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

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!