Hi all,
Well, I wanted to write a short note, but that is too hard. Well, this is shorter, there is only a short time to catch up on now, so not quite so much to say...
Well, after everyone left, Mark and I had a couple of days in which we had to clean up some details and re-write those evaluation forms that had been stolen. So, we finally got to relax on Sunday. Then I took 3 days off... Those were nice, got my house arranged, did some shopping for things that had been liberated from my possession and some relaxing, then back to the grind on that Thurs. (16th)
My second phase of my contract here has two parts to it (plus a non-RJI part):
So far, I have focused almost all of my time on #1 (because of a deadline we had here), although I am desperately needing to get caught up on LAMP, since I owe them about 14 days of work from the time I was in training and in the field.
That's all very interesting to you, I'm sure. :) But, you might ask, what is it like to work there? Well, it is a fun office to work in, for one thing. There are Costa Rican (Ticos) past, current and future participants dropping in all the time and it makes for a very lively atmosphere. It can also make it difficult to get work done at times, but that has not been a big problem so far. Also, the current leaders, leaving for project in 2 weeks, are in the office, so it is crowded all the time, but fun.
My supervisor, Tomas, is great. He is very supportive, very hard working, very focused on what is important for RJI (communities and participants), a very good communicator, very open, very respectful of my opinion, treats me as an equal, very dynamic and energetic, very everything, so far. I guess the honeymoon will be over soon, but still, I feel lucky to have him as a mentor and a friend.
My big deadline was to finish a Letter of Agreement that we want to introduce here in Costa Rica with our partner communities. So, I had a big session with the leaders to train them in the CIDA language and the use of the new form. It was fun, it took twice as long as we expected and there were a few concerns, including how the community will react to the form, which will be a bit of a surprise for them, since ideally, they would be warned about it in the initial stages. However, time pressures force us to start somewhere and I am hopeful that we will get some excellent feedback next week when they come back from their site visits...
The training session, I enlisted Stephanie to translate for me, so I could concentrate on the material, not the language, but I kept forgetting what language I was speaking and switching back and forth. I guess I am so comfortable in Spanish now that I speak it without thinking a lot...
So, what is my family and house like? Well, it is pretty luxurious here. I get room and board, so that means 3 big meals a day. And good food, too! My "father" has told me twice this week that I look "fat". Of course, as you can guess, that would take a lot for me, so that really means that I am filling out a bit. This is on top of the 9kg I gained on project! I expect to lose some weight as I get more into the office job, but I did get my bike last weekend so I should be biking regularly soon. My bike has some problems, but since I bought it new, I can take it back still for repairs, thankfully. (So far, the wheel has fallen off once, the wheel has come loose once and the back gears have stopped working)
It's kind of nice to have the food made for you, not to mention all the money I am saving by not eating out all the time. Also, I have little in the way of chores, I only have to tidy my room (which is my own space) and make my bed really. Laundry is now with a big luxurious machine, no longer by hand. I'm going to get soft at this rate...
The family is nice. The parents are my parents' age and they have 3 kids, 2 in their early 30's/late 20's and a 15 year old. The parents are really nice and friendly and try to take care of me mostly. The only little problem is that the father is an alcoholic and has come into my room drunk once at night when I was sleeping to chat with me. I talked to them about it and hopefully that won't happen again.
I am also living with Kit, who works in the RJI office, but is just finishing up his contract and his replacement is starting on Monday, who happens to be my friend Sheelagh's sister! What a small world. She may also be living here, but no one seems to know what is up with her yet. She is off studying Spanish and visiting friends currently... It will be crowded if/when she comes!
The house is big and nice - I am working at home today and I am sitting in the back patio, listening to the stream in the back yard gurgle by. It's hard to believe I am still in the city. It's not far to work from here, maybe a 40 minute walk or 15-20 on my bike. There is also a 15 minute bus ride, although it only goes once per hour...
Also in the family are two dogs, living in the backyard. One day, I went out with my "mother" and "father" to help them in the garden patch and I discovered I had an enemy in one of the dogs. It promptly tried to leap up on me and attack me (fortunately it is a small dog) so I pushed it away, then it bit my foot on my toes, on my injured foot, no less, and wouldn't let go for about 30 seconds or so. My "father" had to distract it with a plank, which it then latched on to and pushed it away. I tried to go help in the yard anyway, but the dog kept coming after me, so eventually, I had to retire my weeding career as the dog was too distracting to all of us...
Slowly, I am starting to make contact with friends in San Jose again. Between the office and them, I have a fairly active social life - seen lots of movies that I normally wouldn't - including Scary Movie, I am ashamed to admit, although I blame Mark entirely. :) I am off this weekend to visit a friend (Laura) that I worked with in Guyana in Monteverde. That should be fun, and then I'm off to Nicaragua for a short trip on Wed. Just taking a few days off now to rest before getting fully into work again.
There is so much work to do, and so little time. I have more deadlines coming up, mostly self-imposed, I suppose. Never a dull moment, although this email may be a bit dull, but I just wanted to bring you up to date on what my life is like here now, quite different than it was a month ago...
And with that, I'll sign off and await updates of your lives, no matter how boring you claim it is, I'm always interested to know what's happening with you...
Take care,
Rob