The Tuanis Times

Great People Doing Great Things

2011-07-18T20:21:00.000-04:00

Woezor !! (meaning You are Welcome !! in the local Ewe language). I hope everyone is doing well around the world wherever you may be reading this.

Recently our second group has returned back from another great weekend excursion. Highlights included visiting New Seed International, Wli Falls, Monkey Sanctuary, and a traditional Kenti Weaving Village. All and all everything worked out pretty well except for my slight injury at Wli Falls. At the falls I was climbing some slippery rocks and ended up slipping and catching my fall using my left hand. Except on my left hand I had my steel watch of 1.5 years on which was developing a sharp edge to it. I ended up slicing the bottom of my palm about ½ inch deep and about 1.5 inches wide. So with the gaping wound on my left palm I needed to battle through the chaos/wind storm that is Wli Falls (the tallest waterfalls in West Africa) to get back to where my med kit was to stop the bleeding. As of right now as I am typing this my hand is well on its way to recovery after visiting the local doctor at Keta Hospital.

This morning’s trip to Keta Hospital was pretty memorable. I arrived at around 7:30 AM to try and avoid the rush, but despite arriving early I was only seen by a doctor by 9 AM. At the hospital I needed to visit several stations to organize my paperwork, take my vital signs, and then finally wait for the doctor. My boss told me the one Doctor who works at the hospital was Cuban, so I immediately broke out my Spanish as I greeted her in the morning. After falling into her good graces she immediately told me she would see me, but I just needed to wait one moment for her to tend to an emergency. As I was waiting for her I saw a gurney with a patient on it who seemed to be sleeping enter her examination room. After she was done with the woman, she told me that she was a 24 years old woman who arrived to the Hospital dead on arrival and was already deceased for more than one day. Somehow her family neglected to bring her medical attention or pay attention to her at all until this morning where they transported her already dead body to the hospital to see if there was anything she could do. Unfortunately she passed away and I , of course, do not know the entire full story but it is particularly difficult for me to hear and see someone pass away so close to my age of 27 years old. After I received my shot and prescription for antibiotics I was able to leave the hospital. My whole consultation with my doctor occurred in Spanish, which was pretty cool. By the time I left her office every single seat was filled and the hallways where stacked full of people. A conservative estimate for the amount of people waiting to see the one doctor the hospital had would probably be around 175 patients. As well I tip my hat to the government of Cuba who is providing this Doctor at the clinic. For if she wasn’t there who knows what the public health implications of the region would be. I have met so many people (foreigners and domestics) here in Ghana who are working EXTREMELY hard to better the lives of other people, and putting their lives on hold/straining their lives to serve others.

I met two more of those people who are literally SACRIFICING their lives for the well being and future of others today. They are the two Americans who are currently running Father’s House International (an organization and orphanage who is currently taking care of/raising 8 ex-child slaves from Ghana) http://www.fathershouseghana.com/. The children at the orphanage were sold by their parents into slavery in the Volta Region to fisherman. These fisherman would use the children to dive deep underwater to untangle nets. This is extremely dangerous work as many children drown from diving deep and getting entangled in the nets and drowning. As well they are not taken care of properly and given no education. These two American from South Carolina who are working to slowly rehabilitate the lives of these children are doing absolutely amazing work. As a group I was able to bring students to the orphanage and we were able to meet the saved kids and see where they lived and play soccer with them. They also played drums for us, and showed us their homemade drum set which consisted of tin cans, bamboo, and a card board box drum bass. The children were super friendly and outgoing, something I am sure they weren’t when they were held as slaves. Seeing the whole compound and playing with the kids was an awesome experience and motivates me to continue doing great things for others once I get back to the states.

In Ghana it has been great to see the community mentality in full effect which many developing countries have. Neighbors know each other really well, communities rely on each other for survival, everyone looks out for one another and are extremely kind and friendly in their demeanor. Ghanaians are extremely welcoming people and gracious people. The best parts about traveling are truly getting to know the people, and so far I feel I have definitely been able to meet and become friends with the Ghanaians I work with, have met while traveling, have met while working at the schools, and have just met when walking down the street. Overall it has been an amazing experience to be here and work in this country.

Anyways that is the latest that is happening out here in West Africa. I definitely miss everyone back at home and only have a little bit more than one month left in this country and I plan to take full advantage of the time I have here.

Thanks for reading.

Love to all,

Rudolph

You are Welcome !

2011-07-07T21:29:00.001-04:00

You are Welcome ! That is the phrase many Ghanaians say to welcome you to their homes, schools, or just about anywhere you meet a Ghanaian.

All is well here with me in Ghana. Today is the second to last day of the first group of students which will be working with this summer. This past weekend we went on an excursion to the city of Ho in the Volta Region. There we were able to visit a Monkey Sanctuary, swim under the highest waterfalls of West Africa (Wli Falls), visit a Kenti Cloth Weaving village, and relax in a hotel with a POOL ! Overall it was great to leave our home base a little bit and see the surrounding country side. After this past weekend’s excursion we continued work making bricks at the schools, teaching at the school, and participating in afternoon/evening cultural events.

The most impressive place I have been to so far in Ghana was also visited during this past weekend. We visited an organization called New Seed International (http://www.newseedinternational.org/index.html) it is an amazing organization located in Ho and its mission is to assist children and all people who have been somehow affected by HIV/AIDS. The organization has an orphanage component which helps take care of children who have HIV, children who have been shunned from their communities and own parents as a result of having HIV, and children without parents who have died as a result of AIDS. There are approximately 75 children at New Seed International and we were able to spend an amazing afternoon playing with the children and also having an in depth conversation with its founder Livinus. The organization also works on HIV/AIDS awareness and also has a medical clinic component attached to its facilities. This is an amazing organization which is helping many children’s lives through no fault of their own have been affected by HIV/AIDS. All of these children were simply born and, of course, never chose to be born into having HIV or having had their parents passed away as a result of this virus. Playing and interacting with all of the children ages newborn to 14 was definitely the most memorable/heartwarming/difficult interaction with children I have ever had. If anyone is ever thinking about donating any money to anything, this is an effective organization who is working very hard for the children they are taking care of. Please email me (rudy.becker@gmail.com) if you are interested in donating anything, they are currently working on a large 60 bed boy and girl dorm room facility to house the children in a clean and safe environment.
Today is Thursday and before I know it on Saturday afternoon I will be greeting 36 new students in Accra Airport to Ghana. This group will be a 3 week program, and I am very excited to get to know them. In this group it looks like there will be 3 boys and 33 girls. I look forward to working with them all and embarking on adventures throughout Ghana with them. This past group has been really amazing with some great characters and cool students.

Anyways that is the latest for now! I miss everyone and look forward to seeing you all soon back home!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISA !!! Wish you were here !!

Love to all,

Rudy

Here is a link to my latest pictures from Ghana : https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100771172575793.3069401.2206209&l=dd62106b61

There Is Time For Everything

2011-06-30T19:48:00.001-04:00

Greetings everyone from the Volta Region of Ghana ! So far so good with our first group of 29 students arriving from different parts of the world including the US, Canada, Turkey, Germany, and Spain. In our group we have 25 females and 4 males, with ages ranging from 15 to 18 years of age. All of the students have already been here for 5 days so far, and it has been great getting to know each and every one of them. We have already begun our work in the school which includes brick making and teaching of classes. As well we have had the opportunity to engage in a variety of cultural activities including, participating in African Drum lessons, visiting a slave fort, playing with children at an orphanage, visiting local host families, playing with the local village children, visiting a local seamstress to have clothing made from African designed cloth bought at the local market and having guest speakers at night which include college professors speaking about Ghana today to a local chief talking about the different tribes of Ghana. Every day has been super action packed with each of our mornings being filled with community service and the afternoon/night being filled with the cultural events and excursions. All this has just occurred in the first five days of the program! We have our weekend trip coming up as well as a whole other week still with this initial group. My main responsibilities with the students include consulting with them at the community service site, working alongside Ghanaian staff with all the activities, running discussions/dialogues/workshops with the students, and being there for the students for anything else they may need. Overall this has been a great experience and I am super excited for the next 7 weeks where I will be working still with this group and other groups of students to come.

Being in Africa, and especially Ghana, has been an amazing experience so far. They call Ghana the “Island of Peace” in West Africa, and I definitely believe it. Everyone has been extremely friendly to our group and just getting to know the people of Ghana you can tell they are really proud of their country and its people. When the college professor came I asked him “What is so unique about Ghana that it has been able to maintain Peace in its country while many others in Africa are having their own difficulties?” Long story short he attributed it to its strong democratic government and its encouragement and acceptance of members of different Ghanaian tribes to intermarry. This intermarriage and cultural acceptance amongst tribes has caused lots of rivalry amongst neighboring Africa countries but in Ghana everyone is very accepting of their tribal differences, which I found really interesting. I am sure there are more factors as well, but when Obama came to visit Ghana in 2008 I am sure he picked this country strategically as it definitely is a strong leader and model country of governance in Africa. Of course Ghana still has its social problems with 30 percent of its people living below the poverty line and certain forms of child slavery (especially in the Volta region where children are recruited to work in Lake fisheries and dive deep to untangle nets do to their “small fingers” which can only untangle these nets) and sex trafficking still occurring within its borders, but they are working hard to make the countries government work better for its people.

I am very excited to take all of my experience working in the rural Ghanaian schools and bring this practical experience with me to my masters studies in International Education beginning in the fall at GW University in Washington DC. But until then I will enjoy my time here in Ghana and take advantage of this incredible opportunity I have here to learn more about the country of Ghana and its people, and work with some amazing students from around the world.
Earlier today I was able to stop and think to myself for a moment, and I realized that “Wow, I am literally in the middle of rural Ghana playing soccer with students from a local orphanage on the beach, this is wild” Each and every day has been an amazing adventure so far. Also on the beach I saw some fishing boats and on one of the boats read: “THERE IS TIME FOR EVERYTHING”. I thought that was a particularly though provoking quote, which definitely tapped into the laid back attitude one can find in rural Ghana. I have been thinking a lot about that quote recently.

Anyways that is the latest from me right now. I have incurred 5 mosquito bites while writing this blog so I better stop writing right now. Us staff here in Ghana recently heard that another staff member working in Tanzania for our company contracted Malaria, so that is another reason I should probably sign off now. In a book I was reading the author described Malaria as the feel of “having molten lava course through your bones” so I will try my hardest to not have that happen to me by continuing to take my 80% effective malaria medication pills !!

Till next time, I miss all of my friend and family back in the states and abroad!

Peace and Love to all, Thanks for reading,

Rudy

Wrap up of China and Hello GHANA!

2011-06-26T18:41:00.003-04:00

Greetings Everyone! Due to the internet blockage of Google in China, I was unable to blog about our amazing experience in China. Currently I am in rural Ghana writing this blog but will report on my previous experience in China with Lisa as well as my current position as a leader for a high school summer enrichment program here in Ghana.

Our travels in China included four main destinations: Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Beijing (in that order). Our experiences traveling in China vs. India were very different. Most noticeably was the fact that we did not speak Chinese and as well the more noticeable presence of government in China versus India. Luckily we were able to meet up with our good friends Bill (served Peace Corps with me in Costa Rica) and Robin (served Peace Corps in Guatemala), who are currently teaching English in the city of Nanjing at a University. With their foundation knowledge of the Chinese language we were able to successfully navigate our way through the cities of Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou. In Shanghai we had an amazing time! We were able to visit the Bund (the scenic area/view of the business high rises of Shanghai), see the view from the 101st floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center (the world’s tallest observation deck), ride the psychedelic underground cable car from the Bund to business district, visit the unique French Concession district, tour the Chinese Propaganda Museum, and eat AMAZING Chinese street food (dumplings, grilled skewers, etc. which we pretty much did throughout the whole trip).

After our experience in Shanghai we went to Bill and Robin’s “hometown” in China, the city of Nanjing. In Nanjing we were able to stay in their spacious two bedroom apartment furnished by the University which they were working for in China. In Nanjing we were able to party hard at a packed Chinese Nightclub drinking Tsing Taos, spend time visiting Bill and Robyn’s University and speak with the students about life as a student in China, eat horrible French food but eat really good Pizza, and spend a night partying and making home made fresh dumplings with Bill and Robin’s Chinese coworkers and friends at their apartment. Our experience in Nanjing was very relaxing and it was absolutely amazing to spend some quality time with our really good friends. I also fell in love with something new in Nanjing, and that love is called a “Taiwan Sandwich” aka Taiwan Sammie. This sandwich is best made and can only be found prepared on the streets of China (and probably Taiwan). It consists of a fried egg, ham or chicken, lettuce or cucumber, and spicy Hoisan sauce all wrapped together in a flaky similar to a scallion pancake wrap. It is absolutely delicious and the best thing one could possibly eat at 2 am after a serious night of hitting the “disco”.

Our next city we visited was called Hangzhou. This city was around five hours away by Chinese super fast railway (speeds in excess of 200 kilometers per hour, I think). Hangzhou is a beautiful tourist city whose centerpiece is a large lake. One of the most beautiful parts of the city are the perfectly manicured Chinese gardens surrounding the Lake. We went to Hangzhou with our friends Bill and Robin and were able to do many different things, including hitting a jazz club, walking through many beautiful gardens with gorgeous atmospheric lighting at night, eating a gourmet dinner meal at a “penthouse” Italian restaurant in the middle of the city, to exploring all nightlife Hangzhou had to offer (including finding the Reggae Bar!). Overall Hangzhou was a very beautiful and romantic city and we were very fortunate to have had the positive experience we had with our good friends.

After our experience in Hangzhou we needed to part ways with our friends Bill and Robin and continue on North to Beijing. Many say Beijing represents the historic past of China while Shanghai represent the modernization of China, and I can very much agree with that. Beijing is definitely growing at a feverish pace, with new buildings and parts of town popping up all the time. In Beijing Lisa and I stayed at a Hostel located right in the center of the Old City literally 10 minute walk from the heart of Tiananmen Square. We were extremely fortunate to meet up with my friend from High School, Kevin and his girlfriend Meg. Both Kevin and Meg are working as English Teachers in Beijing. Kevin has been in China for the past three years and pretty much speaks fluent Chinese knowing around 3,000 characters and definitely able to hold his own in any type of Chinese conversation. It was great to have the both of them as guides during our 6 day stay in Beijing as we were able to go on a tour of the best spots in Beijing according to them. In Beijing we were able to go to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Mao’s Mausoleum, and my personal favorite the Great Wall of China. For me the Great Wall of China was one of the most impressive feats of human achievement I have ever seen in my entire life. The wall is over 2000 miles longs and took over 1000 years to build! It was extremely impressive as well as dangerous to see in person, considering many parts of the wall were very steep and the rocks were loose because we visited “un-restored” portions of the wall. I absolutely was in awe of the sheer magnitude of the wall and how it was literally built on the tallest part of the ridgeline of the mountain range and extended as far as the eye could see. Knowing that countless people dedicated and gave their lives to the creation of the wall was something I was very cognizant of during my whole stay at the wall. I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to visit this monument of human achievement and history and highly recommend visiting this site. Back in Beijing city, my friend Kevin took us to the ex-pat district called “Stanleyton” (I know I’m spelling it wrong) but that is where you could find all your expat goods including Apple products, Cold Stone Creamery, Nike and all major American apparel stores. The funny thing was, was that right next to all of these stores selling authentic clothing was this one large building filled with pirated goods including Polo Shirts, Nike Shoes, and Mont Blanc pens. At night Kevin took us to his favorite Peking duck restaurant and as well favorite dumpling restaurant, which I would have to agree were the best dumplings I have ever had in my life. Whenever traveling it is always best to seek out someone who knows the city best, and have them show you the prime spots in the city. On our last night in Beijing we were able to see the Beijing National Acrobatic troop which was extremely impressive. Acts included one woman juggling a giant Umbrella with her feet, one performer juggling nine balls, a young girl contorting her body on a small pedestal while holding three glass chandeliers, acrobats flying around on stage, and the finale of 16 female acrobats riding one bicycle. It was absolutely amazing to watch and extremely impressive to see in person, the whole auditorium was packed. It was sad to say good bye to our friends Kevin and Meg as they had shown us an amazing time in Beijing and we definitely saw and experienced things which we wouldn’t have otherwise had the knowledge to go and experience on our own.

Overall the 2+ months experience traveling through India and China was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in my entire life. I was extremely fortunate to be able to share this experience with Lisa, as most couples have never had the opportunity to just travel freely for two months and share the experiences which we had together. As well we were very fortunate for our friends, especially during the China part of our visit, taking us under their wing and showing us around. India and China are two massive countries which encompass almost half of the world’s population, so in a way to not know or have experienced this culture is to not know firsthand almost half of humanity. These countries are only poised to grow more and I look forward to monitoring their continued successes on the world’s stage. I am overall extremely grateful for having had this experience as it has always been a dream of mine to visit these two countries. If you are thinking of traveling or backpacking for an extended period of time or even a short period of time I say DO IT! DO IT NOW! For no other time is better than today. Traveling as many of us now is a very grueling and strenuous activity, and the younger you are the more flexible and active you well be and the more you will be able to see. Nothing beats experiencing cultures first hand, eating their food, speaking to the local people, seeing the sites. In this day in age it is so important to be globally minded and the best way to be that way is not only through books but through actually being on the ground and seeing it for oneself. Obviously travel is a luxury for most of us but If you can do it, and if you can find someone who can pay you to do it then that is even better! Overall I am very happy how the trip worked out and could not have been happier with its outcome. If anyone wants any tips or tricks for their future trips to China or India by all means shoot me an email.

Currently, I am writing this very long blog post from the top bunk of my bunk bed located in rural Ghana about 3 hours east of the capital city of Accra near the city of Keta. I will be sleeping in this bed for the next 2 months, because I am working a service learning/leadership based high school summer enrichment program here in Ghana. In two days 30 students will be arriving from round the world and it will be my responsibility to guide and mentor them as they complete community service projects in the neighboring schools. During the weeks as well we will engage in various local cultural activitites and during the weekends we will go on excursions away from our homebase, including visits to waterfalls, NGOs, beaches, monkey sanctuaries, and rural villages.

I arrived in Accra, the capital of Ghana, last Sunday (June 19). For me leaving to go to Ghana after being in the US for less than one month after my mega trip throughout Asia, was very difficult. After coming home from Asia I was so happy to be back home in New York and seeing all of my family and friends again, that it was hard for me to imagine heading out of the country for an extended period of time, again. But I am definitely fortunate to have this job opportunity and it will be another amazing personal experience abroad to draw from as I begin my graduate studies this fall at George Washington University.

The past four days have definitely been action packed as we are working hard to organize ourselves for when all of the students arrive. We have been meeting with the local schools, speaking with local Chiefs (who will talk to the students during our afternoon cultural experiences), meeting local seamstresses (who will make the students handmade clothes out of local cloth), organizing our curriculum, reviewing safety plans, and getting to know our Ghanaian staff counterparts.
Our homebase is where we will be spending the majority of our time. It is basically a compound which consists of 8-10 rooms with 2 bunk beds in each room, several bathrooms, eating hall, kitchen, and several lounge areas, all enclosed by a cement wall bordering the perimeter of the compound. We have a computer with internet but it runs off of a USB 3G internet stick, so at times the internet is unreliable and I will not immediately be able to respond to emails or upload large amounts of pictures at a time.

Overall everything is running well and I am very excited to begin work with the students who will be arriving shortly. I am sure the dynamic will completely change once all of the students arrive. I know that this will be an amazing experience for them, and I will work hard to make sure that they have a great experience. I am very fortunate to have this opportunity to work in Ghana and experience Africa first hand.

Anyways that is the latest for now….. I know that this is a very long blog post and I really appreciate those who have read it in its entirety! I will be sure to write more soon, especially when the students arrive and we start working in the communities and engaging in the cultural activities.

I love and miss my family, friends, and Lisa.

Peace to all.

UPDATE :

I did not have internet for awhile so I wrote this on my computer a couple days ago.... Currently the first group of 29 students have arrived and all is well ! It is great to get back in the swing of things working directly with students and I am super excited for tommorrow when we begin our community service in at the local school. We will be mostly working with primary school youth at the school teaching classes, and running activities, as well as making bricks for a new school building as the school has no cement walls, just bamboo reed walls and a tin roof. We will be meeting our high school headmaster under the Mango Tree (his office) to begin the day ! I miss you all !!

Death of the High Season

2011-05-01T06:17:00.002-04:00

Namaste from Goa! The state known for white sand, clear water and laid back living. After the horrendous train ride that Rudy last posted about, we've found Patnem Beach (near Palolem) to be the perfect spot to recoup before heading to Mumbai, our last stop in India. We found it so relaxing that we have stayed here 8 nights, our longest stay anywhere in India. Restaurants are right on the beach and also provide lounge chairs and umbrellas for free during the day. Around 5pm the waiters remove the loungers and replace them with tables so you can eat under the stars.

There are many other beaches nearby and it is very popular to rent a scooter for the day to visit them. Rudy and I have taken full advantage for the low season price of $5/day. My compliments to the India government because all these back roads are PAVED! This is not something we're used to seeing in Costa Rica. The countryside is really breathtaking. Palm trees towering over fields of wheat and rice. Amazing vistas from white sand beaches. Traffic hazards being of course cows, monkeys, dogs and the fact that most of these roads are really only the width of one lane in the U.S.

Now you may be wondering about the title to this blog. The normal tourist season in India goes from September - March. Come April it just gets too hot (we're talking over 100 degrees) and then the monsoons start in June. Sweating it out in the heat has had its advantages in that there are less people around and most hotels will give you deals (aka we can get an AC room for the price of a non AC room). We've visited 6 beaches since we've been here and all but ours, and the popular Palolem, were completely empty. Lodging here mostly consists of bamboo huts on the beach. While visiting nearby Agonda Beach, we saw the shells of such huts as just cement squares pretty close to each other with a big cement rectangle on top to lay a mattress on and a square in the back for the shower. The bamboo walls and palm tree roofs had been taken down already and will probably be rebuilt after the rainy season for the next high season.

As we begin May, we've noticed fewer and fewer tourist at our beach. Shopkeepers literally packing up all their merchandise and dismantling the plywood walls and tin roofs of their shops. Our favorite restaurant, serving the best salads, pastas and brownie sundaes that we've had in India informed us today when we arrived for lunch that they were closing for the season.

The normal shopkeeper bargaining tactics are now also including how many more days they will have their shop open (so you better buy today!) One shopkeeper mentioned he is from the Northern state of Kashmir and brings down his Tibetan trinkets during the high season. We've found that some other people in the tourist industry here have migrated from other parts of India to take advantage of the tourism business here.

Rudy and I have really enjoyed our time in the southern states of Kerala and Goa. The more relaxed nature of the South is certainly apparent and we have taken full advantage and even fallen pray to the common "I was only going to be here a few days and stayed a week!" syndrome. But it was totally worth it as you will see on our latest upload of pictures to Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.604141179229.2113266.15805500&l=1a2c318720

Our next blog will be from the "Land of Dragons" as we explore China's big cities with our friends Bill and Robin!

Cheers,

Lisa and Rudy

Beachside Living

2011-04-24T10:33:00.002-04:00

Greetings everyone from sunny Patnum Beach in the Indian State of Goa! We just arrived early this morning after a 16 hour "Sleeper" class train aka lowest class train cart from Kochi. Our trip yesterday into this morning was quite an experience, but I can get into that a little later.

Anyways after living the "tea life" in Darjeeling we came down the mountain via jeep. Upon our travels we have met some very interesting fellow travelers. On our way down from Darjeeling we traveled with a couple in their 60s who have been living on a boat sailing around the world for the past 10 years. It was very interesting to hear there stories of their travels all around the world, they were coming from the Maldives were they NEEDED to stay for 6 months in order to repair their ship.... what misery ha. Anyways we ended up getting to the airport in good time for our flight to Chennai.

This time around we took the airline named Spice Jet. It was a very uneventful trip getting to Chennai with a layover in Kolkata. Our place name was Pepper. Each plane in the Spice Jet fleet is named after a different spice. Here on Indian domestic flights you need to pay for snacks and drinks so along with our complimentary bottle of water Lisa and I feasted on Cup of Noodles Masala Spice. It was the best Cup O noodle I have ever had in my life. Upon arrival in Chennai we just stayed at a random hotel near the airport for the night and the next morning took another flight to Trivandrum in the state of Kerala.

Upon arrival to Trivandrum we were picked up by our pre arranged taxi and taken to Kovalam Beach. We stayed at the "Beach Hotel" in Kovalam. Kovalam is a very touristy beach area, but it was particularly nice staying there because the hotel was extremely close to the water. Upon arrival Lisa and I immediately went to the restaurant hotel which claimed itself to be a "German Bakery" with also some German Dishes. I immediately ordered the Kartoffelsalat with Frankfurters, upon arrival of the dish I was of course disappointed. The potato were hot, overcooked, and drenched in some sort of broth with onions, and the frankfurters tasted like salt water. Last time I am ordering German food in India! ha All in all Kovalam was uneventful with lots of swimming and tanning time. After two nights we decided to move on to the beach town of Varkala.

Varkala is a very unique Beach town in the fact that it is the only beach in India which is backed with dramatic cliffs. So all of the hotels and restaurants are perched close to the cliff to maximize beach views and the beach below is unspoilt with just pure beach. The first night we decided to stay at a hotel recommended by a random guy we ended up speaking to at an internet cafe. The hotel was called New Heaven and cost 300 rupees ($6.60) per night. We arrived at New Heaven and the hotel actually wasn't that bad it just happened to be very far away from the beach we wanted to be at and as well the Mattress was just basically a sheet spread over a wooden board oh and the bathroom was classically teaming with Cockroaches. After one night we decided we had enough of that and moved into an awesome hotel with Beach views, porch, wifi, and comfortable thick mattresses with cockroach free bathrooms. The price was about 4 times as much but it was totally worth it. At the beach there were many tourists from all over the world. In our travels we typically have not come across many Americans more British and European travelers. At Varkala Beach we stayed for five nights in total with our days busily spent with deciding on what restaurant to eat at , reading, tanning, napping, drinking ice coffees, playing LOTS of Chess on Lisa's iPad, swimming, body boarding, and just general chilling out.

After our rest and relaxation in Varkala we decided to move on to the town of Allepey to rent a House Boat. At Allepey train station we took a tuk tuk aka rickshaw to the Boat Jetty. I walked down the boat Jetty and inspected 6 different giant houseboats, some with AC, some with two three bedrooms, one floor two floors etc. These houseboats use to be rice barges but the tourism industry in the area has exploded with the appeal to rent a houseboat outfitted with all home amenities and just explore the backwaters of Kerala. Upon weighing all the options I bargained a good deal on a house boat with One bedroom, AC, living room, flat screen TV (dont know why you would need a Flat screen outdoors) comfortable seating and all food and drink included. We left the jetty at 1130 AM and began our 24 hour cruise through the backwaters of Kerala. The houseboat was awesome. All you need to do is just chill sit back relax get served food and snack intermittently throughout the day and just enjoy the surroundings. Our chef was amazing and made some of the best food we had in all of India. Our dinner was an awesome coconut Dal dish (lentils), spicy kerala chicken (heavily seasoned with local spices similar to jerk chicken), curry potatoes, rice and chipatis ( like pitas) it was the very very good. At night we could just chill in our AC room on the boat, close the door and even though we were in the backwaters in the middle of nowhere Kerala we were in pure luxury. The next morning we had breakfast in the front eating area outdoors on the boat and took a tuk tuk to the train to head to Kochi.

After arriving in Kochi we headed to this awesome home stay called Noah's Ark which was very centrally located to all the main sites. We have stayed at many different homestays through our trip. Homestays are basically exactly how they sound staying in a local familys home similar to a bed and breakfast. Basically you get the hospitality of staying in a home with the services of a hotel. So it has been great to get the inside hints tips and tricks from the locals running the homestays wherever we go. In Kochi there were many different Churches to see, and small cute little roads with restaurants and cafes. It has a large Portuguese influence from back in the day. We also saw a Katakala performance which is a typical Kerala dance/performance using many costumes and face paints. Overall Kochi was a pleasant city to stay in for two night before we continued our beach hopping.

Considering that this is one of the busiest travel time of the year we booked our train tickets 3 days in advance of our trip and barely got tickets. We could only buy tickets to Goa in the "Sleeper" class of the train. This is by far the lowest and cheapest class in the train possible. Many people have visions of overflowing dirty prison like train carts from India, that is exactly the train we took. It was our only option, without severely throwing off our itinerary of our last 2 weeks in India. We had two seats on a bench with one person hovering over us on his own platform. There are basically open air cabins with three platforms jutting out which people can sit and sleep on, and they are "murphy'd" so you can pull them up or down to create more space. Our train was supposed to leave at 1255 PM and arrive at 130 AM. In reality, our train left at 1 and arrived at 7 30 AM. Our extremely uncomfortable ride was elongated another 6 hours. We though we were going to be on the train for 12 hours but it ended up being a grand total of 18 hours. 18 hours of sweating, with 8 people hanging from different places through out the cabin, 18 hours of smelling other people sweat, 18 hours of smelling backed up toilet systems, 18 hours of extremely uncomfortable bench seats. The whole experience was "safe" in terms of nobody really bothering us but I stayed up throughout the whole night to make sure our bags were safe. At night the floors and walls sparked with cockroaches, and the moonlight beamed in from the steels bars over the window area. When the train is moving it isn't that hot as the breeze comes in but the most annoying part, which led to our massive delays, was that the train just seemed to stop at random train stations for 1 hour here or a half our there for no rhyme or reason. We though it was to clear the track for other trains but no other trains came we just stopped and sweated it out in the train cart. At night my legs were getting bit like crazy with mosquitos and probably all the cockroaches roaming the floor. Anyways when 730 AM finally came around Lisa and I literally ran out of the train, vowing to never take the "Sleeper" class level train again in India.

This morning after no sleep at all last night we checked into our hotel room at 8 Am slept for 4 hours then hit the beach for the rest of the day. The beach here in Patnem/Palolem is amazing with tons of restaurants right on the beach displaying fresh seafood nightly, which we will partake in after we leave this internet cafe.

Overall life is very good here and we are looking forward to the next 7 days of beach life, then heading to Mumbai for 3 nights then off to China!

We miss everyone back at home and wish everyone the best overseas!

Goodbye and NAMASTE for now !

Rudy and Lisa

New Pics

2011-04-14T11:27:00.001-04:00

We've made it to the beach! After 6 flights and 6 hours up and down a mountain in one week, we're on India's southwest coast along the Arabian Sea.

Check out our newest pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110984&id=15805500&l=ebf128b2c0

Much love,

Rudy and Lisa

Darjeeeeeeling!

2011-04-10T09:00:00.002-04:00

Greetings from the land of tea in India, Darjeeling! It's in the foothills of the Himalayas and a nice change of pace (and weather) from our previous travels in Rajastan.

After relaxing at a guest house outside of Udaipur with amazing views and food, we headed to Ranthambore, a tiger reserve. The claim is that there are thirty something tigers at the park so we figured we would be able to see one. Tigers actually are most active at daybreak and dusk. People come to the town strictly to visit the reserve and there are tons of jeeps and 16 person open roof canters that get assigned to one of 5 different zones on morning and afternoon tours. All these jeeps and canters follow along the same paths with their loud diesel engines searching for tigers in the brush. We would randomly stop the car and be quiet to listen for the tigers, and then drive to another spot and do the same thing. During our sunrise tour our guide heard a monkey warning call signifying tigers could be near and he ended up driving so fast trying to get there first that he got a flat tire. So we had to get out of our jeep in a supposedly "Tiger Infested Wilderness" during the fifteen minutes it took to change the tire. In the end it turned out that the tiger crossed out of our zone anyways. From talking to other people, we weren't the only ones to leave not seeing any tigers.

Needless to say we were glad to move on to something different. It took us 3 flights and a 3 hour drive up the steep, bumpy, one and a half lane road to get to Darjeeling but certainly worth it! We arrived on Rudy's birthday and had dinner at a colonial restaurant that had Chinese food and fried pork! In Rajastan the only meat was chicken, so it's been good to have some pork again and reconfirm that Rudy and I are not vegetarians.

Darjeeling has beautiful mountain views and cooler temperatures that allow us to break out our fleeces and warm up with some tea. We have done a lot of walking around in the fresh air. We went to the highest zoo in the world which had tigers, leopards, bears and a black panther! This was really awesome to see since we were just at a Tiger Reserve and didn't see any tigers. There was also the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute that trained missions to Mt Everest and had a really cool museum with all the actual equipment from the different missions, including the first group to reach the summit! The sherpa that got to the top with Sir Edmund Hilary founded the Institute.

On a clear day they say you can see Everest from here. It's been cloudy for the most part and actually HAILED the last two days! We were able to observe the hail from the inside of a heritage hotel having the traditional English high tea. In the different places it's been interesting to see remnants of British colonialism. Converted colonial buildings into hotels, riding a " Toy Train" the British built in the late nineteenth century to reduce the time to get to Darjeeling from five days to one, and a Brit was the first person to plant tea in Darjeeling.

There is one tea plantation near town. It produces specifically for the luxury department store Harrod's in the UK. The way we walked to get there was no so luxurious. Trying to follow the map, and asking different people directions we ended up in a neighborhood literally carved out of the side of a mountain with steep walkways, sewer lines running into the water canals that were also full of trash. Miraculously we made it through the chaos and into a see of tea bushes.

Women do the picking here which was something I saw with the wheat harvest in Rajastan as well. In the peak heat and sun these woman are working in the fields while it seems that there are 4 men to do the job of one. In a country of one billion people, employment is an issue and there are fewer women than men. The one real industry we have been able to observe is the tourism India, one of India's largest, and it still appears to be male dominated.

After our cool days in the refreshing, mountain air we head to South on the coast of the Arabian Sea to do some beach hopping. Our access to Internet at each place we stay is always varied but we hope to post more pics soon and write again soon.

Three weeks in and loving it! - Lisa

Pictures !

2011-04-01T13:10:00.000-04:00

This the first installment of pictures from our trip. We just uploaded them and have not been able to tag/label each picture yet. We will get to that as soon as time/internet speed permits.

Enjoy !

Lisa and Rudy

Link : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2110372&id=15805500&l=1f7f672518

Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur

2011-03-30T11:21:00.001-04:00

Greetings everyone from Udaipur, the Lake City. The past eight days we were with our wonderful driver ,Sanjay, who drove us all over the Rajastan area from city to city. The past couple days have definitely been a whirlwind as we have left Delhi and moved deeper into be country side of India.

Our first city after Delhi was Agra. This city is most known for the classic Taj Mahal building. After arriving at night in Agra from Delhi we checked into our home stay in a 100 year old heritage building. This bed and breakfast of sorts was run by a Sikh couple. They were very accommodating and told us stories of their son who is living in Australia and is now the Manager of a T.G.I. Friday restaurant. As our home stay only cost 20 dollars a night Lisa and I wanted a taste of the high life and went to the oberoi Amar vilas hotel for drinks at sunset. This was an ultra lux hotel with rooms costing minimum 800 a night but we were able to get drinks at the bar and watch the sun set over the Taj.

The next morning we woke up a 6 to be one of the first to enter the gates of the Taj. This is the best time to visit as it is not that hot and also it isn't that crowded. Overall seeing the Taj mahal was a very surreal experience. It definately is the most impressive buildjng I have ever seen in my life and it is crazy to think it was all made by hand with no modern Machinery. We also hired a guide to guide us through and help us take all of the classic pictures we wanted with us and the taj. After about two hours at the Taj we finished up and our guide led us to a store were they sold marble goods. Clearly he was hoping we would buy a large marble table and be would then be able to skim some commission off that. The marble dealer initially offered us marble tables and the other goods in decreasing value but overall we weren't interested. After our time with our guide we met back up with our driver and headed in the direction of Jaipur.

On the way to Jaipur we stopped a a famous mosque and palace called Fatehpur Sikri. Throughout my blogs I won't reference many of the historical elements of the sites we visit as this can be easily googled to learn more accurate information. Anyways at this place we seemed to has arrived during a religious holiday because it was swarming with people. One of the things lisa and I have been dealing alot with is constant requests from people for either money, taxi/auto rickshaw rides, tips, offers for tours, and generally any and all types of requests of people asking us for money in some fashion. Unfortunately at this historic sit we were inundated with so many touts(people asking for money) that we simply had to turn around and leave. Every 60 seconds people were harassing us in some fashion and we have been learning to know when situations aria were we simply need to leave the place as fast as possible and this was one of them. Overall the situations aren't dangerous but more annoying to he point that we can't even enjoy where we are. I would say on an average day we are asked for money at least 15 times..... One crazy thing happened today while we were driving where on this rural road there was a human wall of girls. They clearly weren't moving and as we approached them they circled our car entirely and we clearly couldn't drive without runningover or severely injuring/killing them. Supposedly they were collecting money for some festival but I don't really think so. Anyways that is that regarding touts.

In Jaipur we saw all of the classic sites, from the big fort in the mountains, royal cenotaphs, a monkey temple with 30 monkeys running around crazily, a Jain temple, and the royAl lake palace. During the late afternoon our driver offered us the opportunity to come to his home for tea. We took him up on his generous offer and had an amazing afternoon at his home. He lived near the train tracks about 30 minutes from the center of Jaipur. He lived with his wife from an aranged marriage and 2 daughter and one son. Apparently this is the first time be ever offered anyone to come to his home so we were privileged for the opportunity. His home consisted of a one room brick structure tin roof one bed propane tank to cook on tv and small porch area. Overall very rudimentary. When we arrived to his house his neighbor immediately wisked us awayto visit his home. According to our driver this was the first time he ever saw a foreigner. We had chai tea on his neighbors large bed and snacked on some home made sweets apparently made by him. After our time at the neighbors we went back to our drivers house for more tea and also a plate of rice flour with vegetables made by his wife. Overall it was a very heartwarming experience and we were grateful to be welcomes into an Indian home as most of experiences are going from hotel to hotel.

After two night In Jaipur we continued on to Jodhpur. Overall jodhpur was enjoyable as we were able to visit the impressive umaid bahwan palace and I was very excited about the pool at our hotel !

The next day we headed to Jaisalmer to begin our desert experience. During the two days in Jaisalmer we averaged temperatures in The 100s fahrenheit. The first day we arrived at our hotel to begin our camel safari. Once arriving at our hotel we took an hour Jeep ride into the desert to meet the camels which we would ride on the dunes. We rode the camels for 2 hours into the sunset and then arrived at camp were we had dinner. That night and for the past couple days before and after I had been suffering from the famous "Delhi belly" upset stomach as well I am now recently recovering from a cold. So overall having a cold and Stomach problems in the middle of the desert in 100 degree temps doesn't make for the best time ever. At night we slept on the sand dunes and slept under the stars. It seems very romantic and makes for a good story but overall we were still in the desert and sleeping In the elements is quite the experience. Also if anything (knock on wood) were to happen we would be inserious trouble. Well I guess that could be said for many places here in India. Before the safari I stopped at the pharmacy to get cold Medicine and the first Medicine the 'pharmacist' recommended to me had a picture of Bart Simpson on a skate board. Ha anyways I remembered the names of the meds I needed and basically self medicated myself. Anyways After the camel safari we were glad to check into our AC hotel room and shower off all the Sweat sunscreen camel smells and sand. As well the next day we saw the famous Jaisalmer fort which over 4000 people still live in today. Pretty wild.

Yesterday we spent the night in jodhpur again on our way to get to udaipur where we are right now. We saw yet again a another for in jodhpur. It was pretty cool because you could look out from the top of the fort over the city and see all the houses paint lightblue, they call it the blue city.

Today we went from jodhpur to udaipur. On the way we stopped at the Ranakpur Jain temple, a very ornate detailed temple with over 1000 marble columns decorated and carved differently.

Now we are in Udaipur and look forward to more relaxation and less moving around. As well we are currently experiencing temple/fort/cenotaph overload. After two night here in the city we are heading into the mountain to hang out at a mountain retreat mansion with pools and huge private balconies overlooking the India country side. I look forward to this vacation within the vacation.

Anyways that is the latest going on here in India. I am definitely enjoying myself here. Everything In India is just wild, but definately in a good way. From religions, to the sheer mass of humanity you see on a daily basis, to the camels in the road, to cows everywhere, to the smells, to the caste system, turbins, heavy traffic, spicy food, not knowing the language, Mughal architecture, temples, vegetarian foods, cow droppings everywhere, horns always honking, Muslim call to prayer. Just rattled off a couple sites sounds I had going through my head .... Anyways all is well here. I miss all of my friends and family at home and I look forward to the future here in India then China then grad school in the fall !

Love to everyone ! Namaste !

Location:Brahmpol Rd,Udaipur,India

India Adventure Begins

2011-03-22T11:19:00.003-04:00

Greetings Everyone ! It has been a long time since I last used this blog, but I will be starting if up again as I have just begun my travels throughout India and China with my girlfriend Lisa. I hope to update this blog as much as possible throughout the trip, but as wifi access in rural India may be hard to receive amongst the cows and elephants I will try my best. Also I am writing this post on my iPod touch so if some crazy word come up on the auto spell please disregard or regard them.

The trip began on sat march 19 leaving JFK airport at 830 pm heading to London. We had a 14 hour layover in London so we took advantage of the time and saw all the major tourist sites in London. Overall london was awesome with an amazing metro system , decent food, semi blue skies, and 7 dollar coffees ( given we did have High Te at the ultra lux boutique dept store Fortnum and Mason. London was clean, easy to navigate, and expensive, all attributes which we do not expect Delhi, India to have.... we made it at night back to the airport to catch our ten pm flight to Delhi.

After 8 mrs hours by plane and a total 9.5 hour time difference to the US we made it to Delhi . I was expecting complete mayhem at the airport but in reality it was overall very smooth. Delhi airport has been recently renovated for the Commonwealth games and the Airport overall is super modern. we had our driver waiting for us in the arrivals area and he took us to our hotel in a sleepy resident village in southern Delhi . we then ordered India food to the hotel had lunch then woke up then had leftovers for dinner then passed out again.

Today we gathered all our confidence and hit the streets of Delhi. in the morning we went to humayans tomb, basically a tranquil garden palace which served as an inspiration to the designers of the Taj Mahal. We then took the Metro to old Delhi. By the way the metro system here in Delhi is AMAZING. The best I have ever riden in my life. Super clean stations, security pat down and bag check as you enter the station, cheap fares 15 rupees or 30 cents each way, seperae male and female only rail cars and security everywhere. I was expecting the worst but in turn I got the best. Anyways back to old Delhi . So old Delhi is EXACTLY what you think of when you imagine the Crazy hussle and hussle of an Indian city. beggars with missing limbs, street children, garbage everywhere, stray dogs everywhere, cars auto/cycle rickshaws honking nonstop fighting for road space with cars people animals and people sleeping literally on the street. Lisa and decided we were going to visit the red fort but after walking in the wrong direction for 20 minutes we ended up hiring a cycle rickshaw driver to show us around old Delhi. A cycle Rick shaw is basicall a three welled bike was two wheels in the back holding a platform for the riders to sit on. He drove us all over the place meandering through thick traffic barely crashing into people animals and all different forms of transportation on wheels. We drove thrift this one narrow back alley where they were cleaning out the septic tank ..... by hand. There were literally huge piles of rotting human feces in the middle of the street. One guy pulled the short straw and had to scoop out buckets of human feces by hand he del he had the best angle of achieving this by literally jumping into the sewer and scooping it out. people devised there own way of dealing withthe feces all over the place and put cardboard over the piles.... We just drove over it with our rickshaw.

After our rickshaw tour we went to the red fort. This was huge red for built for the rules 200 years ago to live in and perform different ceremonies and what not In. It was pretty impressive.

Overall india has been great so far . Tomorrow we will start our 8 day trip with our hired driver through the rajastan area. Very excited to get out of the big cities and see areas with less than 17 million people packed into a small area.

Anyways that is the latest for now. Pictures will come soon don't worry ! Thanks for reading and look forward to reading more crazy adventures from Rudy and lisas tiger vs dragon expedition 2k11!!!!!

TUANIS or shall I say NAMASTE !!!!

Success

2009-09-01T17:29:00.006-04:00

Greetings everyone !

4 Months after my Peace Corps service I am happy to say that I am doing well and can report to you a mission success regarding the Construction of the School. Unfortunately I was not able to see the final construction stages of the school as a result of my service in country ending in May, but I was able to receive pictures of the completed school from my PCV friends Jenna and Matt who are serving near my site and were able to take pictures of the school. Currently the classroom is being used to teach Kindergarten classes as well as Adult Education classes. This building is the newest and most modern public construction project in the community in the last 20 years. Thanks to your donations and the hard work of community members the project became a reality!

The past 4 months I have spent time in New York and as of recently have now moved to Zacatecas, Mexico. My time spent in New York was great as I was very happy to be finally home after my 2 + years serving in the Peace Corps. I was also able to resume teaching classes as a substitute teacher in New York City for a short period of time.

Now I am living in Zacatecas, Mexico which is located in the Northern Central part of Mexico. For the past 3 weeks I have been teaching at the Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus Zacatecas as an English Professor. As well I have begun my studies toward taking the Dental Admissions Test in November to hopefully gain admission to next years entering Dental Class in the Fall of 2010.

Thank you very much for reading my blog during the past 2 years. This blog was actually featured on someones dissertation on page 113 ( http://peacecorpswiki.org/images/C.Maugh_Dissertation.pdf). So it seems like this communication outlet has been a success in publishing my feelings during the past 2.5 years + as well as letting you know what has been going on in my life.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer on behalf of myself, my family, my friends, and the Unites States. I could not have thought of a better way to serve my country, while truly enhancing the lives of my community members for generations to come. If anyone is interested in doing the Peace Corps at all, don't think twice, JUST DO IT ! This experience has truly changed my life profoundly and I have made lifelong connections with members of my community where I served as well as other fellow volunteers.

As for now, I am enjoying myself here in Mexico. Living in a small apartment near the center of Zacatecas with my girlfriend, Lisa, a fellow PCV whom I met during my service in Costa Rica. We are both training for the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll Marathon on November 15. This will be my second marathon and Lisa's first! Classes at the University are going well, and I am spending every free moment I have studying for the DAT.

That is the latest and greatest from here. I will be posting blogs with less frequency as things will be similar from here on in till the end of the year. But nonetheless there will always be "Tuanis Times" in my life and will be sure to report the latest of them right here.

Adios amigos !

Scroll to the back of the album for the latest pictures : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2545306&id=2206209&l=38f68130f3

Classrom Project Status Update 2

2009-04-01T21:39:00.005-04:00

Greeting from extremely hot and sunny Costa Rica! I seemed to have chosen the hottest months of the year in Costa Rica to build a classroom, but at least we have been safe from the heavy rains and it would have otherwise been impossible to build. Overall things are going very well with the project. We have fully installed the Iron Beam Network with the Zinc Sheets for the roofing, installed the cement base, cemented the large cement slabs together to create uniform walls, and have begun the installation of the electric system.

Installing the Iron Beam Network to hold up the Zinc Sheets turned out to be a relatively easy task. It basically involved the Contractor and another skilled person in welding, essentially weld the large iron beams together, then we shingled the Zinc sheets and screwed each of them in. Most houses in my community, including my house, have a network of wooden beams to hold up the zinc sheets, we have used iron beams which are both sturdier and will last much longer.

Installing the cement base of the classroom required a lot of hauling of sand, rocks, and cements. We initially were planning to get a cement mixer for the job, but we couldn’t find one and ended up mixing about 30 bags of cement, 30 bags of sand, and a large amount of rocks by hand. One crucial step to making cement is water. At the school the water pump has been broken since the beginning of the year, and as well the well has dried up, so there is no water at all in the school. As well my community does not have a rural aqueduct where we can just turn on the tap and receive guaranteed water, every family and house has their own well or shared water well. Therefore we needed to haul by truck every morning 10 to 12 large Barrels of water from our water well at my host family’s house to the school. I don’t know if anyone has mixed lots of cement before by hand but it is pretty back breaking work and you also need to make sure you get the ratio of cement to rock to sand perfect. This whole process ended up taking only 3 days with the help of many community members.

Then the detailed work begins… Smearing on a cement layer to combine the large slabs of cement is very time consuming work. As well for the next week, every day we need to come to the school twice a day and poor water over the walls to make sure the cement doesn’t crack on the walls. We also need to use a sifter to sift through the sand we already have and make sure we have the finest sand which we will then mix with cement and water. This cement layer will further fortify the walls, which we can then paint.

The installation of the electrical system is pretty straight forward we just need to make sure we have our network of tubes through the ceiling which contain wire properly aligned and sent through the circuit breaker. We are installing about 4 power outlets, 2 Light Switches, and 8 sockets for energy saving light bulbs.

Next we need to create a network of wooden beams to then install our ceiling, install all 72 square meters of ceramic tile, weld onto the frame of the classroom two doors, install metals bars and fine netting for use as windows (Actual glass windows tend to break easily in classroom, are expensive, don’t give much security, and restrict airflow). Overall it seems like a lot but things are coming along very well. Next week is the Costa Rican Holy Week holiday and we will not be working on the classroom, but then the following week we hope to finish up all the necessary tasks for an inauguration of the classroom on April 17, 2009 !

All of the pictures will definitely give you a better idea of the process.Since we are building the new classroom near the old latrine, we have been in the process of digging a new 2 meter deep hole further away from the new classroom for the sanitary needs of the school. Pictures show some of that digging as well.

I am very thankful to be able to complete this project in my community. Again this project simply would not have been completed without your generous donations. Thank you very much for your support and I look forward to reporting more on the status of the classroom construction.

As for me personally, I am coming to grips with the reality that my Peace Corps experience here is ending. Of course it will be sad to leave my community and this life as a Peace Corps volunteer, but I have learned so much, met so many amazing people, had so many crazy adventures, learned Spanish fluently, and overall have had the time of my life. I could not have imagined a better experience to have after college. I am so grateful for having had the opportunity to be a part of Peace Corps and hopefully I will be able to use the skills and experience I have had here as a positive jump off point for future explorations and adventures in my life. Tuanis.

Link to Pics : http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=48019849&l=92dc0e5d10&id=2206209

Construction of the Classroom Begins !

2009-03-18T21:27:00.004-04:00

We Made It !!! Thanks to all of your donations to my PCPP (Peace Corp Partnership Program) Project we have been able to raise over $4,700 for the classroom to be built in my community. I really appreciate all of the support which I have received and we are currently in the midst of making this project a reality.

In Mid February we were able to meet our PCPP donation goal, as well received another grant which we were applying for through CR-USA (Costa Rica United States) Foundation for another $3,500. We have thus raised over $8,200 dollars for the classroom for my community.

Construction is well on it its way and has begun in early March. We have been working for just about over a week on the project and things have been moving very fast.

The first stage required us to clear the land where the classroom was to be built on. We executed this with the help of a local community member and his tractor. He came with the tractor leveled the land and created a path through the back of the school for the material trucks to come and drop off supplies for the school.

The second stage which we completed 2 days ago consisted of constructing the outer cement shell or walls of the classroom. This classroom is considered “pre fabricated” and thus is easier to build then lining up cement blocks one buy one to create a wall. This method uses posts where we then slide giant slabs of cement between them to create the wall. So the past couple days we have been digging the holes for all the posts, lining up the posts properly, making tons of measurement to ensure perfect alignment, and then sliding the very heavy cement slabs between the posts to create the outer wall of the classroom. This has been a particularly physical part of the construction phase as we have to dig very deep holes for the posts and also align the cement slabs perfectly between the posts.

Currently we are at the point where we are sitting up the metal beam framework for the roof. We are welding metal beams to the cement base and creating a network of beams which will support the Zinc sheets which will then be secured in place to create the roof.

After the roof is in place we need to lay cement all over the walls to create a smooth surface which will join the different cement slabs into one unified wall. After that is laying cement to create the floor, lay down ceramic tiles, install the ceiling panels so we don’t see the zinc sheets and metal framework, painting everything, and then installing the electrical system.

Overall I am very surprised with the rate at which the construction is going. We are receiving a lot of support from the community and all of the children and teachers are of course very excited to see where they will be learning and teaching in the coming years.

I cannot believe that my Peace Corps experience here in Costa Rica is coming to an end, as I have been living, breathing, eating, and speaking Peace Corps for the past 2 years straight but I am extremely happy that this necessary project will very soon be completed for the community. Many years down the line I look forward to coming back to my small rural community and seeing the fruits of my labor and your generous donations still benefiting the community, and improving their quality of life.

Thanks you again for all of your support, this is a true example of people coming together donating money and immediately seeing a positive impact in the lives of many different people. I thank you for believing in me and trusting in me to complete this project with your money.

Anyways that is the situation as of right now. Check out the pictures of the whole process for the past 2 weeks as these will surely give you a greater idea of how this project is coming together. I will be posting more info throughout the coming weeks to show you more of the process of the construction.

Thanks everyone! Tuanis.

Link for Pictures : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2545306&id=2206209&l=38f68130f3

Close of Service Conference and Classroom Project Status

2009-01-28T17:24:00.003-04:00

WE MADE IT!!!!! Tico 16 succesfully made it to our COS (Close of Service Conference). I was happy to attend the conference with 13 of the original 16 Tico 16 members still remaining in Costa Rica after 2 years of service. It was great to be able to spend time during our last official Peace Corps training with everyone from Tico 16. I am really proud of all the work which we have done thus far and will continue to do up until the official end of our service on May 18.

During the 3 day Conference we reflected upon our service, created a presentation outlining our service to Peace Corps Costa Rica staff, learned about all of the papers we need to fill out before leaving, an spoke about future job opportunities and graduate school options. Out of all the training events I attended during my service I enjoyed this Conference the most. It helped me channel all of my feelings and experiences which I have had during my service to preparing myself to enter the US strong and ready for anything.

On our final night we organized a fancy dinner to commemorate our service and talk about all the memories which we had during training and at our sites. I am extremely grateful to have had the support of all my Tico 16 members throughout my service. As we all know, we are the only ones who truly understand what we have gone through here in Costa Rica and to have them by my side has been invaluable. I have made many friends within my Tico group aswell as outside of them, and every one of them I look forward to continuing the relationship on in the states. As well it has been very motivating to know that I not only have support within country but outside of the country. I am so thankful for my family and friends back at home supporting me in my service here in Costa Rica. At times it is difficult to fully describe my experience here, but I appreciate you all lending an open ear and having a genuine interest in the work I am doing down here. Also I am particularly grateful to everyone who has supported me financially in donating to my PCPP project to build a rural classroom.

While at the service I couldn´t believe how fast the time had flew. It seems like only yesterday I was blogging at the Holiday Inn in Washington D.C. talking about how I was nervous but very excited to begin this adventure of Peace Corps in Costa Rica. 2 years later I am writing this blog at the internet cafe a 90 minute hike from the rural jungle community which I live in. Walking to the internet today I really decided to take a step back and realize, WOW I am in Peace Corps. Living with 12 people in one house, going to the bathroom in a latrine, having farm animals around me, eating rice and beans, speaking spanish, being immersed in the culture is what Peace Corps is all about. Those experiences are why I signed up to be in Peace Corps. Before coming into Peace Corps I had this vision that it would be me living in this rural community helping them out with different projects immersed in Costa Rican Nature and Wildlife, and that is EXACTLY what I am doing right now. So I am proud to have lived in Costa Rica for 2 years so far, I am proud of everything I have accomplished so far and I hope that the work and experiences which I have had in the community will be remembered for many years from now.

As of right now, unfortunately, we are still below the amount of money neccesary to build the much needed classroom in my community. As I have said before I am so grateful for all of your donations towards this project thus far. Again I am opening an invitation for those who have not had the opportunity to donate to my project to please consider sending a donation. I believe that more so than any charity you can donate to all of the money you donate will DIRECTLY go towards the materials neccesary to construct the classroom. For example if you donate 1 penny then that is 1 Nail for the classroom, If you donate 15 dollars that is worth one bag of cement, if you donate 30 that is one large sheet of zinc for the roof, or 50 dollars that could go towards the construction of 2 blackboards in the classroom. As you see all the money directly goes towards the classroom. As well for those who have already donated I am graciously asking you to consider donating again, either the same amount or maybe half of what you have originally donated. As well those who have donated can maybe present the opportunity to another friend, family member, sibling, or parent who may be interested in Donating towards an Education Service Project Abroad.

As time is running out in the project, this will be my final request for donations. I hope that we will be able to meet our fundraising goal by Feb 15. I can assure you that the Children and Parents of my community will be extremely grateful for your support. As I have said before I will outline the steps of the project on this blog so you can see where your money is going to. I hope that come April/May I will be able to put a picture of a brand new classroom full of students on the front page of this blog. As well everyone who donates will recieve a special token of appreciation directly from the students of my community sent to your home provided you supply an address when filling out the online donation form.

Thank you so much for your support and help and I look forward to recieve your support in helping us make our donation goal .

Tuanis !

Seasons Greetings and Classroom Update

2008-12-16T16:29:00.002-04:00

( Me with the three teachers and school cook)

Seasons Greeting and Happy New Year from Costa Rica !

Currently I am reporting from my site here in the Southern part of Costa Rica. The turn of the seasons is getting more noticeable, as it is raining less and less and getting hotter and hotter as the days go by.

I recently came back from a trip to the United States to visit my family for Thanksgiving, as well as a trip to the midwest to visit my girlfriend for awhile. I even managed to visit my old stomping grounds in Ann Arbor, Michigan and visit my friends Brian and Jared. Overall it was an excellent trip to the states filled with lots of fun, relaxation, and amazing food.

It is great to be back in site, and working again in the community with the school and my English classes. I was able to report back to the local education commitee on the status of the classroom fundraising project, and they were very excited to learn that through the generosity of my friends and family I have so far raised around $ 1,700 towards the construction of the classroom. Although as of right now we are still in need of a little over $3,000 to make the project a reality. I have also been in talks with the Habitat for Humanity office in the capital, San Jose, to possibly bring in a brigade of volunteers to help with the construction of the classroom.

I really want to take the opportunity to thank everyone once again for donating. I realize that in these troubled time with the economy, everyone is struggling to make ends meet. Although if you happen to have anything you could share with us to complete this project it would be greatly appreciated. Living in a remote rural community in the middle of Costa Rica for the past 22 months I have truly experienced and learned to appreciate the extremely high quality of education which I have recieved growing up in Westchester, New York and hope that when my time to leave my community in Costa Rica, I can leave leave them with a valuable educational resource which will benefit everyone in the community for many years to come.

Anyways that is the latest news for now ! I hope that everyone will enjoy the holiday season coming up and I look forward to posting a picture of the newly built classroom in the Spring of 2009 as a result of your contribution!

Pictures, Pictures, and More Pictures!

2008-10-20T18:23:00.001-04:00

Please enjoy the following pictures which will help give you a better idea of my experience down here in Costa Rica, and the work which I am doing here. Enjoy !

Photo Album : Centro Educativo Paraiso

This Photo album includes pictures of me with the students in the school, and various pictures of the existing classroom and the future site where we will build the next classroom.

Photo Album : Host Family

This Photo album includes pictures of my host family members.

Photo Album : My House in Costa Rica

Pictures of the House which I am living in currently.

I look forward to posting my pictures soon ! I will be posting pictures throughout the whole construction process so you will be able to see the full benefits of your donation. Thanks for your support ! Please contact me if you have any other questions.

Rudy´s Peace Corps Project Needs YOUR Support !

2008-10-16T18:01:00.004-04:00

The following is the complete Project Profile which I have sent to Peace Corps to put on the Peace Corps Partnership Program Website. If you would like to have sent to you a formal invitation to donate please email me your address, so I can have Peace Corps send that to you immediately. Or you can directly donate through this link : https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=515-148 or by clicking on the ¨Donate Now !¨ link on the side bar of my blog. Thank you in advance for your generosity, without your support this project will not be possible. If you have any questions you can email me. As well I encourage you to send this blog and link to other friends and family. This donation is not only tax-deductible, but makes you feel GREAT!

From your hardworking Peace Corps Volunteer,

Rudy

P.S. Pictures coming VERY soon !!!!!

Here it goes …….. Enjoy !

PCPP Project Title: Increased Academic Opportunities for the Community of Paraiso de Buenos Aires

Community Organization: Paraiso Education Committee

Executive Summary:

The aim of this project is to build a classroom in a remote rural community located in Southern Costa Rica. The 200 residents of this community practice subsistence farming on small plots of land. In the town center, 11 months out of the year, 44 students attend a weathered one-room primary school which was first built in 1990. After school hours, over 50 adults attend several different classes taught both by the Costa Rican Learning Institute and a Peace Corps Volunteer. Most of the adult members of the community have only completed primary school education as there is no high school nearby.

In the primary school, grades 1 through 6 are taught together by two different teachers in one classroom that is well over capacity. With a new classroom, primary school students will be able to learn in a new and spacious environment, and more adults will be able to participate in adult-education classes. A portion of the materials will be donated by the community, as will the labor necessary for construction. If this project is not completed, the only educational center in town will remain overstrained and learning opportunities will continue to diminish. The education committee, composed of parents and community members, is very determined to see this project through to completion.

Background Information:

Paraiso de Buenos Aires, is a small rural community located 8 kilometers from the center of the city of Buenos Aires in the Southern part of Costa Rica. Its residents practice subsistence farming, along with working with the local electric company (ICE) and Pineapple Plantation (PINDECO). Paraiso has a growing population of over 240 residents. Among the many groups formed within the community, the local education committee (7 members) is motivated to complete construction of a new classroom to cater to the growing number of primary school students and adult students in the community.

Community Need:

In Paraiso Primary School there are 45 students including the kindergartners. There are two full time teachers, including the director and there is one part time teacher. The part time teacher teaches Kindergarten in the morning and literacy classes to adults in the community 3 times a week.

As well there is a growing population (40 +) of teenagers and adults participating in the Peace Corps Volunteers English classes after school hours and 20 more adults participating in daily classes taught by the Costa Rican National Institute of Learning.

Although Paraiso is a small community more than 50 percent of the community participates in some sort of learning activity taught at the school at least once a week. The residents of Paraiso have taken advantage of the learning opportunities brought to them, although in combination of the growing population and learning activities offered in town there is physically not enough space to accommodate a proper learning environment.

If this project is not implemented the children in the primary school will be faced to continue learning in a classroom well over capacity (35 + students in one classroom) which will affect their learning, and the adults will lose educational opportunities which could have otherwise been given to them (i.e. additional classes, night high school, and community meeting area).

Community Initiation and Direction:

The project of construction for the classroom is entirely a community initiative. The labor will be provided and completed by skilled and unskilled community members. The local education committees initiated the project and are completely involved and committed to seeing the project to a successful conclusion.

The president of the education committee has been working in collaboration with the director of the school in finding funding, creating design plans, and organizing the construction crews. The members of the education committee are working to inform the community about the project and delegate project responsibilities.

Community Contribution:

The community is fully involved in implementing this project. Planning, Construction, and post-maintenance of the new classroom will be under the continued responsibility of the local education committee. The local education committee is contributing approximately $2,250 dollars worth of labor costs. As well over $3,000 dollars in material towards the classroom will be donated. Overall, the financial community contribution will be approximately 50%.

Project Implementation:

There will be three phases of the project. 1) Organizing the education committee and community at large in preparation for the project. 2) Applying and acquiring funds to execute the project. 3) Building the Classroom.

In phase 1, the Education Committee will be responsible for project planning and organization of the community. Working alongside the education committee will be members of the community working to help execute the education committee’s goals. Specifically the President of the Education committee will be responsible for delegating responsibility during the pre project planning stage.

In phase 2, the President and Treasurer of the Education Committee as well as the school director will be working to solidify the donation by the committee and as well search for outside funds, i.e. through the Peace Corps Partnership Program.

In phase 3, under direction of the President of the Education Committee and Local building contractor the community members who have volunteered in the construction will work towards completing the new classroom.

Project Sustainability:

Constructing a new classroom requires a large amount of planning and preparation. From organizing construction plans, to acquiring the funds necessary to build, to the actual physical construction of the classroom, strong participation is needed among the education committee and members of the community.

The community and committee members will gain knowledge in project planning, project implementation, financial planning, financial management, working in groups, delegating responsibility, the importance of communication, and basic to advanced carpentry and electrical skills during construction of the classroom.

The community will be able to maintain the classroom in the long term, through monthly payments by the National Education Ministry as well as monthly mandatory donations from the students attending the school. The hired teachers and Education Committee will be responsible for seeing the maintenance through in the future.

Increased Academic Opportunties for the Community of Paraiso de Buenos Aires

2008-10-16T17:02:00.001-04:00

Thank you for all of you arriving at this blog for the first time, or to the rest who have followed my Peace Corps service through this blog. After being in my site for over 17 months and working closely with all community member through different capacities, i.e. English classes, work at the school, children’s groups, women’s groups, Development association meetings, etc., I have learned a lot about the community and its strengths, difficulties, and visions for the future. For 5 months I worked hard on writing a Community Analysis Tool or “CAT”. The CAT is an extensive report based on the community. Within the CAT consists of a basic history of the town, resources within the town, strengths, difficulties, potential future projects, and much more.

Through my 30 + interviews within the town and with governmental agencies which support the town, the reoccurring theme of the necessity of another classroom kept on coming up. Every year for the past 18 years since the primary schools construction the population of the students has risen. In academic year 2008 there are approximately 44 students attending the one room school, 12 of which attend the kindergarten in a small wooden structure apart from the main school building. In the primary school classroom grades one through sixth are all taught in the same area by two teachers in a 54 meters squared classroom area. The learning environment is far from ideal, as it is difficult to walk from one end of the classroom to the next, the noise levels are high, it is very cramped, the communication between student and teacher is hindered, and it is very during the Costa Rican summer months. These are of course only a few of the side effects of an overcrowded classroom.

Now this classroom is not only used for the primary school children. As well after school hours there is a thriving adult education community. The Costa Rican Learning Institute has sent a full time teacher to live within the community and teach classes, based on microenterprise management, accounting, nutrition, literacy, and agriculture to name a few. As well I am teaching English Classes at night 8 hours a week. This growing population of over 50 adult and teenage students is new to Paraiso. A majority of community members have not completed primary school let alone high school. Thus the community is taking full advantage of these new academic opportunities offered to them. Approximately 50% of the community population is participating in an academic opportunity within the one room school.

The school and the church are the only public buildings within the community. The one room school acts not only as an academic center but as a meeting place for community groups and community functions. The children’s group, women’s group, and other community groups have used the classroom as a place for various meetings and social activities.

Clearly the combined use of the one classroom by the primary school students, adult education students, and community as a whole has put great strain on the 18 year old classroom. The construction of a new classroom is vital to the academic future of the community of Paraiso. The community is able to donate resources and labor to the project, although there still remains some vital resources needed and for this we turn to the Peace Corps Partnership Program.

I have been working in collaboration with the local education committee, primary school teachers, director of the primary school, and president of the development association to make this project a reality. I look forward to using this blog to show the status and progression of the project. Once you donate you will be able to see how your money is being put to work, and hopefully we will see a picture of a completed classroom thanks to your donation. As always you can email me regarding specific questions to the project. Thank you very much for your consideration, and thank you for supporting my work abroad. The impact of this completed project will benefit the growing community for many years to come.

The Past Eight Months

2008-10-16T16:43:00.001-04:00

The past eight months in Costa Rica have been filled with fun, adventure, hard work, and new experiences. I have been continuing working hard in my community on a lot of the same projects and as well making some headway on a couple new projects. My time here in Costa Rica has been an amazing experience, with new challenges and new friends both being made in my community and amongst the community of volunteers near me. I am very thankful for my time here and the opportunity to work together with the community members of Paraiso de Buenos Aires.

My biggest project by far has been my work on my English Classes within the community both for the adults and children of the school. Currently I am teaching around 40 adults in the community as well as over 40 children in the one room primary school. Throughout my time here I have been questioning the validity of my work here teaching English. Is it necessary that rural community members learn English? How will they really utilize English in their futures? But week after week my students return to my English classes with a strong interest in learning not only English but coming together as community members and working together to learn something new. Recently the Costa Rican Learning Institute has introduced new classes within the community, and thus some of my students have switched over and exclusively attend those classes, as those are slightly more relevant to rural life, i.e. starting a micro-enterprise, nutrition and agriculture classes. But nonetheless I am proud of my work as an English teacher. I feel that through attending my classes I have helped them earn confidence to learn new things and as well hopefully in the future the confidence to seek new opportunities within and outside of the community. As well the classes are not only a class strictly relating to learning English but an opportunity for cultural exchange as I tell stories about my life in the states and share my views and opinions and in return I can learn more about them. This has been extended into my classes within the primary school where I have been working together with the students both inside and outside of the school.

I have been able to work outside of the school with the children to organize recreational activities and games to play with them. Teaching 30 or more children to play a new game can be challenging but more or less they understand the idea. For example, teaching 30 first through sixth grade students to play American Football was an endeavor but entertaining. As well I have worked after school hours to form a Children’s Group. As of right now we are working on a fundraiser to organize a movie night at the school, as well we are working on selling Choco-Bananos (Chocolate Bananas) at the next Soccer Tournament in town. Working with the Children in the community has been a very rewarding experience, but I have especially cherished the relationship and support I have received from my 4 host sisters and nieces who have attended the majority of my children’s events and meetings.

Besides my English classes and work with the children in the community, I have had the opportunity to really enjoy the slow pace of rural life and integrate within the community. With a community of slightly over 200 people I have really had the opportunity to work with many of the community members and get to know many of them. I am particularly good friends with two of the guys who work at the wood mill in town owned by a “gringo” aka foreigner. German, Javier and I have gotten to know each other well as both attend my English classes, and as well every other weekend make the trek into Buenos Aires to grab a cold Imperial or two and listen to the latest Latin music hits. I have also formed a great bond with my two host brothers, one who works at PINDECO (Del Monte Pineapple Factory) and the other currently attending an Electrician course in Buenos Aires. Although my community is very rural, I have the advantage of being only 8 kilometers away (or an hour and a half walk) from the center of Buenos Aires, a city which has internet, supermarkets, and cold beer.

Being in-country for 19 months has been quite an experience so far. I am very grateful that I have had this opportunity in my life to live in Costa Rica and have had the experiences I have had. For anyone remotely thinking about doing Peace Corps, I HIGHLY recommend it. I am particularly happy with my decision to participate in Peace Corps directly after college. If one is not 100% sure with what they want to do with their lives Peace Corps offers you the ability to experience something completely unique and once in a lifetime. In a way it is the most difficult job you could possibly have after college, and yet the most rewarding. Being completely immersed in a culture and society entirely different from the United States and thriving and working with the people of the country to complete something together is quite amazing. My commute is a five minute walk down a muddy dirt road to the school (no traffic), my coworkers are the people I live, eat, and work with, and my boss is myself. Peace Corps definitely has not been easy and the struggles of loneliness, living in the “campo”, and simply being your own boss and designing your own work schedule has been hard but overall I am very happy with how everything has been going so far.

As of right now I am proud to present the newest and biggest project which I will be working on during the rest of my Peace Corps service. That project is entitled: Increased Academic Opportunities for the Community of Paraiso de Buenos Aires. The core of this project involves building a brand new classroom to accommodate the academic needs and increased academic interests in educational opportunities in Paraiso. Please review the project profile which I have submitted to the Peace Corps Partnership Program to raise funds for this worthy project.

New Year

2008-01-25T19:14:00.000-04:00

Greetings Everyone ! This is my first post for the new year and I am excited to get alot of new projects and have a lot more adventures here in Costa Rica.

I ended up going home for the Christmas holidays, which ended up being a blast. It ended up being exactly how I expected it to be. Spending quality time with a lot of good friends and family, as well as relaxing to be back in the US and enjoy the ammenties of modern suburban life like hot water and bathrooms. I ended up recieving a new camera for Christmas which I will hopefully be able to take full advantage of and post some cool new pictures up on the blog to show you more of what I have been doing and what is going on down here in Costa Rica.

For new years I ended up heading to Panama City, Panama with a large group of other Peace Corps Volunteers from Costa Rica. We had an awesome time partying it up on Calle Uruguay in Panama city, a spot where alot of clubs and restaurants are, as well I got a chance to see much of Panama city which is very metropolitan, you could call it the ¨New York City¨of Central America. Towards the end of the trip in Panama I ended up heading to Bocas del Toro, Panama which is a slew of small island off the Atlantic Coast of Panama. In order to get to the beaches we had to take small boats across to different island and hike a while to discover pristine yellow sand beaches. Overall it was an amazing trip which I really enjoyed.

These days of vacation have definately allowed me to recharge my batteries and get back to the not neccesarily stressful, but intense and interesting rural life which I lead in my site in the Southern part of Costa Rica. Things in my site are overall going well. There is still a break right now in the school year for the children so things are going particularly slow, but I am still continuing my english classes with the adults. They are close to arriving at their first midterm exam which I will be testing them on in the next couple of weeks.

Overall things have been going well. I am working well with the various committees in my site and we are little by little getting things done to completing bigger projects in my site. Right now we are in the works of doing a major overhaul of the soccer field, re roofing the church, fixing the 5 kilometer road to my site, and potentially building a community center in our town. All of these have projects have their little intricacies and loopeholes to them but little by little we are accomplishing things.

After coming back from the hustle and bustle of my vacations as well as my brief stint in New York I need to re accustom myself to the slow rural life. As well naturally as a Peace Corps Volunteer much of the time you are alone. Not alone in the sense physically since I live with 10 other people but in terms of mentally, in finding someone you can relate to and share your feelings with. In the US I had my real family and friends which I could either see of call up easily on the phone. I would normally see my good friends and family at home at the least 4 or 5 times a week. But as a volunteer living in a rural village of less than 150 people it can at times get hard not seeing anyone else for several weeks on end. Alot of the times the things you least expect tend to be the hardest challenges.

Anyways that is the latest for now. I want to give a shout out to my brother, Andrew, it his 21st birthday today and I hope he is living it up at Duke University in North Carolina! Happy Birthday !!!

End of the year

2007-12-10T18:14:00.000-04:00

Overall things have been great down here in Costa Rica. Just came back off of a relaxing break in the states for Thanksgiving and I am also ready for another break back home for Christmas time.
Things in my site have been going well, just continuing on with my English classes for the children and adults. As well my marathon training has continued strong. I just got back from a 10 mile training run in the peak heat and I feel great. Now I just need to walk back home 5 miles.

Things in my house are going along well. A chicken and her 4 baby chicks decided to move into our latrine. So everytime I use the bathroom I have the wonderfull company of a 5 lives animals chirping and pecking at me. As well recently I woke up to the sound of a pig getting slaughtered at 5 am with the background beats of the latest reggeaton hits. The pig was killed for a mini fiesta held in my town to benefit the Comite de Deportes. The fiesta was held over two days, 2 weekends ago. It was an overall fun time which included alot of tamales, roast pork, Imperial and Soccer.

This past weekend I went to my friend Bill´s site about an hour down south of me. I had an awesome time chilling with him . We ended up playing poker with his host dad and as well chess on his host dads computer. While we were playing poker the host mom was near the front door and reacted in a startled man. She said there was a large snake at the door. Bills host dad ran to get a large 4 foot rusty machete while Bill went to get a large stick so his host dad could bash it over the head. It turned out to be a Tercia Pelo, one of the most poisonous snakes in Costa Rica.
The snake put up quite a fight, and even after we all thought it was dead it tried to attack us. Just a normal night here in Costa Rica surrounded by poisonous snakes.

The next day I went further down South with Bill and met up with a couple of other volunteers in the town of San Vito. We ended up going to fiestas in Sabalito which were really fun. It is always great to meet up with other volunteers and party it up. There was a rodeo, several dance locations, and many bars up, as well as street vendors. It was a really fun time.

Soon enough I will be back home for Christmas vacation which I am really excited about. I wish everyone well, especially my two brothers whose birthday it is today ! Happy Birthday Carl and Lucas!!!

Tuanis,

Rudy

Back in Costa Rica

2007-11-29T17:30:00.000-04:00

After a much enjoyed break from the campo life of Costa Rica I was able to make it back to New York for some rest and relaxation. The transition from Costa Rica to New York was more intense then I thought it would be. Primarily because I havent seen alot of my family and friends for well over 9 months. But overall it was amazing to see everyone and as I am here now in Costa Rica, my time in New York served as a great refresher and as well gave me a new perspective between my life in New York and my life in Costa Rica.

Thanksgiving was a great time spent with my family. Of course we had all the mandatory foods and fixins on the table and it was really a special time to spend with my family. The next night was my five year High School Reunion which was definately a blast and as well served as a great opportunity to catch up with people I havent spoken to in a while and as well party with my good friends from back home.

Overall my experience in New York was positive. But it was definately very hard to say goodbye as I didnt spend as much time with certain people as I wanted to, and as well the feeling of comfort from my family and friends at home was very difficult to leave. I could easily see myself sliding back to my ¨normal¨ life as a member of US society, but then again I would be missing out on the amazing opportunity which I have here in Costa Rica. As well I feel connected to my site and the people which I am living with and helping here in Costa Rica and I could not let them down.

So far I have been back in Costa Rica for about 3 days and I am happy to have at least escaped the fierce cold of New York as I went on a 5 mile run in the blistering 90 degrees Fahrenheit mid day heat of Southern Costa Rica. My marathon training is working out well as of right now, but the heat will definately be a huge issue as the training progresses.

Things in my site are going well. I have continued my English Classes and am working to finish things up before I roll out to NY again to celebrate Christmas with my family.

Overall thinga are great and for all of you who I saw in New York over the break it was great to see you and I miss you all everyday.

Much love amd Tuanis,

Rudy

Training is Fun

2007-11-15T16:25:00.001-04:00

About a week ago I went with my friends Bill and Lindsay to go visit our training host families. As usual it was an amazing time. Very relaxing and quite a change from my regular site. I remember initially thinking that my living situation was rough but now whenever I go and visit my training host family in a way it seems like the Beverly Hills of San Jose. Overall it was a really great time.

The next day the three of us left on the bus to make it into San Jose in order to celebrate the birthday of a fellow Tico 16er. Ever since the rates at the usual hotel we stay at where jacked up we decided to try out a newer hotel. At this newer hotel we decided that we would need 2 2 bedroom suites with Balconies , Jet tubs, Bedais? ( the things next to the toilets to wash your rear ends), and King Size beds. It was definately a huge step up from the Hole in the all we normally stay at. As well the security guard named Elvis at our old hotel switched jobs and now works at our new favorite hotel, which is awesome. Elvis is the man. We went out that night and partied it up in some Italian restaurant and then of course brought back the party to the Suites and danced the night away.

The next day we needed to wake up early, like around 11 am, and get ready to board the buses for AVC. AVC stands for All Volunteer Conference. It is actually a mandatory event for all Peace Corps Costa Rica volunteers to go to. This year as in past years it was held at an Old Boyscott Camp high in the mountains of San Jose. It was soo high up in the mountais half the time it felt like we were in the clouds, as well it was extremely steep wherever we walked and freezing. Tico 16 of course grabbed the ¨Night Owl¨bunk as opposed to the ¨Early Bird¨Bunk, meaning at what times we would eventually go to sleep. Our room basically consisted of one GIGANTIC steel bunk bed with wrestling mats as the mattresses. Each bed or platform basically fit 12 people squished together. Overall the accomodations were meager along with the ICE cold showers but nonetheless some serious bonding went on at night. It is a good thing that TICO 16 were all Rural Community Development volunteers use the grundge and rough conditions.

Anyways at AVC there were alot of different¨Charlas¨or talks about potential projects and also meetings within the three different programs, RCD, CYF (Children Youth and Family), and CED ( Community Economic Development). As well there were alot of different entertainment things to such as play football in the mud, there was a talent show at the end of one of the nights (Which TICO 16 represented strong), and then another night we had a casino night with both Euchre and Poker. I ended up entering the Texas Holdem No Limit 24 person poker tournement and came out winning the WHOLE thing. I was the last man standing with 4,000 Brachs Pepperming Starbrite Candies as chips. It was a really fun event and I am definately glad that I came out on top. Normally I am not that good at poker but I have been honing my card skills at the casinos in San Jose every once in a while. Overall AVC was definately a really good time and I also had the opportunity to meet alot of new people in Peace Corps I have not met before.

After AVC about 1/2 of the volunteers who came to AVC decided to stay the night in San Jose. Which turned out to be a really fun time. We partied it up in the hotel then hit up the local duplex casino on the bottom floor Discoteque on the second floor joint and danced the night away. After waking up the next day I felt that I needed to get a haircut to trip my monstrous head of hair I had not cut for 9 months as well as beard I hadnt cut for 3 months. I went to the nearest haircut place and got be haircut done by this Colombian guy named Hubert. Good times all around.

Finally the next day I was able to trek back to my site in the Zona Sur of Costa Rica. Things in my site are going very well. I have begun my 2 adults classes on a twice a week 2 hours a day schedule. As well we have implimented the use of the new Centro Cultural Oxford Press books, which are very high quality and an overall very good English program in my classes. They are learning alot and seem to be having a great time. Teaching English is definately an amazing way to integrate into the community and as well a perfect opportunity to get to know people in my community on a more one on one basis. Overall there is nothing but success relating to my English classes.

I will be continuing work on my remaining interviews and as well hopefully finish up my Community Analysis Tool aka Report of my community by the end of December or January. As well the school year will be winding down in December so I am thinking up some ideas of what I can do with the children when they are out of school and have nothing to do.

At my house 2 near little calfs were born and as well one of my 5 dogs is very pregnant up to the point where she can barely walk. Last time she gave birth to 11 puppies. Ever since day one when I arrived my house as been under construction. So poco a poco things have been getting renovated which is great. We have new ceramic flooring as well they are currently installing windows. Right now my room does not have windows because the window guy comes to install the windows once every bloom moon. So I have been pleasantly startled with Chickens, Random Birds, and Stinging Insects randomly flying into my room as I read the newspaper on my bed. But overall it is going to be a good thing, because in the past the only window I had was boarded up by two wooden planks. The house which I live in now is definately one of the better quality houses in my site although I still need to venture to my latrine where last night there was a chicken sleeping in that startled the heck out of me.

Ever since I have arrived here in Costa Rica I have been meaning to start running again but never really had the motivation. So I decided to begin training for the Jungle Man Marathon on February 23, 2007 in Puerto Viejo. The marathon like all marathons will be 26.1 miles, where 2/3 will be running on the unforgiving beach and 1/3 literally in the Jungle all during the hottest time of the year. It will be an insane physicaly feet but I have dedicated myself to completing it and will definately give you the updates on my progress during training. Today I went on one of my first training runs and sweated up a storm in the 90 degree sun. It will be intense but hey Go Hard or Go Home as the say.

Other news I am extremely excited to head back the the US for a week for thanksgiving. I have my 5 year high school reunion to look forward to and as well spending time with family and friends I have not seen for over 9 months. It will definately be an amazing experience but mentally it will be hard in terms of culture shock to extract my self from the jungles of costa rica to the suburbs of New York. Things like driving a car, having a cell phone, eating whatever food you want whenever you want, flush toilets, and hot showers will be quite an experience.

Also I would like to personally thank The Gleason family for sending me such a wonderful care package to me here in the Zona Sur. It was piled high with American Candy and an amazing Dora the Exploradora educational game I know my Kindergarten class will LOVE. I really appreciate the effort.

I look forward to seeing everyone back home soon. Feel free to send me emails or packages whenever you want. I hope you enjoyed reading this novel of a blog entry.

Everything Irie.

Tuanis,

Rudy

The Dirty South Adventures

2007-10-29T16:32:00.000-04:00

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.

Living the Dream

2007-10-09T16:42:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: Graphic imagery ahead.

Life has continued on here in Costa Rica at a leisurely pace. As of right now it is the rainy season and it is basically raining all day everyday. I finally made it to the internet place after a 90 minute walk in the rain, completely soaked but at least I finally made it. Alot of things have been going on since I last posted so I will try and update you on everything I can remember.

A couple weeks ago everyone in my town was getting ready for the ¨Fiestas Patronales¨which is basically a 2 day party at my site in order to benefit the church. The church in my town was repainted and the party began 2 Saturdays ago with cooking of Tamales, which is a type of food made of corn meal, rica, pork and wrapped in banana leaves. They take a while to make so everyone was helping with the preparation of the tamales for the larger party the next day. There were raffles for various different items as well as as a lot of eating and drinking going on. The next day was the larger party were soccer teams from neighboring communities came to my town in order to participate in a 7 team soccer tournament, which my town ended up winning. As of right now my soccer skills aren´t up to par in comparison to the players in my town but I look forward to playing on the team in the future. Overall the fiestas were a great success and the church earned a decent amount of money.

One interesting experience before parties was the preparation of the pig which was to be killed in order to supply the meat for the fiestas. Typically for a big party or during christmas time families kill the pigs which they have been fattening for around a year in order to celebrate. This time around it was the pig that lived down the road at my host sisters house, time to be sacrificed. I was reading my book one day when a family friend of my host family came by in his car and asked me If I wanted to go see him kill the pig. As I had nothing else to do, and felt that this was an experience I must have I decided to go with him. We arrived at the house to a boiling vat of water and the sounds of the pigs screaming in the distance, I feel that one of them already knew their destiny. My host sisters husband, My host sister, my host brother, my host nephew 3 years old, and 2 family friends were there for the execution. Before hand everyone brought there own knives and compared which one would deal the final blow to the throat. We took a rope to the 4 foot by 4 foot area the pig had been living in for a year put a noose around the neck and walked it over to the corral. This 100 kilo pig almost trampled me as I was watching it exit the pen. One person lay some corn feed on the ground to distract the pig, then WHAM!!!!!!!! with the back side of a very large axe one of the men crushed the skull of the pig. This resulted in large screaming and disorientation of the pig where then another person swooped in and stabbed the pig in the throat resulting in a river of blood exiting the pigs body at the whole in the throat. Immediately the dogs of the house that were watching this started to lap up the blood exiting the pigs throat while one of the man continuously bashed the back end of an axe into the pigs skull fracturing the skul in several places. After 5 minutes the pig was then propped up on a table and doused with the boiling water to remove the hair. It was then decapitated and hung upside down to drain the blood. Then commenced the pealing of the skin for the chicharones, fried pig skin, and then the slow carving away of all the meat and the careful removal of the internal organs. If certain parts of the internal organs are pierced during the extraction it can ruin the meat, i.e. stomach acids or contents of the intestines.

Anyways what to make of this, why did I write about this in such detail ? For me this was a very interesting and eye opening experience. One might consider this disturbing, but in reality there is no ¨humane¨way to kill a pig. At first I thought it was gross, but it further solidified my feelings of living close to the land which I live on. In my house we eat many of the fruits and vegetables we grow i.e. plaintains and mangos. We eat the meat of the animals we tend to pigs, cows, and chickens. Seeing them carve away at the ribs of the pig made me truly see where my favorite meal of Barbecue Ribs actually comes from. And for the people that I live with to have the skills and will to raise and kill this pigs says alot. They dont just walk down the aisle and pick up freshly sliced pork chops resting on styrofoam trays wrapped in plastic, they see the life of the pig from birth to death and obtain the meat with their own hands.

After seeing this experience I did not expect to be eating pork for quite a while as you can imagine. But actually I ended up nibbling away at freshly boiled chicharones, pig skin, with fresh lemons and a cold imperial 3 hours after the fact the pig was living and breathing. Overall it was a great experience, that same night another neighbor came over who killed one of his cows and left the full rib cage of the cow he slaughtered on our kitchen table. A small child could have fit inside of the giant bloody ribcage that was left on our table. That morning I had no idea I was going to experience that. Just like everymorning I wake up here in Costa Rica it is a new adventure.

English Classes. So far I have had 4 English Classes for the adults. 2 classes each week 2 hours each. I am averaging around 35 people per class which is insane considering that I am using the same classroom where 25 small primary school students completely fill up the space. It is an awesome experience teaching people from ages 18 to 65 in my class. People all have various different skill levels but for the most part are all beginning learners. We have begun to learn basic introductions, alphabet, and numbers. I am looking to start up an official program with accompanying books and other materials in November. Right now I am making the class up by myself entirely, just like how I am with my kindergarten and primary school classes. Everyone seems to really be enjoying the classes, It is definately a handful with so many students, but I look forward to working more with all of them.

Interviews. I have continued along the with the interviews in my town and at this point I am approximately 85 percent complete with all of my interviews. It has been really eye opening to see everyone houses in my community and talk to them about the issues facing them. I will be using all of this information in the future for my report about the community.

This past weekend I went to San Jose to visit my traning host family as well to celebrate two volunteers birthdays, Bill and Julia. Visiting my training host family was alot of fun and very relaxing. It was awesome to meet up with them, It kind of felt like coming back home, but to my home in Costa Rica. They are all doing well and we caught up on what we all were doing and I explained to them the latest in my life. The next day I woke up to 10 women in the house painting pictures on canvases. Apparently for the past 3 months every friday my host mom and her friends get together and paint all afternoon and have a leisurely lunch together. It was fascinating to see, my friend Bill also came over to my family. It was not just the fact that they were painting which struck me. It was that that my host family had their whole family as well as extended family and friends at the beautiful mountain top house with 360 degree mountain views doing art together. It was a very tranquil afternoon with art, food, and fun. The guys were fixing the cars, while the women were painiting, while all the children playing on the deck. This is a regular weeky occurance. To me this solidifies the feeling of family, and importance of family within their lives. While others around the world are staring at the clock to hit 5 on a friday they are spending time together relaxing and enjoying life. Sure that they live a more basic life then many in the US. But what is really important to drive that new car back home to a house late friday night, or drive back home early in a less fancy car to spend time with family and friends. Clearly people have different economic situation and what not, but for me and being here in Costa Rica I have noticed the central importance of family here. I remember coming home in Middle School and Highschool and going to my friends houses immediately after school or participating in other activites away from home. Here people come home after school and play with their siblings and extended family down the road well past High school. Clearly it is a different look from the more individualistic way of life, which is predominantely lived in America.
Later that weekend I partied it up with all the members of my Tico group in San Jose. We had an awesome time from dancing in the clubs to heading over to the Regal Mall Escazu to watch movies and play Playstation 3 on the largest widescreen HDTV in the world. Crazyness.

Overall my time here in Costa Rica has been great and I look forward to more crazy advenures and experiences. Soon I will have another meeting with all the volunteers in the south at the beach and then my girlfriend Tamar is coming which I am highly anticipating.

Shout out to Russell P. and Jen S. for hooking it up big time with an amazing care package for me. I am extremely grateful to recieve anything from the US. Thanks for your generosity. For the rest of you out there I patiently await for your packages. If you send me something, I can arrange to send you a howler monkey or toucan or something, haha we´ll see.

Much love for all. Tuanis.

Rudy

Living in Costa Rica = Amazing Times

2007-09-23T18:21:00.000-04:00

So far soo good here in Costa Rica. My dad had the opportunity to visit early this month which was an absolute blast. We had the opportunity to do alot of different things together, while still having the ability to spend time at my site in the beautiful southern part of Costa Rica. It was really amazing to have someone from home, especially my dad, come visit me out here in the Jungle.

After my Dads visit I made my way over to San Jose for the bi annual VAC Dinner were we celebrated the new ¨Tico¨groups arrival and the oldest group departure. Tico 16 represented again strong, with everyone showing up to the event. As well we ran the party as evident of the after dinner ¨fiesta¨in my hotel room which had a large attendance to say the least. Then the next to a large amount of us went to the illustrious Terramall to watch movies. Andrew, Bill and I managed to watch the terrible movie entitled ¨Edison¨starring LL Cool J and Justin Timberlake. At least we were sitting in an air conditioned room with comfortable chairs, that is really all that matters.

Monday late afternoon I made it back to my site in one piece. I have continued working with the children in my town at the school regarding English classes. They are going well and I am incorporating more fun learning games into my curriculum which makes it fun for me and them. This Thursday I held a meeting at the town church regarding adult english classes. I had a very large attendance at the meeting of alittle over 35 people. I was very excited that people showed alot of enthusiasm regarding these future classes. I have now setup to new adult classes on tuesdays and wednesdays during the late afternoon and night. This coming week will be the first round of classes for the adults and I am eager to start working with them. The classes will serve as a great opportunity for learning within the community as well serve as a social opportunity for members of the community to get to know each other better.

This week I am looking to wrap up all my individuals interviews in my town . I have already written the first draft of my CAT (Community Analysis Tool) but in order for everything to be up to date and accurate I need to finish all my interviews. For the most part the interviews house to house have been a great experience. It is great to step foot into every house in my village and really talk face to face with the individuals about their happinesses, concerns, and lives overall.

I am looking to continue working with the newly formed committee de deportes (sports commitee) regarding fixing the soccer field and getting new uniforms for the sports teams. As well I look forward to my continued work with the development association regarding the water situation in my town.

Overall things are good in Costa Rica. Life is very good. I feel fully comfortable in my site and generally getting to and being anywhere in Costa Rica. I am excited to work with a couple new volunteers who have recently arrived in the southern part of Costa Rica, and as well continue work with my community members. What I love most about my life is the freedom which I have. The freedom to wake up everyday and say : Hey, What do I want to do today? I feel like never again in my life will I have the freedoms which I have now to simply do whatever I want, while still having the ultimate goal of helping people help themselves at the same time. Before coming here I told my self that this opportunity will allow me to do some soul searching and really discover what I want to do with my life. Well I have done a little bit of both, I still look forward to the future time I have here.

Anyways that is the latest from me. I look forward to seeing you all down here ASAP. Special thanks to Tamar and my family for sending me packages out here in the Jungle.

One Love. Respect.

Life in My Site

2007-09-07T17:54:00.000-04:00

So the adjustment from being over a week in the city, enjoying the luxurious of the modern world, took some time to adjust to once I got back to my site. But overall things are very good right now and I am back in the swing of the things, talking spanish and eating rice and beans.

Lately there have been alot of meetings going on in my site. The company ICE (Instituto Costaricense de Electricidad) has been holding alot of meetings regarding the Hydro electric power plant they are going to be building near my site. The meetings are relatively interesting, but they are helping the community in organizing themselves to solicite bigger projects for the town which is very helpful. At the last meeting we watched a 40 year old movie about some town that got completely relocated as a result of the building of the hydroeclectic dam. They wont be relocating the people at my site, but it was nonetheless interesting to watch the black and white movie.

One new cool thing is the rebirth of my towns Comite de Deportes. Everyone wants to start work on repairing our towns soccer field, which is right now just a piece of semi level land with alot of dirt and no grass. At our meeting last week we setup the 8 person comite, assigning the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, etc. Then a couple days later we had our first meeting and EVERYONE showed up. Many other volunteers complain that people don't show up to meetings but that really hasnt been a problem in my town. For the most part all the meeting I have been to have been well attended. People in my town really have a desire to better their community and selves. Right now we are looking into who owns the land the soccer field is on as well as coming up with organizations we can solicite many from. We also want to get some new uniforms for the soccer team. Overall, I am really proud of the formation of this new group and I look forward to working with them on future projects.

My English classes have been going very well lately. I have had to date over 20 english classes with my 1st through 6th grade class and around 17 english classes with my Kindergarten class. I am very proud of their willingness to learn as well as their skills in retaining the knowledge which I am teaching them. I remember I started to only learn spanish in 6th grade, right now I am teaching a foreign language to children from kindergarten to 6th grade. After my training in San Jose I learned some new games and skills to teach my classes. I have begun playing some classic games like "Papa Caliente (Hot Potato)", "Simon Dice (Simon Says)", and some other learning games. The children seem to be enjoying themselves as well as learning alot.

Yesterday I was attending a Junta de Educaccion/Patronato Escolar Meeting (sort of like PTA meetings) and we were talking about the donations we recieved to rebuild the kindergarten class, as well as construct a new general purpose class room. Right now we are in the planning phases of that and getting price quotes from different builders for the constructions. We also recieved a $1,000 USD donation to fix up our "cafeteria" aka room with a table and cooking supplies. Next Monday is "Dia de los Ninos" which is basically "Kids Day". They hadnt planned anything yet and realized that there was no money in the account to do anything. So my host mom said she would donate money for a cake, I matched her donation, and everyone in the room said they would also. It was interesting because before in the meeting we were thinking about fundraising ideas, and then 5 minutes later everyone in the room just flat out donated money. Then my host mom/counterpart went to collect food and money from the people in the town, that night she returned and said she recieved alot of money as well as donations from everyone she asked . Something I have always been proud of in my site is the sense of community which exhists in my site. It is a community of around 200 people but everyone knows everyone and everyone supports everyone. I know that if I walked down my street in my hometown of New York and said I was collecting money/food for a school party it would be a different story. A) People would think I was probably weird B) I wouldnt really know the person that lived 5 houses down from me and C) I bet maybe 1 in 3 would actually give me something.
What also really impresses me is the level of commitment everyone has in my town. People are commited to helping one another as well as their community as a whole. If someone doesnt have enough food, then we give them a live chicken to slaughter. If a neighbor down the road needs a ride we help them out with our car. As well the participation of the community members in meetings and comittees that help their community is amazing. People here seem to have a greater physical, mental, and emotional vested interest in improving their community as a whole than many communities I know of back in the US. Everyone plays a part in developing the community.

Anyways last night when I was teaching my 9 year old host sister to play chess, I was in the middle of my move when all of a sudden I heard my host mom screaming and running out of the house calling my other host brother. It took me a couple of seconds to complete my chess move until I decided to see what she was yelling about. I got up from my seat and went outside to see a HUGE ball of flames erupting from the side of my house. The plastic covering from our fuse box somehow caught on fire and was melting and dripping plastic fire as well as blasting sparks left and right. I immediately went to the sink and filled up a pot 3/4 filled with water and ran back to douse the ball of flames. The flames went out with that one bucket of water and the emergency subsided. For the rest of the night we didnt have electricity. Overall it was pretty wild, and our house could have easily burnt down if we werent there at that time. We just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Anyways that is the latest here in Costa Rica. My dad is coming soon and I am very excited to see him after not seeing anyone from home for over 6 months.

Also I have changed my blog name from the exciting Rudolph Becker's Blog to the even more exciting: The Tuanis Times.

Adios Everyone. Respect and Tuanis.

Fotos for your pleasure :

Bre and I posing with fish we caught with out bare hands.

Me flying in Montezuma.

More Flying.

Group shot in Montezuma.

Montezuma and In Service Training

2007-08-25T17:45:00.000-04:00

The past couple weeks have been pretty crazy with a lot of different things going on. Things at my site have overall been going well, but for the past 10 days I have been around and about throughout Costa Rica doing a variety of different things away from my site.

This month I decided to go on a trip with 8 other volunteers to the beautiful beach area of Montezuma. It is located in the lower part of the Nicoya Peninsula. It is very hard to get to and require various different transportation steps to finally arrive. But the trip was well worth it.
We arrived late in the afternoon the first day, but that did not stop us from going to the beach. The beach was absolutely beautiful. Quintessential beach with long views along the coast lines, lined with palm trees. The waves were really strong that afternoon and we all played in the waves trying not to get completely pummeled by the waves. That night we went out to dinner at this beach side restaurant and feasted on steaks, pasta, and seafood. Then we took the party back to the hotel which was located literally on the beach. Overall it was an amazing first day.

The next day we hit the beach early and setup shop down the shoreline and took in some sun. My friend Andrew and I went on a 3 hour long hike up the coastline to progressively more and more secluded beaches. We also climbed up this river and found a small 10 foot waterfall which we hung out at for awhile. That night we went back to the same restaurant this we liked it so much. Then of course brought the party back to the hotel room, and then went to the club to go and dance the night away. Writing this entry reminds me of the ridiculous life I live.

The next day we woke up early and chartered this small private boat to take us to Isla Tortuga, a small island off the coast of the Nicoya Peninsula. My friend Andrew organized the boat, the 8 of us left on the boat for the 45 minute trek up the coast to reach the small island. We spent 4 hours on the deserted beach and just took in all that the island had to offer. Lots of sun, fun, and great swimming. On the way back we stopped at this snorkeling spot, which was pretty cool. Later 25 minutes into the boat ride back we noticed large spurts of water splashing in the ocean in the distance. The spurts of water were whales snorting through their blow holes. We ended up getting extremely close to the 2 massive whales which to me seemed to be humpback whales. It was insane to be so close to such gigantic creatures, especially being in such a small boat. It was an awesome experience, and our boat driver said we were very lucky to see them so close, closer then he had ever seen them before. We then came back late afternoon and went out to dinner to another restaurant by a river feeding the ocean.

The next day we woke up and hiked an hour to some insane water falls. They were really cool to see and a great place to just go an hang out at. At the second waterfall higher up, which required a climb there was a rope swing and a few other spaces where you could jump into pools of water. We spent hours just hanging out by the falls. It was an awesome time.

Later that day we took the last bus out of Montezuma to head to San Jose to begin In Service Training. In Service Training occurs after the first 3 months of service. It was held at a really nice hotel. It was great to have hot water, good food, and not be surrounded by farm animals.

For the next 5 days we took classes in learning how to teach English better, cultural classes, technical classes, safety and security classes, and medical information sessions. Overall it was very informative, but very intense as all Peace Corps training events are. There is always a lot of information to cram into a small amount of time. Right now I am writing this blog from the hotels fast wireless internet connections which is awesome.

During the past couple days I have had the opportunity to compare and contrast stories and experiences among the other volunteers in my group. It was really a treat to spend so much time with the other volunteers as well as receive valuable training. It has given me the opportunity to really think about my experience here.

At this point in time I am very happy with everything going on and my life here. I am thankful for the freedoms I have, as well as the responsibilities of living and working for and in a rural Costa Rican community. I feel I have the capacity to really complete some great projects in my time and hopefully leave the town with more resources and skills for further development. Everyday I look forward to the next days adventure and learning experience. The Peace Corps has truly to this date been an amazing experience with many ups and downs but overall at the end of the day I can still say Tuanis.

August is for Bicycles

2007-08-09T17:57:00.000-04:00

Greetings everyone. Just thought I would toss in a quick blog. Nothing too wild has been going on in my site. I have been continuing with english classes at the school. Right now in the Kindergarten class we just finished up the letters L for Lion and M for Monkey. Pretty exciting classes. As well in my 1st through 6th class we are reviewing classroom objects, and of course we are playing alot of Bingo which is always awesome, fun, and takes up alot of time.

I have been ramping up seriously my interviewing efforts this week. I managed to bag 15 interviews this week, which has been great. Excellent opportunity to speak to everyone one on one about this issue of the community. I have learned alot from them and look forward to implementing their recomendations. Recurring themes have been issues with Water, fixing the soccer field, Adult English Classes, Computer classes, Sources of Work, and Buses to and from my site to the city have been popular. The conditions of the houses which I have been to as expected have ranged from Cement floors with Cement walls, aka good quality house, to corrugated steel as walls and dirt floors, aka not so good quality. I have slowly come to learn that the house that I am currently living in right now is by far one of the best in my site. Although I didnt originally think that once I arrived. Everyone has a latrine aka hole they use to go to the bathroom as well to my suprise alot of people rely on rain water as their main source of water. Anyways I have been learning alot about my community through these interviews.

Today my director for my program in Peace Corps came. She arrived with a bicycle ! Which is awesome, and will hopefully cut my rigorous commute time to walk to school from 10 minutes to 3 minutes. But more importantly I can get out of my site probablty alot faster than the normal hour it takes to walk. But I am excited about the bike so it should be good.

Lately it has been raining like crazy here from basically from 4pm to 7 pm it downpours. With the days going by it is only getting stronger. Although it is very hot in the mid morning to afternoon which is alright.

Next week I will be going to the beach which will be fun and then I will attend In Service Training in San Jose for a week which should be a blast, hanging out with more volunteers.

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

Respect,

Rudy

P.S. I added a link so that you can page me on my pager. You can just send me a message to say hi, but I cannot respond back.

P.P.S. Keep the letters coming !

Liberia, San Isidro, and the Sun

2007-08-04T13:41:00.000-04:00

Right now I am back at my usual internet cafe on top of the Supermarket surfing the net and hanging out with my friend Bill who came last night along with my other friend Andrew, both volunteers, to check out my site and experience my world one night in the campo. We had a great time just chilling out and enjoying the scenery, watching the chickens, eating pork, talking in english, and eating starbursts. Pretty much an ideal night. It was great to have them check out where I live. The night before that we went to the large ¨city¨of San Isidro for a night to celebrate Dia de Los Angeles. We ended up staying at a nice hotel with airconditioning and also to our suprise the hotel had an awesome pool which we enjoyed in the afternoon in the pouring rain. We later went out to a great dinner then hit the discotecque, where Bill sang a great Karaoke rendition of the ever popular song ¨Eres Tu¨. Overall it was a wild time and the four of us (Me, Bill, Andrew, and Alicia) were able to let loose a little and enjoy ourselves.

The weekend before this San Isidro trip I made my way up to the city of Liberia, with two other volunteers in my group. We ended up meeting up with several other volunteers from Peace Corps once we arrived in Liberia. Liberia is in guanacaste, and guanacaste is unbelievably hot. The Sun was pounding down on my all weekend, I managed to get a deep tan just by walking the streets. The fiestas were for the annexation of the part of Costa Rica called Guanacaste. Overall one of the largest parties of the year in Costa Rica. There were tons of food vendors, people selling everything from jewelry to livestock, several raised dance hall structures sponsored by the beer companies of imperial and pilsen, as well as different amusement rides. On Sunday there was a concert by the ¨Cumbia Kings¨. They are supposedly some famous group from Mexico. I was less than impressed by the music but nonetheless it was fun to party on the large lawn in front of the stage. I ended up staying with 10 other volunteers in a house rented out to us by another volunteers host sister. Overall you can imagine how crazy it got with 10 volunteers in a house, relaxing, party, and enjoying themselves after being isolated in their sites for a certain amount of time. The fiestas were awesome overall, and I also had the opportunity to meet new volunteers which was great.

Right now it is back to the campo life. Continue on with my Community Analysis and my town interviews. As well with my English classes. I have Inservice Training (IST) coming up so that should be cool to see everyone from my Tico 16 group as well come back to my site with some fresh new ideas for my site as well as additional training and knowledge to carry out bigger and better projects.

Lately I have been seeing alot of volunteers so It has been great to socialize with all of them. More and more I am getting use to my life as a volunteer living in a rural community. As the time passes things which at first were difficult, like using a latrine and being constantly covered and dirt, were difficult. But now I am getting use to it and comfronting new challenges everyday. Being a Peace Corps volunteer is a wild wild life. But I am glad to have made the decision to commit myself to the time I have here. I have been able to do a lot of self reflection on my life and the future decisions I want to make. Getting away from the hustle and bustle of the ¨9-5 work schedule¨ I have been able to construct my own schedule and do things when and where I want to do them. This is a very unique experience and I am definately relishing every moment.

Anyways I hope all is well with everyone. I miss you all and I look forward to hearing from you.

2uanis.

Rain, Classes, and Chickens with their Heads Cut Off

2007-07-25T17:22:00.000-04:00

Life in Costa Rica, is pretty good these days. Taking things day by day while trying to keep myself busy and not completely boring myself out of my mind. I have been reading alot, Im reading the book Atlas Shrugged right now, and watching alot of movies on my External Hard drive, while at the same time doing lots of ¨Rural Community Development¨.

The Rain has been getting pretty fierce around here. It seems that everyday there is more and more rain and it is getting stronger and stronger. Everyday that passes gets deeper and deeper into the rainy season. My house is under severe construction right now so when it rains really hard it tends to rain inside the house as well since our rough isnt exactly ¨waterproof¨. But the constructions on my host families house is coming along really well, slowly but surely.

My classes are continuing as usual. The Kindergarden class is doing well. We are still covering the basics of ¨Hello, My name is Rosaura¨and classic phrases like ¨I like dogs¨and ¨I have 6 sisters and 3 brothers¨. But they are doing well, this past week we worked on the letters I and J. I for Ice Cream and J for Jeans. While they are coloring the pictures I spice it up a little and play some music on my ipod. I entertain them with classic tunes from Jimmy Hendrix, The Beatles, Bob Marley, and Pink Floyd to the greats like James Brown and Aretha Franklin. The kids enjoy the music as well as the coloring.

In my other class which consists of grades 1-6 I have been teaching them objects in the classroom, animals, and more advanced phrases. Like ¨I want 6 Giraffes¨ and ¨I don´t like Hot Chocolate¨. The class hit is when we play Bingo. Bingo is the answer to everything. They really enjoy it, it takes up a lot of classtime, and it is truly a learning experience. I havent experimented much with music with this class yet but their time will come.

Alot of the time after classes I hitch a ride with the Kindergarten teacher to the center of Buenos Aires so I dont have to walk 90 minutes to get there. One day when I was waiting for her to finish up I heard a mother in a nearby house tell her child to get the chicken. So a comical and lengthy chase pursued with the 10 year old boy racing around to catch the chicken. I thought nothing of it. Then 5 minutes later I saw a large group of children and I heard a squaking sound. The boy tied up the chickens legs with rope, tied it to a small tree and let the bird dangle from the tree. He then reached for his 2.5 foot machete, held the head of the bird, and slashed down on the chickens neck. The head went flying in one direction while the winds were flapping around for another 10 seconds after the beheading. I saw all of this from a distance of 25 feet. At first I was extremely shocked by the act which the 10 year old boy did but in reality that is just what happens to millions of chickens a day and nobody thinks twice about it. Maybe not the beheading but the murder part. Then I went to the back of the house and saw as they poured boiling water over the body and defeathered the chicken entirely. At the end it looks just like a normal chicken one would by at the supermarket. After that experience I told myself I would hold back from eating chicken for a while. For lunch today I had a chicken sandwhich.

At my site they have been also fixing up the roads which is great. Initially we had pretty poor and rocky roads but since the electrical company of Costa Rica is building a hydroelectric damn near my site they need better roads to move their big equipment around. So it is great that they are working on that.

As well the status of the water in my town is coming along slowly. Everyone in my site uses wells for their drinking water. Through my interviews people have said that water is the most important thing to them. I am working to get an aquaduct of potable water setup in my site. In some of my interviews people are drinking water out of streams. As well various health problems have arisen due to the fact that there is not clean water to drink. It is insane to think that in this day and age that it is not a human right to have access to clean and safe drinking water. Water is neccessary for life. Plain and simple and if Water is difficult to get and not safe to drink that makes life a whole lot more difficult. The situation at my site isnt neccesarily dire, like in some parts of the world that have severe droughts and terrible terrible water to drink, but nonetheless it is a situation that is important to everyone in my town.

Anyways that is all for now. I am hoping to meet up with some of my volunteer friends soon in early August and then toward the end of August I have In Service Training which last for a week in San Jose. That should be fun, and since it is held in a hotel you know what that means. Toilets, Comfortable beds, and Clean Hot Water ! YAYYY! Haha you gotta love the campo life.

Anyways that is all for now. I want to personally thank Ross Seiden for sending me three packs of Sour Starbursts, I am forever endebted to him. For the rest of you I can´t wait to recieve your letters and packages. Also if you dont want to send me a letter email me you address and I will send you one. We all know I have alot of time to burn down here. Haha.

I love you all. Tuanis. (Which is a more informal greeting then the very formal Pura Vida! Haha)

Rudy

Me and the Kindergarten kids chillin by the well at the school.

Porquito y yo.

Campo Life in Costa Rica

2007-07-16T19:28:00.001-04:00

Hey all. Glad to be back online and in the real world after a full week of campo life. This past week wasn´t too good for me as I was sick the whole time. I had a terrible cough and sneeze, accompanied with a fever, cold shakes, night sweats, and a never ending headache. Getting sick in the campo is like getting sick in real life, except in the campo you don´t have access to all the homely comforts one is use to when back at home in the US, like proper medicine, proper food, and peace and quiete. But anyways I survived and I am doing a lot better now.

School is back in session. The kids in my town had a 2 week break for mid year vacations. This week I am going to continue my work in the schools. I look forward to getting back into the schedule of teaching English classes as it gives me something to do. Apparentley the kids in the kindergarten class have been asking for me, and I look forward to teaching them new things and new words like : Giraffe and Hat.

Life at home has been relatively normal except for my sickness. We recently got this new little pig at my house. It runs all over the place, like in the living room, through the kitchen, and generally all over the
house constantly looking for food scraps. It looks exactly like the little pig named Babe, in the movie Babe. I have nicknamed him ¨porquito¨. He is really cute, but I know we are going to kill him one day and eat him. It´s a pretty sad story.

Talking about killing animals.. I saw the movie Fast Food Nation the other day off of my external Hard Drive which my brother Lucas loaded with movies and TV shows. It is an excellent movie and I encourage everyone to go out and rent it or buy it. It talks about the meat packing industry as well as the fast food industry. It is awesome, I would give it 4.6 stars out of 5 stars.

Life here in Costa Rica is very much like riding on an emotional rollercoaster. Some days I am feeling great and other days not so much. Like when I was sick this past week I wasn´t doing so well, and sometimes I get really lonely and bored and get depressed. But than other days I wake up and just look around and realize that I am being payed to live in Beautiful Costa Rica, while living in a small rural community helping people, and learning Spanish, with basically zero stress in my life. Everything is Irie, like they would say in Jamaica. But I am glad to say I am definately happy more so than I am sad. If it wasnt the case then I wouldnt be here.

Anwyays that is all for now. I hope everyone is doing well back at home. I checked my mailbox today and I saw nothing, so I will just assume that all those letters are in transit coming to me. Haha.

Tuanis !

Rudy

Fourth of July

2007-07-09T19:55:00.000-04:00

This past fourth of July, I spent with 6 other volunteers in PuertoViejo de Talamanca on the Carribean cost of Costa Rica. Overall it was a really fun and great to get to the beach and relax. It took approximately 10 hours to get there but it was definately worth it. The vacation was filled with good food, good music, and great times on the beach. We stayed at a hotel 100 meters from the beach. Bill and I shared a room with Full sized bunkbeds which were awesome and really comfortable. The town of Puerto Viejo is a cool hip town with a strong Afro Carribean feel to it. It is kind of like the ¨Jamaica¨ of Costa Rica in a way. We went to alot of different restaurants including one with a live calypso band. As well we went out at night to a couple of clubs and broke it down on the dance floor. Overall it was a great time.

Right now I am back at my site, just living life. It is still the Mid-year 2 week break for the school right now so I still have one more week free before I start up my English classes again. My interviews in the community are coming along slowly but surely. I am definately more and more becoming comfortable in my site. Nothing too crazy to report regarding my site, just the usual million animals all over the place and the constant feeling of living in a jungle.

Thats pretty much it for now. If you ever feel bored write me an email or send me a letter. I have plenty of time on my hands here in rural Costa Rica.

Keep it real. Tuanis.

Rudy

Chilling in my Pueblo, Meetings, Dead Goat, Beach

2007-06-30T18:51:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-25T14:39:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-18T16:30:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-05T17:00:00.000-04:00

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

Getting Settled

2007-05-30T15:03:00.000-04:00

So far I have been in my site for almost 2 weeks right now, and things have been going well for the most part. I have been settling into my room, organizing my clothes, reading alot, reading some more, eating rice and beans, using the latrine, and then read for a little bit more.

New developments this week include the beginning of my english classes at the primary school. This week I taught english from 9-10 AM on Tuesday and Wedsnesday. I will continue this schedule for who knows how long, maybe two years if time allows. Since there is only one classroom with grades 1-5 in it I am teaching them all at once. It is slightly difficult to plan for a class with such varying grade levels but it really is the only way to get it down. The students are very responsive and are learning things relatively quickly. This week we went over introductions, greetings, basic questions, and salutations. Some students are willing to participate more than others but that is just natural. They seem to be enjoying the class, and when I come home I hear my host sisters speaking the new phrases I taught them in class earlier that day. So it seems like it is is sticking. Also next week I begin to teach english to the Kindergarten class of 9 students. This will be interesting to teach 9 4-5 years olds a brand new language, but I am up for the challenge. Recently I have been getting rides into the nearby town with the Kindergarten teacher who ends at 11, so I dont have to do the 90 minute walk to town. I asked her what the school needs improved the most and one of many things she said is a new classroom for the kindergarten because they recently and in the past have had problems with poisonous snakes, scorpions, and huge spiders making homes in the classroom. Hopefully I will be able to help them with this problem.

This Friday I have arranged for another community meeeting in my town. With this meeting I would like to make it a little more interactive and find more about the town, existing commitees, problems, areas of growth, and wishes for the community. Then next week I will start my door to door interviews with members of the community to see what kind of projects they want to start working on. I feel that very soon I will also need to begin an english class for the adults, because that is something as well I have heard from community members which they strongly want.

I look forward to mid June where I will be able to see some other volunteers at the beach for our VAC meeting. VAC is sort of like Peace Corps student council where we get together and talk about issues relating to our job and such. It should be a fun time and then a week later I will be meeting up with my Tico group, Tico 16 to most likely party it up in San Jose.

Overall things have been going well here. The loneliness is still an issue here as well as the boredom, but as projects start picking up it should fill up my time better.

I miss everyone so much and I think about you all (my friends and family) all the time.

Much love and respect,

Rudy

First Couple Days In Site

2007-05-24T19:13:00.000-04:00

Last Friday night as a blast with all of Tico 16. After the swearing in ceremony we wento our usual hotel in San Jose, to relax and get ready for the night ahead. Bill and I got a room togther on the third floor which actually turned out not to be the best idea since it was so close to the street, but it didnt really matter to much. Anwyays that night we went out in the San Pedro area to this really good Italian Restaurant called Il Pomodoro. I got an amazing dish of Fettucine Carbonara and split a pizza with a couple people. Bill and I took the classy road and split a bottle of Chilean White Wine. I know what you might be thinking, hey I thought Rudy was in the Peace Corps, eating rice and beans all day in the middle of nowhere, but hey when I get the chance to live it up I do. Anyways after dinner and a coiple rounds of drinks we obviously brought the party back to the hotel and lived it up there till late at night. Overall great times with everyone, it was an excellent night to celebrate all of our beginning the next 2 years.

The next morning Bill and I took the 1:00 bus to our sites from San Jose. We were lucky in taking the 1:00 bus as other people had much earlier buses to catch. It was an uneventful 5 hour ride to my bus stop in the South but when I made it there my host brother picked me up in his 1970 Toyota Landcruiser and drove me to the house. As of right now the house is under major constructions, although when it will be finished it will actually be really nice. As of right now there are 11 people living in 3 room in the house. One of the rooms is for me, alone.

The first couple days I have been using just go get myself settled in my room. Wash the walls, clean the floor, put up the mosquito net, install an electrical outlet and light in my room, organize my clothes. I havent really been changing the world yet.

Yesterday I went to this meeting for all the parents at the town school (1 classroom for 40 students) and I introduced myself again to all the parents that attended. During the meeting they discusses the possibillity of me teaching english classes once or twice a week at the school and I willing and excitingly excepted the offer. I just need to do some research as the best way to begin these classes for young children who have never had any formal english education whatsoever. As well some of the adults asked me as well to begin some classes for them as well, which I definately want to do.

I have not given any english classes yet, except for the one during training which was for us to get a taste of what it is like, but all of the other volunteers from prior years say that it is one of the best ways to integrate into the community. I feel that I will get to meet alot of people through these classes and as well gain respect in the community to work on other projects with them. In my meeting with Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica, he expressed great interest in our teaching english and felt it to be one of the most important things we can do for the people of Costa Rica.

After I returned from the meeting I walked back in the rain with a couple of my host brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews (when I am in my town we are always in a large group, because i live with such a big family) and arrived to my house and entered my room to find this huge brand new beautiful faux-oak dresser that fits all of my clothes and other random things perfectly. It was a great suprise and a beautiful gesture as this piece of furniture is ,by far in my opinion, the most beautiful and most expensive piece of furniture in the whole house. I was really touched and really grateful for it. Now my room is organized really well and I feel more settled in.

Today I woke up at around 10 oclock, ate breakfast and then setoff on a 90 minute hike in the rain to get to my nearest town and use the internet. I ended up using the internet for 3 hours an was able to speak to all of my friends (Shoutouts to : Tamar, Jon, Russ, Dave, and Cownie) through Gmail chat.

Anwyays life here in Costa Rica is good for the most part. Just tackling things one day at a time. I hope things are great back at home and abroad. My brother just left to Germany 3 days ago, he should be having a rediculous time there. My adventures still continue here.

Pura Vida,

Rudy

The Beginning

2007-05-18T16:55:00.000-04:00

The past 11 days or so after my initial site visit have been very hectic and very busy in preparation for what just happened today, swearing in. This morning all of us went to the Embassador of the United States to Costa Rica´s house in the more luxurious part of San Jose. After passing tight security we entered his huge mansion, with pool, tennis courts, and amazing art work all throughout the house. During the ceremony there were speeches from Our Peace Corps Country Director, Peace Corps Training Director, PC Rural Community Development Director, Director of DINADECO (Costa Rican National Development Agency), and our very own Marcela of Tico 16 who gave a great speech in behalf of all of us. After the ceremony the embassador each presented us certificates showing completion of training. As of right now I am offically a Peace Corps Volunteer ! For the past three months everyone has been calling us trainees, but now I am a PCV !!! It was overall a really nice ceremony and several news stations and radio stations came to interview us and report on our swearing in. So if you are in Costa Rica tune into Noticias Repretel and you should be able to see us.

This past Wednesday we had are meeting with Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica. We all met up with him in the afternoon and he invited us to he equivalent of the US Oval office of Costa Rica with a huge U shaped table and all of these leather seats surrounding the table. It was a very professional meeting and we had the opportunity to ask questions at the end. I asked him : What are you most proud of about Costa Rica? and What do you like to do in your freetime? Regarding his pride to Costa Rica he said he was very proud of the people and the sustained peace Costa Rica has had throughout the past years. Also in terms of his freetime he likes to listen to music and read poetry. (*Unofficial Quotes) Overall it was a very good meeting and this was the first time he has ever met with Peace Corps volunteers so I felt especially priveleged.

Back at home in my training community, I have been wrapping things up and saying goodbye to everyone. My host dad has gone to New Jersey to visit a relative he hasnt seen in a long time. The past couple days we have been able to squeeze in some ¨Scrabble¨ nights as well as a couple trips to the local bar. The past couple days have been really fun as these are the last days we will be together as a group for a long time, since we are all leaving to our sites tommorow.

The whole training experience has been quite a wild ride. Most of the days are filled with training activities and spanish classes with little time for rest. But those days and times we do get off we definately have a great time together and live it up to the fullest. I have learned more in the past three months then I probably have had in my entire life. In terms of spanish, Peace Corps, and Costa Rican culture. I definately have become fully immersed into Costa Rica and it has become almost normal to me just living here in Costa Rica hanging out. Alot of the time when I am partying with my friends on the beach or just walking down the street with gorgeous mountains in the background I say: ¨Hey, we are in Costa Rica ! How crazy is that ?¨ Its a pretty wild adventure that as of right now seems like it is ending, as a result of the end of training, but in reality the next two years is going to be a wild wild adventure. I am grateful for all the friends I have made and I feel bad having to leave them, but I am glad that I feel this way as opposed to not, because I have an excellent support network of friends here in country to help me get through the next two years. I am confident in my ability to succesfully complete my experience here, but it certainly will not be easy. I have a community waiting for me that I am very excited to help, and hopefully will be willing to work with me to complete their goals.

Tomorrow I head off to the ¨Zona Sur¨5 hours away from San Jose to begin my two year adventure. As I will be in an extremely remote location it may take more time to update my blog but be patient and hopefully I will have some fun stories to tell as well as stories of success´ in my site.

Thank you all who have sent me letters, I am extremely grateful and it brings a HUGE smile to my face to actually recieve a handwritten letter from someone. Those who have written to me should expect something in the mail soon.

Anyways that is all for now and if anyone has any questions or comments please feel free to email me and I would love to respond. As this blog is a public forum I can necessarily express 100% of my concerns, feelings, and actions but would love to talk more in the privacy of email or letters.

I am excited for the future. I am excited to party tonight with Tico 16. And I am excited for the future of my community.

Much love everyone,

Rudy

Respect.

My Site

2007-05-09T17:20:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday I headed back the mountain retreat location, where I first went after I got off the plane when I arrived in Costa Rica, for Counterpart Day. Counterapart Day is when we get the opportunity to meet our community counterparts for the first time. In this case it was the first time I got to meet someone from my community which was great. My counterpart is a middle aged woman with 9 children. She is the president of the development association at my site, and as well is the president of several different commitees in my site. She is a very kind and caring woman and seemed to be excited to meet for the first time. With my level of spanish I was generally able to understand and replying back to her regarding everything she was saying. During Counterpart Day we participated in several ice breakers and get to know each other activities. That night there was barbecue in the garden area and Byron and Jordan played and sing on the guitar as well as Bill for a couple of songs. Then we moved the excitement over to the game room where their were foosball tables, ping pong tables, and my ipod and bill´s ipod with his speakers playing music. That night I ended up staying awake till 2 am talking to a couple other volunteers.

The next morning I went with my counterpart to our bus station in San Jose and began the 5 hour bus ride to the south where my site is located. After a pretty uneventful bus ride we made it to our stop in the pouring rain. At the stop I was greeted by my host mother´s son ( my host mom is actually is also my counterpart) in his light blue 1970 toyota landcruiser which is actually a very popular car here in costa rica. We then rode to my site passing huge field of pineapples along a very rocky road. Most of the people in my area are employed by PINEDECO which is a pineapple company, which also goes by the brand name Del Monte. So chances are if you buy a Del Monte pineapple from costa rica it was probably grown within several square miles of my site. Anyways, when I entered my site that night it was very dark and I couldnt see much. There was a fork in the road leading to the church, soccer field, small store, and school and then the other road leading to my house. I arrived in the house to find my large host family awaiting my arrival. There are 3 young girls, 1 young boy, 1 teenage girl, 2 teenage boys, another older daughter, her ¨boyfriend¨and my host mom all living in an extremely small house which is undergoing massive renovations. In the future I will put up pictures but because of the internet connection it is hard to load them all up. Anyways I was immediately served dinner and then after watching some ¨La Escrava Isaura¨, extremely popular soap opera in costa rica, went to sleep.

The next morning I slept extremely late till 8 AM. Read for 3 hours ( Im reading ¨Shantaram¨ right now it is awesome) then walked over to the school and waited for the teachers to dismiss the students, so that I could introduce myself to them. The school consists of one class room and one lunch room. There are 2 teachers for 40 children all in one room, for grade 1 to 5. They just recently built a small hut for the kindergarten which use to be run out of a small cafeteria storage room. Both of the teachers were extremely kind, and are both very intelligent and capable teachers. Before hand I looked at one of my host sisters math books and the work they are doing there is very impressive. Anyways it was great to meet the two teachers and they are excited to work with me, just as I am excited to start work with them. After meeting with the teachers I returned back to my house with the entourage of children who live at my house who just got finished with school. At 4 oclock that afternoon my counterpart/host mom/president of the association told me that there was going to be a community meeting for me to speak to the association members. I walked with my counterpart and 2 daughters ,one who had another son , to the church were the meeting was held. I was expecting to see maybe 5 to 6 people at the meeting of the association but low and behold I walked into the church and 40 community members were waiting to meet me. It was slightly overwelming but extremely flattering and comforting that people are first of all interested in meeting me, and seemingly willing to work together with me on projects and goals for their community. My counterpart did a small introduction which then segwayed me unexpectantly talking for 30 minutes entirely in spanish, about myself, peace corps, what i am doing here, my background, my favorite food, my favorite sport, everything. Overall it was a very succesfull meeting and it gave me an excellent opportunity to meet alot of community members all at once. One teenager went up to me and asked me when we can start english classes, then four to five other people chimed in in agreement. As well I recieved several invites for cafecito in the future. The community members where all extremely interested in me and I look forward to working with them to better their already beautiful community.

The next day I went with my host sisters ¨boyfriend¨, i say ¨boyfriend¨because i dont really know their relation and i believe they have had two children together but when i asked him he said they just ¨live together¨, out to my local city and as well to a private farm. Where I may or may not have seen roosters engaging in combat for 5 hours. After a few imperials and possibly witnesssing the death of a couple roosters we left to head back to my site. At my house I played hide and seek and cops and robbers with the young kids in the house. Then attempted to teach (4) six to eight year old children how to play chess in spanish. Which didnt turn out succesfull. That night I went to sleep with the sound of rain against the roof and the feeling of 100 tiny little ants biting my legs for 3 hours.

The next morning I slept late until 7:30. I say I slept late because at 5:30 everyday everyone in my house wakes up and blasts the radio and as well the sun light and heat is beating through my windowless window with wooden shutter at around 6:00. Anyways I commenced and read for 2 hours then went on this insanely long hike all around my site for 5 hours with my host mom and her daughter. We walked for what seemed like 7 miles up and down mountains and rocky roads, stopping to see the view and meeting random people of the town. I ate 4 mangos and drank water at 3 different houses. Most of the housed in my town are very seperated and it took 45 minutes to reach the farthest house out from my house. We also walked all the way to the river near my site where the electric company of costa rica, ICE, is thinking about buiilding a hydro electric dam. During our walk back it started downpouring, which was very much welcomed after walking in much of the mid day heat. When we got back to the house I had lunch and then later that night attempted to teach the kids to play chess again. Which again proved to be unsuccesfull, although one of them is catching on. The hardes piece to explain was the ¨Knight¨ which makes an ¨L¨shaped maneuver on the board. Haha. Anways.

The next morning, or today I woke up and caught the 9:30 bus to San Jose and made it in just about 5 hours which is great. Right now I am in an Internet Cafe typing this blog and will soon go to another restaurant with some other volunteers to exchange stories about our site visits.

Overall I am very satisfied with my site visit. My hose family and the whole community was very excited to have me and I look forward to doing work with them. Being at my site heightened the reality that I will be living there for 2 years in conditions very different from my prior life in New York. Being away from friends, family, and all the other important relationships I have in my life is hard. I realize I am going to be living with a very large family and technically won´t be alone, but in terms of having another person to speak English to and someone who can relate to me will be impossible to find. Several volunteers are near me as well as a couple of good friends of mine are in the Zona Sur so it shouldnt be too bad. The loneliness factor was really the only thing which was difficult to deal with during that 5 day trip but I know things will get better.

I have 11 more days here in the San Jose are before I move back to my site officially for the 2 years. Within these 11 days we will have a party for our host families here in our training communities, have more spanish and peace corps class, and also we will be meeting the President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias. I am really looking forward to that meeting. We are going to his house which should be crazyyyy.

Anwyays that is all for now. I am excited to be back in San Jose with all the other volunteers and aswell my host family in my training community.

Thank you all for reading my blog. I love and miss you all.

Respect.

PCV visit, Site Assignment, Chillin in Costa Rica

2007-05-02T20:32:00.000-04:00

The last time I put up a blog I was beginning my PCV site visit near Canas. I ended up having an amazing time visiting Ben. I met up with Ben in Canas and we ended up having a great dinner of burritos, hamburgers, and Imperials at a local restaurant. After dinner we partied it up a little bit in Canas at this second story bar with a projector playing non stop 80’s,90’s, and every other music video Eminem has ever made. Later that night we headed to his site to get some much needed rest after all my travels and our partying. The next morning we went to his Development Association meeting, and later that afternoon I went around with him to various different kids houses where he was helping them all learn how to read. The kids had various levels of reading abilities but clearly they were benefiting greatly from the half hour sessions he was giving them. One student was on the verge of failing first grade and through his help, the student made it into second grade. The next morning we went into the local cities municipality building to fill out forms with the president of the development association, in order to assist them to receive funds for a new aqueduct project for the town. That afternoon we met up with his counterpart in DINEDECO, the development committee for all of Costa Rica. Later that evening we headed to the River near his site and jumped off of 30 foot cliffs into the water and swam down some rapids. It was really fun and really relaxing, considering it was over 95 degrees Fahrenheit almost the whole time while I was there. Overall the PCV visit was really eye opening, and I had the opportunity to ask many different questions to someone who has gone through all of this already.

Last Friday was Site Assignment day. That day we headed to this country club type place with pools, hot tubs, saunas, basketball courts, soccer fields, and pool tables. It was a pretty cool place, but most off us spent time in the pools and hot tub. That morning the Director of our program, Rural Community Development, present us with the sites where we will be working in for the next two years. The site where I will be working in is located in the southern part of Costa Rica. For safety reasons, and as per peace corps regulations, I cannot give my exact sit e location, but I am very excited about my placement. My location is considered to be very Rural and surrounded by pineapple fields. There are approximately 200 people in my site and it is located approximately 4 km away from the inter American highway running through costa rica. There is no public phone and my town just recently received electricity in September 2006. There is a school with one classroom to 42 students. Most student do not go to high school due to the fact that it is so far away from the town, it is very difficult and expensive to get to. There are many different project opportunities in the town and I am very excited to get started with my work. The house which I will probably be living in has 10 other people, and outdoor latrine (no indoor bathroom), 3 dogs, chickens, cows, and pigs. All of this information which I am reporting was given to me in my site assignment packet and could very well have changed once I get to my site or I may not end up living with this particular family. Also I will be able to give more details once I actually visit the site this weekend.

Socially the past two nights in my training community house have been really fun. Two nights ago I held a Scrabble/Margarita/Macaroni and Cheese night at my house. We partied pretty hard and managed to finish a large bottle of tequila and 2 bottles of margarita mix. And then yesterday we ate pesto pasta, strawberry milkshakes, and brownies. Pretty crazy combo, I definitely wont be eating any of this once I get to my site, so I might as well indulge now with my friends.

Also the last out of site night we had, all 16 of us rented a sick house on this private beach near the city of Jaco. It had 5 bedrooms, a deck overlooking the ocean, and a cool pool right on the beach. We partied really hard and had an amazing and relaxing time. Only in Peace Corps Costa Rica can you rent a house by the beach and party with 16 of your friends on a regular weekend night. We definately live the motto, work hard play hard.

Tomorrow I am going to be meeting my counterpart, person who I will work with closely in my future community, for the first time at this mountain top retreat place where we first stayed when we arrived in Costa Rica. Then on Friday I will leave with my counterpart to visit my future site where I will be working for the next 2 years. I will stay there for 5 days and then return back next Thursday for more training activities.

I am really excited to have finally found out the site where I will be working in. It has been a long time coming considering I started the whole application process in December 2005 and now finally in May 2007 I know where I will be working and what my peace corps experience will be all about. I am happy to get this all started but after having become such good friends with everyone in my Tico 16 group for the past 3 months it is definitely going to be difficult leaving them and going out and doing everything in my community alone. But this is what I came here to do, and once I become comfortable in my community I definitely won’t be feeling as lonely. I am very grateful for the opportunity to come here to Costa Rica and work with the people of the country. I have had such an amazing experience so far and I have met so many cool people, other volunteers and ticos. I am having a ridiculous time here, as I have said before, every day is different and everyday is a new adventure. I look forward to the future and the crazy things it will bring.

Thank you all for you emails and messages. I miss you all and whenever anyone wants to come visit give me a holla. I gotta run.

Respect.

Blackouts, Trapiche, and a Site visit.

2007-04-21T16:19:00.000-04:00

Right now I am in Guanacaste, a region in Costa Rica, at an internet cafe writing this blog. I dont have much time but wanted to get a quick blog in before I meet the volunteer I am going to be staying with for the next 4 days. I am right now visiting,by myself, another volunteer at his site to live with him and ask him all these different questions about being a volunteer. I took a rediculous long bus ride to get here and it is scorching hot outside and I am grateful to be indoors where it is only slightly a few degrees cooler. Anyways this should be a great trip and I hear he has a rediculous river near his site where he hangs out alot, so it should be alot of fun. He also went to the University of Michigan so we have alot in common, that being extremely smart, incredibly handsome, and just being generally amazing. Haha.

When I write these blogs it is just soo hard to remember what I have done in the past days. As I have written before my days are really long and everyday I am doing something different, new, and exciting all the time it is hard to remember things. Either that or I am losing my memory at an extremely fast rate. Anyways a couple of days ago we went to a ¨Trapiche¨ for 5 hour long class activity. A ¨Trapiche¨is a mill of sorts which extracts the sugar ¨juice¨from the raw sugar cane. They then take that juice and boil it for like 5 hours and then pour it into molds and then let it dry and then eat it. It is a pretty interesting process to see but It was difficult to be there for so long becuase one can pretty much get the jist of how it works after being there for only 15 minutes. During one of our breaks we all went to the river and just hung out for like an hour as the sugar juice was bubbling away. So basically that day we all just hung out and did nothing, which was pretty cool.

The next day I went with my language class to the colegio (high school) and we spoke to the english teachers which we will be working with in teaching an english class. On the monday after next I will be teaching 2 (40) minute enlglish classes with my other volunteer friend Jenn. We will be teaching sports and past times. It should be pretty interesting. Then later that day my friends Bre and Marcela were going to come over to my house and watch a movie that afternoon but once one of them arrived I realized I had no power in my house all afternoon. Basically there was a country wide blackout that entire afternoon. So we didnt end up watching the movie we just hung out on my awesome deck on top of the mountain overooking this valley and talked and listened to music. Then Bill and Byron came over and played their guitars. Then 5 more volunteers came to my house and before I knew it I had like 9 volunteers at my house. My host parents came back to see me and all of my friends hanging out on the deck and they were happy to see them all again, almost all of them went to my birthday bash a couple weeks back. Anyways my parents needed to leave to go to San Jose to visit my host nephew at the hospital. So that meant I had the whole house to myself with all of my friends. So as one can expect we had to thrown a party. My host parents invited everyone to stay while they were leaving so It was totally fine in having everyone there. My host parents left and then I went with my host brother to get beer,chips, and 7 boxes of macaroni and cheese. All in all we had a really fun night at my house on top of the mountain listening to music, drinking beers, eating macaroni and cheese and of course having an insane dance party. Then later that night the party came to a halt at around 9 oclock the power went out again. At that point it was pitch black dark and there was no power in all of Costa Rica. It was really cool looking from my deck into the valley and only seeing the glow of lightening bugs in distance flickering on and off. It was a pretty cool experience. So then we all just listened to music, hung out on my deck, and watched the lightening bug light show in the valley. Awesome night.

Last night I went to the ¨Hippy¨bar near my training community with 7 other volunteers. It was the same bar I went to before for the live classsic rock show. It was a really good time with plenty of Imperial and Bamboo to be had by all. Also they have AMAZING pizza and we made sure to order 3 Large Everything pizzas throughout the night. It was an awesome time. It is especially beautiful because the bar is on this hill which has a large porche and an amazing view of San Jose. Great times.

Now here I am in Guanacaste starting my trip to visit Ben, the peace corps volunteer from michigan, and checking out his site. It is crazy because a) by this time next week I will find out my actual site, and b) by this time this week I will be chilling with all of the other volunteers at a private beach house which we will have rented for the night. I am super excited.

Anyways I hope all is well at home and abroad, and for those of you sending me emails and facebook messages keep the coming it is great to hear from you.

Much love and Respect,

Rudy

Spanish, Hippies, Beach, and Bamboo

2007-04-16T16:55:00.000-04:00

Greetings everyone. Still living my life here in Costa Rica. Things have been really good and as usual really fun. It is amazing how much better my Spanish is getting day by day. I usually have Spanish class at least 3 times a week, but every second of everyday I am using Spanish. I have gotten to the point where I can definitely speak and be spoken to with relative ease. I am working more on getting my conjugation of verbs perfected but for the most part things have been really good and I am glad to be speaking the native language.

This past week of classes has been relatively uneventful. I had my Spanish classes in the morning with invididual attention in the afternoon. As well I have continued having classes at the local high school. Those classes this week mainly focuses on learning about the Costa Rican Education system, Safety and Security matters in Costa Rica as well as Medical Information dealing with Sexualy Transmitted Infections. Another big event was on Friday we had a community meeting with the development association of our training town. Lindsay, Andrew, Bre, Bill and I ran the community meeting of about 20 people. We had been preparing for the meeting all week and it ran really well. Our Technical trainer as well as a language facilitator was there to evaluate as and they both said we ran the meeting successfully. We spoke about the strength, resources, community groups, and future of the community. It lasted for about 1 and half hours and of course was entirely in Spanish.

The next day we had class on Saturday for the first time. At the high school we had a project fair where we got to learn about 6 different projects Peace Corps volunteers are/have been working on. There were presentations on Sexual education talks in the community, setting up kids camps, the creation of a micro enterprise ice cream store sprouting from a women´s group, organizing band instruments for an elementary school, setting up an art festival centered around peace, and organizing the construction of a fence to a surround a school which is near a crocodile reserve. All of these projects are really interesting and a clearly only a small taste of what over 100 peace volunteers in Costa Rica are doing right now. I can´t wait to start up my work in my community and see how I can help them best. I will of course share my latest progressions in whatever projects I am working on in this blog. The project fair helped me reflect upon my dedication to being a peace corps volunteer and the work that will be ahead of me. Training so far has been very demanding and always on a tight time schedule that we haven’t really been able to do much of what we want to do necessarily.
Although I still have been able to squeeze in time to hang out with the other volunteers on the weekend and nights.

For example this past Saturday night we went to this ULTRA chill bar located on top of this mountain overlooking San Jose. The bar had a live classic rock cover band playing everything from Janis Joplin, to Steppenwolf, to the Doors. It was absolutely amazing. It was also a pizza place which sold really good pizza. The people there were also mega chill. There were some people decked out in full tye dye attire, with peace sign necklaces, and long long 80´s haircuts. It was like travelling in a time machine and chilling, listening to incredible music with tons of hippies. I shared some Imperials with the other volunteers as well as my new favourite drink called ¨Bamboo¨. Which is basically rum and coke in a can with a 7.5 % alcohol content. One can imagine that with a few of those things can get pretty crazy pretty fast. Haha. Anyways a lot of the time I feel that I am writing a lot about the partying aspect of being here in Costa Rica but it is not like I am partying all the time. I just enjoyable to write about, as most of the time I am either in class, eating rice and beans, or sleeping. So the few times we get to go out are an absolute blast.

After the crazy night at the hippie bar we took the last bus back to our training communities and promptly went to sleep to wake up at 3 AM to go with Lindsay, Bre, and Andrews family to the beach. My family couldn’t go because they had other engagement, but I was lucky enough to squeeze into Andrew´s family car which consisted of him, his host mom, and his two host nieces. We finally left our training community at 4:30 AM to drive 4.5 hours to the beach. We drove through the most Rocky terrain, up and down mountains, literally through 2.5 foot deep rivers, while narrowly avoiding millions of other animals and cows that are just hanging out in the middle of the jungle ¨road¨. Bottom line it was a crazy and very long uncomfortable ride. But we finally made it to Playa Manuel Antonio and It was really really beautiful. Many people think that I am in Costa Rica just chilling by the beach all the time but after almost 7 weeks this is the first time I even saw the coast! So Bre, Andrew, Lindsay and I had an amazing time at the beach with the families. We spent maybe 6 hours at the beach and then started the ride back which was another 4.5 hours. On the way back the car broke down temporarily because the connection to the car battery was loose after travelling through all the rocky terrain. Another event happened where Andrew needed to cross a one lane bridge to stop traffic going through the bridge so that cars from the other side of the bridge could finally move across after a 30 car back up. As well on the way we stopped at Bre´s host dads brothers house where I forged a really wide fast running river with some of Bre´s host dad´s friends to ¨borrow¨ some Papayas from their friends huge 1,000 papaya tree plus papaya plantation. We finally made it home around 10:00 o´clock, tired, hungry, and incredibly sun burnt. But overall we had a lot of fun and I am really glad to have finally made it to the beach.

Right now I am in Desamparados with 8 other volunteers and I am writing this email from the JUMBO supermarket again. We just ate at pizza hut and tomorrow we have classes again. We found a sweet villa near the beach where we might spend our next out of sight night and In 2 weeks I will find out my actual site where I will be working for the next 2 years. Things are really great here and I miss everyone a lot. Everyday is a new day for me, Everyday is a new learning experience. It has gotten to the point where I don’t even remember what I did three days ago because everyday is filled with new things and new adventures. I am really grateful to be here and this is definitely an adventure of a lifetime. I look forward to the future and as well having any one of you come over to Costa Rica to come over and live life with me. Anyways life is good, I miss you all, and I hope to hear from you all soon !

VAC Dinner, Birthday, Crazy Fun Life In Costa Rica

2007-04-09T20:02:00.000-04:00

Usually I pre write my blogs at home so I can take some time to think about what I have done the past week. But right now I am writing from JUMBO supermarker in Desamparados, Costa Rica. I just bought some Macaroni and Cheese, Pesto Sauce, and Ritz crackers. It is pretty awesome. I am with my friends Lindsay, Bill, and Andrew. We just finished a long day of spanish classes in the morning and then we had individual one on one sessions with our teacher in the afternoon.

Anyways..... VAC dinner. One word... Crazy. Tico 16 held it down strong. The room which me, Bill, and Andrew had ¨Room 514¨the corner room had all the action going down. We all arrived at the hotel around 1 oclock. I went the internet to post my past blog. Then went back to the room to find all of Tico 16 in our room starting to drink. We started off the VAC dinner festivities with our friends Jim Beam, Johnnie Walker, and Mr. Bacardi. We of course had the music flowing and some pre dinner dancing festivities going on. We finally left our room at around 3 went to the actual dinner we immediately upon arrival ordered 4 of the most rediculous shots they had. They were in a large wine glass and they were ¨en fuego¨. We dined on some OK tasting pasta then moved back to the hotel to continue the party. We threw back on the tunes and danced for another 2 or 3 hours in Room 514 then attempted to go to a club in San Jose. We werent very succefull as alot of us didnt bring any ID and couldnt really get in. Seperated and Discouraged we all went back to the hotel to continue the party. We continued our festivities well into the night. Me and the other guys were officially the last peace corps people up in the hotel when we decided to call it a night around 5:30 in the morning. I have to say that Tico 16 came in strong and we were definately the life of the party. We definately set the bar high for our future VAC dinners. The whole event was a lot a lot of fun.

I am really proud to be part of Tico 16. All of us get along really well and we are all really good friends. We all definately know how to party and definately make the best out of any situation. I am glad to be part of such a good group of people for the next 2 years. All I can say is Tico 17 watch out now. You got a lot of good people waiting for you here in Tico 16.

The next important thing was my birthday party. I am very greatful for my host family here to have helped me thrown such a good party. We began on Saturday at around 2 oclock. I invited all of my other volunteer friends and pretty much all but 3 or 4 showed up. We definately had a lot of fun and of course had a dance party. Towards the end we broke out the Karaoke and I sang my new favorite Karaoke song ¨Puerto Limon¨. After the Karaoke we broke out the Birthday cake which when I went to blow out the candles, Bill cordially smashed my face into the cake. It was really funny for everyone else, but I distinctly remember having so much frosting in my mouth and nose that I almost couldnt breath. All in all it was good fun. After the cake we moved over the the local bar which is owned by my host moms brother. Basically in my training community everyone knows everyone and in some way or another your host family is related tosomeone in the community. Its pretty cool. After 4 hours at the bar, half of the timei singing Karoke, and as well drinking some Imperial in between we took the last bus to the town center to watch the rest of the midnight mass. As this weekend was ¨Semana Santa¨the holiest week of the year there were late night ceremonies were some of our friends were playing in the church band. Finally I got home around 1 oclock on my birthday night. It was definately a crazy time, alot of things happened that night which could obviously only happen in Costa Rica. I am really grateful for all of the friends I have made here and that they took the time to spend time with me on my birthday. Also I am thankful for my host family in hosting my awesome birthday party.

During ¨Semana Santa¨ we all had time off from classes, so that allowed us some extra time to explore. I first went with a couple of other volunteer girls to the local waterfall/swimming hole. The waterfall wasnt really to dramatic, it was more like a lot of ¨falling water¨then an actual waterfall. But nonetheless it was really fun and really beautiful and we all got a chance just to hang out. Yesterday I went again to the waterfall with a couple more people and we enjoyed some wine at the waterfall and then went to the bar afterwords.

Things overall have been very good over here. I am definately enjoying my time here but I am also continuing to miss my family and friends back at home. I am thankful to have my other peace corps volunteer friends with me by my side but I cannot forget that within the next month or so we will all be leaving to our seperate sites to begin the ¨real¨work. I am excited to find out my site which will probably happen in 2 weeks. But before that I have another one on one PCV visit where I will be able to see how they live their lives similar to the trip I went on before. As well I am looking forward to our next out of site night were all of Tico 16 is looking to rent a cabin somewhere by the beach and party it up Tico 16 style.

Anyways that is the news for now. If anyone wants to chat more ¨off the record¨ just send me an email as well I can give you my phone number If you would like to call my house. I hope everyone is doing well and I miss you all.

Rudy Becker signing off.

First Month

2007-03-31T15:06:00.000-04:00

One Month. It has been one month since I first arrived in Costa Rica. The time has definitely gone by pretty slowly but things are beginning to pick up now, as I am getting more used to my surroundings. In the past month I have been continuously spending my time mainly in the mountainous regions near San Jose, living in my training community. I continue to attend my daily language classes and Peace Corps training sessions. The pace is intense, as in always having activities and meetings to attend, but I am having a lot of fun. Sometimes I get caught up in my meetings and classes that I actually forget that I am in Costa Rica. My typical day really isn’t that bad, it is actually rather enjoyable. I wake up at 8 eat breakfast, walk up a gigantic hill to get to class, attend Spanish class ( which is incredibly fun thanks to Bill, Lindsay, and Andrew), go home for lunch or eat lunch at a friends house, return back to afternoon Spanish sessions or go to the local High School for additional peace corps sessions, play soccer after class, chill with other volunteers, go home for dinner, watch a movie, go to sleep, and do it all over again the next day. All of this while in the beautiful mountainous surroundings of Costa Rica where the only things I need to worry about are eating food, completing small fun assignments, and wondering where I am going to go drink my next Imperial. So far my first month has been awesome.

Last week, I attended the usual Friday routine of Happy Hour after classes with a couple volunteers and then I went home to immediately leave to another party. It turns out there was a 20th Birthday party for my host sisters friend and my host sister and brother were going. The party was up in the mountains were they have specific cabins for people to go an party at. So we leave the house at 7 pm in our 1980 Red Toyota Land Cruiser and picked up several people along the way, including my other volunteer friend Jon (who went to the University of Vermont). Jon and I usually party a lot together because our host siblings are good friends. Anyways we pick him up and several other people and progressively more and more people are following us by motorcycle. So we finally get to the cabin with us in the lead car and basically 10 motorcycles behind us with 2 people each on one. The main mode of transportation out here is definitely motorcycles, which is terrifying because 1) the roads are very rocky, 2) there are thousands of blind curves, and 3) the roads are very narrow with steep cliffs to the side since we live in the mountains. Anyways we get to cabin and immediately everyone starts drinking and blasting the reggaeton. Later in the night, Jon and I decide to introduce the popular drinking method of “Shotgunning” (which involves drinking a can of beer through a whole on the bottom of the can). Everyone was amazed at our “party trick”, and immediately after words all the guys at the party wanted to learn how, and to make a long story short for about an hour after words people where “Shotgunning” beers left and right. Overall it was a really fun time and everyone had a good time. The cabin where the party was at was pretty cool, it had a nice garage type area were we could all drink and dance. It was a little windy and cold but it didn’t damper the fun.

Then the next night there was a dance at the local bar, which was amazingly fun as well. Almost all of the volunteers met up before hand and hung out with some Imperial and Bacardi refreshments and then moved on to tear up the dance floor at the local bar which transformed into a dance hall. The music was loud and of various different genres, as well they had a pretty impressive light setup and fog machine (which when on full blast, made you feel like you were in a “white out” and prohibited you from seeing pretty much anyone around you). Overall it was a really fun time and peoples true dancing skills were broken out that night once again. Tico 16 (Our Peace Corps Costa Rica group) definitely knows how to have a good time.

This past Monday we completed a “Shadowing” exercise which consisted of me working with another volunteers host mother and learning about her daily routines and life. I has a really good time working with “Vilma” and learning about her life. She definitely works very hard and keeps a clean house. She also likes to get her hands dirty in the field and helps pick coffee during the coffee season. Our main activity consisted of baking pan casado and empanadas (filled with some sort of melon/honey conglomerate). Overall they both turned out really well and I had a great time getting to know her.

This coming weekend is going to be a lot of fun. On Saturday we have our first “Out of Site” night where we can “legally” leave our training communities for one night. After the first month of training we are allowed only one “Out of Site” night, but when we are a sworn in volunteer , we are allowed 3 per month. Anyways all of the Volunteers in my group will be going to the “ Bi annual VAC dinner” which is when all of the Peace Corps volunteers from all of Costa Rica meet up in San Jose to eat dinner and party. We have heard from other volunteers that it is always a fun time and I am pretty excited to spend a night in San Jose with everyone else in the group.
Anyways that is my life right now. I am sorry that these emails are so long but it is hard for me to update more often since I live 25 minutes away from a 28.8 kbps internet connection which sometimes works and costs an exorbitant 600 colones per hour (little more than 1 USD) normally it is 300 colones an hour. As well I am sorry for not checking emails and sending emails as often. If you want my phone number to talk more I would love to give it out. You can also send me a letter/postcard or package filled with goods to :

Rudolph Becker
Cuerpo De Paz
Sabana Norte, del Banco Interfin
200 mts. Al oeste y 100 mts. Al sur.
Casa esquinera, diagonal a la residencia del Embajador de Espana,
Frente al Parque Peru.
San Jose, Costa Rica

The address is in “direction” format. That is just the way how it is here. If you write down all of that information in the address box of whatever you are sending me it will definitely get to me. Also send things via regular mail, as Fed Ex and UPS packages are difficult to receive here. I know that most people really wont send me anything but even a postcard or short letter would be awesome, as it is really great to hear from all of you back home.

Thank you very much for reading my blog and I will try and update more often when I get the chance. Adios y Pura Vida.

First Three Weeks

2007-03-22T20:19:00.000-04:00

The past three weeks in Costa Rica has been a whirlwind of activities, meetings, classes, and a lot of Spanish. Hopefully I will be able to update this blog more often after I get this first “in country” entry posted online. Another disclaimer is that I will not be able to give details of my exact location, as per peace corps regulations if you would like to ask me more personal questions about my travels we can talk “off the record” through emails and such.

So I will start from the beginning. I landed at 1:40 PM at San Jose International, Airport, Costa Rica from Miami Airport, Florida after a three hour flight delay in Miami because the pilot in Miami got sick at the last moment. Landing in Costa Rica was pretty surreal, first in the sense that this country is extremely beautiful, and secondly that this country will be my home for the next 27 months. After landing in the airport we met up with Terry G the Peace Corps country director. All 16 of us loaded into a van to make our way to the Retreat Center in the mountains were we would stay for 5 days. (Our Van broke down halfway to the retreat, so we needed to wait 30 minutes for another one to come.)

As I think I described before the 16 peace corps trainees* ( Not officially “volunteers” because we have not finished the 2.5 months of training) is a unique group of people. 5 guys (ages 22-27) and 11 women (ages 22-25) almost all of us are either straight out of college or 1-3 years removed from just finishing college. In the past three weeks we have become a surprisingly cohesive group and I have made great friends with all of them. It is weird to think that we were all stranger 3 weeks ago, but now I consider many of them very good friends.

Anyways more about the retreat: INTENSE would be the word to describe the retreat and actually the past three weeks. During the “retreat” we had many welcome to Peace Corps meetings, reviewing rules and regulations, signing hundreds of papers, and many getting to know each other activities. After the first night of sleeping in bunk beds on the retreat grounds, in the morning, I had the pleasure of taking my first ice cold shower and sitting down to a plate of “Gallo Pinto” which is basically ”Breakfast Rice and Beans” with onions and serving of scrambled eggs and plantains. To some this may seem like a welcoming ethnic breakfast to enjoy on the occasion but for me this dish has become my morning routine. I have learned to eat Rice and Beans combined together for breakfast, Rice with a side of beans for lunch, and beans with a side of rice for dinner.

The days at the retreat served as great experience to get to know the Peace Corps staff and as well the fellow trainees. We also had a chance to meet other Peace Corp volunteers who were several months or years into their service already. On one of the last nights of the retreat all of the trainees went to the nearby town to have dinner on 2000 colones or 4 US Dollars our daily trainee stipend (appx. 515 colones = 1 US Dollar). After dinner we went to a bar to enjoy our first experience with the beer of Costa Rica. Imperial is the name of the beer, and it is really good. I don’t really know how to describe it, but it has a kind of crisp refreshing taste with a clean finish. I guess that doesn’t really describe it very well, but I personally like it better then the other popular Costa Rican beer called Pilsen. There is another extremely popular Costa Rican drink called Rock ICE, it’s an alcoholic lemon drink that tastes absolutely disgusting. It literally tastes like lemony “skunked” beer with a terrible salty after taste. Oh yeah, and they drink their beer in a glass with Ice hear. I though it was weird but its actually pretty good. Anyways after the bar we took the party back to the retreat grounds and had a dance party in the guys dorm room. All 16 of us danced pretty hard and I broke out some of my patented dance moves. Overall I had a lot of fun that night.

The next day was full of meetings from 8-5 and that evening we received our host family assignments, as to where we would be eating and sleeping for the next 2.5 months of training. On Sunday morning we all packed up and left the retreat area to head off to our host family houses. My host family consists of two parents with 2 sons and 2 daughters. Although 1 son and 1 daughter are older and do not live in the house. The children I live with are the 16 year old brother and 21 year old daughter. They are extremely welcoming, caring, generous, and laid back people. My host mother is a house wife and my host father is a coffee farmer. My host brother who I live with attends High School and my host sister is a student at a University. My house is situated on top of a hill, which is surrounded, by coffee plants, plantain trees, banana trees, and other exotic plants. The house, which I am living in, was entirely built by my host father. My room is on the main floor it has a twin sized bed, dresser and window. It is a simple room , but very clean and perfect for my needs. We also have a really small cute black Labrador puppy as a house pet. Her name is Muleca and I play with her all the time. In order to get to my house I need to hike up this steep hill through coffee fields while passing another fellow trainees host family’s house, which is just 100 meters away from my house. Her host mother is my host mothers sister. Usually when I get back from classes in the afternoon I always stop by her house for coffee and snacks.

The community which I live in is in the mountains near the capital city of San Jose. All of the trainees are split up into 4 different training communities. In my training community there is 2 girls and 3 guys including me. Everyday I have my Spanish class in a large vacant room next to the town church. My Spanish class consists of one Peace Corps language trainer and 3 other classmates. Sometimes in the afternoon we have large group meetings with all of the other Peace Corps trainees in the nearby high school, about 3 kilometers away. The peace corps is using a Community Based Training module for our training. In the past trainees needed to head into San Jose to attend all of their classes. This year they have incorporated a new approach and we have our classes in and around the communities in which we live in. On the days we have “All-Trainee” large group meetings we meet in a classroom at the local High School. Meetings usually last all day from 8:30 to 5:30. As I have said before training is extremely intense. I am always attending meetings, having classes, speaking Spanish, and eating Rice and Beans.

During the first week in our training communities we went to the local high school for a large assembly one afternoon to introduce ourselves to the students of the high school. When we entered the gym there were 17 seats on the gymnasium floor and 550 students sitting on the risers. All 16 of the volunteers sat down on the chair along with our Training Director. That afternoon in the gym there were many different speeches, presentations, and performance dances. It was definitely an experience I will not forget sitting in front of all the other students while watching the different performances. Towards the end we all introduced our selves and told what part of the US we were from. After the presentation we were formally invited to lunch consisting of Rice and Beans.

Despite the intensity of all the classes and extremely busy days I have really been enjoying myself. My host mother’s brother owns a local bar which has a really pretty view of the mountains and valley. At this bar, Karaoke is really popular so I had to break out my singing skills and sing the only two songs they had in English in front of the whole bar, “Eye of the Tiger” and “We are the Champions”. 2 weeks ago there was a dance at the high school which I attended and this coming Friday I am going to my host siblings friend’s 20th birthday party and then Saturday night there is another dance at a local bar near the high school. While the work had been really difficult I still definitely have a lot of fun. I am fortunate enough to have these social opportunities now for in 2 months or so I will be at my rural work site which most likely wont have as many social opportunities like dances and spending time in local bars.

When we have classes at the local high school we have had several guest speakers, received several series of medical shots, gone over Costa Rican History, discussed safety and security, practiced Non formal education methods, learned about rural community development, and have reviewed various assignments. All of these topics are works in progress and are only the beginning of 2 more months of training classes at the high school run by Peace Corps staff. My daily Spanish classes that take place in the large room next to the church are also really fun. We learn practical conversational Spanish through fun, innovative, and interactive learning processes. We play tons of games, make skits, and learn Costa Rican culture. I have been really lucky with my class because the 2 other guys that are in my class are really chill and laid back and like to have fun with the class like I do. As well the other girl, who lives right below, me is really nice and I have gotten to know pretty well. I thoroughly enjoy attending my Spanish class everyday, all though sometimes it can get overwhelming when we are going over particularly difficult material. I have definitely progresses extremely well with my Spanish skills and can now communicate very easily with people in entirely in Spanish. I am not yet fluent, but I can generally understand what people are saying and also respond back with a semi detailed response. Sometimes when we don’t have afternoon sessions at the high school we have individual one on one sessions with the language instructor.

During the breaks between the morning and afternoon sessions we head home for lunch. One day we had lunch at my fellow trainee, Andrew’s house. He has a pretty posh setup, as both his host parents own the only two stores in town. My whole Spanish class went along with my language instructor. She is a really good instructor. One day she told us that it was her dream to go to an Iron Maiden Concert. She is awesome.

Yesterday I got back from a 5 day field visit to two Peace Corps volunteers work sites. It was a big eye opening experience and it was awesome to spend so much time with two actual volunteers and ask them tons of questions. Both of the sites we went to were in the Northern parts of Costa Rica. A Peace Corps Volunteer named Mara worked at the first site we visited. She lived in a rural area of about 500 people. She was working on helping her community improve access to water as well as continuously working on other projects. As part of our requirement during the field visit we participated in a community service project of picking up trash around her town. After working for 4 hours in extremely windy and rainy conditions we managed to pick up 15 garbage bags full of litter and then sent them to the recycling center to be sorted. We received a lot of help from the kids in the community. One interesting thing about her site were these huge energy windmills scattered all over the mountains. Since the area was known to be particularly windy, companies setup shop around there and constructed around 30 windmills. The next site we went to was 3 hours away by bus. There we met up with Heidi another volunteer and helped her out in her community. We sorted donations for the school and assisted in her weekly English class. I ran one learning skit entitled “The Top 10 things most frequently left in New York City Taxi Cabs.” During our visit to her site we actually met up with a previous Peace Corps Volunteer who worked at Heidi’s site 10 years ago. The school she actually helped to build 10 years ago is still fully functioning today. It was really interesting to see how her impact still plays on today. Overall visiting all of the Peace Corps Volunteer works sites was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed meeting the other volunteers and asking them thousands of questions about their lives and their sites.

Now I am back at home in my training community after an 8-hour series of bus rides yesterday in order to get back. As I say again, my life here in Costa Rica has been really intense ever since I got off the plane. Everyday is a new day filled with adventure and new learning experiences. I have only been here for 3 weeks but it has truly felt like 3 months. I have made some really good friends here which I now I will get to know even better throughout the next 2 years. It is great to have other people by your side going through the exact same thing you are going through.

Well that is all for now. I hope this entry gives you a better idea of what I have been up to for the past three weeks. I already miss all of my family and friends back at home, but I know that I a have already and will continue to do great work here in order to benefit others. I know that the experiences which I will have throughout the next two years we impact my life profoundly. If you have any questions about anything, please email me, as I would love to hear from you. Adios y Pura Vida.

Bon Voyage

2007-02-27T23:10:00.000-04:00

Another day in Washington, DC... Another 7 hours of meeting in the hotel conference room. We learned a lot of additional things about the peace corps today, as well we finally found out more info about what exactly we will be doing once we arrive in Costa Rica.

Things are going great now. Just had lunch at the hotel restaurant, and enjoyed the last Reuben sandwich I will probably have for the next two years. Lately there have been alot of "lasts for the next two years" but there soon will be a lot of firsts.

We will be leaving the hotel extremely early in the morning to leave for our flight. So that is all for now. Goodbye America ! Hello Costa Rica !

Staging

2007-02-26T23:06:00.000-04:00

First stop : Washington, DC. I arrived in DC this afternoon after a ridiculously long series of flights due to the snow storm in the north east. Once I finally arrived in DC I found out they lost my baggage and had to then wait in line for 45 minutes to fill out a claims form. With no luggage I took a taxi to the hotel. During the taxi ride I received a call half way to the hotel saying they just found my luggage, so I then needed to go back to the airport to pick up the luggage. Oh man, Oh man the joys of traveling. But anyways I made it slightly late to the first set of Peace Corps meeting in the hotel, but it wasn't really a problem.

My training group consists of approximately 5 guys and 13 girls. As well as one couple. All of the trainees seem to be 25 and under and everyone seemed really nice. We started off the meeting with introductions, general peace corps information, and other getting to know each other events. Nothing to crazy for the first day. Tommorow we start at 8:30 am and go till 6pm that should be a long day. After that we leave Wednesday morning at 3:30 to the airport to leave to Costa Rica.

Right now I am feeling pretty excited, but still feeling slightly depressed in having to leave everyone back in New York. But I know everything will work out alright and I will soon be hanging out in sunny Costa Rica as opposed to a dreary Holiday Inn in Washington, DC.

Anyways that is all for now.

Costa Rica !

2007-02-13T18:22:00.001-04:00

Costa Rica ! That is where I will be starting February 28, 2007 for the next 27 months. It is pretty crazy that this has all finally come together. I began the whole application process December 2005 and finally January 2007 I was fully cleared and offered an assignment.

It has been a long time since I have update my blog, but there simply wasn't much else to interesting going on in my life since the last update. This past November I ran the NYC Marathon and then in December I spent two weeks in Jamaica with some of my friends, just hangin in Negril then living it up for another week in Montego Bay. On the work side of things I have been substitute teaching in NYC, which has been a great experience.

On February 26, I will leave from Westchester County Airport to Washington, DC to head to my staging event. Then two days later we will leave from there to San Jose, Costa Rica.
Right now I am pretty excited about the whole impending experience, while at the same time not looking forward to saying (temporary) goodbye to my family, friends and my overall life here in New York.

Depending on my internet access, hopefully I will be able to update this blog at least once a week with my adventures in Costa Rica. Although my job assignment as a "Rural Community Developer" may not bring me close to local coffee shops with Wi-fi Hotspots, but we'll see.

Anyways that is all for now... Less then two weeks to go.....

Nomination

2006-04-03T14:57:00.000-04:00

On Friday I received my nomination to joining the Peace Corps ! I had my secondary interview over the phone with the Chicago Offices and after the end of the whole interview she gave me a couple options regarding projects available. I ended up choosing to volunteer in a Health Program in Central/South America working on a Men's Health Project. I will be one of 10 volunteers working on the is project in a country unknown to me so far. My leave date is Feb 2007. This is a whole lot later then when I wanted to initially leave but I am happy nonetheless for my nomination. The Chicago Offices said that they would put in my file that I wanted to leave earlier but there are really no guarantees. The next step is my Medical and Dental Clearance which they said could take as long as 4 months!!!! But whatever, I am in now the waiting game starts. I am super excited and look forward to my invitation which will probably come in a couple months and then I will know alot more details.

That is for now... I'll post the latest when I hear more from the Peace Corps.

Secondary Interview

2006-03-29T22:52:00.000-04:00

Everything with the application process is going pretty well. I recieved an email and phone call from the Chicago PC offices saying to fill out a couple more experience/work addendums and asked me to schedule my seconday phone interview with them. So as of right now everything has been handed in and I have my phone interview on Friday at 11 am .

Regarding everything else going on in my life, MCAT studying is going alright but I am still not where I want to be. I will continue studying as much as I can up until the test date on April 22. So wish me luck...

I will be sure to post on or after Friday saying how the interview went.

Greetings Everyone !

2006-03-18T22:46:00.000-04:00

This is officially my first entry into my blog. I will utilize this blog to contact the outside world as I embark on my crazy, wild, adventurous, scary, and life changing 27 month Peace Corps experience.

I started the application process in January and as of today I am waiting for a phone call from the Chicago Office's for my follow up interview. As of this point I have fully submitted my online application, additional addendums, and recommendations, as well I have had my interview. I know I have alot more hurdles in my way (Medical Clearance, and I have no idea what else) but I am confident and hope to recieve a nomination to become a Peace Corps Volunteer.

For those of you that don't know me my name is Rudolph Becker and I recently graduate from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor with a BA in Sociology. I am currently working as a co-instructor for the SOC/PSYCH 311 Intergroup Dialogues Practicum. As well I am studying for my MCAT on April 22.

Well thats it for now. Bookmark, Save, Add to Favorites this website because its going to get exciting. If anyone wants to email me send it to rubecker@umich.edu. I will definately update this site once I hear back from Peace Corps. As well if anything exciting in my life happens Ill be sure to post it .

Peace Out.