(photo: Summer intern Cheyenne Pritchard paints the new schedule on the front of the library)
Summer intern Lexie Barber reports on the start of this
summer’s Beyond el Campo project in Santa Cruz, Costa Rica.
Cheyenne, Joel and I arrived on Saturday and I can’t believe
it’s already been three days. Time really does fly! Cheyenne and I left Chicago
Saturday morning, and after a smooth four-hour flight, we landed in San Jose.
The Costa Rican national soccer team was there so the airport was packed with
reporters and cameras. It was pretty cool! We were supposed to meet Joel in the
airport, but after 45 minutes of searching for him (with the help of a very
kind old woman who ran up to every man in the airport yelling “Joel?!”), Sergio
found us and told us that Joel was coming in late that evening instead since he
got into a car accident on his way to the airport. He’s ok though so don’t
worry!!
That evening we all got settled in our host homes and got to
know our host families. I’m living with Clemencia and Tali who are fantastic
people—so patient and welcoming. Cheyenne is living with NurÃa and Pedro and
Joel is living with Ana and her two sons Miguel and Cesar. Cheyenne and I live
super close to each other and Joel lives down a hill from us, a little ways
past the library.
On Sunday, Sergio took the three of us on a tour of Santa
Cruz. Everything is pretty spread out, vertically and horizontally, and we
haven’t fully adjusted to the altitude change so the walk wiped us out, but it
was great to get a better sense of where everything is. We saw the elementary
and high schools, the community center, grocery stores, greenhouse, and what
felt like dozens of houses that are owned by Sergio’s aunts and uncles. After
our tour we set up a calendar for all of our projects so that we would be ready
to discuss them with the president of Santa Cruz and the women who will be
working in the library with us. The meeting went smoothly and everyone seemed
excited to help us make our dreams a reality.
Our first main construction project is to convert one of the
classrooms into a computer lab. Today, Monday, we bought a bunch of paint and
wood finish to give the room a fresh new look. We’re hoping to begin painting
the walls tomorrow! Additionally, we have been helping the English teacher,
Sandra, with preschool English classes and will be holding our own English
classes for adults on Mondays and Wednesdays, the first class being this Wednesday.
It’s been a hectic couple of days, but honestly some of my
favorite days in a long time. Santa Cruz is gorgeous and everyone in town is so
friendly and kind. It’s clear that we can make a big impact here and despite
being a smaller group than is typical, we make a great team and are all on the
same page about what we want to accomplish in the next two months. I’m looking
forward to all of our projects for this week, and a possible beach trip this
weekend! More to come later on!
Ciao, Lexie
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