The Dirty South Adventures

The Dirty South is the name us volunteers use to refer to the Southern part of Costa Rica. I dont really know why we use the name, but we definately get dirty down here. For example, yesterday I was recruited by two of my host sisters to get coconuts down from a palm tree near our house. Originally I thought that it wouldnt be too difficult of a task so I agreed to follow them to one of the palm trees near our house. They gave me this very long bamboo stick to poke the coconuts with. Keep in mind these coconuts are about 30 feet in the air, so this is a 30 foot bamboo stick I am carrying around, no wonder they recruited me, I couldnt see 10 year old picking this stick up. Anyways I tried wacking the coconuts a couple times with no success. All the while spiders, ants, and, palm bark are flying at my while I am hitting these coconuts, getting in my eyes and ants crawling all over me. I then proceed to break the bamboo stick. Disappointed my host sisters coax me to find another stick to get the coconuts from. I then go walking in the jungle and find this gigantic tree that fell down awhile ago. I decide that is is our only option so I carry these 30 foot beast of a tree to the coconut tree and with an unbelievable amount of strength, sweat, and ant bites I manage to get 6 coconuts down. This whole fiasco took about an hour but boy was it worth it. I had the girls chop open the coconuts for me with 2 foot machettes and we all enjoyed the sweet coconut milk aka pipa in spanish. As well as the coconut ¨meat¨ or whatever you might call it. Then as usual it started to rain and we had a huge water fight which was fun. Its crazy but my best friends here in my site are my 2 hosts sisters ages 9 and 11, and 2 host nieces ages 8 and 9. Me and these 4 girls play alot together and go on crazy adventures. We use to play alot of Jacks, but then those got lost no we throw the football around and play 500. To that outside eye it my seem weird that this 23 year old bearded man is playing childrens games with 4 girls under 12 but these are my best friends here and they are great.

After our water fight my host brother was in the Corral with a veterinarean of sorts seeing if any of our cows were pregnant. We have about 20 head of cattle and all of them were in the Corrall at one time. So you need to be careful that you dont get trampled or gored by a 700 lb cow or bull while walking around in there. I helped guide a couple of the cows into a holding area were the veterinarean (not really a vet, but someone who know something about pregnant cows) was waiting with a glove that went up to his shoulders. He then commenced by sticking his whole arm in the anus of the cow until he was shoulder deep into the cow, feeling around for a potential calf. Apparantely only one of our cows turned out to be pregnant. He found that out after going shoulder deep into 7 of our cows.

The above all happened yesterday. This goes to show that every day when I wake up here in Costa Rice, is a new day and a new adventure. The things that go on here I cant even forcast.

Anyways, my Dirty South VAC meeting turned out to be alright. We were again partying it up on the beach, as well as discussing relevant issue in terms of Peace Corps. Peace Corps is probably one of the only organizations I will work for that holds business meetings literally on the beach. It was great to meet the new Tico 17ers. They are a chill group of people who I am sure I will get to know alot better in the future. Right now the Southern VAC region has more volunteers than any other region in Costa Rica, so it is good to know that the South is rising. Aswell this is good considering that the Southern region of Costa Rica is also the poorest, so they are clearly recieving the most help in terms of Peace Corps assistance.

My travels with Tamar turned out to be an amazing time. We hit up Montezuma for a while, which is in the southern part of the Nicoya Peninsula as well as San Jose. In San Jose we lived it up in the luxurious restaurant Hotel Restaurante Grano de Oro. If anyone is going to San Jose and wants amazing food this is the place to eat at. Right now she is on her way to Grenada, Nicaragua to commence with Spanish Classes and other crazy travels. You can check her blog out under my links. She will be doing great things for the people of Nicaragua.

Right now I am just continuing life at my site. Things are going well. The rain is slowing down slightly. Looks like we have one more month of rain then comes the dry season which will be HOTTTT. I will be coming back to New York in late December for 8 days. It would be crazy if I could go sledding in the frigid snow and then lay out on the scorching beaches of Costa Rica all in the same week.

My English Classes are going well. We are going to start up an official program soon run by Centro Cultural Costa Rica. It is a very good English program that will be very beneficial to my students. My interviews as well in my site are going well, I am just about finished with them and then need to continue work on my report about the community. Once completed depending on security concerns I may or may not be able to post it on my blog. We will see.

In regards to the US I am extremely excited to be returning for a week for thanksgiving as well as attending my 5 year High School Reunion. It is going to be a blast. When I talk to alot of other volunteers and tell them I am going to my high school reunion they cringe and say that they would never go to theirs. But for me I had a blast in High School and loved everyminute of it, and I am eager to see everyone very soon.

Anwyays thats is all for now. I hope things are going well for everyone. Muchas gracias to Mac Bowen for his letter I just recieved, I will be getting back to you shortly via snail mail and everyone else keep those correspondences coming. Aswell I want to send a special shout out to my boy Jon Gleason, without him I wouldnt know where I would be.

Thank you all for reading my blog and I hope to see you soon when I return to New York in November.

Tuanis. Rudy.