I am a returned Peace Corps volunteer

Sitting on the couch of my house in Philadelphia, I am trying to write a last blog entry to sum up my Peace Corps experience and sign off. It's a hard thing to do since I have only been back from Costa Rica for just under a week but, here it goes.

My last few months of Peace Corps was full of finishing up projects, spending time with friends from town, and thinking about what would be next. Living and working in a small rural town in Costa Rica was an incredible experience that I would highly recommend to anyone thinking about joining the Peace Corps. I became a completely integrated part of my town and was looked at as another resident there by the end of my 2 years. I never really expected to create such dynamic and important friendships with locals but that was definitely my favorite, and most memorable, part of my time.

Please feel free to contact me at emilyhaimowitz@gmail.com if you have any questions about the Peace Corps or rural Costa Rica. Thanks for reading over the last 2 years :)

quick hola

I´m not sure why I haven´t written or posted pictures in a while. Time just goes by and I don´t even notice. So, sorry about that. This is a going to be a quick one since I only have a few more minutes at the internet before my bus comes.
My service here ends in just over a month which is very hard to believe. I have loved almost every day of it so it´s going to be a hard thing to leave. The last few months have been the usual work, play, and life. Now I have the job market on mind and a list of to do´s and goodbyes before I leave.
Quickly, holy week was a few weeks ago. That´s the week before Christmas and everyone has off from work on Thursday and Friday of it. Buses don´t run and everything is closed. So I went to Tamarindo beach on Wednesday and stayed until Saturday which was really nice. It´s a beautiful and (but) very developed beach. Other than that and a great visit from the states, life has been pretty much the same. The recycling project we started has turned out to be very successful and the other projects are moving right along.
I hope everyone back home is doing well. I´ll see you all soon!

Happy 2010!

A lot has happened since my last blog post. December here is full of holiday prep. A couple weeks before Christmas, there is an annual festival called festival de la luz in San Jose… it’s kind of like light-up-night. The whole city is decorated in lights and at night, theres a huge parade with tons of floats made out of lights. I will post some pictures next time I get to internet. The 24th at night is the big holiday event with a family dinner full of pork and lots of people. This year I got to share that with my family who came from the snow to the sunshine. Together we made a lot of tamales – the traditional Christmas food wrapped in banana leaves. Christmas here means lots of lights decorating people’s homes, portales (which are the baby jesus scenes that everyone puts in their homes), presents for those who can afford them, a day off from work, and good meals.
A week later comes similar celebrations for New Years. Again, this is mostly celebrated within family settings… parents, grandparents, children, etc have parties in their homes with a big meal as well. I went with some friends in my town to my big city (Ciudad Quesada) where there was a huge concert in the central park with fireworks. There were tons of people dancing to the variety of cumbia, salsa, merengue and reggeaton music. We had a really great time there and got to do the 10-9-8-… countdown.
In December we also had graduation from 6th grade and Kindergarten. We have it in our indoor salon that we decorated with balloons and posters. The kids each year dedicate their graduation to one person and this year they decided to dedicate it to me. So I walked in with them and sat with them during the ceremony. It was a really nice afternoon and I will post some pictures of this too next time I can.
Well, I hope this year is a great one for all. 2010 will be an interesting one for me as I finish my service here in May of this year and then at some point well end up back in the states hopefully working somewhere… OK, hope you all had a great holiday season and are staying warm :) Stay in touch!

happy holidays :)

i hope everyone is (or had) a great hanukah, merry christmas and a happy new year. i will post another blog about my christmas here but now i just wanted to post some websites for you all. these are the blog and website of brooke and donny - the ones that came to my town and worked with us to help us start a recycling project, amongst other great projects like composting and environmental education. they have a great blog about their time here and on their website they talk a lot about their projects here. so check them out... they do some real great work :)
www.growinitiative.org
1love1world.blogspot.com
have a great start to 2010!

a few more...

here are some more pictures. im not really sure why i cant get them in the order i want but oh well. you´ll see the joys of the womens business... chicken farm. here they killed 22 chickens and i unfortuntely took part in the pulling out the feathers part. yuck! theres also some pictures from our schools festivals...like of the tamales that we sold, our ¨mechanical bull¨ if you will, and one of the cement tables and benches by they playground getting cemented in. we have 3 of them in total... there are also 2 pictures of gringos...or people from the states. the girl, brooke, was on semester at sea with me and then did peace corps in jamaica where she met donny. they have been traveling south ever since january and made it to my town about 2 and a half weeks ago. they have been doing a few educational projects with the kids and women about recycling and composting and will be funding our recycling project soon.
oook, enjoy the photos. happy thanksgiving... eat some extra turkey for me :)

some pictures :)

so here´s my last few months in a nutshell...

This is from the first communion in my town.. there were 9 kids getting their first communion...





These next 4 are from our trip to Nicaragua. The first one is on the lago de nicaragua... anyone want to buy an island on the Nicaragua Lake?? Next you´ll see the absolutely beautiful Laguna de Apoyo... id definitely recommend it if you´re gonna make your way down here. Then you´ll see the active volcano that we hiked up and then sandboarded down. nuts! Finally theres a shot of all of us in Leon. Id def recommend a trip to nicaragua!

so, clearly october and november have been busy as well since i haven´t gotten a chance to update in some time. i will try to get back soon to post some pictures... in october, i spent a week traveling in nicaragua with a few other ladies of tico 18 which was super nice. the rest of the time has been getting some more projects done in my town. we have almost finished the medical center, gotten the playground fenced in and accompanied by some tables and benches, and have legalized the womens group. this past weekend was a school fair where we had a bingo, food sales, a beautyish competition for the kids, and lots of sales of old clothes, plants, etc. they even made a mechanical bull using one of those big metal trashcans. we´ve also had a few dances and soccer tournaments and are planning fiestas for the end of january. so whoever wants to see some bull running, you should come the last weekend in january haha. the women´s association has some businesses that are going well, one being a chicken farm. tomorrow we have to go kill a bunch of chickens, ick. oh and boy and girl scouts has been up and running as well. so all in all things have been really successful recently. theres a lot more to do in these last 6 months (crazy!!) like getting the library up and running, working with the rest of the womens businesses, getting our recycling project working, trying to fight to get a computer lab, and lots more. any ideas are welcomed hahaha.
check back soon for some pictures. also, come visit!

September is a busy month

September started off strong with the dia del niño or children's day. I feel like I've fought for a children's day in the states for my whole life and here they have always had it. I mean, it's only fair... theres a mother's day and a father's day so why not have a children's day. So, on September 9th, all of the kids go to school and in their regular clothing instead of their school uniforms. I imagine that in more organized schools, the celebration is different. In my school, though, all the kids are sent to the plaza to play in the sun and get burnt. Then they dance to reggeaton music for a while, eat a hamburger and ice cream, and go home. So we left school around 11am and then headed to the river, had a day of games in English class, and then called it a day.

A few days later was September 15th, Independence Day. The celebration actually starts the night before, at 6pm on September 14th when the whole country sings the national anthem. Then, the children perform their typical dances in typical clothing. In my town, that's a pretty big deal. The children practice for a long time and really enjoy performing the typical dance. Then comes the faroles. Faroles are kind of like lanterns but out of paper or cardboard with a candle inside and then on a long stick. Each child brings their other home-made or store-bought farole and parades them around the salon while music is playing in the background. There are also typical food sales that go to help the school. Then, on the day of the 15th, all the kids have to go to school at 7am in uniform to sing the national anthem and then they can leave. I went with a few friends from my town to the city near us where they were having a big Independence Day parade. A lot of different schools and high schools participate... there are lots of bands and dance groups. So that was really nice too.

So first there was children's day, then independence day, and now new years. I'm in San Jose for the weekend for Rosh Hashana services. Another peace corps friend and I went to services last night and then we were invited to a congregation family's house for shabbat dinner. As always, they were incredibly nice and giving. The food was delicious as well. It always amazes me when I go there because the people there are so educated and cultured. And they have a ton of money. I just forget where I am when I go there. Especially because there is an equal amount of Spanish, English and Hebrew being spoken... Also, getting in to the synagogue is an interesting experience. Ahead of time, we had to send a copy of our passport and information about our home synagogue. Then, once we got there, we had to answer a million questions by a cop with a huge gun and another synagogue. Once we got in, we were to wear visitors passes at all times and weren't allowed to bring any bags in at all. When we were leaving Friday night with the family that invited us to their home, the husband explained the situation a little. He told us that Costa Rica is one of three countries that has recognized Palestine as a country... the other two are Venezuela and Iran. He said that because of that, the situation has been pretty dangerous recently.

Well, I hope you are all having a good September as well. For those of you celebrating the new year this weekend, hag sameach and shana tova. Have a happy and healthy new year :)

welcome to my house

i moved out after a year of living with a host family. its really nice to live on my own because now all of my friends in my town can come over for all of the things they have invited me to during the last year. we have meetings and stuff there too. my house is a little wooden and tin house furnished by the members of my town. it's a pretty typical house in my town with a gas stove, outdoor-ish kitchen, and wooden shudder windows. here are some pictures...






needless to say, theres lots of floor space so come and visit!

heres a bunch of pictures that i owe you... theres some from the 3 suprise parties from my birthday and then our NEW PLAYGROUND! i will get some pictures up soon from my new house and the works. everything is super busy here but going very well. cant wait to hear from all of you :)

one thing i love about peace corps is...

... that the little things can make my day. i think ive said this to a lot of people already, but it´s really true. when i was back at home, when did a phone call from a good friend make me smile for the rest of the day? what i mean is, back in the states, it was a given that i would talk to friends on a regular basis. so instead of getting super super happy when one would call, i would get upset or worried if days passed without hearing from him or her. now, all i need to do is get an incoming call and good luck wiping the smile off my face.

the same came true this past week for my birthday. the people in my town are super good at keeping secrets. my adult english class threw me a suprise party in the class the night before my birthday. i started the class as normal and noticed that oddly enough, NO ONE had done their homework. this had never happened before. then, the lights in the classroom get shut off and in walks one of my students with a cake with 24 candles, pizzas, and presents. i seriously had NO idea that they even knew my birthday was the next day. but it was super nice of them and made me feel real special. then, my 6th graders threw me a little suprise party the day after my birthday in the morning. they came to my house asking for the keys to the school, saying they had a project to do. i called the director of the school to ask if it was ok to lend them the keys... she was apparently in on the secret and told me to give them all the time they needed. turns out, they needed the keys to decorate the classroom, bring the food and drinks, and plan the games. we spent all morning hanging out and playing volleyball. then, in the afternoon, come suprise number 3. a few of my women said we had to go to this guys house with a pool to ask for some wood to start building the greenhouse. they told me to wear my bathing suit cuz we´ll jump in his pool. well, when we get there, my whole womens group is jumping out behind a wall and screaming happy birthday. they decorated, brought cakes, pinatas and games, we grilled, and had a reeeeally nice time. needless to say, i had a great birthday. and it was even better getting all the calls, emails, etc from home. so thanks :)

i brought my camera to put up pictures from all of these fun occasions but didnt bring the cable to connect the camera to the computer. so next time...

moving on

hey all! im here in san jose for a peace corps dinner with all volunteers. we had a really great time and now im taking advantage of internet time :) any way, we just found out that we got our grant money for a playground! so in a few weeks, look out for some awesome pictures of that. its going to be from wood and we are planning to put benches and tables and a jardin and the whole shabang.
another construction project in my town is.... my new house! my counterpart organization is fixing up this little house for me and i'm going to live on my own for my second year. im really excited to just have a change, a new little challenge, and have my own little place. i think it's gonna be real great to be able to have my friends from town over for cafecito or to chill. the kids are all super excited too to have a place to hang out. and im going to have to be an adult again and cook and clean. the people in my town are so excited to see me doing oficios, or the household cleaning and cooking stuff. anyway, thats my big update. aaand, check out this little girl...



she's going to be keeping me company in my new place :)

anyway, i will get some pictures up soon when i have my place, of the playground, etc. cant wait to hear how you all are doing!

semana santa and other updates

hi all! chag sameach and happy easter :) im in san jose after going to the seder - the same one we went to last year. it was a really nice seder in the most gorgeous synagogue ever. it always impresses me how open and welcoming everyone is.

anyway, semana santa, or holy week, is a week long holiday here. kids are off school all week (which isnt really a big surprise since they never have school), lots of people travel to visit family and sleep out in tents, and there are lots of special foods like tamales mudos, empanadas de chiverre, tilapia and lots of bread. i know, it's interesting trying to keep passover... the whole country starts shutting down by thursday and it's a really nice holiday where you spend time with family and friends. we go to the river since its so so hot right now and take some road trips if theres a car around.

since it's been a while, im gonna try to put some other updates here. hmmm. our soccor tournament ended this past weekend with a great dance and award ceremony thing. even though my town didnt win, we had a really great time with the tournament and at the dance last weekend. im actually taking a dance class in my town with this guy who comes in once a week. we are 6 or 7 pairs and have been learning cumbia, salsa, swing, merengue, bachatta, bolero... its real real fun. ill learn and then come back and teach you all :)

as far as projects, we got this great grant from kids to kids (http://kidstokids.org/) to go an art class in my town. arte por la paz, or art for peace, will try to discuss communication and how to resolve conflicts through art projects. it's going to be a real cool program that we're going to do with the kids from kinder and the school. on monday we go pick up the money, buy a whoooole lot of art supplies, and get started. im also working with the 5th and 6th grade girls in a group called chicas poderosas. we meet each week and talk about anything from communication, how to work in groups, leadership, ya know. the girls are having a great time and im really enjoying it too. the medical center, roads, playground, etc are all going well. we're just waiting which im getting good at here.

also, since in may i complete my first year of service here, im going tooooo... move out on my own! my counterpart association has this falling apart house that we're going to fix up and in about 1 month, i'll be on my own. it was super great living with my host family but im ready to be an adult again and also only have to eat when im actually hungry. this also means that you are all MORE than welcome to come visit and crash with me! it'll be soo fun :)

oook. well i hope everyone has a good semana santa, passover, week. ill try to post some pictures next time i get on here so look out for them. i miss you all and have been thinking of you all. be good and stay in touch.

check out our puesto de salud!

hey there! just checking in while i'm in san jose with good internet. everything is going nice and smooth on my end here. project-wise, things are moving real fast. we're working on our puesto de salud (or medical facility) and waiting on word from the grant we wrote for a playground. we also just submitted a grant to get a little bit of money for an art extra-curricular program to talk about good communnication and promote peace and all that jazz. and the women's group is moving fast and about ready to start trying to start a bakery. i'm teaching them a business course, haha. so that sucks for them. the roads are being fixed as we speak too. then there's all the english classes and i'm about to start this group of 5th and 6th grade girls to talk about girl things. im really excited about that group... and i'm working with the new director of the school to try and see if a library or computer lab would be possible.
sooo, thats my life here. otherwise, i'm having fun taking a dance class in my town once a week with a bunch of friends from my time. we've learned a little bit of merengue, salsa, swing with a tico twist, etc. and i've only stepped on my partner's feet a few times so i'd mark that in as a success.

also, since my last post, i went to palmares for a huge festival with some friends. it's a larger town that one week a year has a gazillion people go to it for concerts, events, rides and food, the usual festival things. and then the next week we went to puntarenas, its a beach on the pacific coast and is a major port there. we went cuz we were going crazy with the constant rain and winds that wouldn't even let us leave our houses. so you can check out some pictures of those too...

some pictures

here are some pictures from beautiful flamingo beach. also, theres a picture of my holidays in costa rica... the menorah under many christmas decorations haha.

earthquake update

in the last 10 and a half months i´ve been in costa rica (ah!), there´s been a number of floods and natural disasters hitting several towns here. they have all been nightmares for the people in those towns, but nothing on a huge scale. until a week and a half ago... on january 8th, around 1:30pm, a 6.2 degree earthquake hit here. the epicenter was not too close to me, gracias a dios, but it hit a number of small rural towns near volcan poas. towns called cinchona and san miguel de sarapique, for example, have been literally whiped off the map. it´s been a huge disaster here, killing a lot of people and displacing more than a thousand others. the towns were completely destroyed, highways ripped apart - picture new orleans style on a smaller scale, obviously. it´s been a big problem getting a lot of the bodies out since, every day, replication quakes are hitting. the point is, there are still rescue crews from here and colombia looking for bodies and trying to get people out of buses and cars, houses and restaurantes, and so on. but it looks like there are going to be a lot of bodies that will never get rescued since it´s so dangerous for the rescue teams to get into these little towns.
each day, the news here shows interviews of survivors - how they got our of the quake alive and what happened to their families, friends, homes, etc. almost everyone who got out is missing family members or friends who weren´t as lucky. these survivors are living in tents, eating out of meal lines, and wearing on their backs their only posessions.
it´s been hard for everyone here to hear about these stories each day. we feel lucky that we´re all ok and our town, families and friends are not hurt, mostly, but its a helpless feeling. as many of us felt with new orleans, and i imagine many are feeling in israel, its hard to be so close to the destruction and not do anything. but its just not safe to go to these displacement camps yet. the quakes are still hitting each day.
the women´s group that i´ve been working with in my town and i agreed to atleast do a collection drive in my town. the many committees and organizations in my town are great but often get carried away with their own projects and forget to think. so i was able to get the women to agree to do the collection since no one else in my town was doing one. we went literally door to door on thursday and friday, put collection boxes in the local store, and so on. today i was able to deposit close to 400 dollars in the fund for the earthquake victims and on monday, we will be dropping off dozens and dozens of bags of clothing, food, and household items to the red cross. even though my town is relatively poor, it was nice to know that everyone was willing and ready to help, even if it was just with a dollar or a can of tuna.

otherwise, im happy and healthy here. things are going well job-wise, too. hope everyone at home is doing well!

feliz navidad y prospero ano nuevo

happy 2009 everyone! i hope you all had great holidays and are recovering from all the celebrations. i´m on my way home from playa flamingo, where a bunch of us went to celebrate new years. it was super beautiful and really relaxing. we even got to see a concert on the beach, fireworks, and toooons of sand and perfect water.
anyway, i wanted to take advantage of the internet to update you all on my life here. i wanted to post some pictures but it looks like this internet connection is too slow for that...
we had fiestas in our town almost a month ago which involves dances, food sales, and bull riding. it is quite an experience watching the bulls break through really solid walls and run after people. i´ll never understand the people that ride them or the ones on the ground with the red fabric thing. here they say they are valientas, or brave. but i just think they are stupid.
after the fiestas, came graduation. here, the schools and high schools went on their vacation starting the 19th of december and they go back in february. so, we had our kinder and 6th grade graduation. they were held together in the salon comunal and it was really great. the kids were all really proud of themselves as were the parents...it´s a pretty big deal graduating 6th grade and was real hard for a lot of the kids. its also the last formal education that many of them will ever receive.
the next day was first comunion in our church. it was only the second mass i have gone to in this town... there were 5 nicaraguan youth that had the ceremony so i went to see them and celebrate with them and their families. the kids ranged from 3rd grade to 15...
then started the holidays here. everything in the country pretty much shuts down in late december until after the new year, it seems. all the houses have some form of christmas decorations including lights, santas, red and green anythings, etc. also, almost everyone had a portal which is like a nativity scene, im told. they make them BIG though...like with tables or in a HUGE part of the room. lots of that green grassy looking stuff, plastic animals and all the characters. christmas here is for some reason celebrated on the 24th...they make and eat tamales, have bbq ish celebrations with the family, and hang out. we went to my host brother and sister in laws house for some kareoke, dancing, and bbq. for those that can afford it, presents are as big of a deal here than they are at home. the only difference is that no one spends nearly as much as they do in the states buuut they still do what they can. also, instead of saying that santa brought and left the gifts, they say the nino did. the nino brought me some shirts and other gifts which was really nice of him...or the friends in town.
i was also able to get a little hanukah spirit out there too. my host mom and i lit the menorah each night under all the christmas decorations and savored the one pack of gelt that came in the package with the menorah.
anyway, i will try to post the pictures next time i get to the internet. i hope everyone has a happy and healthy start to 2009 and enjoys the rest of holiday season. here things should be pretty relaxed this month with vacations going on. we have another dance in about 2 weeks so there should be some more photos coming soon.
happy new years!!

happy thanksgiving, gringos!

i thought i would try to post again before i leave the city. i'm here in san jose with some other volunteers for thanksgiving... a couple who work for the US embassy invited us to dinner and we ended up going with them to another embassy official's house where there were about 20 of us - almost all of them working for the embassy. everyone was SUPER welcoming and nice and the food was great. and it was just real nice for us to feel so comfortable there.

so i go back to my site tomorrow and have a busy few days coming up. tomorrow i have to give the oral part of the english test to my adults and then this weekend is our fiesta weekend. we have dances, futbol games, bull riding and running, and lots of food sales. it'll be my first bull action so i'm excited to see that. then the mayor comes to meet with us about fixing our roads. the rainy season here is really attacking this country and, compared to limon and other towns, our town is being let off super well. buuut, the river is real full and everyone is worried about it overflowing. sooo, the municipality got us these huge round cylinder like things that are somehow gonna prevent the flooding...we'll see what the mayor has to say about all this. thennn, im gonna meet with some ladies from fuerza y luz who, i'm hoping, are gonna work with us to get a playground, or parque infantil, in my town. im real excited about this project so hopefully it'll go well. then i have my host nephews baptism slash birthday... so, it should be a pretty full next few days.

the point is, happy thanksgiving! i hope the turkey was great and everyone is sleeping safe and sound in the food comas :)

whoops, forgot 2 pictures

i went to volcano arenal with my school...heres a group picture and then you can see the volcano erupting.

...celebran la vida, celebran la vida...

¨celebran la vida¨is a song that means celebrate life that the kindergardeners are learning for their graduation in december. and i thought it would be a good title for some of the photos i´m posting...
not too long ago, we had an all volunteer conference where all 90 something volunteers met at a campsite, got to know each other, and received some more training. most of us went a day early to be together on election day and get some cable. that will explain the first picture and first celebration. the next one is from the halloween party we had at our training. there i am in the middle celebrating yet another huge success!! then, you´ll find a picture of a new bridge and one then one that fell 13 years ago. the only bridge connecting us to the next town over is FINALLY almost done after more than a decade of needing it. motorcycles and people can now cross and we just have a little more to do before cars can cross too. and finally, you´ll see me modeling lovely botas that are completely necessary in these rainy months. buuuut, it looks like the rain maaay be dying down, the sun is shining, and my feet are nice and dry. so, there you have it. there are a lot of celebrations in order!
in other news, we are having another futbol tournement in my town, this time out in the outdoor plaza. the women and i from the womens group are going to sell food to make some money for the group. so that´ll keep us busy for the next 14 sundays, haha. we also will be having festivals in our town at the end of the month which should be quite an experience. we are also head deep in project proposals for a medical facility in our town so hopefully there will be good news soon with that. soooo, hope all is well with everyone back home. keep up the phone calls and start checking on flights to come visit!! :)