Counterpart Meeting and Swear-in Ceremony Speech

 Howdy!

CED - TICO 26

Sorry I didn't post an entry in the last two weeks. It has been a busy month due to the holidays coming up. Things somewhat slowdown here in Costa Rica in the Christmas month of December, many things were set up (meetings, projects, last-minute work) for the last few weeks of November. But alas I will finally talk about our swear-in ceremony.


After knowing were we would serve for the next two years. We had one more week to go. We would meet our counterpart (our point of contact for knowing our community, leaders and potential projects) from our site assignment for the first time and hold sessions on several subjects. The place we all met was in the original place were we came in when we first arrived in Costa Rica, "The Retreat". It was quite exciting because no one knew what to expect. These sessions were extremely helpful because Peace Corps talks specifically of the many questions other future volunteers have: "How much will be my allowance?", "How much do I pay my host family?", "What happens if...?". Many of your questions are answered in these training sessions. We started on a Tuesday and left the retreat on an early Friday morning, we then stayed for a weekend with our counterpart to see were we would live, know community leaders and important things we needed to know about before coming permanently, we returned on Sunday and had one more day of Spanish classes on Monday. The next day the Swear-in Ceremony would be at the Ambassadors Residency in San José, Costa Rica.

TICO 26

We woke up first thing in the morning and we were all ready in San Isidro de Heredia ready to be picked up by PC to be taken to the ceremony. Something I hadn't mentioned is that I was given the honor by my fellow PCV's of giving the Swearing-in Speech. There were two speeches that would be given, one by YD and one by CED. For time purposes we decided to make our speech together.It was a live streamed through the internet so our family and friends could see it on the web. I won't say much of the event itself. I will let future PCV's experience it for themselves. I leave you with the speech given in the ceremony:

Swear-in Speech

Discurso para el Día de Juramentación

        Señor Gonzalo Gallegos, Encargado de Negocios de la Embajada de los Estados Unidos de América, Señor Mario Fung, Asesor Nacional del Departamento de Orientación del Ministerio de Educación Pública, Señora Ana Lourdes Golcha Directora Ejecutiva del Programa Junior Achievement, Señora Carol Barrick, Directora del Cuerpo de Paz Costa Rica, invitados especiales, funcionarios de la Embajada de los Estados Unidos y del Cuerpo de Paz, queridas familias anfitrionas y aspirantes de TICO 26.  
Es un honor estar frente a ustedes hoy en esta ceremonia donde  en pocos minutos, los 30 voluntarios aquí presentes tendremos el honor de dejar de ser aspirantes y llamarnos voluntarios en una de las mejores organizaciones voluntarias del mundo – el Cuerpo de Paz de los Estados Unidos de América – con el privilegio de dar 2 a!os de nuestro servicio en el gran país de  Costa Rica.

Han sido exactamente 89 días desde que nos conocimos. Hemos reído, aprendido, fallado, batallado, entre muchas cosas. Pero hemos llegado a estar aquí por el gran esfuerzo y motivación que nos dimos entre nosotros y que nos dieron nuestros facilitadores. 89 días de entrenamiento intenso donde nos levantamos temprano y dormíamos tarde, donde éramos desconocidos y nos convertimos en una familia. 

Queremos agradecer a todos los que nos entrenaron, sabemos que su esfuerzo fue igual o mayor al que 
nosotros hicimos. Se levantaron temprano, llegaron primero que nosotros, nos entrenaron y finalmente se quedaron planeando nuestro siguiente entrenamiento. Un trabajo largo, difícil y continuo. Gracias por todo el amor y esfuerzo que le pusieron ha nuestros entrenamientos. Queremos agradecer Carol, Maru, Carolina, Natalia, Don Luis, Vinyela, nuestros facilitadores de español y todo el equipo de Cuerpo de Paz que merecen mención pero si los mencionamos a todos nos quedamos sin tiempo de hacer el discurso. Queremos también agradecer a nuestras familias anfitrionas sin su amor, cariño y apoyo no hubiéramos podido llenar el gran vacío que dejamos con nuestras familias en Estados Unidos.Finalmente un ultimo agradecimiento a nuestras familias y amigos que están en casa viéndonos en este momento, gracias por su apoyo y comprensión en nuestra decisión de servir en el Cuerpo de Paz.
Estamos comprometidos a representar a nuestro gran País, a Cuerpo de Paz y Costa Rica.

Queridos Voluntarios:             

Se que va ver  momentos buenos como malos, apartir de mañana estaremos en nuestro sitio  731 días. Por lo mismo queremos pedirles que cuando tengan un momento de pensar, escriban en un papelito por que decidieron unirse al Cuerpo de Paz y guardenlo. Cuando estén en sitio y se sientan solos y sin motivación, lean ese papelito y verán que todo tendrá sentido de nuevo. Cuando vayan a su sitio serán los 3 meses mas difíciles y por lo mismo les dejamos esta frase de motivación:

“Empieza haciendo lo necesario, después lo posible, y de repente te encontrarás haciendo lo imposible.” 
– San Francisco de Asís 

Viva Costa Rica, Viva el Cuerpo de Paz y que VIVA TICO 26! Pura Vida! Gracias.

At the end of the event, our country director took us to her private residence and made a luncheon for us. That was something were told had never been done by any country director in Costa Rica (She just started working in Costa Rica, when we first arrived in country; we were her first batch of volunteers). Which we as Peace Corps Volunteers really appreciated. We always like to be fed. Thanks Carol!

Delish 4

Before Swearing-in

Volunteers waiting to know where were going?!

Howdy!

I know I mentioned in my last post I would talk about my swear-in ceremony, but before that I want to talk about our site assignments. Before I start, I want to thank all PC staff for the time and effort on developing our whole PC training. People don't notice little things like the logistics and the hours of preparation to get things done. From little things as getting your name on an envelope with your allowance to transported from one place to another. It's takes a lot of effort, thus I want to thank everyone who made all of our training possible.

           

Waiting...but happy :)

 A few days before our last training sessions...

Enjoying the pool at country club

As training was in its ending period, every single volunteer was curious from the moment they stepped out of the plane in Costa Rica. "Where will we serve?". After almost three months of training, PC setup a day out in a country club. There volunteers, staff and friends gathered for a day of good food, sports, pool and most importantly knowing where will we be for the next two years. After much anticipation, a whole event evolved in the process of knowing. I won't talk about it, so other future PCV can experience it. But it was full of happiness and joy. I was very happy with my site: Barranca, Puntarenas. A very big site with a population of over 40,000 people and a high index of unemployment and high welfare enrollment. This meant that there was a lot of work to be done and was very happy and scared as the same time. After knowing where we would spend the next two years, we enjoyed our day and spend our free night out of site in a hostel with other volunteers from other regions in an event called VACtail. Basically a welcoming party from other volunteers for the newbies "us". Next post I will talk about the process of the Swear-in ceremony. Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

Chilling @ VACtail or as we renamed it...Backsnail

Pre-Service Training - Part III

Howdy!

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Today I will write about a  usual week in PST. Like I mentioned before PST consisted of this two activities:

Spanish Training - Gain and/or improve Spanish skills, culture and ethics in Costa Rican culture.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
8 AM - 3:30 PM with an hour lunch.

Peace Corps Training - Theory, Methodologies, Ethics, Safety, Medical, etc...when move to site.
Tuesdays and Thursdays
8 AM - 4:30 PM (sometimes we would leave early or later) with an hour lunch.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays

I would typically wake up at 6:45 AM and have breakfast and walk about a mile and meet my group in the "salon comunal" by 8:00 AM, it's a usually a classroom within the church's premises, were we would meet up with our Spanish facilitator and did several Spanish activities. For example: interviewing business and people, vocabulary, "dichos" (slang), day trips, etc. This part of training really gives you the confidence to go out there and talk to people. I honestly thought before coming to Peace Corps I would be shipped to a site and would start working on a project. But first part of the process is gaining the communities Trust. The day would end up at around 3:00-3:30 PM, my classmates and I would usually walk around our community, eat a snack; usually french fries and just talk about our day and our plans in the future. 

Tuesdays and Thursdays

San Isidro de Heredia Church

These days I would typically wake up at 5:30 AM, I would get ready, sometimes if I had time I would have some breakfast and be at the bus stop to San José at 6:15 AM. It would usually takes us around 1-1.5 hours to get to San José (its only 7 miles away, but would make around 20 stops or so). We would arrive at 7:30 AM or so and we get some coffee for a few minutes at a coffee/bakery shop called "La Colombiana" and walk to the FOV which is the Federación de Organizaciones Voluntarios, which is a place were volunteer organizations can use for activities such as teaching, presentations, events, etc. In other words, it's a bunch of classrooms. We would be there till 4:00-4:30 PM learning about safety, medical, methodologies, ethics, and many more subjects and leave back home. We would take a bus and one out of two times we would hang out in San Isidro de Heredia which is the community in the middle from were all the PCV resided. We would usually have some good food and drinks.

This went on for about three months, until we finally finished PST and went on to our Swear-In Ceremony. I will talk about that in my next post. Thank for reading.

Cheers!

Pre-Service Training - Part II

Howdy!

In my last post we were dropped off in our community, were we would live for the next 2 months 3 weeks of our lives.

San Rafael de Heredia Church

I was assigned to the Fonseca Family, they live in San Rafael de Heredia, I met my new family at the church. An interesting fact about Costa Rican towns is that the center of the town lays a church and a soccer field in front of it. San Rafael is about a 1.5 hour bus to San Jose. (Not because of distance, but because of the twenty plus stops it takes all around the area to pickup and drop people).

When I saw my host mom and sister for the first time I didn't know what to do. So I happily greeted them and kiss them on the cheek. Then we took a taxi to their house with my 150 pounds of luggage. We arrived and was showed around the house, and lastly to my room. I told them I would freshen up and unpack. Some hours passed and they told me to go down for lunch; I was super hungry from the long trip. We talked a bit about the living arrangements (what time they eat there meals, when do they do laundry, etc). I told them if it was ok to go upstairs and keep unpacking, I literally went to sleep around 4-5 PM and didn't wake up until the next day. I was extremely tired from everything, meaning an accumulation from to Staging until Now. It was the first time I could sleep and didn't have to worry about waking up to an activity first thing in the morning. It felt so good.

The schedule of PST goes as follows:

Spanish Training - Gain and/or improve Spanish skills, culture and ethics in Costa Rican culture.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
8 AM - 3:30 PM with an hour lunch.

Peace Corps Training - Theory, Methodologies, Ethics, Safety, Medical, etc...when move to site.
Tuesdays and Thursdays
8 AM - 4:30 PM (sometimes we would leave early or later) with an hour lunch.

This schedule would be for the rest of training. Some days you will do activities in other places, Saturday training (rare), travel to other PCV's sites, Trips to San Jose, etc...Weekends are usually free, 9 times out of 10 you spend them with your host family and go places and enjoy the real Costa Rican way of life.

On my next post I will talk a bit more in depth about what I did while living in San Rafael and a bit about what to expect from training. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Pre-Service Training "PST" - Part I

Howdy!

Well after quite a rather exhausting process I was finally here in Costa Rica! Now came PST, during PC service you will start using many acronyms for everything; maybe for time saving reasons (I think) or just because it sounds cool.

I know most people like myself read the PC website or heard from other people about the three months of training. First and foremost your official title is: PC Trainee; until you swear in, then you are an official PCV. After I arrived at the airport we were taken in a bus accompanied with PC staff to a sort of retreat (I included just three photos, I want future volunteers to experience it for themselves). There we stayed for one week, they talked about many subjects some of them were: PC Costa Rica, safety, guidelines, culture, ethics and they will test your language skills; don't worry if you know very little Spanish, you will learn the language; many volunteers came with little to no Spanish and now they own it. Lastly your whole group will be given a name "Tico 26".

Tico: informal term for Costa Rican.
26: means the PC group.

For example: the group that arrives in March 2014 will be called Tico 27 and the group before us is called Tico 25.

There are three types of groups that serve in Costa Rica:

- CED (Community Economic Development) [My Group]
- YD (Youth Development)
- TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).

In Tico 26 we were representing only two groups CED and YD, thirty two volunteers in total. Some Tico groups sometimes only have one group for example only TEFL trainees or a mix.

After your language assessment you will be divided in groups according to your language skill (low, medium, high); on the last day of training they will  give you information of the host family you will be living with and community as well (very exciting and sad because you leave your fellow PC Trainees). The next day bright and early you will be dropped off in each community with your new family, scary, emotional, happy, sad, anxious and overwhelming process.

      

At the end of this training one volunteer decided to leave unfortunately, I know many volunteers tried to tell her to stay aboard; but she decided she wanted to go home. Actually our program manager told us forty something volunteers had accepted invitations and a few weeks or days before departing to Costa Rica they declined. Many communities that were expecting them, had to be left out. I mention this because I really want to spread the message to all those future volunteers, when they decide to accept an invitation consider that the invitation is months of work in the making. The communities we go to had to be highly assessed by PC staff and the communities had to go through a long process to get a PC volunteer there. Nothing will happen if you decide not to go after accepting the invitation, but you will let down a good community that would've used your help or another volunteers help.

In my next post I will talk about what happens when your living with your host family and Part II of training while living there. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

My Packing List

                       

Howdy!

Well here is my packing list, I hope it helps anyone in there packing endeavors. I will also include tips, brands of some of the things I took; for durability and quality reasons and things I wish I would of brought. If you have questions please post them I will gladly help your packing mayhem. Enjoy!

Packing List:

CLOTHES & ACCESSORIES:

1 Black suit (Good for swearing-in and any important meetings that may come through, presentation is of an essence)
2 Grey suit jackets (Casual meetings or just whenever you go out in the city)
3 Dress shirts
1 Dress pants
2 Jeans (Use them for everything)
1 Khakis
15 Polo Shirts (Use them for everything)
20 T-Shirts (Use them for everything)
12 Casual shirts (Use them for everything)
1 Windbreaker jacket (Adidas)
1 Fleece jacket (North Face) [Good for chilly places]
1 School sweatshirt (Represent!)
3 Bathing suits (Ralph Lauren and Zara) [you will swim a lot; to make your suits last, alternate and also you can use them as shorts]
2 Training pants (Adidas)
3 Dry fit t-shirts (Adidas)
1 Running short (Nike)
4 Shorts (Adidas & Nike) [Chilling and exercising]
12 Underwear (Good idea to bring as much as you can)
2 Pairs of cuff links
5 Handkerchiefs
3 Ties (Swearing-in brought to many, but better safe than sorry)
2 Bow ties (Thought I would use them)
2 Scarves (Haven't used them yet, but  in mountainous areas it gets chilly)
2 Shemagh's (Use them a couple a items, perfect for hot or cold weather)
2 Dress belts (Bring at least one)
2 Casual belts (Bring at least one)
2 Dress socks
5 Running socks
6 Sunglasses (Rayban's)
2 Watches
2 Eyeglasses
Towel
Hand towel
Face towel

ELECTRONICS:

Laptop (Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13)
External Hard Drive (Passport) [Bring music, movies, tv series anything to watch on your computer, you will enjoy having something to do in your down time. A lot of PCV's have many things to share so it's essential to have this item on your list]
2 Earphones
Speaker (Jawbone)
Digital Camera (Sony [I honestly don't use it at all, use my Iphone mainly for all pictures])
SD Card (16GB)
Ipod Nano
Iphone 4S Unlocked with Sim Slot (Highly recommend it, it doesn't have to be an Iphone, just make sure its unlocked and has a sim slot. You will definitely need a phone while in service; many volunteers buy a cheap or moderately priced phone in country through a prepaid service (Kolbi [most used service], Claro, Movistar). In my case I just bought the prepaid sim card for my phone very inexpensive). Prepaid phone service in Costa Rica is relatively inexpensive.
External CD Drive
USB flash drive (64 GB)
AA and AAA Rechargeable batteries with charger (Brought 4 of each, I only recommend it, if you actually have things that use batteries, or bring them if you think you might need them in the future for items you will purchase that require batteries.

OFFICE SUPPLIES:

2 Journals
Pens (Bring a nice one)
Pencils
Pouch  (TUMI)
Duct tape
Masking tape
Clear tape
Pins (Recommend them for notes and reminders)
Mini Stapler
Scissors
Folders
Large Envelopes (For important documents)
Large Ziploc Bags

GENERAL TRAVELING & MISCELLANEOUS:

Swiss Army knife
Hunting knife
Gerber Multi-tool
Nalgene Bottle (Lost it!)
Sigg Bottle (I think I left it at Peace Corps Office, hopefully I will find it)
MagLite Flashlight
Book (favorite one)
Deck of Cards
Resistance bands
Chess set
Umbrella (good quality one, not to small but not to big)

TOILETRIES:

Electric Toothbrush and replacements (Oral B)
Toothbrush
Container for toothbrush
Toothpaste (Unless you use a specific brand, buy as many as you can back home, otherwise you can buy many typical brands here for around the same price)
Burt's Bees Lip Balm
6 Deodorants (Highly recommend it if you have a specific brand you like, they sell many brands here; but for twice the price or more)
Aloe Vera (Very good for burns, price is way less expensive at home)
Sunscreen (Even though you get some in your medical packet 30 spf, if need something stronger buy it home, sunscreen here is ridiculously expensive)
Cologne (You gots to smell good)
Soap (Bring your favorite, or you can purchase many American brands in CR, very specif brands are  pricey)
Dental Floss
Disposable Razors
Shampoo (Not a lot just for a few days, you can get any shampoo here for around the same price back home)
6 Hair Paste Tins (Waste because I'm letting my hair grow, which I just decided so don't really need them, will donate them to other PCV's)
Beard Trimmer (Norelco) [I highly recommend it; saves time, money on razors and you can also trim up your hair when you don't feel like spending money on a haircut; even though haircuts are really inexpensive]





BAGS

North Face Router Backpack (Great for laptop, and anything expensive you want to hold on, also works great for 1-3 day trips)
North Face Terra 65 Pack (Great for trips over 3+ days, easy on your back and shoulders  for backpacking trips)
North Face Base Camp Duffel X-Large (Excellent medium to transport anything you can imagine, you can use it for very long trips. Bag has shoulder straps so you can turn it into a backpack).

SHOES 

6 Pairs of loafers (TOMS, Sperry, Cole Hann and Johnston and Murphy)
Dress shoes (Johnston and Murphy)
2 Pairs of sandals (Rainbow & Birkenstocks)
Running Shoes (New Balance)
Boat shoes (Sperry)
Trekking shoes  (Vibrams)
2 Pairs of Slides (Crocs & Adidas)

TIPS:

- Roll your clothes, it will give you more space in your bags and prevent them from wrinkling.
- Be sure your around the baggage weight limit, to avoid hefty baggage fees. Here is a tip from a fellow volunteer to know the weight of your bag: weigh yourself first, then with your bag on and subtract your weight and simple as pie. Another option is to buy a hanging scale you will use it when you depart, come back home or do any traveling, highly recommend it.
-Use large Ziploc bags to organize your items.

THINGS I WISH I WOULD OF BROUGHT

Beef Jerky (Haven't found any)
Peanut Butter (Price is twice as of much)
Bed, pillow and fitted sheets (There extremely expensive and very bad quality)
Jeans (Even though I brought jeans, I wish I would of brought more; they will wear off in a few months, it's good to alternate if you like to wear jeans most of the time)
Bicycle lock (Most likely you will decide to have a bike at site, so you will end up buying a bike, thus you need to protect your investment. Bicycle belts here [good quality ones] are expensive)
Earl of Grey Tea (They have it here, but more expensive)
Water goggles (I actually didn't know I would be using them, but I have a pool in my site, they will send them too me though)
Rubber flip flops (Even though I brought sandals and brought every shoe possible, I forgot normal flip flops)
Tabasco Sauce (They have it here, but more expensive)
Hanging scale  (To weigh your bags when traveling)

I hope this list helps anyone in there packing and if you have questions please feel free to post your questions or email me. I honestly packed to much clothes and shoes, but I don't regret it, I do use 95% of them. If you can carry it and don't mind the weight bring as much as you can.

Next week I will talk about what happened once I arrived in Costa Rica "PST" Pre-Service Training.

Pura Vida!

Staging & Departure to Costa Rica

***Sorry for my delay with this blog, its been a crazy 3+ months, but I'm back at it again and hoping to entertain any followers. Thanks for reading and sorry for the delay***

Staging

I arrived at D.C. around 9:00 PM and wasn't sure if to rent a car (already had reservations, just in case), shuttle or taxi? I opted for a taxi, which is the best choice. It was hard as fudge to carry all my bags. I had easily over 150 pounds of luggage on my back and arms. I went outside to get a cab and guess what? There were over 200 people making a line to get a cab. I had to carry all my bags in the process, which was exhausting, while cooping with the hot humid beautiful weather of D.C. I was able to get a cab within 25 minutes and enjoyed the cool A/C cab ride to my hotel. I checked in and my roommate had already arrived. We spoke for some time and we went outside to get some dinner. After dinner we went back to the room, I took a nice cool bath and off to bed. My plan was to wake up very early in the morning and site see D.C., but I was so exhausted that I ended up sleeping in. I woke up and headed to the hotels restaurant and had breakfast. I then went up and chilled at the room, after some time my roommate woke up; we cleaned up, dressed up and we headed downstairs to the conference room to start staging at 12:30 PM. I won't say what happened in staging, it's a lot of activities and fun exercises;  I think everyone has to experience it for the first time. So I will leave that for everyone to experience on their own. After staging they gave us $13 dollars for the people who flew in a day before for taxi expenses (which didn't cover it all, but better than nothing and I didn't expect it, I was very pleased) and gave all of us a debit card. With $120 dollars for dinner, tips and anything we needed before leaving the country. We ended up going to a restaurant called The Town, I had a burger and two Guinness; my last meal in D.C...delicious.

Departure to Costa Rica

We had a very early start. We had to be in the lobby downstairs at 2:00 AM, we all gathered up and left on a bus set up by PC. We arrived at the airport at around 2:30 AM and made a big line waiting for the counter to open so we could check-in our bags. I had a great issue once again with my bags, I rearranged my luggage in the hotel room and in my great luck, weight distribution was off...again. Which I had to hustle through the line to get the right weight limit, while everyone was checking in.

My recommendation if you can is to get those hanging digital scales if possible, they work great and you will use it again many times while in service. When you may ask? When you travel home or elsewhere, that way you can be within baggage weight limits and avoid a hefty fee, because you can't store the luggage anywhere so your kinda fudged, unless you wanna donate your luggage to a fellow traveler.  Another trick I learned from a fellow PCV is if you have a weight scale you can weigh yourself and then weigh yourself with the bag on, then you just subtract your weight and walaah!. By the way the counter gave us preference due the fact that we were Peace Corps Volunteer wohooo! Go PC! After that experience with my luggage, we traveled to Miami, FL; while walking to the terminal for our last departure we met a PCV who was travelling back home, she notice we were PCV's because of the fact that I had a PC patch on my backpack. I highly recommend having some PC insignia, why you may ask? Well is cool to met other PCV's (your in a special club now), one of them may come in your need and viceversa, also its cool as fudge to represent! Even right now in Costa Rica, I don't know all the volunteers, but some have been seen me in places, and there like oh your the guy with the patch.

After leaving Miami, FL we landed in Costa Rica finally! Super tired, but happy and anxious. We then meet the PC crew with a great welcome at the airport. I won't go through the details, to not give away that experience to those who are planning to come to Costa Rica. I will put in my next post my packing list which I imagine everyone wants to read about. Thank you for reading! Cheers!


P.S. I will post a blog entry every week. So stay tuned!