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!

Flight to Washingtown, D.C.

Howdy!

Well many weeks have past and I haven't had a chance to write. I have been quite busy since I last posted on this blog. But I finally got a day off to write some good information to share with everyone. Thanks to all the readers who have waited so patiently for my post.

Flight to Washington, D.C.
July 2013
I left a day before staging to Washington, D.C., which was Sunday. I took the 2:00 PM flight. My family and I decided to go for brunch as my last meal home at around 11:00 AM, so by 12:30 PM I would be ready to be dropped off. Before that we stopped at the airport to check in my bags to save time on my departure. I had already checked-in online, so I was good to go; well...that's what I though. While dropping my bags, guess what? One of my bags was overweight by 30 pounds! Fudge! Originally in my previous post I had already weighed them. I used a personal digital weigh scale, but weighed them incorrectly. I should have done it vertically, but I did it horizontally thus spreading the weight off on the sides. I added a piece of wood on top of the scale to spread out the weight, a tip I saw online, but useless at this point. So I had to bring my bags back and ahead we went for brunch. After brunch outside of the restaurant I started to exhaustively to repack and see what I didn't need (again). I started taking of shoes, jeans, things that weighed the most. I also put the heaviest things on my carry-on. After repacking we went to the airport and went to the counter to weigh my bag. I was overweight still, 13 pounds! So again I started to remove things and went to the counter outside of the airport were I originally had weighed my bags, the American Airlines employee told me that it was ok to be 4-5 pounds off my 50 pound limit. I ended up at 53.9 pounds! He said it was fine. He printed out my tickets even though I had them on my phone; which was very nice of him, excellent customer service. Thank you unknown American Airlines employee, I will always remember you! I tipped him for being awesome and went to the TSA security line. I said goodbye to my family, it was hard. I cried when I said goodbye to my mom, but sucked it up and left. Overall it was very stressful to say goodbye to my family and having an overweight bag, but I made it on time. 

"All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go" - John Denver

Good Morning!

Two days to go! Just wanted to share a picture of my packed up luggage. I will later on make a post of what I packed for my trip and how to pack. I had to repack around 4 times, it was pretty exhausting and stressful, but I did it. I'm packing around 80 pounds on both big bags and around 10 pounds on my backpack. Can wait to go to staging in Washington. I will post more things about this in detail, right now all I want to do is enjoy my last 2 days, have some drinks, rest and enjoy my family and friends.

Cheers!

Parte 4 and more...

Good Afternoon,

Almost four weeks since my last post. I feel bad I haven't taken the time to write on it, but it's been a exciting and tense month. But I'm back on the keyboard!!! Your welcome...j/k. Well a lot has happened in these few weeks, I will be as through as possible. Originally it was supposed to be a three part process but it became a 4 part process and more. These is the timeline:

May 2013
Email
This email was sent by my country desk officer , she wanted me to finish the following courses:

Security Orientation

Core Expectations Orientation

Both are courses taken online regarding "what to do scenarios" and our Core Expectations from Peace Corps. It takes about 1-2 hours to finish. 

June 2013
Email 

I got another email from my country desk officer with information on various subjects such as:
Family Letter
Address of were to receive mail, contact and emergency information and a few paragraphs of encouragement for your family.
Logistics
This letter talks about information on how, who, when, where once we arrive in Costa Rica and the training site, gives you an idea of everything once in country.
Country Desk Letter 
Letter giving you overall information about what to do before departure and new information.
Mentor Program
The most important one, this one gets you in contact with a PCV that currently works in the same project as you will. I had a chance to be emailing with him for some time. Asking questions from what to take to what is your usual day. He has been very helpful, I really appreciate his promptness and time in answering my emails. At the beginning he answered very fast, but now somewhat slow, he's probably tired of my questions haha. No worries 5 days to go!!!

Staging
After a few days after this email, I got another one from Staging. This email basically tells you everything about flight schedules, hotel, travel plans, baggage and setting up your flight through SATO. I called them, got my confirmation number and I will be leaving on July 7, 2013 a day before staging. This is pretty cool, because it gives me a couple hours before Registration to go and visit Washington, D.C. "When in Rome"...

What Happened/ing in June!
- I gave my two weeks notice, yeah!!! I'm currently unemployed haha. Nice breather.
- Traveled to a few places in Texas and Chihuahua, MX, to visit friend and to obviously party.
- Been trying to pack everything in my bags, getting there.
- Been meeting up with friends for lunch.
- Resting and binge watching Justified. I'm currently at Season 3.
- Chilling at home enjoying my family, my bed and peke my dog.
- Eating food I will not be able to eat there.
- Still trying to sell some things on eBay.
- Had a goodbye party with friends last week, will having another one this weekend. My only concern is not being all hungover on the plane to Washington.

Tips for Prospective and Current Peace Corps Applicants - $$$ Money Edition $$$

Good Morning!

Before I got to the next part of my steps through the Peace Corps. I wanted to share with everyone a few tips out of my own experience and what I'm currently doing.

I think most people's main concern is money, it was for me. Many applying have some type of debt (credit card, student loans, car loan, and so on). I personally had two types: credit card and car loan. I successfully paid out all my student loans with my first job. It took a lot of discipline, but felt good when I gave that last payment. For those who don't know, you can defer your students loans for the time your serving plus get a portion of the loans cancelled. But I won't go into depth with that, because that isn't personal experience.

After sending my Legal Packet, I understood that I wouldn't be able to have any type of debt, in my case a car loan and credit card debt. In that moment just barely starting the application process, I decided to pay everything off. It took me about one year and six months to become debt-free. I sold my car and went with something less "luxurious". I didn't go out that much, didn't eat out as much, stop buying new clothes as I would normally do, etc.. I sacrificed many things that I considered for granted in my life. I wasn't a Martyr, but I did give up many things to become debt free. But being that joining the Peace Corps is my dream; many people who have any type of dream, to reach it you have to sacrifice many things to get that moment. Which I can say was so sweet and delicious when I got that Invitation, totally worth it. Most people don't mention money in there blogs, but I think this is very important. I had this question and honestly never found a direct answer about it, so hopefully this answers it for some of you.

Here are some tips I highly recommend for any prospective or current applicants:

TIP#1

Start paying off your debts as soon as you apply.
There is three reasons why:
1st -You obviously can go with debt, unless you have someone who will be paying for it.
2nd - The sooner you pay off your debt, the sooner you will have peace of mind and start saving up.
3rd - You honestly don't know when you will be invited, so they might throw you a curve ball and tell you Are you ready to leave in three months, a position just opened? You might lose that opportunity because you still have some kind of debt.

TIP#2

After you pay off everything SAVE, SAVE, SAVE.
There are three reasons why:
1st - Even though when you come back and PC gives you a readjustment allowance, which I think is awesome. Its always good to have a little nest egg. I've read many blogs and articles around the internet mentioning issues after returning, but the main one was: "Takes a couple months to find a job".
2nd - My mentor (you get one 1-2 months before you leave for any questions you have), told me that Costa Rica is quite expensive. I know other countries may be less expensive, but it's always good to have savings for "luxuries" (american brand products, internet, phone service, etc...). He also mentioned that if you decide to live alone after your training, you may end up purchasing some furniture, because some places don't come with any kind of furniture, which means $$$.
3rd - Our main purpose of going is to Serve, but "When in Rome", why not take advantage of traveling somewhere you probably wouldn't go in your lifetime. Save a few bucks and get to know your country of service. If you have a few extra bucks then probably try a country or two, take advantage of that.

TIP#3
Sell everything you don't need!
I'm shipping of in about a month, and while doing my 100 lbs of luggage for 2 years and 3 months. I noticed I had way to many clothes, shoes, magazines, dvd's, crap basically that I wouldn't be able to take and use. So in the spirit of cleaning my soul I did two things. First I donated the things I knew they weren't worth selling and second I started selling everything worth selling. Many people may be very attached to there things, but were going for 2 years even longer if you decide to extend your service. Why keep things you won't use? Everyone to there own opinion, but I'm selling everything I can on eBay or craigslist. Two good things will happen out of this, one I get rid of everything and have my soul clean and second I will have some extra cash for a "luxury" or two while I'm serving. So don't hesitate and sell, sell, sell or donate which ever works for you.