After weeks of interviews and torment from the Peace Corps staff, site reveal day was finally upon us. The nervous laughter and anxiety was at an all time high on our way to the site reveal party. This meme was put in our group chat several times during the day and it perfectly describes how we were feeling. When we finally got there, they didn't tell us right away. We suffered through a crossword (in spanish), and staff joked that the placement process consisted of throwing darts at a map of Costa Rica. The build up was brutal. After staff grew tired of messing with us, they turned the map around and gave us the pins that would mark where we would be living for the next two years.
I put my pin in a town called San Isidro de Alegria in the province of Limon. I was so relieved to finally have a name but I still knew nothing about the town itself. That night, I studied the packet and learned that my site is two and a half hours from San Jose and one hour from Limon (i.e: the beach), has 450 members and is 1.7 miles away from my friend Allie's site. Seemed pretty ideal but I still needed to learn a lot more.
Peace Corps sent us to our sites the next day for a five day visit. I got off the bus in Siquirres and a woman from my community was there to take me the rest of the way. She drove me about 20 min to my site in her car and dropped me off outside of a pink house bigger than the one in my training community. My new host mom greeted me, took my bags to my room and gave me the wifi password. I was completely thrown off my my arrival. How did this woman have a car? Why is this house so nice? Wifi?! I was expecting to be super rural, and super far from the comforts of the 21st century. I had mentally prepared myself to live in a hut or dilapidated casita hours away from any big city. I was disappointed and felt like I was being cheated out of my Peace Corps experience. I kept thinking "this must be a mistake."
I was frustrated. Why does this town need a Peace Corps volunteer? Especially a community economic development volunteer? There can't possibly be any projects for me here. Still, I did what Peace Corps sent me there to do - meet members of the community. I got out of my house and got to talkin' to people. Everyone was really excited I was there and so welcoming. They invited me into their homes and had so many ideas about things I could help do to improve the community. The more people I met, the more I learned and understood that San Isidro was not as developed nor as simple as I had thought. It's a community with almost no resources and a lot of unemployment. There's a lot of work to do.
I was definitely feeling differently but still unsure about what specifics steps I needed to take to get projects off the ground. On Saturday, I met with my counterpart. This was the local woman I'll be working with in the community. Amongst other things, she told me about the women's group and their failed business. This was something I could sink my teeth into and got me really excited to return to site. I realized during this conversation that I can make a real difference in my new home and there was a reason for me being there.
I joined the Peace Corps for the challenge. Initially, I thought that my access to wifi disqualified me from being challenged during service. I feel pretty stupid now looking back on my first days in site. PC staff always tells us to keep an open mind and that every site is not what it seems. There are complexities in every site that can't possibly be understood until the volunteer becomes a member of the community (which is why service is two years long). I learned this lesson on my site visit. Though I haven't even begun to fully understand the history, the people and the dynamics of my community after only being there five days, I can appreciate that there is much more to learn and am excited to get there.
