Coffee Country Here We Come!

On Friday, Sept. 5, all of the PCTs met in San Isidro and were driven by private coach to a club outside of San Jose, where Site Assignment was to take place, followed by recreation, a picnic and a meeting with the regional leaders who gave us more information about our site. In true Youth Development form, we had to participate in a game, in order to find out our 2 yr. site assignment. The game consisted of learning 3 different regional Costa Rican customs in order to receive a clue, and after we received 3 clues, we were shown the sites on a map and got to guess, 1 by 1, where we thought we were assigned.

Francis and I were assigned to a town called San Marcos de Tarazu. It's about 2 hrs. south of San Jose; so easy access in and out and around the country.   It's a town of about 10,000 in the mountains, in a region referred to as Los Santos, because so many of the towns have saints' names. San Marcos is the main hub for the surrounding towns.  The principal, "directora" of the high school has worked w/ a PCV before and is excited to have us.  Our initial project partners are the h.s. school counselors and are interested in working with us on developing drug prevention programs, a support group for youth with drug addictions and violence prevention, among many other things.

 We are super excited to be invited to this site; it sits in the middle of coffee country, but is also a popular area for birding and hiking in the canopy.  There will be much more to come about all of this as we get familiar with the area.

After the Site Assignment Day picnic, we spent the evening at a hostel in San Jose, where PCVs from other groups gathered for the celebration as well.  We got to talk to other PCVs from the San Marcos area, so it was great to connect and start to network!  

The next day, before returning to our home, we walked through a big park in the city called Parque Sabana, which is the old converted airport.  It had these really cool type of Eucalyptus trees ('deglupta'), also known as the rainbow or painted tree.  The colors are from the shedding of the bark and the ongoing maturing of the next layers.  They were just beautiful!  We also enjoyed a great art museum in the park.

A cool sculpture at the park; representing the work of the 'agriculturos

I love seeing groves of bamboo trees; they're seen in many different areas and are used as fence posts and to hold up the covers they put over the many tomato plants in the tomato 'fincas'. Apparently the direct rain causes a mold on the plants that they try to prevent with the covers. (no picture of this)

We had a Taco Party a couple of weeks ago, and everybody contributed something to the table. 

I think these were the best tacos I've ever had, with fresh avocados and mangos.

We have an artist in our group who is really into face painting,

Of course, Francis was in charge of the BBQ; note the metal wheel rim on a stand, used for the BBQ pit.  This was inside the patio/garage of one of our group member's host family.

This weekend is Costa Rica's Independence Day celebrations, so the parades will be ongoing all weekend.  We enjoyed watching the pre-kinders carrying their flags and playing their xylophones.

These large headed masked people are very popular in Costa Rica; apparently they come out for various holidays.  Our host family has one that looks like the mom and dad; hope they bring it out this weekend!

This is the last of the pups, but he'll be going to his new home tomorrow.  It's been fun watching them grow over the last 6 weeks.  I feel like one of these pups; came into a new home, didn't know the language, stayed a short time, and soon will be heading off to another new home.  Hopefully, while there, I'll understand more and be able to speak the language of the people!  Adios for now.