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.
The La Fila gang did a spectacular job working together for this event. We buckled down and prepared the salon parroquial (the building we use for class) with chairs and desks borrowed from the elementary school across the street. We covered the desks with paper that we later let kids draw on with crayons during the party. Barton and I went with a couple other volunteers to San José to buy all of the food for the party- quite a challenge in itself- and all of us from La Fila spent many hours chopping and cooking.
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, that the noodles would stick and many other things would go wrong. Fortunately, we proved them all wrong.
The end result was well worth all of our effort. About 120 host family members showed up and greatly enjoyed our delicious food, good karaoke music (the entertainment committee did a really good job), games for the kids and a piñata. It was a great way to thank our host families for all of their hard work, dedication, acceptance and patience over the last 10 weeks.
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