13 year old Willie writes about his volunteer experience

There aren’t words that can describe the day we’ve had today, in Spanish, or English. I have experienced so many new things, seen so many new animals, and watched so many faces brighten as they smile. So here is my modest attempt to describe our adventurous day.

The first thing in the morning, I woke up to the bright sun of Costa Rica, and it is hard to believe, when you see how bright it is, that it is the same sun we may see in America (or especially Canada). We had a breakfast of pancakes, and I loved it so much that I would fly around the world just to taste it again. I could already tell it was going to be a good day.

Upon arrival at our volunteer town, Cañitas, we were greeted by our soft, scruffy, local friends, the dogs (los perros de Cañitas). Soon, after heavy sunscreening and putting on gloves, we walked briskly to a large pile of rocks, where we shoveled mounds of dirt and sand and smoothed them onto the ground. Laughs from everyone were heard as we aggressively papparazzied a tiny little plastic cow on the rocks and in a small ditch we’d dug yesterday. Another very important piece of news was that Native American leader, strong Judy, resigned her position to strong Andrew, as he pulled a giant redwood tree out of the ground with his bare hands (with a tiny bit of help from Riel and Ronald).

Later, Maayan, Jericha, and I were assigned to cook in the kitchen. The old women that we worked with were so nice, and laughed at one of Jericha’s small mistakes with an egg, as she smashed it on the side of the oven with a little too much force. We were impressed by our own courage when we tried what we thought to be goat, that turned out to just be pork. My Spanish did not cover this area of subjects so well, apparently…

At lunch we ate pleasantly, with tea, watermelon juice, and massive amounts of Lizano salsa as the main staples. The delicious Costa Rican traditional foods seemed to bode well with everyone. Maayan seemed a little angry though with her ancestors, for making rice pudding, with the “interesting” texture it has.

After lunch, we had our daily game of soccer, that involved species from dog to human, and humans from Costa Rica to Canada. Riel though, seemed to be a close second to Spot (the name we gave to one of the dogs) in soccer. They barked with their approval.

Later, after much more digging, wheelbarrowing, and looking for “palas”, or shovels with Keilor, or Elena, we went home to see Jesse and my mom. Unfortunately for Jesse and my mother, Jesse was sick and could not come to this day of work.

Finally, we went on a nature walk in the dark near Santa Elena. We saw a beautiful array of animals, including kinkajous, sloths, toucanettes, tarantulas, and so on. It seemed like the perfect way to end a perfect day. But oh no, it wasn’t. At about 8 o’clock, we pulled back into the Mar Inn driveway, thinking silently, and aloud of the animals we had seen. When we came inside, we watched some Spanish dubbed Dog Whisperer, and played an extremely enthusiastic game of Parcheesi. After about half an hour, everyone started yelling at me to go up and write this, so, here it is; a day in Monteverde.