Getting oriented

My journey to Costa Rica was missing one key thing: sleep. After coming back from a trip to Tulsa and St. Louis to visit family and friends from school, I had one last delicious dinner with the family (sans Petey), stayed up late finishing packing and Pops took me delightfully small DSM at five in the morning. I arrived in DC, took a taxi to the hotel, and registration was closing and our “Staging” meetings started immediately. That night, after getting to bed around ten or eleven, I was up at 01:30 to meet in the lobby for our trip to the airport, where we waited for a few hours and then flew to Miami and the San Jose. We then took a bus ride across San Jose (all of us flew from DC to Miami to San Jose together) to Tres Rios, which is a community in the hills east of San Jose.

(my host family's house-second story)

Tico 21 (that’s my training group-Costa Ricans call themselves ticos instead of costarricenses) spent its first week at the San Juan XXIII retreat center in Tres Rios. It was a beautiful retreat center, with amazing views of the city, and basketball courts and soccer pitches for fun. We spent the week going over nuts and bolts information, meeting the Peace Corps Costa Rica staff, learning a little bit about the country, and learning a fair amount about our projects. Evenings were spent playing basketball, soccer, getting to know other trainees, or getting those last emails sent using the center’s wi-fi.

My favorite part of orientation (aside from the awesome food (I have a weird penchant for cafeterias)) was the “diversity training” that Delia, our fiery, intelligent, and sarcastic ‘Training Specialist’ facilitated. What the diversity training consisted of was each trainee making a poster representing the challenges and successes of different phases of our lives. Some people don’t like get-to-know-you activities, but I love them. Because the better we know someone, the more willing we are to share with them, and well, that’s how friendships are developed. It was wonderful to hear about everyone else’s experiences, values, and to see their pictures. It’s well established that my ego could use a couple knockdowns, and the presentations did just that. I was amazed and humbled by the other trainees. So many had so many rich experiences. One was born in Kenya. One met her husband while they were teaching English in Korea. One is the daughter of a Paraguayan man who one day took up a friend’s offer to use an extra plane ticket to visit America, and then established a life there. One guy covered the Iditarod as a journalist in Alaska. One woman, who is a septuagenarian, was married to a Nigerian and a Mexican in her life (at different times). There are two people from Idaho (I know). One girl knows the Cutler boys from my high school. One spent part of her childhood with her grandparents in Mexico. One taught English in Hungary. Needless to say I was humbled by and excited to get to know Tico 21.

Some quick facts about the group I have spent the last two months with and will be with for a few more weeks. Our group consists of 46 people from 26 different states, from Florida to Alaska, Inglewood to Queens, and Washington State to New Hampshire. And Beth Dove is from Janesville, IA-near Cedar Falls, so we have an overabundant Iowa representation. We are split into two groups, the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) group I am a part of and Community Economic Development (CED). The average age is 26, with all but two people falling in the 22-32 age group. Our two outliers are both fantastic people. Patty M. is ~70, and has lead an incredibly interesting and atypical (if there really is such a thing) life. Brad M., who is in the CED group, is 51 and retired from working in sales and management with Cisco Systems. The TEFL group doesn’t have too many Y-chromosomes running around, with twenty women and only six dudes. The CED group is tilted the other way, with 18 men and 12 women, making the group totals 32 women and 24 men. Sarah B. is part of the TEFL group and is continuing with a third year of service after two in Tonga. Marie B., part of the CED group, is also adding a third year to her service, and was Sarah’s South Pacific neighbor in Vanuatu.