Monday, November 29, 2010

Nothing much

I've been in San Jose for about five days and it was a really nice break. While Peace Corps volunteers don't put in a huge number of "working" hours per day (depending on who you are and where your community), we do work and feel stress all the time! I am constantly wondering if I'm doing enough, too much, should I be doing something different, etc. Also, there is a lot of stress involved in trying to work in another language and culture. Why am I saying all this? I just want to say that I really needed a break and it felt really nice to have a little mini vacation from La Palma. It's an odd feeling to really want to get out for a while, but, miss Deivin. Mostly, I wish he could travel with me! Today I went to the doctor to have my knees checked out, hopefully we get my knee pain in hand and it all goes away soon! On this trip I got to see the newest Harry Potter movie which was the best yet in my opinion and I also saw Life as We Know It, a romantic comedy. Both really good. Not much else going on, I'm ready to get back to La Palma and see how the Scouts faired this past weekend.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Okay, sorry of the absence of blogs, I don't really have a good reason, or maybe I kind of do, but mostly I was just having some motivation issues. So, I recently had a very interesting Peace Corps experience 2 weeks ago and I wanted to share. Hurricane Matthew was passing over Costa Rica and bringing lots and lots of rain. There was no wind, just a huge amount of rain. Since I'm generally clueless as to what's going on in the world on Thursday the 4th I got a call from the Peace Corps office saying that there was lots of flooding expected in my region and they wanted me to evacuate to Palmar Norte (it's around 3 hours away). I had noticed that there was a lot of rain, but in my community the river was still really low and everything looked pretty safe. But, when the Peace Corps tells you to leave, you have to leave. So, I asked Oscar the taxi driver who has been a friend of mine since I arrived in La Palma if he was interested in driving me to Palmar, he said sure. I don't think either of us had any idea that we would be leaving the safety of the peninsula for a crazy trip into one of the really affected areas. I said my goodbyes to my host family and Deivin and made sure everyone knew that no matter what, SAVE TIGRE! They all thought I was crazy, they were like “she's a cat, she can swim and climb trees, she'll be fine”. I just didn't want her to be all wet and uncomfortable, she's my baby after all. So anyway, we took off and some 3 somewhat sketchy hours of driving later arrived in Palmar where I was to meet up with another volunteer who's community was actually flooded. As Oscar was getting ready to head back we found out that we were all trapped now, all of the roads were closed, there was no possible way to get to La Palma, San Isidro, San Jose, Panama, we were stuck. Luckily for Oscar his mom lives nearby so he headed to her house. I realized right away that I wasn't in La Palma anymore. Palmar Norte has the biggest river in Costa Rica flowing right through it and it was big! The rain there was much more intense and there were dump trucks full of soaking wet people arriving all the time. All of the surrounding farms and some entire towns flooded and people had to find a place to stay and that place was Palmar Norte. Well, I ended up staying in Palmar for 4 days until I was allowed to make my way back to La Palma. I had to take 3 buses, 2 taxis and a ferry to make it back since the main road was washed away and what should have taken 3 hours took 6. Tigre and Deivin were really happy to see me and I was soooo happy to be home.

Okay, that all happened a long time ago. Here is a more recent update, I'm currently in San Jose. I was celebrating Thanksgiving with some other volunteers and an embassy family that was nice enough to invite 6 of us to eat and stay with them in their home. They were very nice and incredibly generous. If going into the foreign services didn't mean constant travel I would want to join just so I could work with the type of people that I have met at the embassy over the past year and a half. I'll be in San Jose until Tuesday or Wednesday. I needed a bit of a break from La Palma so this was a nice chance to get away.

I promise not to be so bad at blogging!