Hello blogosphere! ...and family and friends! I thought I'd start my blog by explaining what I'm doing and why.
The background
As many of you may already know, I finished my MBA last spring and to celebrate, I went to Costa Rica for 10 days with my mom on vacation. We hit up many of the touristy hot spots, including Arenal, Monteverde and Manuel Antonio. Long story short, I immediately "clicked" with Costa Rica and loved the "Pura Vida" attitude toward life. Toward the end of our vacation, my mom and I were hanging out in a local bar, and we sat next to this guy who had spent ten years living abroad teaching English; two of those years were spent teaching in Costa Rica. This little event planted the seed of moving to Costa Rica to teach English in my head. (Well, actually, I've always wanted to live abroad and have considered joining the Peace Corps many times over the years, but I thought living in Costa Rica for six months was the perfect "baby step" for living abroad!). Over the next seven months, I slowly researched opportunities to figure out if moving abroad was viable, what kinds of jobs/opportunities would be available to me, and I talked to people I knew who had done similar activities. In the end, I found the perfect program for me: a volunteer-based organization called EVOLC (English Volunteers for Change in Costa Rica), applied for the six month volunteer program and ultimately got in to the program.
The program
I recently found out I will be living in Liberia, Costa Rica for my six month volunteer program. Liberia is located in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, which, like most of the country, is a pretty big tourist attraction. Liberia is a larger city, is known as the Ciudad Blanca (white city) and has its own international airport. It's also only about 30 minutes away from the closest beach, so I'm hoping to hang out by the ocean as often as possible, but we'll see how realistic that is once I arrive and get settled! I will be doing a homestay, which means I will be be living with a local family. Hopefully living with a family will force me to become conversationally proficient in Spanish as quickly as possible! I'll be teaching M-F about twenty hours a week, and then I'll have about 20 hours per week to do lesson planning, grading homework, etc. I plan to spend the rest of my time exploring my surroundings and soaking in the beautiful country sights.
What to expect from this Blog
I have never been much of a journaler, but I'm going to give blogging a try since it seems like the most efficient way to stay in touch with everyone in the States. I promise to post plenty of pictures, and I'll try not to be too wordy. (However, I do tend to write a lot, so again, we'll see how that goes!). If you have any questions or want specific information about my little adventure, please let me know!
Cheers!
