Hello from the Land of Pineapple,
Thanks to those who are following my blog! Today I wanted to do something a little different. Most of my posts focus on what I’m doing at site, but today, I wanted to write a little reflection piece about what I have learned, or am in the process of learning, through this two year journey.
Last month marked the one-year point in Costa Rica. Now, a month later, it is mid-August, and I’m sitting at the half-way mark for my service in whole. I’m 13 months in, and have about 13-ish months left to go! Time sure does fly by. Every night I write in a little journal a small reflection about my day- whether it’s something new that I did that day, a little moment to be thankful for, or a new challenge to overcome. And, I write a new Spanish word or phrase that I learned that day! (Language learning never stops!) I write to remember, and I write to reflect. Now, I’m a year into my journal, and I can see the entries I made on the same day last year. How interesting it is to see how far I have come. At this time a year ago, I was still in training in Heredia, Costa Rica. I didn’t know where my site would be, and I was filled with all kinds of questions and uncertainties. Questions surrounded me, like- Will I be able to do this? Will I be able to communicate? Will I like where I am placed? And now, here I am in site, a year veteran! In fact, next week I will be hosting 5 trainees at site for their Tech Week. Tech week is a special opportunity for trainees, before they officially become volunteers, to travel outside of their training communities to practice facilitation skills in Spanish and see the realities of life at site. I’m thankful for the opportunity and really excited to show off my community. And, word has it, that the country director of Peace Corps Costa Rica will be visiting Los Angeles too!
So with that, as I have been planning for these trainees to come to Los Angeles and reflecting upon my one-year of service mark, I wanted to share some reflection themes that have been most prominent in my service thus far. I still have a lot to learn, but here is where I am right now…
Flexibility doesn’t just mean you can meet for coffee at 1:30 instead of 1:00.
I have defined flexibility in a very different light in my time here. Especially planning for Tech Week when I thought I had a finalized schedule for the week, on about four different occasions, to later find out that the entire week would be switched around due to varying schedules and the multitude of people involved. However, Tech Week is an exception because there are so many moving parts. On a more daily basis, flexibility comes from planning a lesson for 6th graders one day and switching things around to give that same lesson to 4th graders instead. It’s planning a meeting a week in advance, and come to meeting day, having to reschedule it for next week. It means working with other people’s schedules because they are the hosts, they know how things are done here, and it’s only through working together and as a team that we can even begin to think about sustainability. Flexibility is patience. And, flexibility is adaptability. As volunteers, we are here in a new country, a new culture, a new language. It’s not for us to change the way things are done here. Never ever. It’s for us to adapt ourselves to the culture and work within our surroundings. Once we learn to adapt ourselves (which isn’t exactly easy at times) we can begin to understand the systems, techniques, and skills to work, share, and begin conversations. It’s only at that point that we will be able to do anything positive.
You have to learn to walk before you run.
You have to start small. It’s easy to look at service programs like the Peace Corps through the glamourous lens of the professional camera. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but there are a million other words that the camera doesn’t capture. The beautiful photos of sustainable development that fill the brochures and websites…they do a good job drawing you in, eager to seek an adventure, a learning experience, and creating big visions of grassroots development, but they don’t show all the little moments it took to get there. Adventures, learning, and big visions are great in terms of getting the thinking gears turning in one’s mind. However, it’s not exactly the realities of service. Projects have to start small. All the little things like a simple conversation, a friendly “hello,” or playing with kids at recess, add up and count towards creating something positive. I’m a year into service, and I feel like just now I and my project partners might be in the steps to a project that might stick once I leave in a year. It takes getting to know the people. It takes patience (flexibility). It takes trial and error. It takes counting the little moments as success. It takes thinking of the challenges as a new learning opportunity. It takes baby steps. But most of all, it takes time.
Time isn’t counting down, it’s counting up.
This one relates to patience and the small steps. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get stuck in the rut of thinking, “okay, only one more day and then the weekend.” Or, “just work for x hours and then you can do something else.” I think those thoughts are pretty natural, but here I have learned that it’s not when I count down the time that things get done, it’s when I put in more time. It’s a little hard to explain because it’s not like the U.S. work style of working 8 to 5. I do have traditional work that includes paperwork, reports, and lesson planning, but the hours that truly count are the extra hours that I make myself available. I am learning that the most valuable time is spending an hour to help with a neighbor’s English homework, going to a community bingo event, sitting to enjoy a cup of coffee with a project partner, or going to a family birthday party. Making myself available to participate and be a part of the community is always time well spent. The more time I can spend with people, building relationships, and transforming myself as a member of the community helps build trust, confidence, awareness, and motivation within my time here.
Butterflies must have it tough because transitioning is hard work.
Although I really love my site and the work I am doing, I don’t know if I will ever be done transitioning. I’m always learning and growing. Every day I learn something new. But I must say those first few months are tough. Completely transforming everything I knew into something different is exhausting. New people, new food, new climate, new language, new work, new culture, new expectations, new ways of living day to day. The list goes on. It takes a lot of energy, and I often found myself so tired in the middle of the day that I had to take a mid-day nap in order to function for the rest of the day. In addition to all the new-ness, missing home never goes away. As much as I enjoy the adventure, the learning journey, and the attempt towards service leadership, the distance from home doesn’t get shorter (nor feel shorter). You learn how to manage those feelings and look forward to the stepping stones that bring you a little closer. And I also feel like I’m growing a second home here too, and that makes an incredible positive impact in the process of transitioning.
Between all the differences, there are way more similarities.
The media likes to point out how the human race has so many differences that we will just never be able to get along. That they think differently. They do it differently. They believe different concepts. They, they, they. Us against them. Them against us. It exists all over the world: the social issues, the privileges, the discrimination and deprivation. Leave it to the news outlets to turn humans into an egotistical bandwagon. In my opinion, I think the world would be a happier place if we could accept that we believe different things, that we have different needs and cultures, that we might have different practices. But, in the end, we all bleed and dream and love and it’s all for the same humanistic nature. The opportunity to learn outside of textbook has allowed me to use my eyes, my ears, and my heart to build new perspectives and a new sense of shared humanness among all peoples of the world. It’s something that I have always been aware of, but could never fully understand until being completely emerged into new surroundings.
Well, that’s what I have right now for a little reflection. I have more to grow and more to learn, it’s just a starting point. Half-way through, and I’m excited to see where the next year of my service takes me.
Below are some pictures that have taken place since my last post! Enjoy and thanks for reading!
Thanks to those who are following my blog! Today I wanted to do something a little different. Most of my posts focus on what I’m doing at site, but today, I wanted to write a little reflection piece about what I have learned, or am in the process of learning, through this two year journey.
Last month marked the one-year point in Costa Rica. Now, a month later, it is mid-August, and I’m sitting at the half-way mark for my service in whole. I’m 13 months in, and have about 13-ish months left to go! Time sure does fly by. Every night I write in a little journal a small reflection about my day- whether it’s something new that I did that day, a little moment to be thankful for, or a new challenge to overcome. And, I write a new Spanish word or phrase that I learned that day! (Language learning never stops!) I write to remember, and I write to reflect. Now, I’m a year into my journal, and I can see the entries I made on the same day last year. How interesting it is to see how far I have come. At this time a year ago, I was still in training in Heredia, Costa Rica. I didn’t know where my site would be, and I was filled with all kinds of questions and uncertainties. Questions surrounded me, like- Will I be able to do this? Will I be able to communicate? Will I like where I am placed? And now, here I am in site, a year veteran! In fact, next week I will be hosting 5 trainees at site for their Tech Week. Tech week is a special opportunity for trainees, before they officially become volunteers, to travel outside of their training communities to practice facilitation skills in Spanish and see the realities of life at site. I’m thankful for the opportunity and really excited to show off my community. And, word has it, that the country director of Peace Corps Costa Rica will be visiting Los Angeles too!
So with that, as I have been planning for these trainees to come to Los Angeles and reflecting upon my one-year of service mark, I wanted to share some reflection themes that have been most prominent in my service thus far. I still have a lot to learn, but here is where I am right now…
Flexibility doesn’t just mean you can meet for coffee at 1:30 instead of 1:00.
I have defined flexibility in a very different light in my time here. Especially planning for Tech Week when I thought I had a finalized schedule for the week, on about four different occasions, to later find out that the entire week would be switched around due to varying schedules and the multitude of people involved. However, Tech Week is an exception because there are so many moving parts. On a more daily basis, flexibility comes from planning a lesson for 6th graders one day and switching things around to give that same lesson to 4th graders instead. It’s planning a meeting a week in advance, and come to meeting day, having to reschedule it for next week. It means working with other people’s schedules because they are the hosts, they know how things are done here, and it’s only through working together and as a team that we can even begin to think about sustainability. Flexibility is patience. And, flexibility is adaptability. As volunteers, we are here in a new country, a new culture, a new language. It’s not for us to change the way things are done here. Never ever. It’s for us to adapt ourselves to the culture and work within our surroundings. Once we learn to adapt ourselves (which isn’t exactly easy at times) we can begin to understand the systems, techniques, and skills to work, share, and begin conversations. It’s only at that point that we will be able to do anything positive.
You have to learn to walk before you run.
You have to start small. It’s easy to look at service programs like the Peace Corps through the glamourous lens of the professional camera. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but there are a million other words that the camera doesn’t capture. The beautiful photos of sustainable development that fill the brochures and websites…they do a good job drawing you in, eager to seek an adventure, a learning experience, and creating big visions of grassroots development, but they don’t show all the little moments it took to get there. Adventures, learning, and big visions are great in terms of getting the thinking gears turning in one’s mind. However, it’s not exactly the realities of service. Projects have to start small. All the little things like a simple conversation, a friendly “hello,” or playing with kids at recess, add up and count towards creating something positive. I’m a year into service, and I feel like just now I and my project partners might be in the steps to a project that might stick once I leave in a year. It takes getting to know the people. It takes patience (flexibility). It takes trial and error. It takes counting the little moments as success. It takes thinking of the challenges as a new learning opportunity. It takes baby steps. But most of all, it takes time.
Time isn’t counting down, it’s counting up.
This one relates to patience and the small steps. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get stuck in the rut of thinking, “okay, only one more day and then the weekend.” Or, “just work for x hours and then you can do something else.” I think those thoughts are pretty natural, but here I have learned that it’s not when I count down the time that things get done, it’s when I put in more time. It’s a little hard to explain because it’s not like the U.S. work style of working 8 to 5. I do have traditional work that includes paperwork, reports, and lesson planning, but the hours that truly count are the extra hours that I make myself available. I am learning that the most valuable time is spending an hour to help with a neighbor’s English homework, going to a community bingo event, sitting to enjoy a cup of coffee with a project partner, or going to a family birthday party. Making myself available to participate and be a part of the community is always time well spent. The more time I can spend with people, building relationships, and transforming myself as a member of the community helps build trust, confidence, awareness, and motivation within my time here.
Butterflies must have it tough because transitioning is hard work.
Although I really love my site and the work I am doing, I don’t know if I will ever be done transitioning. I’m always learning and growing. Every day I learn something new. But I must say those first few months are tough. Completely transforming everything I knew into something different is exhausting. New people, new food, new climate, new language, new work, new culture, new expectations, new ways of living day to day. The list goes on. It takes a lot of energy, and I often found myself so tired in the middle of the day that I had to take a mid-day nap in order to function for the rest of the day. In addition to all the new-ness, missing home never goes away. As much as I enjoy the adventure, the learning journey, and the attempt towards service leadership, the distance from home doesn’t get shorter (nor feel shorter). You learn how to manage those feelings and look forward to the stepping stones that bring you a little closer. And I also feel like I’m growing a second home here too, and that makes an incredible positive impact in the process of transitioning.
Between all the differences, there are way more similarities.
The media likes to point out how the human race has so many differences that we will just never be able to get along. That they think differently. They do it differently. They believe different concepts. They, they, they. Us against them. Them against us. It exists all over the world: the social issues, the privileges, the discrimination and deprivation. Leave it to the news outlets to turn humans into an egotistical bandwagon. In my opinion, I think the world would be a happier place if we could accept that we believe different things, that we have different needs and cultures, that we might have different practices. But, in the end, we all bleed and dream and love and it’s all for the same humanistic nature. The opportunity to learn outside of textbook has allowed me to use my eyes, my ears, and my heart to build new perspectives and a new sense of shared humanness among all peoples of the world. It’s something that I have always been aware of, but could never fully understand until being completely emerged into new surroundings.
Well, that’s what I have right now for a little reflection. I have more to grow and more to learn, it’s just a starting point. Half-way through, and I’m excited to see where the next year of my service takes me.
Below are some pictures that have taken place since my last post! Enjoy and thanks for reading!
Our town hosted a pilgrimage walk for August 2nd, known in Costa Rica as "The day of the virgin of Los Angeles." It's a day to celebrate the patron saint of Costa Rica. Because I live in one of many Los Angeles', my town participated as a host for the festival. A few weeks before the event, I helped a group of women prepare a dish called picadillo, made of papaya root, potatoes, meat, and spices. I recorded the steps of making the dish because I found it very interesting! Click on the images in the slideshow below to learn about the process! Pura Vida, Emily |