Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have Lift-Off!

For a Children, Youth and Families volunteer here in Costa Rica, January is a pretty worthless month. It is in the middle of the schools’ summer vacation, and we volunteers are often left without a whole lot to inscribe on our work reports. February, on the other hand, is very busy. As a response to the lethargy of January, the average volunteer attacks the beginning of the school year with ambition and energy. With beginning of the year staff and planning meetings, there are several opportunities to put one’s project ideas on the table and get the ball rolling. By the time March rolls around, the goal is to have some projects in action and gaining steam. I am thrilled to say that this has been the case for this Peace Corps Volunteer.

I have been continuing my work with the “Aula Abierta” program at the elementary school. The program offers drop-outs a fast track to their elementary school diploma. This eclectic group is one of my favorites. Some of the kids are there because they simply didn’t put enough effort into school and ended up repeating the third grade four times. Many of the students are victims of abuse, and were never sent to school by their negligent parents. A few dropped out to have children (one of which made an appearance at my last class). This mix provides us with 16 year old fourth graders and nine year olds who had never even been to school before. To say the least, the group is never boring.

Within the group, there are different “types.” There are the shy, quiet girls. There are the teenage moms. And then there the more colorful kids: the chapolinas. The best way that I could describe them in English is “thugs.” They smoke a lot of pot, hang out on the corners and whistle at girls, and are probably familiar with the people who have mugged me. One time, one of the boys told me that he loved to smoke crack. I told him, half-joking, that if one really gets heavy into crack, he will have quite a future of oral sex for pay in his future. His face dropped, and he told be that he was kidding. I told him the he sure as hell better be, because it sounded like a terrible future. He never made that joke again.

Regardless, I see the most potential in these boys. They are street smart, and are well versed in survival methods of the hood. When I give a lesson on how to perform at a job interview, they pay attention; they know from experience that it is important.

With the Aula Abierta group, I have done life skills training with them where we learned budgeting, job search methods, and healthy living practices. Last year, we also had a weekly English class. This year, I am upping the ante. In addition to HIV/AIDS and sex education, I will be teaching two English classes per week. They seem to really enjoy it, mostly because I use a non-formal approach. This entails games, competitions and hands on type lessons. My logic is that if the copying from the blackboard didn’t work the first three times they took second grade, it won’t work now. You can imagine my satisfaction with my first class of the year when I learned that the group remembered much of the material that we covered during the previous year. We are now moving forward at a good pace, and I am hopeful that by the end of this school year, I will be able to have conversations in English with the group.

My other major anticipated project at the school is called “Chicas Super Ponderosas.” “Chicas” is a three month long girl’s empowerment program. The project’s aim is to build the self-esteem; communication, organizational, leadership, decision making and planning skills; and a sense of membership and citizenship among a group of at-risk girls. I have paired up with a female teacher at the school to plan and carry out the program, which is very important if the program is to be sustainable. We have each of the eleven sessions planned, and are geared to launch the program in mid-April.

The “Chicas Super Ponderosas” program is more important to me than most of my previous work. This is because so many of the girls who attend my school are at risk of falling victim to the rampant sex trade of Costa Rica. Unlike a country like The Netherlands which regulates its sex trade, prostitution in Costa Rica is unregulated. This brings about an onslaught of very serious problems, among which is the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. However, the most grave of problems I find with the unregulated legalization of prostitution in Costa Rica is the facilitation of the commercial sexual exploitation of children. After Thailand, Costa Rica is the second most popular destination for sex tourism. This opens the floodgates for pederasts to come over by the thousands and take advantage of underprivileged girls like those who attend my school. My hope is that the program can get the girls focused on a track that leads them to high school and a career, and out of the brothels.

The positive trend has continued with my work in the albergues. The poetry workshop has been so successful that we now have enough work to publish a collection. I spoke with my counterpart at PANI (the children’s services of Costa Rica that runs the albergues), and he has offered to cover the printing costs, or even print the collection in the PANI office. Once the collection is put together, we will have a big poetry slam where we will sell the published collection.

I have also started a computer class with my albergue kids. It started out one day when I brought my laptop to the albergue for the poetry workshop. The kids were fascinated by the computer, and I showed them how it works. Within a few weeks, I was having formal computer classes with the kids. They have been learning how to use windows and have really enjoyed it. However, I knew that my laptop alone would not suffice if the kids really wanted to know how to work a computer in the twenty-first century; they needed to become familiar with the internet. So one day, I asked the owner of my local internet café if he would donate a few hours of internet access a week to the children. He agreed, and we’ve been surfing the web since. I even set the kids up with gmail accounts so that they can learn how to use email. As long as they steer clear of the worlds of internet porn out there, I only see good things happening with the class.

January for lassitude, February for planning, and March for flight. I am so glad that so many of my programs have gotten off the ground. In the Peace Corps, one’s happiness and emotional stability often correlates with the success of one’s projects. Gracias a Dios, the correlation has been positive in my case. I only hope that my projects continue to thrive and expand.