painted on the wall of the elementary school to teach kids about geography, history and current events, worked on a dengue prevention campaign with the local clinic and hosted online presentations and exchanges between youth in their site and 5^th grade students in Howell, New Jersey in coordination with a program called World Wise Schools, helping to fulfill both the second and third goals of the Peace Corps which are concerned with cultural exchange and understanding.

As they head into the New Year, Stephen is working on a grant to get solar panels installed at his counterpart organization in an attempt to bring more consciousness about energy conservation and Melinda is contemplating starting a girl’s empowerment group here in our own pueblo.  Melinda and Stephen will also be looking to raise funds to help support the Bandera Azul program at the local elementary school which works toward improving the school environment (building a small recycling “warehouse”, replacing damaged ceiling tiles and fixing broken fans, improving/replacing the poorly maintained restrooms (see future blogs as we ask for your support!) and will also include a community map mural project of their own.

They’ve also participated in countless other activities and projects too numerous to be named, but just wanted to let you know that they’re not spending every day at the beach although when they need to take a day or two to get away from the stress, Costa Rica is not a bad place to be :-).

Living with the 'Rents

One of the challenges that Melinda and I faced when we joined the Peace Corps is that we knew we would have to live with host families during our first 3 months of training and then for our first 6 months in site.  There were many advantages to this scenario: we didn’t have to worry about cooking (an advantage and a disadvantage as you will discover), had our laundry washed and ironed, being able to practice our Spanish and generally not having to worry about cleaning anything except our rooms.  However, after leaving for college more than 15 years ago and being used to manage our own schedule without having to check in with anyone, there were more than a few tough adjustments we had to make.

The first adjustment we had to make was living apart as Melinda’s and my training programs were different and thus required us to live in different communities which turned out to be a little more than an hour bus ride away on a journey that took you from a rural, tranquil, mountain coffee growing community to a busy, congested and polluted suburb of the capital, San Jose.  Melinda’s host family lived conveniently closer to where we would have a number of our group core trainings, representing one of advantages she had over my training location.

We’ve gotten used to taking the bus…

Serving guests enormous amounts of food is one of the cornerstones of pride of the typical Costa Rican mother or housewife (known in Spanish as “ama de casa”).  Living in a Costa Rican home is like the proverbial visit to grandma’s house where you are served a gigantic heaping of food, and then when you’re done, you are always asked for seconds.  It is generally considered good manners to say yes to as much food as possible and a compliment to both the food and the “cocinera”.  Turning down a second helping could send a message to the chef that you didn’t like the food, potentially hurting the pride of your hosts.  If you do turn down food, it should be done so diplomatically, complimenting the food while giving an excuse like: “A mi me gustaría comer más de la sopa tan deliciosa, pero tengo que caber en mis pantelones!” (translation: I would like to eat more of your delicious soup, but I have to fit in my pants!) – gesturing dramatically toward your distended belly and pulling on your pants’ waistline.

Olla de carne (one of our favorite Costa Rican dishes)

Side Note: Comments about your weight or others at the table are not taboo here, you could be called skinny (delgadito(a) or flaco(a)) or even called fat or a little chunky (gordo(a) or gordito(a)).  In fact, such a comment could even be considered an endearment (like: Ah, here comes my little “gordito”!)

Another difficulty with not being able to cook for yourself is that you cannot control the manner in which the food is cooked, or the nutritional content of the meal in its entirety.  Frying food with copious amounts of oil is a very common practice here.  Also, the fat on meat is considered to be one of the most flavorful parts (see chicharones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicharr%C3%B3n).

chicharrones

Melinda once noticed our former housemother at our current site pouring a bottle of oil into the rice cooker and at their family party during training, Melinda and another volunteer had to impede an invitee from pouring oil into their freshly made mango salsa that they had made for their host families.

Another major inconvenience that we experienced living with host families was the lack of privacy.  Our rooms were small, walls were thin and the curtains appeared to be diaphanous (from the inside although from an outside test they appeared to be sufficient).  Not only every conversation on the other side of the wall could be heard, but you could hear snoring, breathing and the multitude of cacophonous sounds of everyday life.  And surely, if we could hear these sounds on our side of the wall, the same could be heard on the other, leading us to live our lives on tiptoes and in whispers.  Another cultural difference which Melinda touched on this on her recent post, is that people will also show up at your door unannounced.

While I joke about the challenges that we faced in our initial living situations, we actually have had mostly positive experiences at all our host families’ houses.  In fact, the majority of our house parents have since turned into good friends and collaborators and we recently spent a couple of days around Christmas with Stephen’s host family in the Central Valley.  The host families that the Peace Corps generally pick out take their assignment seriously, which is to share their family, space and culture with us as volunteers and to help us adjust and integrate into our new lives as Peace Corps volunteers.  Many of them feel that the generosity of their service to us as volunteers allows them to feel connected to the work we do as volunteers in our sites, thus connecting them to their large community as members of the Costa Rican family.  And through their selflessness and patience as hosts, Melinda and I feel more connected to our Costa Rican communities and see ourselves in the perspective as one global family, with an urgency to care for one another should we be able to confront the challenges of our increasingly interconnected and threatened "home" (Earth).

Observations on Urban (United States) vs. Rural (Costa Rican) Life

*Disclaimer: The urban areas I have lived in include: San Francisco, CA, Berkeley, CA, &, in New York, Harlem, The East Village, The West Village, & Brooklyn.  The rural areas I have lived in include only my small town – of around 1,400-1,500 people – in Costa Rica.*

Walking Down the Street

Urban life: People often avoiding eye contact, talking on their cell phones/iPhones/etcetera, listening to iPods, wearing sunglasses, walking quickly to their destination.  NOTE: New Yorkers often get a bad rap…my experience was if you smile at others, they will frequently smile back, as long as they are not at a near gallop in their pace.

Rural life: Almost everyone trying to make eye contact/giving a smile or a simple greeting, almost unheard of to wear sunglasses while walking (despite the crazy sun/heat), hardly anyone wearing headphones, everyone walking/biking/driving slowly to their destination (regardless of being early/late).  Cell phone usage is common, but it does not usually stop the person from greeting you (unless maybe they are a teen).

Shut the Front Door!

Urban life: People mainly keep their front doors closed (unless it is an excruciatingly hot day/they are having a house party).  Closed doors do not signal that no one is home.  In order to see if anyone is home, one would knock on the door a few times/ring the bell (usually not more than twice, though).  If there is no answer, they would leave.

Rural life: Almost everyone leaves their front doors open, regardless of weather.  This signals to others that someone is home.  If the front door is closed, it almost always means no one is home/everyone is asleep.  In order to see if anyone is home, a person walking by on the street will loudly yell “Upe!!”  Depending on the person, they will yell this repeatedly until they get an answer.  Most people will stop after a handful of “Upes,” though.  If you’re having a rough day/don’t want to be social, it’s best to keep your front door closed…this often prevents “Upe-ing.” (NOTE: some people will walk right in if the front door is open).

More on Doors

Urban life: Bedroom doors & bathroom doors, as well as front doors, when they are closed, are almost never opened by a person on the outside of the door, unless they knock first & get a response that it is okay to enter (or unless it’s a significant other or something).

Rural life: Closed bedroom doors, bathroom doors, & front doors are not always a signal to not enter.  Children in particular are known to just walk in, especially into bedrooms.  I learned early on in my host family’s home (that I no longer live in) to LOCK the bedroom door.  I entertained a way to make sure no one would enter our bedroom without knocking, but did not think it was a good idea to traumatize others just to make a point.

Let’s Get Together!

Urban life: When people want to meet with others for coffee/dinner/whatever, they often set up a time in which to do so.  If they say “We should get together!” & leave it at that, they often are only doing this as a nicety, & don’t really intend to see the other person again, unless they run into them.  However, if it’s a “Let’s get together,” followed by taking out one’s blackberry/other electronic device (in order to set a time/date), it’s on.  That all said, if the intention is to get together, a time/date is set, & generally adhered to.  One might show up at 7:10/15 (to a restaurant, say, for a dinner date), when the time agreed upon had been 7:00, but later than that would be pushing it (unless they were in rush hour traffic/had a medical emergency/etcetera).

Rural life: When people meet up with others, it is almost always by chance/informal.  It is not common to set up a time & date for coffee, especially.  If you want to have coffee with a friend in the community, it’s usually best to just “drop by” during cafécito time (in the afternoon, usually between 2 & 5pm), & often the other person will welcome you with coffee & maybe a snack (and a 1-2 hour chat).  People are not usually put off by someone just dropping by (in urban life, the drop by is not common, unless it’s a super close friend/there is an emergency/it’s a, um, “special friend” dropping by late at night).  NOTE: People will hardly ever say “no” if you say “we should get together.”  They may agree, generally, to a possible date/time, or say “that should be fine,” even when they have a legitimate other engagement.  No one likes to say “no,” to anything, ever, even when they really mean “no.”  It’s best to avoid saying “no” at all costs.  “Maybe” works well.  Oh, one other very important thing.  If you do have a legitimate meeting (like for an organization), it is customary to show up anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour+ late.  People who show up late will not apologize/advise others in advance (as it is, again, customary to be late).  If you show up 15 minutes late, you will almost always be the first person there.  The first staff meeting I attended for one (very legitimate) organization started 1 ½ hours late!

Keep it real,

The Lannings (btw this is Melinda writing, and it’s my first blog post.  Exciting stuff!  Lol).