so, i finally figured out what my address is!
Julia Lockamy
PCT Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 1266-1000
San Jose
Costa Rica
You can send me letters and small packages to this address. Any kind of large package goes through customs, and in order to pick it up i have to pay a serious fee and go through this redic process. so should you care to send me something, send only small items.
also, used clothes and any type of shoe are forbidden to enter the country. so, no used clothes please!
but, it would make me exceedingly happy to recieve snail mail, so letters are encouraged. as are packages with candy corn, all candy, or music cds. just saying. i also want to write to you, so let me know what your address is. i already have floras (gracias!)
i miss you all!
julia
Friday, October 29, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
life as a trainee
So yall can have an idea of what my life is like, here is my general schedule:
I wake up around 6, earlier Tu/Tr and later MWF. If my alarm clock doesnt go off first, the roosters usually wake me. My abuela (grandma) gets up about the same time and puts on a pot of coffee. I have some bread and butter or some cake with my coffee, and my abuela and I sit and eat together. She feeds the chickens (we have about 10 or so that just run around---super cage-free and i love it!) and i watch them eat. after breakfast i take a shower, the water is ice cold, but im getting used to it. then i get dressed and go to class. MWF I go to spanish class in the community center in my town. There are 5 of us living in the same community, we are all at the same level of spanish. One of the young women in my group is from harrisonburg VA, fun fact. 2 are from iowa and one is from connecticut (her parents met in PC Costa Rica in the 70s). I get an hour break for lunch and I go home and eat with my abuela and all the various relatives that are in my house. I get out of class around 4. We have coffee around 5, and dinner around 7. By 9 most everyone is alseep. I go to bed early, too. Im usually exhausted by the end of the day and fall asleep immediately.
T-Tr I take a bus into another town, and have class with all the PC trainees in my class. I dont get back home till around 5 or 6.
We always have home work to do, and Im always doing something. The only time I really get to myself is when Im sleeping. Ive been too busy to be too homesick. Ive definitely been missing halloween, though. If you are reading my blog you should let me know what your halloween costume is, so I can feel like Im back at home for a minute. I already told everyone here about my jellyfish costume from last year, Im not sure that they are as impressed with myself as I am.
WAIT
I have to tell you. I had the pleasure of being in the audience of A Toda Machina. Its a Costa Rican variety show....the most variety of variety shows. Elena got tickets, and we went with my aunt and cousin, another PCT (PC trainee) in my town and his mom. The show was 4 hours long, im not kidding. and even though i didnt participate, the camera man kept showing my section of the audience, and the next day tons of people came up to me to tell me they saw me on tv.
anyway, it was such a cultural experience. i cant even put in words what it was like. imagine the price is right plus jeopardy plus the spellling bee plus clowns plus double dare, all in spanish, for 4 hours.
I have taken some pictures, I hope to put them up soon.
peace & love
julia
I wake up around 6, earlier Tu/Tr and later MWF. If my alarm clock doesnt go off first, the roosters usually wake me. My abuela (grandma) gets up about the same time and puts on a pot of coffee. I have some bread and butter or some cake with my coffee, and my abuela and I sit and eat together. She feeds the chickens (we have about 10 or so that just run around---super cage-free and i love it!) and i watch them eat. after breakfast i take a shower, the water is ice cold, but im getting used to it. then i get dressed and go to class. MWF I go to spanish class in the community center in my town. There are 5 of us living in the same community, we are all at the same level of spanish. One of the young women in my group is from harrisonburg VA, fun fact. 2 are from iowa and one is from connecticut (her parents met in PC Costa Rica in the 70s). I get an hour break for lunch and I go home and eat with my abuela and all the various relatives that are in my house. I get out of class around 4. We have coffee around 5, and dinner around 7. By 9 most everyone is alseep. I go to bed early, too. Im usually exhausted by the end of the day and fall asleep immediately.
T-Tr I take a bus into another town, and have class with all the PC trainees in my class. I dont get back home till around 5 or 6.
We always have home work to do, and Im always doing something. The only time I really get to myself is when Im sleeping. Ive been too busy to be too homesick. Ive definitely been missing halloween, though. If you are reading my blog you should let me know what your halloween costume is, so I can feel like Im back at home for a minute. I already told everyone here about my jellyfish costume from last year, Im not sure that they are as impressed with myself as I am.
WAIT
I have to tell you. I had the pleasure of being in the audience of A Toda Machina. Its a Costa Rican variety show....the most variety of variety shows. Elena got tickets, and we went with my aunt and cousin, another PCT (PC trainee) in my town and his mom. The show was 4 hours long, im not kidding. and even though i didnt participate, the camera man kept showing my section of the audience, and the next day tons of people came up to me to tell me they saw me on tv.
anyway, it was such a cultural experience. i cant even put in words what it was like. imagine the price is right plus jeopardy plus the spellling bee plus clowns plus double dare, all in spanish, for 4 hours.
I have taken some pictures, I hope to put them up soon.
peace & love
julia
Monday, October 11, 2010
The first days
Hey all!
Right now Im sitting in an internet cafe in a little town called la Fila. I´m living in a town/village/community called el Rosario (which means rosary...I think). There isnt an internet cafe in Rosario, so I cant promise fequent updates
side note: I LOVE love LOVE my community and my host family and all the Peace Corps volunteers.
I spent the first 5 days in Costa Rica at a training center with the rest of the PCV´s (peace corps volunteers). We were basically getting to know the basics of PC costa rica, and getting to know each other, and learning about our assignments. I am so excited about the program that I am assigned to.
I am doing TEFL ( teaching english as a foreign language). We are a pilot program, the first PC TEFL program in Costa Rica. Costa Ricas last president Oscar Arias (who won a nobel peace prize) had a goal to have all of Costa Rica bilingual in Spanish and English by 2017. Its an incedible goal, but Costa Ricans are working hard on acheiving it.
What Im doing here is primarily assisting English teachers in the Public School system. We are helping them improve their English skills and also doing workshops so that they can establish a network and learn new teaching methods. In some cases we will be teaching classes ourselves, but mostly we are there as aids to the teachers. We are also going to go into the community and create opportunities for people to speak English, and we are also working with the students in the schools. But I wont be able to work on that project until Ive finished the 10 week training program here in el Rosario.
My training consists of Spanish classes all day MWF and then technical classes on T-Tr. MWF I go to the community center in El Rosario and take classes with the 4 other PCVs in my community. T-Tr I take a bus to Tarbaca and meet up with all the PCVs in my class (there are 43 of us).
There is so much to say, I cant even think of where to begin.
I arrived here Saturday, and immediately met at least 20 different family members. My host sister, Elena, then took me on a tour around the community and we went to a few of her friends and families houses. I have met so many people. It was fun walking around with my new sister. We just walked up to the houses and knocked and they let us in. Everyone here always has their house open to visiters, and apparantly visters come by all the time. It is a much more intimate community than Im used to. And everyone is incredibly nice and patient with me.
Today my host grandma taught me how to make tortillas from hand, and then we made empanadas. The stove in my house is like a raised bowl with a little fire in it.
Well, Im running out of time!!
adios!
also, if you want to call me. here is my CR number: 011 506 2540 1398
be sure to ask for hooolia
Right now Im sitting in an internet cafe in a little town called la Fila. I´m living in a town/village/community called el Rosario (which means rosary...I think). There isnt an internet cafe in Rosario, so I cant promise fequent updates
side note: I LOVE love LOVE my community and my host family and all the Peace Corps volunteers.
I spent the first 5 days in Costa Rica at a training center with the rest of the PCV´s (peace corps volunteers). We were basically getting to know the basics of PC costa rica, and getting to know each other, and learning about our assignments. I am so excited about the program that I am assigned to.
I am doing TEFL ( teaching english as a foreign language). We are a pilot program, the first PC TEFL program in Costa Rica. Costa Ricas last president Oscar Arias (who won a nobel peace prize) had a goal to have all of Costa Rica bilingual in Spanish and English by 2017. Its an incedible goal, but Costa Ricans are working hard on acheiving it.
What Im doing here is primarily assisting English teachers in the Public School system. We are helping them improve their English skills and also doing workshops so that they can establish a network and learn new teaching methods. In some cases we will be teaching classes ourselves, but mostly we are there as aids to the teachers. We are also going to go into the community and create opportunities for people to speak English, and we are also working with the students in the schools. But I wont be able to work on that project until Ive finished the 10 week training program here in el Rosario.
My training consists of Spanish classes all day MWF and then technical classes on T-Tr. MWF I go to the community center in El Rosario and take classes with the 4 other PCVs in my community. T-Tr I take a bus to Tarbaca and meet up with all the PCVs in my class (there are 43 of us).
There is so much to say, I cant even think of where to begin.
I arrived here Saturday, and immediately met at least 20 different family members. My host sister, Elena, then took me on a tour around the community and we went to a few of her friends and families houses. I have met so many people. It was fun walking around with my new sister. We just walked up to the houses and knocked and they let us in. Everyone here always has their house open to visiters, and apparantly visters come by all the time. It is a much more intimate community than Im used to. And everyone is incredibly nice and patient with me.
Today my host grandma taught me how to make tortillas from hand, and then we made empanadas. The stove in my house is like a raised bowl with a little fire in it.
Well, Im running out of time!!
adios!
also, if you want to call me. here is my CR number: 011 506 2540 1398
be sure to ask for hooolia
Friday, October 1, 2010
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