Chilling in my Pueblo, Meetings, Dead Goat, Beach

Greetings all. Rudy Becker here reporting the latest from Costa Rica. This week I spent most of my time hanging out in my town. I taught 4 more English classes this week, which turned out to be pretty succesfull. In my older group class we played Bingo. Turned out to be a fun game but definately took way longer than I expected it to take, in terms of making the bingo board and teaching them all the words and how to play. The kindergarten class continued along with their work. I have been teaching them the ABCs and they have aswell been working on their ABC book´s. This week we did the letters E for Egg and F for Fish. Pretty exciting overall.

This week was filled with meetings. I began this week with my house to house interviews. One thing I really like about my community is the fact that it really is a community. Very few places in the world can a neighbor (me)  from 5 houses down the road come over to another person house (any member of my community) unannounced and just chat about your communities goals and neccesities. I have been learning alot
more about the community as a result of these interviews and as well I am making more one on one personal connections with members of my community.

My second big meeting was a meeting on monday with the development association of my town. We are right now working on getting an aquaduct system set up 
in my town as of right now everyone is drinking and using water out of their personal wells on their property. With an aquaduct system in place we would pretty much get relatively unlimited access to potable (clean, filtered,free of bacteria) water whenever we wanted. As well we are working to setup a new bank account for a development association to recieve money 
from the governemnt for future projects.

My third big meeting was at the school. News around town is that we recieved money to build another kindergarten classroom as well as another classroom for the school. It was only a priliminary meeting but with my spanish skills I believe that is what was fully discussed in the school. I look forward to collaborating with members of my community
in working to get these buildings built for the benefit of not only the students in the school but of the community. Hopefully with these new class rooms I can hold my english classes in them as well in the future potentially setup a mini computer lab of sorts to teach computation classes which has been requested around my town.

My fourth big meeting, not really a meeting but, on Thursday I went to the church with my family. On the last thursday of every month a pastor comes to our church to have services. I was curious
as to how the services where so I went to the church. It was an overall really great experience. I cant really pinpoint exactly what I liked most about it, but I just felt really touched about the whole experience. The pastor was interesting and it just seemed that everyone was really at peace being in the church. The church was extremely primitive, no music only singing, had holes in the cieling, ragged benches, and several smashed windows. But nonetheless everyone was happy and 
everyone was able to channel themselves and appreciate God or whoever they were personally praying to. It just made me reinforce the fact that you dont´t really need alot to be happy in this life. As long as you have your family by your side, as well as good friends, and a positive appreciative attitude you can really live life to the fullest.

Yesterday I was hanging out in my house and my host sisters boyfriend asked me If I wanted to go for a walk. I was like sure why not. He said to wear pants and boots. We ended up initially walking along this trail in the property of my host mom. We walked past the cows and all of the land which my host brother cleared with his giant machete. My host brother literally cut the grass and bushes of probably 4 acres of land with one single machete in the span of an afternoon. He is a machine. Yesterday he said he killed 2 6 foot snakes while cutting the grass. Crazy. Anyways we started walking down deeper into the hillside and started to head literally into the jungle. He whipped out his machete and we were walking through the jungle with him clear cutting a path for us with his machete. We were scaling walls, sliding down mudslides, climbing 75 degee angle waterfalls it was nuts. Then we got to the river and walked down the river for like 2 kms. On the way back we  walked in a different direction along the river and I smelled something fowl. It was the decomposing carcass of a goat which was probably there for over a month. It was disgusting you could see the whole bone structure as well as some rubbery pieces of skin trailing from the bones. It was crazy. So basically as we were walking back upstream the water we were wading in was at some point streaming past this decomposing carcass. Reminder : Never drink the water in a river, you NEVER know what is upstream. haha. I didnt drink it though although I think earlier my host sisters boyfriend did, but I think he refused to admit it. haha anyways that was just a crazy little midday adventure I had.

Right now I am in my usual internet spot above the supermarket in my nearest big town. It is raining and there is a festival of sorts in the town with rides and vendors all over the place. I will probably meet my family in the center square soon. 

Regarding the future I am going to be spending the fourth of july on the beach for 4 days on the Caribbean coast. It should be a blast and I am really excited to spend a prolonged amount of time on the beach. It is gonna be wild. Ill be sure to snap some pics and let you know how it turns out. 

Hope everyone else is well. My tickets are booked for November 19th to the 26th to come home for a week for Thanksgiving. Hopefully I can see many of you all then.

Much love,

Rudy

Campo 4 Life

Back for another installment of my blog eh? Life is so far so good down here in Costa Rica. Just living it up here in the Campo with my 20 cows, 30 chickens, 5 dogs, 1000 species of insects, 1 Turkey, 1,235 Cockroaches, and 4 horses. As I am settling in more and more, and getting into somewhat of a schedule my days are becoming more and more similar. It seems like a long time for the actual day to pass but the weeks are flying off the calendar.

This past week I continued my English classes at the school. The Kindergartners are learning alot and everytime I come into the school they immediately great me by ¨Rodolfo¨. I go by ¨Rodolfo¨in my town. As well my class with the 1st through 6th graders is going very well at a suprisingly fast pace. They are very eager to learn and are getting use to my weekly classes . I have recently learned how to add photos to my blog so here is a pic of me and the kindergarten class .


This past weekend I went to San Jose with my Tico 16 group. It was a pretty wild time we ended up staying in a new hostel and then hit the city for dinner at a restaurant and then dancing at a discotec. It was great to see some of my friend who I hadnt seen for a month. We are now in the midst of planning another trip over the 4th of July weekend, probably at the beach.

Since nothing really to crazy had happened in the past couple weeks I will try and enlighten you with some pictures of my life here in Costa Rica.

My Crib

Me doing Poi at night

Me on the beach in Dominical

Me and some of the kids I live with.

Me and Bill classing it up after Swearing in.

Cake in the face on my Birthday.

Tico 16

Well that is pretty much it for pictures. If you have any special requests like me with a snake around my neck or me sipping a pina colada in a hot tub overlooking the ocean. I can probably accomodate your requests. Thats all for now.

Pura Vida,

Rudy

Beach, Beer, and Books

Life in Costa Rica lately has been pretty great. I am more and more slowly getting adjusted to my life here in my site. Slowly building some routines and definately taking in all the amazing weather. Right now we are in the rainy season here, but for a majority of the day usually in the morning and early afternoon it is bright and really sunny. I have gotten the routine down pretty well of waking up having breakfast and sitting on my hammock every morning and getting a good hour or 2 of reading in, under the bright Costa Rican sun.

Although it hasnt all been rest and relaxation, I have continued my English classes in the local school these past weeks. I have recently started class with the Kindergarten class of 9 students. They are really young, and cannot read or write as expected but are loving the classes and embracing my efforts to teach them new words and songs. I am teaching them new words half the time and then the other half we are focusing on learning a new letter each session and coloring a sheet of paper with the letter, a picture of an example of on object starting with the letter, and the word spelled out (i.e C, picture of cat, CAT). Anwyays after they are done with the whole alphabet I am going to make a book with them with all the pictures they drew. Nice little project to start off. My first through sixth grade class is doing well and they are overcoming the initial nervousness of having a new teacher, and all are participating more and very excited to learn. When I get home I hear my host sisters speaking the new words we learned in english class, so it looks like it is sticking. But overall a great experience that I am having in the community.

Books. I am definately reading alot now. I finished Shantaram a while ago which I strongly recommend and has become my favorite book. Read 2 more books and now I am on Michael Crichton´s Lost World. It is interesting because it references alot of places in Costa Rica and it talks about dinosaurs. I think my next book will be Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. So yeah I have been clocking some good time in my hammock getting things done.

My Community Analysis Tool aka The ¨CAT¨ has been working out well. Like I said before I had that large community meeting in my time which brought out alot of information about the community and potential projects they would like to start work on. As well I have begun the individual one on one interviews with members of the community. I will ramp up this effort more beginning this week which should bring some great new information to me, and also allow me to get to know more people in the community in a more personal setting.

This past weekend we had our regional VAC meeting (aka the student council of Peace Corps Costa Rica) where we got together and spoke about issues relating to our job as well as issues in the field. This meeting was conveniently located on a beautiful beach 3.5 hours away from my site in the small pueblo of Dominical. I had a great time and met up with four other fellow Tico 16ers. It was awesome we swam in the water, ate great food, drank some Imperial, and partied it up in this Disco nearby till 2 in the morning. Absolute insanity. Being in the campo for extended periods of time you tend to build up this pent up energy to party and just hangout with other English speakers. I dont know about everyone but that is just me. Overall amazing time at the beach.

This coming week I will continue work as usual at my site. This Friday I am meeting up with some other Tico 16ers in San Jose, which should be a blast. I recently opened up a mailbox in a city close to me here is the address :

Rudolph Becker
Apartado Postal 61-8100
Buenos Aires, Zona Sur
Costa Rica

PLEASE send me something anything if you can. I have recieved some packages already from some people and I am extremely grateful. Being down here alone and isolated from my family, friends,and US products is difficult and any message or packages from the states or abroad would be awesome. Haha anyways that is my little and last plea for people to send me stuff.

Anyways that is the news from here. I would love to hear more from all of you in the States and abroad and thanks already for all the support I have recieved. I hope life is treating everyone well. Pura Vida.

Rudy

Pizza Hut, Community Meeting and Campo Life

Right now I am reporting from the Peace Corps Office in San Jose. I am currently in the capital to get some things checked out medically with me. I am fine, just getting some routine checks done. It is nice to escape a little bit from my site and enjoy the luxuries of a mattress, hot shower, and flush toilet. Today I went to Pizza Hut for lunch. Here in Costa Rica, Pizza Hut is considered the place to go for a businessman and busineswoman to conduct casual meetings over lunch. Everyone is dressed in business casual clothes, its quite different from the fast food/family atmosphere pizza hut has in the states. As I was eating my personal pan pizza, I saw this women constructing her salad at the salad bar. This salad was a piece of art. She had potato salad and hard boiled eggs acting as retaining walls for her plate and piled her salad 6 inches high onto this miniscule plate. In Costa Rica you get to only go to the salad bar once and you have to fully take advantage of that one trip. Anyways it was a nice lunch and good to have a familiar taste after two weeks in the "campo".

This past Friday I held a community meeting in my community where about 30 people attended. I facilitated a discussion as well as an activity based on learning about different aspects of the community and its needs. Overall I feel the meeting was a success and I learned alot about the community. This past Monday, there was another meeting for the community held in the school lunch room regarding the prospective building of an aquaduct in my community. One of the top concerns of the people in my community is the secure and constant line of fresh potable water to their houses. As of right now people retrieve the water from wells or get their tanks filled up every once in a while which is a difficult and costly process. An aquaduct project is a large one, which would take alot of time but definately would improve the quality of life for everyone in the community.

Everything else in my community is working out well. My family is great, the 5 dogs, 25 chickens, 5 roosters, 5 pigs, 25 cattle, 4 horses, and 1 turkey are doing great as well. There is alot of construction going on at my house as they are expanding the number of rooms. I will also be getting a new room which should be nice. On my way to the school one day to talk to the teachers, I was walking in the middle of the road and looked down and saw a 6 foot long snake. As I was close to my house I told my host brother of the huge snake in the middle of the road. He told everyone else in the house and everyone came running, including one guy working on the house with a huge 2 foot long machete and sprinted to the snake and immediately executed it with one strong swift blow to the head seperating the snakes head from the body. Campo life something new everyday.

Anyways that is all for now. I hope everyone is doing well.

Peace out.

Rudy