Training

I am currently sitting in Pavon (a town 8km from my site) waiting for 9 trainees to show up. They are the new group of PC volunteers and are coming to visit my site for 6 days. It should be quite an experience! I am super excited because I know that it is going to be really fun for my community. I am pretty much the only gringa that they really know, so they are going to learn a lot about how different we all look, act etc. from these trainees. Can you imagine 10 gringos in a town of 300 people?

Hopefully tomorrow their presence will help get people to attend the annual meeting of the Development Association (it is often hard to get quorum to actually have the meeting). I am also excited because all 9 of them have to teach a different English class for practice. So this week my kids are going to learn a lot of English, and I think it will be good for them to hear different accents and learn from someone new.

Unfortunately it has started raining and my road is once again very muddy. I hope it clears up, because I feel bad that the trainees will have to walk around without boots, either getting their shoes really dirty or having to walk around town barefoot.

Anyway, I am really excited about their visit and think it is going to be a fun experience! I will let you know how it goes.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I just got word today that my town´s playground project is fully funded!! Thank you all for your support and helping me raise over $5,000 in about 2 months. I am excited to get back to my site today and let the women of the Comite Tutelar know. They are going to be so happy.

Now it is time to get to work and prepare the land, order the playground etc. I will keep you all updated on the progess.

Thanks again,
Kelsey

Farm Life Part 2

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, one of the things I am enjoying about living on a farm in rural Costa Rica is the fresh food that we eat. With sustainability being such a popular concept these days, it is great to experience it firsthand. I love eating the fresh fruit and veggies that we just picked from a local tree or my host dad's farm. Speaking of fruit, I have tried so many different types of tropical fruits, most of which I don't even think have a name in English. Some of the fruits that we have growing in my town are: Mangos, Pineapple, Manzana de agua, Coconut, Caimito, Guava, Guanabana, Grenadilla, Granada, Oranges, Jocones, Limones. I will have to take a picture of some of them soon and post them.

Many of you know that before doing Peace Corps I was not a big meat eater. In fact, I think I once went over 5 years without eating beef. And after having Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation speak at my college graduation, I was even less inclined to eat beef, especially from McDonalds. Well, things have definitely changed! At first, I was still hesitant of eating meat, but once I realized that I didn't have much choice (since a strictly black beans and rice diet gets old really quick) I gave it a chance, and am actually enjoying eating beef and pork. It also helps that I know exactly where the meat I am eating came from. If the pig was not raised 50 feet outside my bedroom, by my host family, then it was probably raised by one of our neighbors. And the beef that we eat is almost always a calf of one of my host-grandfathers or also from a neighbor.

In high school, I wouldn't dare step foot into the "wet markets" in Singapore, which had cows, chickens etc hanging up with their blood dripping out. Or if I did ever venture in with my mom, I would only look at the ground and would hold my nose the whole time. Oh how things have changed… I now joyously go to the slaughtering of the cow or the pig, and I take lots of pictures! I have decided not to post the bloody pictures here, but if you would like to see them, just let me know. I have quite a few! As I mentioned in my previous post about the hen, it has been so interesting learning about the anatomy of the different animals, such as seeing the various stomachs of the cow! I really do think I am turning into a farm girl.

As I mentioned above, a lot of the meat that we eat might come from our neighbors. This is another benefit of living in a small town – everyone shares their crops, meat etc. If someone's cow dies and they have to butcher it, they will send the meat to at least 10 different families in town. Or after someone picks all the yucca, pineapple, or other vegetable, they give a lot of the extra to whoever wants it. This really creates a sense of community, and is something that you won't find in the big city!

Here are some fun pictures to reflect my farm life:

My Costa Rican Family

I want to pay tribute to my wonderful host-family. I am so lucky to have them, because they have really embraced me as a member of their family. In fact, I was walking the other day with my host mom and two host sisters in the mud with our boots on and my little sister says, "The whole family wearing boots…" And then my older sister joked with her about calling me her family. But it is true, most of the time I think that we all consider me another member of the family.

So, my tico family consists of:

William, 40

Isabel, 40

Gabriel, 11

Noemi, 8

Daniela, 3

Sugarcane!

My host uncle has a lot of sugar cane and he just repaired the trapiche (grinder?) so we can drink fresh juice whenever we want. Here are pictures of us grinding sugar cane:

Farm Life

This morning my host mom, Isa, killed one of our hens to make soup. Though she has done this many times before, today was the first time that I witnessed the whole process. After slicing its neck and draining the blood, she pours some hot water over it. This helps with the de-feathering. I was surprised by how easy it was to pluck all the feathers. Once she sliced it open we found multiples eggs in different stages. One was today's egg and was complete and ready to fry up. The rest were different sizes and in different stages of formation. The picture below should help explain this better.

While she was preparing the hen, my host dad went out to pick some of the vegetables for the soup. He grows yucca and other tubers, which my host mom added to the soup. I have found that this is the great thing about living on a farm! All the fresh meat and veggies.

Here is the soup ready to eat!

Park and Playground

Greetings from Costa Rica! I hope that you are all doing well and surviving winter and the economic crisis. I am writing to tell you about a project that I am working on and to ask for your help.

I can’t believe that I have been in Costa Rica for over a year! I am really enjoying myself and very happy with my decision to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. Living in a rural Costa Rica, in a town of 300 people has turned out to not be as hard as I thought; I'm actually quite enjoying the farm life!

As I have written before, in the past year I went through 3 months of training, did a community analysis of my site by conducting interviews, started teaching English classes and am working with various community groups in Cristo Rey. In the past few months, I finally feel like I have a good idea of what the community’s priorities are and how I can help them achieve these goals. Thus, I can kind of picture how my final year and 2 months will play out. After all the surveying, one of the projects that the community of Cristo Rey is the most enthusiastic about (me too!) is the construction of a park and playground in the center of town.


I am currently working with a group of women who form the Comite Tutelar, a group formed last year to protect and promote the rights of children in the community. These women feel that the lack of safe recreational opportunities for the kids in the community is a major issue. And let me tell you, at least from an American perspective, there currently really isn't a place for kids to play--the few kids that have bikes ride them up and down the street, but the rest generally stay inside their homes.

Based upon the awesome work of these women, the local Catholic Church has generously donated a 20 x 20 meter piece of land right in the center of town. Our plan is to install the playground in the center, place benches on the outside and plant flowers and trees.


This park will make a huge difference in my community, not only for the kids, but for the whole town. It will not only be really pretty (my master gardener mother is helping research some of the best plants), but also extremely functional. My hope is that by working with the community and engaging the community in the building of the park, it becomes a point of pride for the whole community. Also, I am excited that the park will provide both kids and parents a healthy place to congregate and interact with one another. Even though the community is very small, it is still very common for the women and young kids to stay in their houses all day and have little interaction with their neighbors.

The women in the Comite Tutelar, and the community as a whole, are very excited and dedicated to this project, as am I. We can all picture what a difference it will make for the kids and the community.

The budget for this project is $5,000 and the community has committed to contributing 25% of expenses. Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, raising the rest of the money in-country will be difficult (we don't have a title for the land, being one of many) and so, with Peace Corps approval, I am asking you, my friends, family, and friends of friends and family to help make a real difference in this community by donating to this project. Your contribution will be fully tax-deductible and you can do it online by visiting the Peace Corps website, http://www.peacecorps.gov/contribute. Once there, simply click on "Donate to Volunteer Projects", type in "515-153" to search for my project, and click submit (you may need to scroll down the page to see the project come up.) You can also see a more complete project description online if you are interested.

Please help Cristo Rey by donating to this project. I hear (through my NPR podcasts) that times are tough in the US with the economic crisis, but any amount that you can give, even $10 takes us a step closer to our goal. Also, we´re shooting to get started in May, before the rainy season starts, which means that I need to raise the money by the end of April. Again, anything that you can give will help a lot!

If you have any questions I am happy to send you more details or a complete project proposal. Also, please consider helping me even more by sending this to your friends and family who may not know me personally, but might be interested in helping build a playground! Everyone who donates will get playground construction updates (and serious thanks) from me!