San Ramon

Today we had the opportunity to visit a community center in one of the poorer areas of San Ramon.  On the way there our guide told us that there are lots of Nicaraguans that live there, who are very poor, and as we probably know where there is poverty there are also problems with drugs and crime.  It is also a common opinion in the USA that poverty goes hand in hand with addiction or crime.  Yet, we rarely connect "white collar crime" or drug addiction to higher socio-economic classes.  However, it is blatantly clear that drugs and crime occur throughout our society, regardless of socio-economic status, yet, we are quick to scapegoat these types of problems as a linked to poverty.

I also had an interesting conversation with our professor from PSU, Alba.  In the past, she had asked the school where we are studying ACCE if would be possible to visit secular social service agencies.  Apparently that was a foreign idea to the school, and in fact, there are few if any social service agencies in Costa Rica that are without religious affiliation.  In fact, the Costa Rica government is Catholic itself!  Separation of church and state is non-existent, which has its benefits as draw backs as you can imagine.

So, the community center we visited today was religious based, and there was a church group there volunteering with the kids as well.  We did some arts and crafts with them.  Here is Mariya (from PSU) working with a charming, but timid girl.

We also had the opportunity to play some games with the kiddos.  They were so sweet, and appeared to be fully immersed in the experience of playing.  It doesn't seem to matter a person's background, kids all play the same. One sweet girl decided to stick by my side throughout all the games.  She hardly let go of my hand the whole time.

Tomorrow we are going back to play with them some more.  I sometimes question the value of being such a brief and possibly insignificant event in their lives, and whether that brings any sort of benefit to them.  However, when a sweet kiddo takes your hand and is ready to play, regardless of background, appearance, language skills, its difficult to repress my own desire to be there.  Obviously I am swayed by the benefits I experience, but what do you think...what do the kids really get out of it?  Is it of any sort of benefit to have such brief interactions?