I just gave my first session in Spanish. It was on the subject of calculating compound interest rates. A lot of Ticos quit school around the second or third grade and they lack the skills to calculate interest and understand what a bad deal it is to have 24 to 35 percent interest accruing per month. Its a major way that companies take advantage of people here. Anyway I thought it went pretty well except for my halting Spanish. My friend Dan freakin nailed it. My wife has a lot of experience with public health and she did her talk on the advantages and proper use of condoms. You would think that would be a pretty standard thing to learn but Costa Rica is heavily Catholic. Still if they are going to avoid a major overpopulation problem and reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy then its an important thing to learn in my opinion.
Speaking of getting adjusted to Spanish, Im currently writing this in an internet cafe using a Spanish keyboard. Things are not quite in the right place and Im struggling with making it give me the punctuation I want so sorry to those of you who are correcting my grammar. Its not really my fault. We also were lucky enough to have a project fair here where one of the subjects we covered for economic development are the absolute negation of private funds for Peace Corps projects. We can apply for grants but it takes a soul crushing 6 months or more for that stuff to come through so we will be into the second year before I could get any programs started on my own. I have some ideas of how I can get local Ticos who want to fund projects sooner than that to raise their own funds but we will have to see how it goes. I hate to think that a great business idea would have to go by the wayside just because we have to wait for the government. On the other hand local lenders can be unscrupulous. See above comment on interest. If I do have to wait a year I hope we get a beach site. Heres hoping. Damn I really need to figure out how to work this keyboard...exclamation point.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
07/31/2013 Zarcero
Just got back from visiting a married couple also in the Peace Corps. Jameson and Emecha are serving in the town of Zarcero. It's a town about an hour NW of San Jose. Talk about beautiful! It reminds me of that "hills are alive" scene in the Sound of Music. It sits at about 6000 feet and is known for it's cheese and milk products. We went for a little walk in the mountains on the first day with Carlos who works for the local government. By little I mean 15 kilometers up one side of a mountain and down the other side. The park was Juan Carlos Blanco national park and it was gorgeous except for the rain, and the slippery rocks.
Emecha made hambergers for us. It was a heavenly taste of the US to celebrate our second week here. We also had these delicious Costa Rican milkshakes that are made with tropical fruit. So far we've had the opportunity to try momachinos which in the Philippines are known as Rambutan. It's one of my favorites. Imagine a grape wrapped in a porcupine.We've tried Cas which are little green fruits that taste like a weaker, sweeter grapefruit. We haven't had guanabana (doo doo doo doodoo!) but we will soon. If you come down we suggest the mangoes, mora (like a blackberry) and pina (pineapple). We got to see them teach an English class to young entreprenures who want to serve as guides for local agriculture and park tours. J and E have had a lot of success creating biodigesters and starting a business based around them. (If you know what a biodigester is you know why being around them isn't awesome.) The church was awesome as well. There is a park in front of it made by a local artist. All sorts of animals and shapes are carved in the bushes. The artist was supposedly recruited by Disney but he turned them down because frankly, who wants to leave Zarcero? In any case we really enjoyed our trip and it has given us a lot to think about with respect to our future work site. Zarcero has no problems with bugs and a mild climate. It's also safer than some other towns and has a lot of local business work in agriculture. I'm personally still leaning towards a site with more tourism but a site like Zarcero is amazingly beautiful.
"Your not tripping. This gardener is just that cool."
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