May 16, 2010: Posh Corps

As most of you know, when we first signed up for the Peace Corps, we were supposed to go to Africa. We spent months reading African history books, practicing sweating all the time while secretly hoping for a mountain placement in Lesotho, and mentally preparing ourselves to have parasites and intestinal bugs all the time. Then the infamous medical clearance process hiccuped, our departure date was bumped, and we were told we'd have to wait almost another full year before we left. We asked for other options. And now we're in Costa Rica.

The mental shift has been rough: when one has prepared to go to Malawi for a year, waking up to one's host brother playing Grand Theft Auto in the next room is a bit odd. Costa Rica is commonly referred to as "Posh Corps" or "Beach Corps" by other Peace Corps volunteers, with the insinuation (or outright assertion) that we have it so much easier than everyone else. In terms of standard of living, this is absolutely true: I wake up every morning in an actual bed, in a house with running water and flush toliets and a coffee maker and a phone and (sometimes) internet. I even had hot showers for a couple weeks, until it broke and I discovered that the little electric warmer things they stick on the spigot can shock you while showering.

The way I justify our presence here, or at least make myself feel better, is by arguing that the flip side of Costa Rica's high level of development is that expectations are that much higher. People are higher up Maslow's hierarchy of needs: I can't impress a community by building an outhouse or handing out malaria medications. I have to do the same level of work I did in the States - working through government bureaucracies, finding funding sources, organizing and exciting people who have full-time jobs to do one more thing for the good of their community, but without resources and in another language. Try convincing a room of professionals you're competent enough to lead a workshop on volunteerism without having full mastery of the past tense - it's certainly not living in a hut in sub-Saharan Africa, but it's really, really hard.

Lena's job, for instance, is absolutely insane. She's inheriting a site from another volunteer in a town 3.5 km from where we'll be living. It's a town of about 400 people, wrapped up at the foot of a mountain by the new southern coast highway, where people make their living either by working in the insane tourist resorts of Manual Antonio, raising cattle, or working in the gigantic plantations of African Palm that cover mile after mile of the landscape. It's all of two dirt, hole-addled streets, a bar, and a pulperia (think convenience store/grocery store/Super Walmart in a closet), plopped on a flood plain next to a river. Five years ago, the town was devastated by a huge flood - you can still see the marks 6 feet up on trees. The National Emergency Commission of Costa Rica declared that the entire pueblo had to be moved to avoid future danger. In sum: Lena's job is to help move an entire town of 400 people. Well, that's one of her jobs. She has a whole list.

My community, on the other hand, is a community of about 700, butted up on a beautiful, unspoiled, and quiet beach. There's a sizable community of foreigners who have bought up businesses and land, and, along with the opening of the new highway, a new stream of tourists. In turn, the tourists have brought things like crack cocaine and the commercial sex trade. I met a 20-year-old crack addict who has been stabbed 5 times. On the other hand, I also got to walk a 25-km stretch of beach entirely by myself and watch fireflies weaving over a soccer field. They have a high school with a cattle program where kids learn how to make cheese and yogurt, a private forest reserve with a troop of monkeys, and the school has just started an experimental emu breeding program.

My job is to do something with the kids. I currently have no idea what I'm doing here, but I'm sure it will all become clear eventually.

We move to our site this Sunday, after swearing-in to become official Peace Corps volunteers on Friday.