Liani Susalla

Practicing Pura Vida:

Liani Susalla’s Time in Siquirres, Costa Rica (2012-2014)

 

Liani Susalla woke up on her birthday each year during her service in Peace Corps to celebrate with a village-wide parade. She sat outside with her host family, eating, drinking and watching the performers pass by.

Although the Afro-Caribbean parade wasn’t for her, it made the day an extraordinary moment of culture and joy across Siquirres, Costa Rica that Liani appreciated.

It was one of the many times that she got to practice Pura Vida: Pure Life. She had learned that the Costa Ricans weren’t tied to strict schedules or the stress of a fast-paced lifestyle, but instead embraced the state of mind that by enjoying life, everything would be ok.

After an initial year at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey and graduating from UNT with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, Liani was ready to pursue the Peace Corps service she had been considering since high school.

“I was really interested in the traveling aspect, being somewhere abroad, and then I really wanted the physical challenge of being somewhere with limited resources,” Liani said.

At UNT, Liani volunteered with a Katrina relief program and youth reading encouragement as well of a multi-cultural group that provided English practice to international students.

“I think those [volunteer programs] are a really great way to kind of set you up for being in a volunteer mindset and seeing how these types of things happen,” Liani said.

During her international studies degree, Liani focused on international development and Latin America which were especially beneficial for her time in Costa Rica.

She worked as a Teaching English in a Foreign Language (TEFL) Teacher Trainer at her site. When she arrived in country, the TEFL program was fairly new, so Liani and her cohort were able to give feedback and help structure the program going forward.

She didn’t have any set classroom, grade level or subject. Instead, she met with the English teachers at the schools that wanted assistance and responded to their needs.

“There was a lot of emphasis on sustainability,” Liani said. “We essentially wanted to find a Costa Rican English teacher that we could co-teach with or we could pair with.”

She worked with one teacher at the elementary school and one at the high school to co-teach classes, develop materials and create lesson plans even though she had no professional teaching experience herself.

“It was challenging, but it was very, very doable,” Liani said. “Peace Corps Costa Rica did a great job at training us.”

Outside of language and teaching education, Peace Corps pre-service training also provides cultural and environmental knowledge for new volunteers.

“[Peace Corps] did a really great job of preparing you for the isolation part of service,” Liani said. “There was a lot of discussion about what that feels like and what resources we would have, and different ways to keep yourself from falling into too much isolation.”

Although she lived in a bigger community, Liani still experienced loneliness after separating from her fellow volunteers. She missed having people to relate to about her experiences as a volunteer or to speak to in English, but this made her connections with her community friends even stronger.

After school, Liani often had Cafecito, or coffee time, with her co-teachers or host family, and, in the evenings, she played card games or watched telenovela’s with her host auntie.

Even now Liani stays in touch with the friends she made in her community.

“We truly became family,” Liani said.

As they spent time together, she practiced her Spanish and improved her formal speaking and grammar. She also picked up some Jamaican Patois from her host aunties.

“It’s pretty incredible what you can do when you need to do it,” Liani said, speaking of the need to live in the language.

When Liani did reconnect with her fellow volunteers, they went on trips to beaches and worked on secondary projects together.

During the school’s longer summer break, Liani hosted English camps for students that were graduating elementary and going into high school, with the help of her fellow volunteers. The TEFL volunteers also worked together to create a nation-wide English spelling bee for students that is still held today.

After service, Liani used her non-competitive eligibility for a government position and applied to jobs across Detroit. She began working in the U.S. Department of Labor as an investigator.

“[Non-competitive eligibility] one hundred percent put me to the top of the list,” Liani said. “I don’t think I would have been hired without it.”

Now, Liani is a senior criminal investigator and is still in contact with many of the TEFL teachers from her cohort, some of whom work in international offices with the U.S. government.

“I think Peace Corps service has really given me a persistence and the ability to shake things off when they fail and just move forward,” Liani reflected.

From observing the respect that Costa Ricans have for their environment to the relationships that she made and maintains, Liani didn’t just provide Costa Rica with English education, she brought Pura Vida back to the United States.

Interested in learning more about Liani's time in Costa Rica? You can reach out to her here.

^{Written and Edited by Eliana Fulton, B.A. Journalism Student at UNT
Interviewed by Zach Yeager, Peace Corps Prep Coordinator}