My new home for the next 2 years

…is Bijagua, and I’m pretty excited about it!

So I went to visit Bijagua this past week to get the lay of the land, meet my new host family, and start to poke around a bit. Short version: Bijagua, my family, and possible projects are all awesome! Long version:

The community –
Bijagua is a rural town in the north of Costa Rica, pretty close to Nicaragua. It is located between two volcanoes – Tenorio and Miravalles! It is at the heart of the biological corridor of the two volcanoes, which also means that there is lots of wildlife around. It sounds like I will have neighbors such as monkeys, sloths, poison dart frogs, lots of birds, and of course a fun mix of bugs and even scorpions! And on the volcanoes, there are hot springs and lots of waterfalls and rivers (disclaimer: water pics are not mine – have not been there but will right that soon enough). There’s one river called Rio Celeste that is named for its beautiful blue waters that are due to the minerals that mix with the water. And there is just so much beautiful nature all around with great hiking. In other words, lots of extra incentive to visit me!

One of the harder things to deal with will probably be this non-stop rain that I’ve heard about. But I figure I’ve worked up a lifetime rain deficit while living in southern California, so it will be good to work some of that off. And it is also the reason why everything is so green and beautiful, so vale la pena. And besides, it will be a great excuse to sport some stylish rubber boots.

There are fields with cows and horses all around but there is a bank, internet cafes, primary schools and a high school, a few markets, hotels, etc. It is also pretty accessible by bus, right on a main road – short 4-hour bus ride to San Jose. I really feel like I’ll have the best of both worlds – a rural town with bastante resources.

(I didn’t take many photos this week, but I’ll post more once I do)

Living Situation –
I will be living with an older couple about the same age as my parents. They are a really nice couple and a hard working team. Alcira (my new mama tica) is an artist and her art is painted on the wood pieces or within the wooden frames that Rafael (my new papa tico) creates. Alcira plans on teaching me some art while I’m there. They also sell different homemade corn products (cornbread, empanadas de chiverre, etc) every day throughout the community that they bake in their outdoor concrete fire oven – yum! On that note, I will definitely be well fed while I am there, as Alcira is a great cook. If you are reading this blog you probably know that my happiness is pretty connected to food. La cocina is another art that Alcira will be teaching me. I just will have to make lots of use of all the beautiful trails so as not to double my weight while I’m there, eating so much good food. Their children are grown and out of the house, but one of Alcira’s daughters has a daughter and they come by often as they live in the surrounding barrio. It will be nice to come home to a tranquila house with some good food after a long day.

The house itself is a lot more typical of rural houses, with walls that don’t reach the ceiling, less sealed off from the outside, and cold showers. The last one is probably the one that is a little harder for me. But I’ll just have to plan my exercise around my showers to warm up beforehand. More encouragement to keep off those cornbread pounds!

I will be living with them at least for the first 6 months of service (PC CR rules recently changed from a year to 6 months required to live with a host family). After that I can move out on my own if I find a safe and affordable place. It would be nice to have a place to call my own, but I also appreciate the time with a family, learning the culture, practicing my Spanish, integrating into the community, eating well, etc. We’ll see how I feel and what I find when 6 months rolls around. But I think it will go really well.

Project Work –
I am really excited to be able to report that it sounds like I will have a plethora of possible projects in Bijagua.

One fabulous resource that I have for my first 2-3 months is named Ryan. He is the PCV that I will be replacing. After his 2 years in Bijagua, he has tons of projects already going that I can continue to work with such as the Empresa de Credito Comunitario (ECC) (Community Credit Enterprise) – a micro credit institution where the community members pool their money to loan to themselves and therefore there is a much better repayment rate and the interest from the loans goes right back to them. He is also helping a co-op to start up at the school in the neighboring community that will sell organic produce and fertilizer. He also has projects with women’s groups, the schools, and lots more.

But even though Ryan has done so many projects, there is still a vast potential for projects that I can help with. We’re going to try to get a farmers’ market started up, work with environmental groups, and help develop the tourism industry even more. Then there are possibilities of teaching business, English, or technology classes.

I expect it to be challenging, but at least there is lots of potential and a plethora of interesting projects that I am passionate about. Now I just can’t wait to get started.

So now we are back in our training communities for our last few days. Our official swearing in will be May 29 at the US Ambassador’s house. Then it’s off to our new homes. Exciting stuff!

Peace Body

I got back from our Tech Visit last Friday. We visited Kayla in San Mateo – awesome site and amazing volunteer. It was a whirlwind of a week, chalk full of activities so I’ll just give the highlights.

This area is known as the fruit region so it wasn’t surprising that one of our first visits was to a family who does just about everything you can with mariñones, which I had never heard of before I got to Costa Rica. So first we tried the fruit itself, experiencing its full bitterness. Then we all tried our hand at the mariñon-crushing machine they invented to process 10 times the number of cases as they had by hand (love the ingenuity). The juice that came out was immediately poured into glasses for us – talk about fresh. Then they showed us where they process the crushed mariñones to dry them and we got to try those as well, which were sooo delicious. And to finish it off, we got to sample the product that I actually already knew and loved but never knew the source – cashews! Cashews are the seeds of mariñones, which grow outside the fruit (I believe the only such seed). It was amazing to see how many delicious products come from the same fruit and are all processed by this small family.

The next day we toured an old mine, complete with bats flying in our faces, which I felt so well prepared for with my handy dandy head light. Then we spent the rest of the morning splashing around in the best natural water park ever. There was

a rock water slide that was too perfect to be naturally formed, rocks to jump off of, and a swing to jump into the water. It’s so funny how we instantly search for things to jump off of.

We also visited the Fabrica de Semillas de Mariñon (cashews) where they crack and peel organic cashews by hand. So delicious. The visit with the Artesanas de San Mateo was also awesome and made me want to do sculpture. They were such a talented group of women.

We attempted to teach English at the Telesecundaria in a neighboring community with mixed success. First of all, a Telesecundaria is a rural community’s version of a colegio (high school) when they don’t quite have the resources for a colegio. It is generally low on teachers and resources. And like many Telesecundarias, this one was in the Salon Comunal, with four different classes all in the same room. Combining the noise of the other

classes, the melting heat, the often fatalistic attitude of the students, the fact that a relatively high percentage of the students are already parents, and the lack of resources doesn’t make the teachers’ (or students’) job an easy one. But nonetheless, Leah and I taught a bit about how to describe someone. They all had to describe another student in the class. And though we gave them about 20 words, everyone ended up being ugly, fat, and stupid. It’s refreshing to know that 12-14 year olds are the same everywhere.

But then we also visited the colegio técnico in the town center, which was a world away. They have a computer lab, specializations to study (tourism, cooking, accounting, etc), and lots of projects (mariposera, compost, sell food, etc). It was much better off than my high school in the US. The tourism students even took us on a hike to the river. We saw monkeys along the way and ended up at another nice river, where we found some more tall stuff to jump off of.

A visit to the Ancianos place was an entertaining endeavor with singing, dancing, and even some magic. It was also the best Welcome sign yet (direct translation of Cuerpo de Paz).

We also got to teach an ICT class to some local business people. We taught Publisher to the librarian who made a library schedule and posted it immediately. How’s that for immediate results?

The last night we had a rockin’ party with all the host families and the rest of the community. There was salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, hip-hop, and more. It was a great way to end the week.

The next day we ‘debriefed’ our experiences from the week at the beach in Jaco. Such a nice and much-needed vacation…I mean debriefing. Though Jaco is over touristy and a little sucio, it was a relaxing day with some swimming, sun bathing, reading, and nice food (I had been missing fish tacos dearly). The whole day just wet my palate for this weekend, when our whole training group will be taking our one vacation night together there.