Favorite Tico Words

Jale(ha-le)...Suave(su-a-beh)...Meto (meh-toh) This last one was born and is only used in my community. I never noticed it until a few months ago after it was pointed out to me. Now I hear it all the time! So these words mean the following, in order of appearance: hurry up/let's go...hold on/one second...negation of what was previously said. Word of caution: don't say you feel "excitada" when you want to express excitement in Spanish. It's "emocionada" or full of emotion. The former has a sexual meaning, as I had to find out the hard way. I just wanted to highlight how, despite my Spanish fluency and Latin American heritage, there was a lot to learn once I arrived in Costa Rica. And what is called one thing in one country, may be something totally different in another. Take the word "torta". In Colombia, this means cake. In Mexico, it's a small sandwich. In Costa Rica, it refers to eggs or groundmeat that is prepared in a round shape (like a patty). There is also the phrase "jalarse una torta" which means that you made a huge mistake.

Back to my updates, these past two weeks have been intense. What with beginning a workshop called "Youth Entrepeneurs" in the local high school, a friend's serious car accident here in Boruca, and other personal matters, I'm glad that things have calmed down. In no way could I have relaxed in Guanacaste this past weekend where most Volunteers are vacationing.

Continuing from my last update, the months of December and January were pretty much impossible to organize, continue, and/or begin projects. Students are on vacation and most people in my community are only thinking about and preparing for the annual cultural festivities. I was really worried about the content of my upcoming work report but there were some accomplishments. For one, I was happy to have begun an Enivronmental Education project, despite having only 8 people, mostly youth, attend. I'm looking now to continue where we left off with the help of the Boy and Girl Scouts (known as Guia Scouts since the groups are mixed and determined by age) since the next step is to conduct a community-wide survey to identify present knowledge, opinions, and behaviors regarding the environment, with special emphasis on waste management, the water supply, and cultural values. The idea is to use a participatory process to find alternative solutions to key environmental concerns. Here are some pictures of what we're dealing with: This stream ends up in the river, carrying with it waste and residual water.
Most trash is thrown and burnt in an open dump, 500 meters from the center of town.
Here's a shot of the dump, where you can see the burning of plastics and other garbage that goes unseparated.
This is a few hundred meters behind my house. I had no idea about this small dump until my host mother told me about it.

In addition to this first meeting, a good friend of mine offered to help with the need for waste bins in the community. The local government has tried to place them in the past only to have them ruined, by youth supposedly. If there's one thing I would like to help accomplish before my service ends is to help the youth in my community prove that they can contribute to positive community development, if given the chance. So far, the local youth group with whom I work is meeting regularly and planning exciting projects. I'll describe these as they progress.

Back to the garbage bins...so my friend got the idea of recycling discarded laundry receptacles into the garbage bins we wanted to see. And these would be classified according to material: plastic, metal (aluminum cans), paper, and glass. One morning, he and I walked to the dump and carried as many as we could back to town. (Note: this is not exactly sustainable as more volunteers could have joined us but due to my friend's stubborn and pessimistic attitude at the time, I conceded) He's a very busy guy so I didn't want to lose this opportunity. After cutting, washing, mending, and other creative final touches, we had garbage bins that are still found in the town center. Several volunteers, my sister, and other young people in my community helped paint them so we could have them up during the cultural festival when hundreds of nationals and foreign tourists visit. Here are a few before and after pictures:





Lessons learned (I saw this coming but like I said, you can't let an opportunity pass you by): people were definitely intrigued by the final product, and we saw that the separation was followed for the most part but we needed an informational campaign to explain why and how to separate trash. We jumped important steps in the process of education, which was good in that my friend and others now or will understand the need for careful planning with this experience. Also as important to highlight are the poor and unsustainable results of garbage clean-ups that groups have and continue to do. Without a comprehensive plan, these efforts will yield nothing but disillusionment. I'm hoping to continue this effort in the upcoming months, hopefully before Earth Day. I'll stop here for now...