Back to bloggin'

First of all, let me start this blog off the way I should, with an apology. To everyone that comes by this blog often, or follows it with Google reader or their own blog-sorry for not having posted since the end of February. There’s no good excuse for it, and the reasons aren’t even that valid either. But, to recap and feel slightly better about myself (which is what really counts, right) I’ll give it a stab. Something that every volunteer in Costa Rica has to do is prepare a CAT-Community Assessment Tool (they don’t have to do them in Kazakhstan-not sure about the other 80 posts). Unlike the household pet, (yeah, I’m making the obvious comparison) the Peace Corps CAT is not cute, fun to pet, and doesn’t require minimal maintenance. Actually, it’s the opposite. The CAT requires all sorts of attention and maintenance. The CAT is a written report identifying, describing, and analyzing the important issues and attributes of the volunteer’s community.

I am actually a big fan of the CAT, which puts me in a very small minority group among the Peace Corps volunteers I have talked to. Firstly, it forces the volunteer to get out and about in the community (which we should be doing anyways) but having a concrete goal in mind provides us with even more inspiration. Secondly, it is a formal reason to ask for interviews with leaders of various community groups or government agencies. Especially with the government agencies, having a formal reason to sit down and chat makes the

interview seem more worthwhile to the administrator and thus brings about a more fruitful interview. Lastly, having to produce a written report, with required sections and a bibliography really caused me to do more interviews and seek more sources than I otherwise would have in learning about my community. Being part of the TEFL program within Peace Corps Costa Rica, I already had my target areas in the community identified-the students and teachers of the high school and night school. But, for other volunteers working in more broad areas like ‘community development’ or ‘economic development’ the CAT provides a great framework for the volunteers to identify issues they could/should address with their projects.

Wow, did I really just read two paragraphs about a report-you ask yourself-and if you’re reading this then the answer is yes-you just got punk’d. But, really, since my last blog I have spent a considerable amount of time doing interviews around town, learning some interesting things about the Old Port in Sarapiquí, and writing/editing my report (in Spanish) which ended up being pretty meaty. Since my last blog, school actually started (like 'teachers teaching students in a classroom' started), after supposedly “starting” back in early February.

I also spent a week plus at the luxurious Crowne Plaza in San Jose for “In-Service Training”. This involved professional development meetings from 8-5 every day (quite different than my own schedule in site). We spent most of the coffee breaks sharing host family complaints, humorous anecdotes, and successful classroom activities from our sites. Of course, I think I pissed off most of my group by explaining how nice my host family’s house is, how my host mom keeps my meals in the microwave until it’s convenient for me to wander into the kitchen and eat, how there aren’t any roosters that wake me up at 4 a.m., how I have my own bathroom, and how I currently sleep in the biggest bed I have ever slept in in my life. Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Never been good at that (noted as an item to work on). While in San Jose I paid another visit to La Embajada-any bar restaurant named ‘The Embassy’ is bound to be my favorite-and enjoyed delicious chorizo and cool Pilsen beer. I also went with my colleague Barton to support Las Brujas (The Witches), by far the coolest named soccer team in Costa Rica, and the only team that sports a pink home kit. They lost 4-1, they might have the coolest name, but they finished just out of last place this season.

In my spare time-which is gratuitous some weeks and barely existent others-I have been trying to read a book a week, have brushed up my American culture (so I can share it and thus be a successful Peace Corps volunteer) with seasons of Arrested Development and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia as well as various movies on my laptop, argued and discussed soccer with my host brother (although I’m worried we’re driving my host mom and sister away from the kitchen table), and watched just enough Tican television to figure out the two shows that are worth watching (Minuto Para Ganar and La Media Docena) and possibly the most amazing (using the word in a Ke$ha sense) show: Intrusos de la Farandula-which consists of four super hot chicks, one super hot guy, and a fat forty year old guy analyzing interviews with Costa Rica’s A, B, and C list celebrities. If you’re thinking, wait, I don’t even know of any A-list Costa Rican celebrities-then you can only imagine the entertainment of these people analyzing C-list Tican celebrities. And, yours truly was just feet away from the mystique that is Intrusos de la Farandula-it took all my diminutive self control to stop from screaming when I spotted the hot male host working out at the gym adjoining the Crowne Plaza during my stay there for training. How’s that to top off a summary of a month without blogs-I might have worked out on the same machine as a guy who is one of the hosts of Costa Rica’s ‘Entertainment Tonight’. Yeah, exactly.