I guess i'll begin again by saying "how is it already December?", time seems to be flying by and my 9th month abroad is complete and there's only 3 weeks until my family comes to visit.  I am a little worried about the next few months after school ends since I will likely have little to no classes and the recycling committee will likely stop meeting formally.

IST II (In Service Training II): Project Design and Management Workshop

I was looking forward to this workshop as it was supposed to be a chance to design a project under the supervision of Peace Corps administration who could then answer questions, make sure the language was appropriate and offer suggestions for improvement.  I went with Jorge (tour boat business) in hopes of really utilizing the workshop to at least lay the groundwork for the project planning but the workshop didn't really provide the support I was hoping.  Some CED volunteers didn't have project partners and others didn't have a specific project so Peace Corps structured the workshop around doing any general project in the community but at the community wide level which didn't really pertain to our project.  However, through the steps, starting at a vision of the entire community as a whole, we included a goal of starting a new rural tourism business in the community to provide new alternatives and sources of employment in the community.  From there, we were able to focus solely on that goal to write 3 objectives, indicators for success and a very general work plan.  Really the best thing that came out of the workshop is that I got a better idea of Jorge's vision of the business (and a little more about his personality) and more openly discuss that vision with Peace Corps on how we would need to tweak the vision to be inclusive and a true business.  I also had the chance to discuss the idea with Peace Corps and talk with them about which organizations I have contacted.  This conversation lead me to speak with a project manager about United Nations Small Donation program which provides donations up to $50,000 to developing communities.  I had already sent 3 different emails to the general address and had just about given up on hearing anything back from them but as it turns out, Don Luis (CED project manager) has a brother that works with the UNDP department and while he won't be the main contact, he would at least be able to get a more personal contact for me.  Lastly, being IST, all Tico 29 was around for the first time in 3 months and we got to talk about projects/lack thereof, cultural issues and most importantly, boredom.  Many other volunteers seemed fairly disappointed by site identification and what they see as PC administration struggling to place the 120 volunteers in sites that legitimately need/want them.  Really up until 2 months ago, I would have been right there with them as I feel as though even small conversations with the community would have exposed some fairly large red flags about the cooperativa and making them my primary project partner at the beginning and that the two other community meetings did very little to inform the community about the arrival of a PC volunteer and what my role would be.  Anyway, a "task-force" of fellow Tico 29ers are now working to address all of our concerns and issues to then provide solutions, volunteer case studies and address any counter arguments.  I'm technically part of this task force but wasn't able to provide much input into our first planning meeting.  There are definitely some very passionate voices in the "task-force" but ideas seem fairly all over the place.  The program team has already presented a list of 10 ways they are planning to change the framework of CED based on results from surveys and just general feedback and I think future CEDers will already be seeing a much different program than the one we are working with right now.

Thanksgiving

 Just a quick blurb about my Thanksgiving here in PCCR.  Each PCV has the opportunity to go to a house of an embassy worker, a gingo PC employee (currently only 2) or if lucky enough, the house of the United States ambassador to Costa Rica.  I had the chance to go to the director of Peace Corps Costa Rica (PCCR) which is located way up in the mountains of San Jose where she lives with her husband, 16 year old (applying to Harvard), 14 year old and 10 year old.  We had a group of 20 PCVs, mainly Tico 29 CED (13 total) and the rest Tico 30 YD (7 total) and we ate anything and everything we have back in the states; Turkey, gravy, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, etc.

Rustic Pathways

Also on Thanksgiving, I had a video call with an organization called Rustic Pathways, a for profit company that focuses on pairing student groups from the US with communities in Costa Rica that have projects these teams can support financially and with some construction labor.  They have been in Costa Rica for about 12 years and currently offer 12-14 programs to groups.  The groups spend half their time doing the community service project and half their time doing "adventure tourism" such as rafting, zip-lining, hiking, etc.  Whats amazing about this program is that the groups (usually 15-30 students) will live in the community, pay host families for food and housing and then use a fairly decent sized amount of money to help fund the project only requiring community commitment and participation in the project.  They are currently in a phase of expansion and are now looking for partner organizations to help identify new communities where they can send teams in the future and my contact in the organization, Ignacio, has said all my current projects are interesting and viable and just needs to communicate with his boss about the possibility of working with me and scheduling a visit to the community.  However, because they are a for profit company, Peace Corps apparently has some strict requirements about partnering with them and Anne, Costa Rica's director, has to reach out to Washington about the specific of what a Peace Corps volunteer can do during the process.  However, fingers crossed that I will be able to at least facilitate a team coming to my site in the coming year.

Business Planing

At this point, I am fairly confident this process will just be marked by serious negative moments and some fairly positive moments.  Instead of a taking a small vacation after IST II with a group of CEDers to Tamarindo in Guanacaste, I had to come back on Friday because we had scheduled another meeting with the Rural Tourism group for Sunday.  Well...2 people showed of for the meeting even though Jorge claims he spoke to each member face to face the day before.  So naturally, we got nothing done and had to reschedule for yesterday and actually had 6 members show up (which at this point will be the business) and elected the Junta Directiva (board of directors more or less), created a new fixed schedule for meetings, decided on a couple more outlying doubts and discussed the visit from ICT on Wednesday.  We also spoke about English classes focused in tourism and creating a schedule for those interested which will likely start in early January but will start with 2 members from each family with the objective that at least 5 members come out feeling a little confident about using English (5 of 12 members, doable??).  Hopefully, we can learn a lot tomorrow from the visit and our next meeting is set for Monday, December 14th to begin actually planing the operations and bylaws of the business.

Recycling

Only a small update here but worth noting that the grant was officially turned in and after addressing a few a small questions about the budget, I am just awaiting final review of the proposal but should apparently hear back within 1-2 weeks.  We have another meeting today with the committee to sort all the recyclable materials we received and discuss (inform really) the plan for future growth and building on the initiative the event created.

So at this point that's about it, just resettling back into the slow life here in Linea Vieja, counting down the days my family comes to visit.  The last computer class is today and community English classes will likely begin to wind down in the coming weeks as soon as school is done for the break until February.  

As always, thanks for reading!

-Conor