Game plan while back in los EEUU

After a conversation with the director of Escuela de los Amigos, I've learned that there is a way to fundraise without any money being lost to a middle-man. Here's the process:

1. Set up a 501(c)(3) organization in the U.S. 
2. Create an account for this organization on universalgiving.org
3. Spread the word about both organizations to help collect funds
4. After funds have been collected, have the Costa Rican organization apply for a grant from the U.S. 501(c)(3)
5. Request that the 501(c)(3)'s bank transfer the approved amount of money to the Costa Rican organization's bank account
6. Include transaction on 501(c)(3)'s tax return
7. Repeat steps 3 - 6

For information on how to set up a 501(c)(3), watch this video with creepy men who have no pupils: http://www.stayexempt.irs.gov/

Friends, coffee shop music, and more friends

The folks at ICADS encourage students in their internship program to live far away from each other to promote a real immersion in their new community and the language that is spoken there (some dialect of Spanish). While some of my classmates are together in Nicaragua, most of us are on our own, including myself. As a result, my social life changed dramatically upon arriving to my internship: whereas in my previous living situation I would frequently go out to meet up with my friends from the U.S. and India, here the majority of my interactions are between members of my host family, the Ticos with whom I work, and the various people I have interacted with to get internet. For one reason or another, I actually haven’t gone to visit the famous reserves in the area, but I did go on a hike to el mirador of the Arenal volcano. The hike was organized by Escuela de los Amigos (The Friends School) of Monteverde as a fundraiser to support their offerings in art and music. This school was founded by the group of Quakers (also known as “Friends”, hence the name of the school) who migrated to Costa Rica to live in a country that respected their pacifist beliefs. They left the United States – many left specifically from the state of Alabama – during the 1950s when the government for the first time instituted a mandatory draft during peacetime. After much searching for suitable land to develop in their new country, they eventually settled in an area that they named “Monteverde”. Though they could not have done it without the help of many welcoming Ticos, these Quakers were hugely instrumental in making this area what it is today. For example, they started the Monteverde Cheese Company, and a number of them have contributed greatly to the maintenance of the Monteverde Cloud Forest (Reserva Bosque Nuboso Monteverde). One man in particular, Wilford “Wolf” Guindon, did an unthinkable amount of walking and working in the forest. You can learn more about his story, which recounts much of the history of this area of Costa Rica in general, in the book Walking with Wolf, which I am currently reading in my free time.

I had a great time on this walkathon (or “caminata” as its called in Spanish) and contributed some colones (Costa Rican currency) to support their arts programs. I almost felt bad about giving any amount of money to the school, though, considering that the school I teach at doesn’t even have art or music classes to begin with. Part of this is due to the fact that there are only two teachers in the school and neither of them teaches art or music. I have heard from my host family that they would like to have someone to teach chorus to the kids, as singing is an integral part of the church services.

In addition to participating with the Quakers’ walkathon, I also attended one of their silent meetings. The meeting was not entirely silent, as several other people and I stood up to give a message, and I also spoke with attendees before and after the service. It turns out that I have a number of connections with Wolf Guindon and his wife Lucky: they are the great aunt and uncle of a good friend of mine from high school, and the grandparents of two fellow Grinnell students. Perhaps as a result of this, along with the fact that I myself attended two different Quaker schools in the U.S., La Escuela de los Amigos and the people I met there seemed strangely familiar and I felt quite at home. My interactions with them were not that frequent, but I did see some of them in town – at the bank, at Libreria Chunches – and they provided me a social life outside of my host family and the cyber world of Skype and Facebook. I should note that I also got to spend a little bit of time with a group of Canadian high school students who came down for two weeks of their Spring break to learn, sightsee, and help the community (they painted the church and donated many things to the school). A social life more like the one I experienced back in San Jose would soon show up to my surprise.

After attending a meeting with ADI, I was invited by my host uncle (ADI’s treasurer) to eat dinner with his family. It was during that dinner that I met a fellow gringo named Jake who I learned was living with them during part of his time studying abroad through CIEE. We talked for a while during dinner and I was happy to speak more fluently with someone with whom I could relate. I explained to him how I got here and how I have been very far away from all my friends and classmates from ICADS. While he and his classmates also have individual projects, they continue to live relatively near to each other and get together regularly. When I asked him if they had planned anything for the weekend, he didn’t hesitate to invite me to go out with them to a café called The Common Cup for a small jam session that included at least one of their professors. Fortunately I was able to go and meet them and one of Jake’s host brothers.

The group that played at the coffee house appeared to be all gringo Costa Ricans of ages probably ranging from mid 20s to at least mid 40s. A bottle of rum and a tambourine were passed around - both compliments of one of the musicians – and somehow I ended up playing the tambourine for almost the whole jam session. Now, I’m a pretty big music fan, and I do play guitar a little, but I haven’t really performed before, even in a relaxed, informal setting like the one in the coffee shop that night. Previous to that night, I had only imagined myself playing with a band and an audience. But with that combination of ron y tambourine, I was playing along with cover after cover of songs like “Hotel California” and “The Weight”. When it all finally wound down, I hadn’t really gotten to know that many people that well, but I absolutely had been treated to a good time. 

Sister Cities and a Throwback UPN Show

I learned a few weeks ago that Monteverde has a sister city: Estes Park, Colorado, U.S.A. While the town of canitas is separate from the town of Monteverde - in fact they're not even in the same province - it is definitely part of the hilly area that many would also call "Monteverde" (the name, after all, is a contraction of "green mountain"). The school has already received help from people connected to Estes Park, and I hope to make it easier for others to help a sister out.

Websites are expensive. Blogs are cheap.

I had originally thought that all you needed to buy to have a website is a domain name, which only costs around $10/year. Turns out you also need to pay for hosting, which runs from about $50 - 110/year. Clearly I'd prefer that money to go to places other than godaddy.com. As a result, I think I'll just help the school and the development organization set up their own blogs. That would be cheaper and would also be easier for them to update and generally manage.

Interesting, and a little off-putting

The English-Teaching Robot

Volunteers, donations, and self-reliance

From my previous posts, it is fairly evident that I was set on finding a way to make online transfers of donations to the organizations with which I am working, and to help them attract volunteers. While I still want to make this possible, I am equally concerned about what effect this may have on their ability to remain self-reliant. I certainly would not become the-one-who-brought-us-the-money-and-help as they have been receiving both for years. My teachers from ICADS have communicated to me that evidence exists showing that people are simply less likely to take care of something that is donated to them than they are to care for something they worked for. The alternative to the organizations having resources dumped on them is to organize some kind of fundraiser to help themselves. I have already seen this in practice when I supported the Monteverde Friends School through their walkathon. I also helped the local public school raise funds by purchasing a raffle ticket (if #18 is picked, i win "a surprise"). In my interviews with key community members, which are summarized below in "Tarea #3", I learned that the budget the school receives from the government always has to be supplemented by the parent association (La Junta Escolar). Moreover, I have witnessed firsthand how much the school could benefit from having another teacher as well as another classroom. The school does not have a library, and the students don't even get textbooks - old or otherwise. Clearly there is a need for investment, but what is the best way to bring it about?

I believe that there is nothing wrong with making it easier for the elementary school and the community development organization to receive volunteers and donations. After spending a fair amount of time researching the possibilities, I have learned that this should be possible using universalgiving.org for volunteers and electronic transfers to the organizations' bank accounts for donations. I don't know if all banks make transfers to Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, or if any would make that possible to do from the comfort of ones computer, but if it works to some degree, it would make a great improvement.

It is important for myself and the people I work with to keep in mind that, even with these tools in place, this will not provide a quick fix - for a number of reasons, they still need to organize events such as bake sales, raffle contests, and community parties to raise money. I'm confident, though, that they will have no problem managing this:

One of the many cakes my host mother has made in her informal cake business

 Who wouldn't buy from a bake sale of this quality?

Tarea #2

Colin Yarnell

4/10/11

Lugares Importantes en la Comunidad de Cañitas

El Salon: a multi-use building mostly used for indoor soccer and dances 

Este edeficio es El Salon. Es importante porque sirve para un edificio multiuso para la recreacion donde la gente le gusta jugar deportes y a veces hay bailes tambien. El tesorero de la organización de desarrollo integral de Cañitas me dijo que un lugar como este para la recreacion es importante para distractar los jovenes de las drogas recreativas que se puede encontrar en Santa Elena/Monteverde.

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The elementary school where I teach

Este foto claramente es de la escuela. Es importante porque es la única escuela en el pueblo. El edificio tiene dos aulas, una cafetería, y unos sanitarios. Al derecho, se puede ver el jardín y mas lejos La Salón. Cuando saque este foto, estuve en la cancha de futbol. En el otro lado de la escuela, afuera del edificio, hay otra área para recreo con un swing set, un seesaw, y un jardín donde trataron de sembrar cosas pero no han tenido éxito.

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La Casa Club: a non-recreational multi-use building

Este es La Casa Club. El edificio sirve para la comunidad en varios funciones. Unos ejemplos son: Yo lo uso para enseñar clases pequeños de ingles, la organización de desarrollo integral lo usa para unas de sus reuniones, y unos Canadienses lo usaron para una presentación sobre sus experiencias viviendo en la comunidad por dos semanas en Marzo. La Casa Club está apoyada, por lo menos en parte, por la organización Clubes 4-S que es de Costa Rica. El foto debajo fue sacado dentro del edificio.

Inside of La Casa Club

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The Catholic church

Este foto es de la iglesia Católica de Cañitas. Es importante para la comunidad porque me parece que casi todo la gente es Católica.

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The ATV: a common mode of transportation

One aspect of community life that has surprised me is that in some ways, people seem to be less averse to risk than many communities in the United States. For example, motorcycles appear to be a common mode of transportation, and it is often that I see three passengers on one bike: usually a man driving, a woman sitting behind, and a very small child sitting in front. Sometimes not one of the passengers is wearing a helmet. While my host mother has expressed nervousness about the popular activity of riding dirt bikes, and people speeding on a motorcycle up and down the precarious, rocky road here are described as “loco”, little concern seems to be produced from piling half a family on a single motorcycle. If my family – or any other U.S. family for that matter – witnessed this occurring along even the best-paved and generally safest roads, they would very likely turn their heads and say something to the effect of “que locos”. I have not investigated the potential causes of this behavior, and won’t pretend to know why it occurs, but I would assume that the families’ financial situations might influence the decision to travel this way. Perhaps if they could afford to buy a vehicle with four side door airbags, or even just a vehicle with doors, they would. This is really just an educated guess, but I would imagine that the motorcycles, ATV’s, and go-karts driven by the people here probably are more affordable than the cars that can also be seen in the area, usually belonging to a taxi company or a relatively wealthy person.
Similarly, when I asked the substitute teacher at Escuela Cañitas if I could teach English there part of the week, she took under a minute to say yeah, it was fine. If I wanted to do this in the United States, I’m sure I’d have to go through some sort of background check to make sure I wasn’t a child molester. While I understand the importance of these kinds of checks, they can be quite time-consuming and seemingly unnecessary (because I for one know that I am not a child molester). But here, not only was it the case that I got to start teaching right away, I also was given quite a bit of time during the class to teach – usually about 50 minutes. While I can see why they might be excited to have a native English speaker come to teach voluntarily, I am a bit surprised that they would give me that much time, considering I am not really a teacher and there aren’t that many hours in the school day.
The social interactions between the students and the teachers have also surprised me. For example, the group of students with whom I work often get their teacher’s attention by calling out “niña!”. Conversely, when the teacher tries to convince a student to cooperate, she will often say “________, mi amor, por favor …”. I understand that I should probably not make a literal translation of “niña” or “mi amor”, and that the phrases may not be as affectionate as they are merely traditional, but they still seem far less dry than referring to a teacher as Mr./Ms. _____ or simply using a student’s first name to grab his/her attention. As is the case in other settings in Costa Rica, physical touching is much more acceptable in the classroom. A number of times I have seen some of the older boys wrap their arm around the substitute teacher’s shoulder, which did not provoke any protest from her. I’ve also seen a different female teacher give a girl an affectionate slap on the butt. Like in the previous example, the person receiving the contact seemed neither surprised nor upset by the action. While this type of friendly spank is quite common in certain American arenas, such as between a male athlete and his male coach, it would very likely raise some eyebrows were it to occur within a classroom.
The last difference I’d like to comment on is the unthinkable amount of rice I’ve consumed here. Unless I specifically state that I would rather not eat rice with a meal, it is inevitably included as a side dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At least one day I had a dinner that included rice as a side dish of the main plate, a drink that was made somehow of rice, and a dessert of rice pudding. I’ve been told that a Tico couldn’t live without rice, and can see clearly how it has a cultural importance for the people here, but even so, I was surprised to see and eat so much of it three times a day. It seems to me that in the United States, it is mainly the exceptionally picky eaters, and those faithful to a particular type of cereal, who eat any one food with such frequency. I personally am accustomed to a fairly varied diet, and have already grown tired of the heaping helpings of rice I am offered here.
I am not entirely sure what this all has taught me about my own culture, as I can never know exactly what are the roots of the differences I have identified. With regard to food, I think I already had a sense that the United States doesn’t really have any one food that bears the same cultural importance to us as something like gallo pinto does to Costa Rica. After all, as a nation of immigrants, we are the “salad bowl” (or are we the “melting pot”?), and we like to sample the food that other cultures have brought us: Chinese takeout, Greek gyros, Ethiopian food, “TexMex”, etc. In my opinion, with the exception of maybe fast food, no dish is “American as apple pie”, not even apple pie itself. While this delicious dessert makes an occasional appearance for special occasions, such as Thanksgiving, I think most Americans would not dare eat it every day for fear of putting on weight and/or damaging their health. Fear may also be playing a role in the decision of many Americans to buy the gas-guzzling SUV because of its crash safety rating. One could easily point the finger at the country’s aggressive capitalism, which often exploits people’s anxieties to motivate them to keep consuming. At the same time, however, the economy’s success in growing wealth (for some) may be what has allowed many Americans to afford a safe car. This may also be what allows the oversight in schools to happen to protect children from potential harm. Or maybe there is something else happening behind the scenes to create these noted differences and I haven’t seen it yet. As I spend more time here and reflect on the cultures I have experienced, I’m sure my understanding of them will grow and evolve.