Planning the Scouts Camping Trip

Next weekend we will be taking the Guias y Scouts older kids on their first ever camping trip and we are all super excited. I think it's really important that we get going on the camping and get the kids a little more familiar with what the Scouts do. At this point we tell them things like they need to have a flag for each troop and each troop needs to have their own call, but I think it really is one of those things that you have to see first. Needless to say the kids are a little lost, so, hopefully camping with a more experienced group will help them to find their way. Also, we want them to start feeling like a team, a family and there is no better thing than a sleep over for that. I'm hoping lots of kids can make it. We were originally going to make it up to Los Patos the national park entrance, but had to change at the last minuet to the beach (not a shabby change). We'll still go up towards the park with just our kids, but it works out easier this way with the other group. This and filling my application for an extension of service and getting organized on the new playground for Guadalupe have kept me pretty busy.

On a personal note, Deivin and I celebrated our one year anniversary on the 25th, but he had to work all day and had his computer class until 9:00pm so there was not much of a big celebration, just a nice dinner at home and some ice cream sundaes. Next year we'll have to plan something a little bigger, but for now, ice cream and dinner were just fine. We haven't really heard anything on the visa for a while which is fine. We won't hear anything for a while assuming everything is going well, no news is good news for a while anyway.

I have a request from a while ago to write about Mandy and Danny's trip. We did so much that I'm going post a different blog. It feels like so much happened that it's hard to capture it all, I'll post that soon and highlight some of our best adventures...

Also, you will notice that my English is horrible now. My brain is working mostly in Spanish these days so while I'm writing in English sometimes I'm using Spanish grammar. I'm sure it will go back to normal when I get back to the States... Anyone wishing to learn another language and have some fun adventures, consider the Peace Corps, you can't help but learn the language and there is no escaping lots and lots of adventure.

Update on me

Laura Update...

Many people know that over Christmas I got engaged to my boyfriend Deivin. Here's the low down on the day...

After spending Christmas eve day in Guadalupe with Mandy, Danny and Deivin and his family we made our way back to La Palma. It was late (8:00pm) and Mandy and Danny were done for the day. I knew that Deivin really wanted to do our gift exchange at the beach. I've been trying to get him to go to the beach at night with me for months, so I was up for it. The moon was almost full so there was lots of light and it was a beautiful night. So, we jumped on our bikes and headed to the beach, to the place were we had our very first date. It was so perfect, the moon was huge over the gulf, he lit a candle and there was no one anywhere. So, I gave him his present, a pair of shoes. He liked it, but I had a feeling that his present for me was going to be waaaay better. So, he hands me a little handmade wooden box. When I opened it up there was my engagement ring and he asked me to marry him. It was a beautiful night with a perfect ending. We stayed there for a while and then we rode back to La Palma. We have been working on the fiancee visa for a while now and just this week I got word that it was being processes and had been moved from one facility to another. Originally we had hoped to leave at the end of May for the U.S. But due to some unforeseen complications we have changed that plan for the end of July. What are two more months anyway? I'm working to extend my Peace Corps service for those 2 months. While doing the clinics this past week I got some new ideas for projects that will need funding and you can only get funding if you have a certain amount of time left. With the added two months it should be enough. I want to see if we can get a playground for the school in Guadalupe. At the moment they only have 8 car tires that are half buried. Not cool. I'm hoping to get a playground and maybe even a basketball hoop. They already have a flat slab of concrete in the school yard, why no get a hoop and some basketballs and the kids can shoot hoops...

That's it for me. Deivin and I are happy and excited to see what the future brings.

Adopt a Family with Guias y Scouts

This is a post from 12-20-2010, I'm a little behind...

Shortly after the teleton success the leaders of the scouts group decided that they wanted to participate in the Scout Navedeno, which is basically adopt a family. Anna one of the newest leaders (dirigentes) was yet again the driving force. I think I'm so wrapped up in all of the other organizing stuff that I just don't have it to be thinking of extra things to do. Anna was very insistent that we do it and I said sure, I'd participate and do whatever, but they had to tell me what to do, I did not want to be the lead. Which, I'm happy to say Anna did a great job. I'm beginning to see her as a real leader and someone with a lot of confidence, something that wasn't there before. So, we all said that we would buy a gift and go around to the stores in town to see what they would donate.

Real quick let me tell you about the family. They are a family of 5 kids and a dad. The mom left them a few years ago so it's 4 girls and 1 boy and the dad. The dad has only one functioning hand. The other is kind of there, kind of not, but it doesn't really work. The boy Simone is 9 years old, but cannot talk or walk and has really serious needs. He will never be able to be left alone. He can walk a little, but as we saw, he has no balance and if someone is not there and paying attention, he could seriously hurt himself. There is a 16, 13, 12 and 7 year old girl. They are all just so tiny, but you can tell that their dad had done a really good job of taking care of them because they were all very clean and were wearing cloths that didn't have holes in them. The house that this family lives in is falling apart. The dad was careful to tell us not to lean on the one wall they had inside the house because it was about to fall apart. Their kitchen floor is made of dirt, but it got wet and is now fairly muddy. The dad can't work because he cannot leave the little boy for very long, he does work on occasion, but it's not steady. When we arrived and explained that we were there to bring gifts and things for the house the dad saw the food and said “may God pay you for this, please, go into the kitchen, you'll see that there is no food in there”. So this takes me back to the end of the first paragraph. We had gone to the supermarkets and asked shoppers if they would be willing to donate any food, soap, toilet paper, etc to this family and it was incredible! Two separate people donated $40 dollars worth of food! There was something like 5 big bags of rice, a bunch of beans, oil, sugar, coffee, everything. We had people donate sanitary pad for the older girls, lots of nice smelling soap, people donated body sprays (everyone here wears perfume of some sort), it was just amazing to see how much people were willing to give! The kids, the dad, everyone was excited. We had cloths for everyone, toys for the younger kids, a pair of shoes for the dad. They all loved their gifts, but soon the interest turned to the food and they all wanted to see what food they were going to be eating that night.

Even with all the food that we brought and the cloths and the toys, it just wasn't enough, it's just not. We found out that they don't have enough money to pay the registration fees for the two girls in high school, they missed the first dead line because they just don't have the money. Thankfully, at that moment one of the dirigentes present took their names and said that the next day she would pay for both girls. It's something like $12 for both, but they just don't have that. I saw their bedrooms and for 5 people there were only 3 twin size beds. These beds didn't have sheets. We plan to get them sheets! I have seen people in the US that are poor by US standards, but this is different. This is a whole different level. As a scouts group we plan to continue helping this family with their needs, uniforms for all of the kids for school, continue to buy them soap, food, sheets, etc. Once you see how bad it is and how unfair it is, you have to try to do something.

Someone actually said to us “Gracias a Dios que hay los Scouts en la palma” or “Thank God that there are Scouts in La Palma”. I'm just happy that there is a way for those who want to help other to do it. If you are thinking about giving, helping, something this holiday season, do it. People aren't poor because they are lazy, sometimes life throws you something like a very handicapped son and there is nothing you can do but love and take care of him the best that you can.

Here is are some things that happened to me today that I thought were really funny:

Okay, so it was cloudy and cool today so I decided to go for a walk to the beach at 8:00am. I leave my house and haven't taken 3 steps when I hear someone yelling my name. I looked and found the person near the back of my house. He's a neighbor and I know him so it's no problem. So, I ask him whats going on and he and this other guy are chasing this rooster around and they want me to help them because the rooster is on my side of the fence. I hate the chickens. They make this weird moaning sounds all of the time and they're creepy. So I find the rooster and start to chase it and notice too late that it has a rope on its foot and I only needed to step on the rope, but, it had gone to the other side of the fence.

Once I got back from my run I was in my house doing some cleaning and stepped outside for a sec and see my other neighbor running around looking really happy. He sees me and yells “Laura, we're making a ping pong table!” he was sooooooo happy. I was took, I would love to play some ping pong. So, we I yelled something like “awesome, I can't wait”!

Today is a good day!

P.S. This happened on Friday. I told Deivin about the rooster chasing and he said this "Laura, you don't have to do everything that Pena (my neighbor) says, you don't have to chase the rooster". It totally made me crack up! Love it.

The Teleton 2010

This past week Costa Rica held it's annual teleton which is a nation wide fundraiser for the children's hospital. The hospital treats the kids of Costa Rica who have suffered serious burns, who have serious diseases that would normally cost a parent millions of dollars to treat over the course of a lifetime. The kids are given all that they need through the hospital, oxygen, wheel chairs, medicine, everything. So, each year people all over CR tune in and watch the teleton and donate money. Each year the Guias y Scouts of Costa Rica hit the streets with big tin cans to raise money for the cause. I had the great pleasure this year of being able to participate in the even with my Guias y Scouts in La Palma and this will go down as one of my greatest Peace Corps moments.

When I was given 12 big cans with slots in the top and told by Ruth the area director that we needed to fill them up I was not really sure how. We put them out in the different businesses so that people could donate, but they were really empty when Anna one of the other leaders and also my host sister in law went to check on them. So, on Wednesday; Anna, Gregory, Sary and I started hitting the streets Thursday and Friday and then organized Saturday as our big day when we would go to the town center and stop cars and have the kids bang drums and blow whistles and ask for money for the teleton. It was awesome! The kids were really excited and you could see that they were really taking ownership of it. They became somewhat possessive over their "alcancia" or can and would compare with each other "mine's heavier, look Laura, mine is the heaviest". There was even a girl who was helping her grandma cook for a church activity who asked if she could come with us to raise money. By the end of the day she had joined the scouts and was really excited to have been able to raise money for the kids. So, after working all day on Saturday we opened up our cans to count and we were all really excited to be able to report that we had raised 308,000 Colones! That's like $600 which is a lot for a little town. When I reported what we had raised to Ruth the area director she was really happy and told me that there were groups that had been formed for years that didn't raise that much. I was so proud of my kids at that moment.

So, after all was counted and reported we went home to watch the rest of the teleton. Group after group was going up and showing a giant check of what they had raised and they were doing testimonials from kids who had benefited from the teleton in the past (these were seriously heart wrenching stories). I started to get a little worried that I had missed the Scouts presenting what they had raised because it was getting so late. When they presented the Scouts they brought up the head guy from San Jose and like 6 kids to present the check for all of the Scouts all over Costa Rica and the amount was 125,000,000! After they revealed the amount Anna yelled to me through our shard wall "Laura, did you hear! We did it! This is great!", I yelled back “ I know, this is so cool”. It was such a great moment to know that I was able to be apart of something really great. The next day people were telling me how good they felt about having helped and I even had a neighbor stop by and ask if they could donate more!

Here are some things I learned: People who have less almost always give more. Those cruising around in their nice cars wouldn't even stop sometimes while those on bikes with no breaks and a wooden seat would stop to give. It feels good to give, to know that you were involved in something that helped those who need it most. Get involved! Help others to help others.

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.

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!