Would you like some corn with your corn?

This post has nothing to do with the corn upon corn upon corn that is currently my diet. The harvest is in. But that's not what I want to talk about right now.

Many volunteers have confirmed my suspicions that I was right to feel injured when some people at home (thank God no one I'm close to) insinuated that Peace Corps in Costa Rica is less hardcore than Peace Corps in other, lesser developed nations. To this I have many things to say that have been stewing in my mind for much longer than the last two weeks. Below, I shall set that opinion straight and will end up paraphrasing many a good volunteer and friend.

Do I have running water? Yes. Okaaaay, you got meeee, I can stay clean in Costa Rica. Of course, cold water from a tube - that cuts out now and again with no warning, but usually once I'm shampooed - doesn't jive with the imagery that ''Posh Corps'' brings to mind, does it? Potable water is icing on the cake and y'all already know what I say to that - less time suffering from some horrible tropical intestinal disease means more time for community integration and project planning.

Peace Corps Goal Two and Three right there, baby.  Cultural exchange.

Infrastructure...well where do we begin with this one? I totally have a highway that runs through my town. There's a bus that passes every morning for San José and except for Sundays I can go to Santa Cruz or Nicoya any time I want. Both are cities with plenty of resources and both about an hour away. The highway isn't paved, but who cares? I have access. Wayyyy more access than most other volunteers in Costa Rica. But you know what access brings - expectations. I live in a community of 300 people, 90% of whom are not employed gainfully and they see every time they go into town a life with resources that they want. I'm not saying that everyone's ready to move to the city just to have a supermarket on the corner. But my community members are aware of what's ''wrong'' with our community in light of other communities that are nearby. They feel far behind a standard that's been set. There is ONE person that they lay this all on - me. I'm the development worker, after all. Can't you just get us computers for the school and a grant to finish building the town hall? You can get money for these projects from Peace Corps, why haven't you done that yet? Building human capacity and human resources within my town is extremely difficult when physical resources and development are visibly and notably absent compared to other, accessible towns. Mucho. Pressure. All the time.

And language. Yeah, Spanish is probably easier than learning a non-romantic language. And Costa Rica only has one national language. Compare this to, say, South Africa with eleven national languages (Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu...thank you Wikipedia). But it's still taken me 7+ years of speaking and study before I got to Costa Rica to not struggle with every interaction I have in Spanish. And there are volunteers who didn't speak a lick of Spanish before arrival who are expected to do the same job that I am. So if the assessment of Costa Rica's push over-ness as a Peace Corps country is based on that, then shove it.

I don't eat crocs or goats or insects. Just inoffensive rice and beans. Three times a day. For two years. And you know what? I learned to love it. Which makes me more hardcore than any of the the people who eat weird shit and hate it.

And - as one of my friends put it so brilliantly - I picked Costa Rica just about the same that other volunteers picked South Africa (to be consistent). Which is to say, not at all. I was ready to go anywhere, told Peace Corps that I'd do any work they thought I'd be suited for. For awhile, it was looking like Kazakhstan. Then I heard I'd be a rural community development volunteer and wouldn't you know that The Gambia has that program. But nope, I opened my invitation to serve and it said Costa Rica. Who in the hell was I to argue? ''Hi, sorry, but can you please place me in a country that friends and family can never visit because travel is cost prohibitive or the political climate is a little too hot?'' Not a phone call I was going to make.

I don't have a photo of myself performing the First Goal of transferring technical skills, 

because my camera was stolen from me in an armed assault in San José.

But believe me that these are people who, like me, get their First Goal ON.

I, too, thought I was not having an ''authentic'' Peace Corps experience in the beginning. But then after a while I said, ''Eff that noise. I am fulfilling goals one, two and three of Peace Corps just fine in Costa Rica.'' If Peace Corps was about taking a crap in a hole outside and bucket baths then I'd be ashamed to call myself a Peace Corps volunteer. But it's not. It's teaching people how to act for themselves in a positive way that achieves sustainable change. And earning their respect by caring about them while you do it. I'm sure volunteers in South Africa are volunteers by that standard.

As am I.