sábado, 25 de diciembre de 2010

Costa rican christmas!

So i got to my site on monday. It was a pretty quiet week since schools out and a lot of people go to pick coffee in other regions. So i mostly hung out with my host family getting ready for christmas and the guests who have come through. One of the host brothers jaime came in with his family thursday night. So yesterday, on christmas eve we celebrated by making over 200 tamales. I learned every step and got a chance to make my own vegetarian ones.

At night we had several families stop by to eat tamales and exchange "carinitos" little gifts that they dont want to call actual gifts. Its was really nice to get to meet some of the families that i had heard a lot about and even wrapped all of their gifts. We drank ponche that reminds me of "coquito" that mom makes back home for christmas but with guaro instead of rum, thankfully it wasnt too strong because i really dont like guaro. We had cake while watching the kids finally get to open their gifts after being rowdy all day and begging to open even one. They were all so happy with what they got, and even though we opened them at 11 they all stayed up later playing with them.

This morning we headed out to the potrero to see the cows that my host dad had gifted to his grandkids. It was so much fun seeing the kids so excited. The ranch is right on the side of a gorgeously green mountain and although i see similar views every which way i still cant get used to the beauty. My host dad and siblings are always so excited to show me around and tell me the name of every flower and town we see. I especially love to see how happy my host dad gets to show me the view from every spot constantly asking me to take pictures from every which angle.

He took me in to where he had just corraled all of the cows and had me take pictures from in there while petting the loving ones who wanted attention. Staying clear of the violent ones standing near him because the cows know better not to mess with him apparently. Next, we drove over to where is farm is to climb the hill to where he has his garden where he plants stuff other than coffee and bananas. The views were just as incredible and we picked the most beautiful flowers to put on my new desk my host brother gave to me for christmas.

I had such a great christmas! I even got chocolate and two shirts, one from my training community family and the other from my new one. I feel so fortunate to have been welcomed into such a sweet and humble family just before the holidays. I miss my family so much of course but at least ive gotten a few phone calls and and am still getting updates. Ill settle in and watch a movie later in honor of my brothers and my tradition but in the meantime im going to go eat some more tamales. Im pretty excited for the vegetarian ones to run out pretty soon, hehe. Happy holidays everyone! Hugs and kisses, jenny

miércoles, 15 de diciembre de 2010

Last Week of Training!!!

Hey guys,

Sorry I´m so bad at posting regularly but training has been pretty intense.  But we are in our 10th and final week!  Sunday we had our Family Party which was really fun.  We made spagetti, sang karaoke and played with the kids.  The sweetest part was that we each said a few words to our families and handed them a diploma.  It´s a really nice gesture for them which I really appreciated. 

Yesterday we had our last training in Tarbaca high up in the mountains on the coldest day of the year here and we froze our butts off up there!  But we had a corny candle-lighting ceremony each of us thanking someone else for something and it turned out to be really cute and a nice way to close out our tech training. 

Today we came to Frailes the next big town over with all of the TEFL trainees.  We played cute games like Red Rover, Gigante, Bruja, y Enanito and a fun line one similar to the Human Knot.  It was especially nice because we did all of this right next to this really pretty lagoon and coffee all around us.  Then, we had a nice little lunch and learned the Costa Rican National Anthem which we´re going to have to sing at our swearing-in ceremony on Friday.

 Tomorrow we have our interviews with the Country Director, Program Manager, Tech Trainer and Medical Officer and have a session on Bicycle Safety!!!  The bicycle safety one is exciting because I´m so excited to finally ride bike!  Since my ankle gets funny I would much rather ride bike as my exercise and I´m so excited to start once I finally have time when I get to my site! 

Friday morning we swear-in in the morning!  Then, some of us are spending the night in San Jose to celebrate.  Saturday I´m going to meet my family in Heredia to spend the night with them at Vivi and Juanca´s house (my host-brother and his girlfriend who live in San Jose)!  I´m really excited to finally see their place!  Ok, off to my last times at home in our training communities! 

Excited to start working!  Sad I won´t be spending as much time with my friends.

jueves, 9 de diciembre de 2010

Site Visit

Site visit
So we had our counterpart workshop thursday and friday and i was still pretty sick. It was a little nerve-racking to finally meet the people were going to be working with for the next two years. But we had some great team building training which eased the tension.  

Saturday I lucked out and was able to get a ride from Tres Rios in a buseta that the counterparts from Acosta (my county) had rented. So they drove us through San Jose to see our bus stop and treated us to breakfast which was really sweet.  Then they dropped us off in San Ignacio de Acosta the city whee I can catch a bus from to my town.  I hung out in the park until my new host-sister met me to show me which bus to take to my community -La Cruz.

La Cruz is about a twenty minute car ride or thirty minute bus ride on mostly unpaved roads. The roads are especially torn up after the bad weather with a ton of land slides and some pretty dangerous passes with water still sliding down. But on the other side the view is incredible! The mountains are greener than a North Carolina summer if you can believe it. The only break of green in sight is the occasional scarring of orange where the mud slid.  

My digs- dude... I have my own bathroom! With hot water!!! And my room is in the basement! The four year old playing can be loud if i wake up late but I'm sure I'll get used to it.  They said they're going to get me a desk and I cant wait to sit in front of the window with the most amazing view any of my desks has ever seen that's for sure!  

The family is really "buena gente." The dad Luis Calvo (lots of Luises) works is farm all day, the mom Aida in the kitchen.  My sister Elena lives next door with her husband Juan Luis and their two sons Pablo 4 years, and Emanuel 2 months.  Their two sons live in Parrita near the beach and I have yet to meet one. One of them is married with two kids, I'll update on them once i meet them at Christmas time.

The schools were great. Although they were already on vacation I got a chance to spend several hours with two of the three English teachers I'll be working with ane I'm super excited to get started! The director had me speak a few minutes in front of the high school kids on the spot and I'm hoping i didn't make a fool of myself!  I asked them to sign up if they wanted to form an English group over the break and ten minutes after i walked away they brought me a list of 15 students! 

Then i decided to walk to the pulperia after school finished and met the owner and chatted with him over the juice i bought from him. As everyone came in he introduced me and I had the chance to chat with a ton of people about what brings me to town. A lot of people were excited that I was coming to stay and new people I met had already heard about me which awesome, of course as I go I have to correct the stories heard through the game of telephone but it's all in good spirit! I'm so excited to get started!!!

miércoles, 1 de diciembre de 2010

Weekend Update


So we’ve had our two weekends out of community since training started and they’ve both been so much fun.  Our first weekend we went into San Jose and had lunch at a great Italian place and I had some amazing pasta right near our hostel.  Some friends went to the mall but our group decided to go check out the Central Market which is an indoor bazaar basically.  It reminded me a whole lot of the one in Fez with loads of stands that had spices and others with random little gadgets or touristy toys.  That night we went out dancing which was tons of fun and hung out at the hostel and a cool pastry shop called Spoon on Sunday.
The following weekend we rented our own bus and made our way down to Puerto Viejo, Limon with 36 of us trainees.  We made it there in about 4 hours and checked in to this awesome hostel!  We had planned on sleeping in hammocks and were excited about it but this place was just so cool.  They had 70 hammocks and two big areas for people to camp out it.  The walls and floors were laid with mosaic tiles and had great designs or quotes written in. 
We went out for lunch at this cool place right off the beach and tried going for a swim while waiting for our food but the lava rocks were too intense to go in deeper than our ankles.  So we went for a swim a little bit up the beach later but the rocks didn’t let us go further than shoulder deep.  I was going crazy not being able to swim more!  I felt like a Chilean miner not being able to get out!  We had some drinks at the hostel and went out dancing afterward. 
The next morning we had a delicious breakfast, I really love splurging on food when we all get together.  Then we walked for about 20 minutes in the rain to another gorgeous beach, but this one was where we should have been the whole time!  It was the surfer beach and tons of people were out there.  Most of our group had already taken to swimming out there and I immediately got out there and swam for hours in water that I couldn’t even find the floor in.  It poured the entire time and the ocean was the only place to stay warm.  When we weren’t body-surfing (getting torn up by the crazy waves) the girls and I were singing and dancing in the shallow water.  So much fun!  This is the first day that I have felt completely relaxed and in one piece since I got here.  I love the ocean so much.  This beach even had a gorgeous little island right off of it like the one at Hana Beach.  So worth the 6 hour bus ride we had to take on our way back home due to road closures because of more landslides.  All in all.  Amazing.
Jennay signing off.

Training Update

Hello again, 

So training keeps us pretty busy and I haven't had too many chances to upload this.  I do have a cell phone now with internet on it!  Imagine that, me finally having internet on my cell phone once I get to Costa Rica.  It's so much less expensive here since it's prepaid!  I'm checking my e-mail a couple times a day now so you guys can send me e-mails often and I usually check it a couple times a day! 

So training has its ups and downs.  We constantly have something to do, and when we don't we have to spend as much time as possible with our families which leaves very little time to relax.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore my family.  That's probably the best part about training is becoming part of this family.  Creating my own place in it which is really going to stink when I move away in a couple weeks. 

The teaching training we get can get a little redundant, but we got a chance to organize some classes here in our community recently.  Our group decided to teach a couple classes for elementary students and another for adults.  Both of them went great.  But it was especially fun for me to work with the adults who had so much fun learning English.  Some of them had very little experience with the language while others knew a good bit.  All of them enjoyed our classes and commented on how great the format of it was which is what we're hoping for.  This session with the adults seriously reinforced why I'm here and I just can't wait to get started. 

We also have some really fun days at training especially when some of our friends co-teach the sessions.  Yesterday we had one on scaffolding and we had a whole dance lesson with each person teaching 4 dance moves and building off of that.  Oh it was so much fun!  So basically, it's tiring, but we always make fun of the lessons needed to be learned.  But I still can't wait to get started.