I was on the bus on Friday coming back from Guapiles and recognized a number of people going back to Linea Vieja and found myself really hoping that no one would say anything to me or try to have a conversation.  Not because I didn't like any of them in particular but because its almost guaranteed to happen every time I am on the bus.  But in this particular moment, I had to think back just seven or so months to when I was stuck in the house, begging for anyone to talk to me, or how when I would leave site in August, I felt so accomplished that even one person would recognize me and talk to me.  How quickly things have changed just in the previous few months.  Six or seven months ago, I would do anything for someone to approach me with project ideas, anything to have someone stop and have a conversation with me, anything to kill all the free time I had.  Now I don't want to paint the wrong picture here and make you think that i'm "Mr. Popular" here and everyone knows my name or that every minute of my day is filled with projects but compared to where I was such a short time ago, it feels great to say, "I'm busy"--and not just with English classes.

Community Benches

As my mom said, "even with just this project, [I] have made [my] mark on the community".  This project began one day when I sitting in the plaza on a couple planks of wood and noticed a good amount of wood thrown to the side of the salon communal so I brought the idea to Jorge and see if he had an idea of how to use this wood to make a very simple bench.  Jorge dismissed the idea of using the wood but said there was a good amount of metal left to rust in the salon communal that we could use to make the benches.  I went around the community, told some people about the idea and asked for help in whatever way they we able to so that we could make the community benches.  Surprisingly, I was able to explain the idea well enough and with the help of my host mom to make the initial contact in some cases, we were able to raise enough money to buy all the necessary supplies in order to cut and weld the metal benches.  The week before the Super Bowl, Jorge and "I" went to make the benches, I mainly just stood there as he cut and welded everything.  We worked from 7 am until about 5:30 and did everything but paint the benches all in that one day.  The next few days, I went with a couple of kids from the community to paint the benches with aluminum paint to give the benches a new metal look.  I have heard only good things about them from people here and the most common feedback is "when are you going to make more" and "how can we help next time", I even have had a few people commit to donating some money for the next project.  Honestly, even though it is a small project and a small change, I wanted to make this project a focus in the community because it is meant to show the community that with a little organization and working as a community for a community gain, projects are fairly easily to complete.  I am really proud of the fact that I was able to work with a good variety of people on the project and it has already worked to open new contacts and relationships.

Courts for Kids

Well its coming down to the wire and I am definitely getting a little more nervous and worried everyday that we don't have anything planned yet.  I met with Edgar last week but didn't really get anywhere as he is still a little "pura vida" about everything and I think its going to take a little "American" culture to get this event planned and organized.  The good news is that the new elementary school director is not only all for supporting the project in anyway (he has already committed to being in charge of preparing and selling the food at the event), but he will be literally living with us during the week and going to his house in Cartago during the weekends.  Things are slowly coming together, and much of my work outside of raising the money is pretty much set for the team.  We still have to get prices on air mattresses, set up transportation for the PCVs coming in and find out how to get our hands on 15 or so mosquito nets.  We have the CFK representative coming to the community on February 17th and will have our first big planning session with 5 different committees and hopefully some potential donors of cattle who can get an idea of how we plan on running the event and who it will truly be benefiting.  More to come...

Recycling

This is another big project that naturally won't be as straight forward as I would like.  We have officially received the $500 grant money and are ready to put it to use but now we have to figure out how to get these students interested in doing a little work.  We had our first meeting last week and 3 of the 8 members showed up (Rafa says, "blame it on the rain"...ughhh) and got none of the planning even started, it was mainly just me angrily talking in broken Spanish about the lack of commitment of the members and the apparent lack of desire to do any actual work.  Here I am with $500 ready to be used for the community, for a project based on the youth and the future of the community and no one even cares to show up.  Another obstacle that we had not thought about is how we are going to pay for electricity and the water costs.  We will have an estimated $6-$8 in water costs each month but we had not planned for electricity costs and since we need electricity to operate the water pump, we now have to change the planned location for the pump meaning more costs for water pipes.  However, through a discussion with a very smart community member here, we came the conclusion that installing a windmill that operates the pump with be the most economical decision not just in the short run but for the sake of sustainability.  And to either completely cut out water costs or at least decrease them, we have thought of installing a system to catch the rain water.  As it is almost guaranteed to rain at least 4 days a month here (or 4 days straight in a week like this past week), rain water is something our community will have plenty of each month which also will cut down our monthly costs.  Definitely a good amount of work we need to do here but the hardest part as usual is simply organizing the group of people we are going to work with.

Bottle Building

This is more or less part of recycling but it is enough of a project in itself that merits its own section.  This project has actually surprisingly received a good amount of support and community interest right off the bat but at the moment, it is still contained to just the host family doing all the work.  Michelle and I have walked through the community 2-3 times a week to collect trash --mainly at the pulperia-- and bring it all back to the house to wash and stuff the bottles.  It is seriously a painstakingly slow process and Michelle loses interest after filling a tiny coke bottle leaving me with a stack of trash left on the table.  However, people are supportive of the idea but are still unsure of what we can use it for and how to get the rest of the needed construction supplies.  But in the mean time, the streets are clean, less people are burning trash and its given me stuff to do in my down time, plus at least Michelle is learning to take pride in her community.

Super Bowl

I went into San Jose for the America Party with the most PCVs I have ever seen gathered in one place since Thanksgiving.  It was an expensive weekend but a lot of fun and got to reconnect with a lot of my tico group and connect with some of the older and newer PCVs I hadn't had the chance with yet.  The amount of great food, craft beer, CHEESE, burgers etc...just a great weekend.

Welcome Tico 31

As hard as it is to believe, I am almost a year into my service here which means it is just about time to welcome a new Tico group of CED and TEFL volunteers.  On February 23rd, we welcome Tico 31 to Costa Rica and tico 29 (my group) suddenly become the old veterans, the wise monks, the mentors, and man it feels strange.  Seeing all the Tico 27 volunteers talking about their Close of Service (COS) and my group discussing plans for our Mid Service Training (MST), our legitimate halfway mark...it feels unreal.

That was a long update, hope you were able to make it all the way through.  Thanks for reading!  Much love,

Conor