TEFL Con Ticos

“The secret of tasty tamales is in the dough.” This phrase was repeated to Kevin and me several times during our tamale-making session last Thursday with our new friends and co-workers, Ethel and José.  It became our motto and the driving force behind the day’s labors. There is a lot that goes into making tamales: one must prepare the banana leaves (burn them, slice them, clean them, and cut them), chop and cook the pork meat and all of the vegetables and cut the twine to the perfect length. The most important step, however, is the preparation of the dough, or masa . You’ve got to mix the corn starch and the corn flour, the water, salt, garlic and beef broth (which of course must be prepared beforehand and made extra delicious), and then cook it over a lot of TLC. After all, who would want to eat a tamale with boring dough? The actual tamale-making process only takes a few intense hours, but we made ours Tico style, with lots of chatting and breaks in between. Ethel and I made t...

Today we officially hit the one-week mark at our new site. What an interesting week it was with getting to know our host family, our community, and, of course, the local weather. At first, we thought one of our biggest challenges would be acclimatizing to the hot, sunny and humid weather Sarapiqui is famous for. But in the eight days we’ve been here, only three have had sunshine. We’re currently riding a five-day raining streak, and hoping it ends soon. With that streak arrived cooler temperatures and slower pace of life than normal. Thankfully, all those long winters in Alaska paid off this week. We switched into survival mode and rid ourselves of cabin fever before it even began. For instance, we didn’t let the rain deter us from our favorite routine so far, which is going for walks throughout La Rambla and Otoya. We do it not only for the exercise but to indirectly tell people that the gringos they saw yesterday weren’t just a pair of lost tourists. Seeing non-locals walk around t...

Yesterday Megon and I celebrated Winter Solstice from afar in our new site. One of Alaska’s most sacred of holidays, Solstice is celebrated for two reasons: it’s the shortest day of the year and every day after it equals more and more sunlight. But to the people in the tiny neighborhood of Otoya, Winter Solstice has absolutely no significance. (Note: Technically, according to Peace Corps, we live in La Rambla. But if you want to get real technical, we live in Otoya, a cluster of about two dozen houses in the country.) This year’s Winter Solstice was by far the most unique Megon and I have experienced. We wore shorts, T-shirts, flip-flops and caught ourselves about to complain about the heat until we remembered where we were this time last year. We were in Kenai, celebrating Solstice on the frozen beach of Cook Inlet, wearing our warmest clothing we owned. We froze our tails off in 10-below zero temperatures while standing next to a campfire with Megon’s family and friends, watching ...

We really lived it up during our last week as Peace Corps Trainees! On Wednesday, we met with all of the other TEFL trainees in Frailes, the biggest of the TEFL training communities, for a final Spanish class celebration. We played games involving astonishing amounts of teamwork and balance, ate delicious “gallos,” taco-like creations with sausage, beans and salad, played bingo and learned the Costa Rican national anthem. It’s actually a lovely song. We had a great time and enjoyed unwinding with our friends and fantastic language facilitators. On Wednesday night, we La Filers and our friend Ken from El Rosario caught the Christmas bug and decided that we needed to go caroling… immediately. (For those of you that know me well, this should be no surprise!) So we borrowed some Santa hats and went from host family to host family singing our hearts out. We didn’t have any music and most of our members didn’t know the words to the songs, but what we lacked in preparation we made up for in ...

As our time with our training host families comes to a close, we trainees were given the opportunity to throw a party for all of them thanking them for their hard work, patience, and acceptance. The Peace Corps gave us a budget to work with and we split up into several committees to handle all of the planning for the expected 150+ guests. Kevin was on the finance committee and dealt with all money-related matters, while I helped take charge of the food situation along with several other members of La Fila. It was a pretty daunting task at first, but I think we managed quite well. We in the food committee decided upon spaghetti with meat sauce (a la Barton’s grandpa), fresh pesto for the vegetarians and me, salad, picadillo (cooked chopped up squash) and bread. For dessert, coffee and brownies, chocolate chip cookie bars and more bread (some Ticos have just got to have it with their coffee). The training directors weren’t shy about letting us know that our plan probably wouldn’t work,...

Today was officially our final day as Peace Corps trainees. After tomorrow morning, Megon and I will be officially sworn in as volunteers. Then on Monday, we travel to our site in Sarapiqui to start our new life for two years. The big swearing in day, which to me symbolizes an emotional yet liberating end to what was a productive and educational 11-week training marathon, takes place early Friday at the U.S. Ambassadors residence in San Jose. Each volunteer is allowed to invite two guests, which means we were lucky enough to invite our entire family – our host parents and both of their boys. Oops … strike that. Megon just informed me the boys aren’t attending. They both have school parties to attend. Lame, right? School ended for the break last week. What would you rather do? Go to the U.S. Embassy to witness an amazing speech our friend Barton has created or go to school after it’s been closed? Well, here’s the kicker: At the U.S. Embassy, lots of stiffs wearing suits and ties. At s...

All of Tico 21 returned to the retreat center in Tres Ríos last Thursday for a two-day counterpart workshop. Our counterparts are people who are members of each future volunteer site who serve as our cultural and professional link to the community. All were invited to Tres Rios, but not all of them arrived. Sarapiquí, the region we will call home for the next two years, had severe rains and flooding and a bridge connecting it to San José was damaged, so the counterpart that Kevin and I will share ­– the principal of my environmental high school – wasn’t unable to make the workshop along with two other Sarapiquí counterparts. Fortunately, our friend Beth’s counterpart, a gregarious and ultra-friendly elementary principal, was a trooper and played the role for all of us. The counterpart workshop involved several sessions about Peace Corps safety and security requirements, TEFL and CED project goals, mutual expectations for our work over the next few years, and a few intercultural acti...

Last Saturday, Tico 21ers  left with counterparts for a four-day visit to their new communities. Because our counterpart wasn’t there, Megon and I hitched a ride to La Rambla with our program director, Kevin Brown (Yes, there are two Kevin’s in this story, so please try to follow along). The ride was quite an adventure. Once we left the main highway and followed a long dirt road, I knew we were in for a long one when Kevin stole my father’s words and said, “This is the scenic route.” But this wasn’t your ordinary scenic route. The scene was banana field after banana field after banana field. “Ever heard of the Banana Republic?” Kevin asked me. “Of course,” I said, hiding the fact that I was actually wearing a Banana Republic polo. “Well, you’re in the Banana Republic,” Kevin said. “The original Banana Republic.” Old abandoned railroad tracks that periodically cross the road are evidence of The United Fruit Company, started long ago by a Brooklyn man named Minor Keith . With...

Thanksgiving invaded La Fila on Sunday when 8 of the 9 trainees in La Fila used our mad cooking skills to put together a fabulous (belated) Thanksgiving feast for our host families. We gathered at our friend Bryson’s house, where his host mom kindly donated her beautiful outdoor kitchen for the cause. Our brave friends Barton and Bryson took charge of the turkeys (there were two!), stuffing, two kinds of gravy, biscuits and hot apple cider, and the rest of us brought dishes to compliment those. We had mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, cornbread dressing, improvised candied yams made from a similar local tuber, green bean casserole, roasted vegetables, improvised collard greens made instead with cooked cauliflower leaves, salad, and an amazing improvised pumpkin pie made out of a delicious local squash called ayote. It was quite the feast! I think everyone was impressed and really enjoyed the food. The best part is that we had tons of leftovers so we met for lunch again today to fi...

The wait is finally over! Last Wednesday, Megon and I found out where our new home will be for the next two years. Are you ready? Well, we’ve been placed in La Rambla, a tiny community that is hot, humid, rainy and known for its delicious pineapples, crocodile rivers, howler monkeys, geckos and lots of interesting bugs. It’s about 30 minutes from Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, a much larger hub that is an hour and a half north of San Jose. You might find La Rambla on Google Map, but I highly doubt it. We could hardly find it ourselves when we busted out our Costa Rica map. Megon and I will technically be living between two communities, La Rambla and Rio Frio, on a finca (farm) with a mom and her three teenage sons. Though we’re jazzed about living on a farm, we’re still not sure what kind of farm. Horses? Cows? Goats? Chickens? Gatos? I’m crossing my fingers for a cow or two. Lately I’ve been craving a big glass of milk with a side of Oreos. Our family doesn’t drink milk, so my calcium cr...