The beginning

Today is the 14^th of January, I have been in Costa Rica since the 3^rd. Let me bring you all up to date-

I arrived the 3^rd and was taken to the Peace Corps office in San Jose for a brief rundown of my week-long “training”. The first couple of days were learning the ins and outs of the office, San Jose, and taking care of basic administrative necessities. From there I went to visit a volunteer in the Nicoya Peninsula. I spent three days with her, picking her brain about being a PCV in Costa Rica and getting a better feel for life as a volunteer in CR. From there I went directly to my site.

My site is called Corral de Piedra. It lies at the armpit of the Nicoya Peninsula by the Rio Tempisque. The area doesn't look like what you would expect Costa Rica to look like. It's much drier (granted we are in the dry season) with flat grassland and lots of cows, big, old trees, and surrounded by low lying mountains. About 3km away are some very special wetlands that the community recently got funding from the local University to protect, as well as start a basic tourism operation. The wetlands are really interesting, with an unbelievable amount of birds. It's hot here, too. I was hoping to get away from the Paraguayan heat, but it seems to have followed me all the way to Costa Rica. On top of that, when the sun goes down swarms of mosquitoes come out to eat.

My spanish is slowly getting better...slowly. It's really frustrating going from one foreign country where you are relatively fluent and then going to another and having to almost start all over again.

If you all thought my community in Paraguay was small, you should see this one. In total there are around 56 people living in my community. The houses are a bit more spread out than they were in Paraguay, and people in general are a bit better off. The standard of living is higher here, though not by much. The people seem to be really motivated to work. I've been working with a youth group for a little skit we will do at a big community meeting. There is a cement company that wants to mine one of the hills/mountain in the community and the people here are trying to fight it. I'm really impressed by how environmentally conscious the people are here. They respect their surroundings and take a lot of pride in the mountains and wetlands.

There is a lot of potential work here. There is a women's committee who create crafts from seeds and other natural debris found in the area. They are interested in starting a community garden. The youth group is pretty active and we are talking about starting a tree nursery for reforesting the surrounding area. Everyone wants to learn English. I was at first hesitant about teaching English, but it is a valuable tool in a country whose economy relies so heavily on tourism. In the end, the community would like to start up a small tourism industry based off of the wetlands and surrounding mountains.

I will post some pictures soon to give you all a better idea of what the area looks like.