Costa Rica Service Program: Day 4

Message of the Day offered by Linda:

To create is to boggle the mind and alter the mood. Once the urge has surged, it maintains its own momentum. We may go along for the ride but when we attempt to steer the course, the momentum dies. Sue Atchley Ebaugh

Journal by Paula:
Today started with yoga for Paula only and our thoughtfully prepared breakfast by Zelmira and our morning meeting.

We then proceeded to the Conservation Office and were greeted by Walter and other cheery people. Walter told us that today would be the last day at the Reserva and that tomorrow would start at 7:00 a.m. with a cheese making presentation by Raphael....yum! and then we would start our construction project at the Collegio which is helping with the storage shed.

We proceeded up the mountain to the Reserva to continue trail clearing. We managed to clear almost half of the trail in the three days that we worked at the Reserve. Gabriel was so pleased with our efforts. I will never forget the grin on his face as he praised us for a "a job well done!" We were able to see Arenal since it was so clear today. We climbed up on to a tower.
We were also lucky to see small black and yellow birds with red on top of the head - one of them was performing for us! We also saw the white-nosed coati again who also was entertaining us. Xavier, our new French friend, helped with the clearing today as well.

Linda, Nia and I came back to town and had an espresso and talked and talked and talked and then prepared for dinner.

Lots of good rest for Day 5.

Day 2 -Reserve Maintenance

The morning started with a yoga sessions with Linda and Paula and Monica from Texas.

Linda, Paula and Nia met for breakfast and Paula read her journal entry for day 1 and Linda read her Thought for the Day.

We then walked to the Conservation Office for the Colegio and met Walter, a graduate of the Colegio who graduated from the Colegio in his speciality of Eco Tourism. He gave us a presentation about the relationship between the Collegio and the Reserva Biologica Santa Elena. There are three agencies that work together....the Reserve, the Colegio and the Park Service. There is another reserve sponsored by children called The Childrens Eternal Forest to reclaim the forest for wildlife.

Linda and were pleasantly surprised by the change of work planned for today. We were asked if we would like to help with trail maintenance at the Reserve today because the manager of the construction project at the Collegio was not available....we were thrilled!

Walter, Nia, Linda and I jumped into a shuttle and headed for the Reserve and ,oh my gosh, it is more beautiful than I imagined.

Walter then proudly gave us a presentation and showed us videos of the animals captured at night on the cameras that had been placed at the Reserve in August.......they are the most breathtaking and exciting videos of animals I have ever seen.This was all made possible by a young tourist from the United States who raised money to purchase the cameras.

We then received rakes and followed Gabriel up the trail where he gave us our assignment....to rake up the fallen leaves that have fallen on to the gravel, pick up the leaves and throw them off to the side to make the trails safer for walking and to preserve the trails themselves.

We did that for a couple of hours and then had lunch in the cafeteria and returned to finish the project. We were surprised by a visit from Xavier from France who has been volunteering at the Reserve. He jumped in to help and we had a lovely conversation with him.

Then it was time to board the shuttle for the return trip to Santa Elena. We then walked into town and had coffee at the Common Cup Cafe. We had a lovely time talking about our day and other world happenings. The owner of the cafe told us that the small coffee growers do not like Fair Trade and they sell their coffee through the cafe and on the Internet.

We had some time before dinner and had another great dinner prepared at the Mar Inn and again talked and talked with a teacher from Texas. We then had our Goal Setting Session to better help us achieve our goals for participating in this Service Project as a Team.

Nighty' nite!

Paula

Paula chronicles the first day

Today was the beginning of our Team Project at the Colegio in Santa Elena. Linda and I are so happy to be part of this team and to have Nia Salas as our Team Leader.

The day started with a yoga class in the now called Yoga Room (formerly TV Room) at Alajuela Hotel facing the sun to begin the class and set an intention for the class and then having fun using the bean bags as props.

We then had breakfast together in preparation for our Orientation. Nia reviewed topics from our Volunteer Manual, answered specific logistic questions that we had and then provided us with Spanish phrases for our use in Costa Rica and at the project site.

We packed our bags, said good bye to our room and brought our bags downstairs and enjoyed our lunch together before hopping in the van with our driver Andre who was kind enough to stop for us to get coffee and espresso. We started our journey to Monteverde making two stops along the way to make the ride more comfortable.

After about two and one half hours on the paved road, we turned on to the bumpy and dusty road for our ascent to Monteverde. Nia provided us with all kinds of information along the entire trip. And then we were in Santa Elena at our home for the next weeks.

Linda and I walked into town for a little while and then sat and read and then enjoyed a fabulous home cooked meal of rice and blacks beans.

The moon is fabulous tonite and Nia caught a couple of good shots.

Time to turn in in preparation for Day 2.

Team Volunteer,

Paula K.

Janet joins the joy

The start of a new week, and the team was as busy as ever. Janet started her first day, and Rachel initiated her by joining hands and elbow grease to clean the last of the classrooms from top to bottom (well, not exactly ¨top¨since the ceiling was metal and didn´t need cleaning) and prep some fencing for painting sometime this week. Tina was busy most of the day gathering grass and planting it along with some local volunteers -- pretty much all of it in the middle yard which was dug up and leveled by Taylor last week. And, speaking of Taylor -- he was quite the Renaissance man today! He helped lay rebar and pour cement in the trench he dug last week, gathered up some fencing to be repurposed in the new backyard and many other things way too many to mention.

As has become the custom, the last hours was spent teaching English to the local volunteers -- and some of the local volunteers became teachers themselves when they taught some Spanish to Janet, who has a lot of catching up to do!

And when our work day was over, we got a very special treat when Alex took us to a wonderful family-owned sugar mill. Out of gratitude for the work the team has been doing for San Rafael, we were given a special tour of how sugar cane is made into molasses and how molasses is made into candy -- even got to try a few (or more) bites of it. Yum. After the demonstration, we took a walk through the fields to see the sun set over the bay and the mountains -- an absolutely breath-taking end to another productive and enjoyable day in Costa Rica.

Janet

Tina narrates friday's service program and personal weekend activities

Our day began as usual with a lovely breakfast at our hotel and reading of the prior day´s journal plus the quote of the day. We discussed how our teaching was going and compared notes from our prior evening of prep work. The day was cloudy, rainy and overcast and falling before the holiday weekend affected the turnout for work. Several people once again, but not as many as had worked together on Thursday. Xinia continues to be the unofficial jefe who helps direct the work of the group that is present each day. A new San Rafael friend, named Nidia, worked with Rachel and I on cleaning the exterior of the school building, including a thorough scrubbing of the concrete which was covered in many layers of mud and dirt. We wished for a power sprayer, but got along with elbow grease, brushes and enthusiasm instead. Taylor was once again at the rock pile, wheel barrowing and also again working on moving dirt and leveling ground. We also worked hard to clean the drainage area in front of the school. Rachel and Tina crossed the barbed wire fence with shovels in hand to dig a deeper trench to allow water to drain away from the school. It was one of our dirtiest jobs and most physically demanding. As always, Taylor was a big help, wheel barrowing away the final load of rock and soil. Due to the wet and cold morning break featured coffee along with tamales left from the prior day and a hearty lunch was served as well. As we finished our San Rafael day a bit early to allow the local folks time to prepare for the holidays, Rachel, Tina and Taylor spend extra afternoon hours preparing our English lesson materials.

Weekend

The holiday weekend was a joy for the team of Taylor-Rachel-Tina, as we enjoyed the arrangements Giovanni made for us to hike at the Arenal Volcano and to dine and relax at Valdi Hots Springs on Saturday. The bus-boat-bus trip is lengthy, but fascinating and the Hotel cabinas at La Fortuna were superb...what a lovely landscaping job at that establishment and a very nice restaurant with very kind staff. After Christmas morning breakfast at the hotel, we bus-boat-bussed back to Monteverde on a truly sunny & beautiful day, arriving in time for another fine meal at Mar Inn before dashing off to the Canopy Tour. Although Nia discouraged us from the zipline, we couldn´t resist and the three of us found the experience thrilling! At evening time, we welcomed our newest volunteer, Janet, to the group and shared a lovely Christmas evening meal together. An unconventional holiday for us, but a very memorable one!
Tina

Beautiful Rachel inside and out

12-21-2011:

This morning we were once again greeted with a wonderful breakfast eggs, fresh bread with piña (pineapple) and the breakfast version of rice and beans called gallo pinto (the dotted rooster). We then headed out to San Rafael to meet the rest of the crew, the community, and began to get to work. Today was unlike the rest because Tina, Taylor and I got to work together cleaning out a classroom. Although this my sound simple it is just the opposite. Have you ever mopped the ceiling with a wash cloth and a broom? I don't think so. I might add in on Taylor´s behalf that before the cleaning job he did push the wheel barrel full of earth across the property about 18+ times with some other muchachos in order to prepare the land for a grassy garden area so the kids will have a place to play, which used to be a mud pit because the land floods all of the time. After a wonderful cafè break our day took a bit of an unusual turn in that the volunteers were asked to teach some of the community English. We were broken up into three groups: Tina worked with the adults, Taylor worked with the teenagers, while I worked with the children of San Rafael (who are very smart by the way). I think we as volunteers are learning more from them than they are from us. ¡Pura Vida!

Tired Taylor trends on!

Today was extremely eventful, however it was also exceptionally tiring. We started this morning at 7 with a wonderful breakfast and an always pleasant recap of the previous day via Tina, followed by an inspirational message from John Lennon. After breakfast we packed our packs and took the bumpy 20 minute shuttle ride San Rafael what was suppose to be a day of painting and planting, but boy were we ever wrong. The first half of Rachel and Taylor's day consisted of digging a trench that seemingly extended all the way to china(for drainage not for quick escape). After our early day tasks the entire work team was extremely exhausted so a hardy lunch was required. Once the team had eaten a bountiful lunch we were sent on a mission to get grass from the local high school but were almost immediately sidetracked via an amazing display of ancient clay craftsmanship and a somewhat makeshift game of soccer. Once we got back on track we went to the school to gather the grass in a way none of us had ever seen before....a machete. Once we had enough grass to return back to the primary school we endured our long walk back. We returned back to the Mar inn around 4 pm and were all so exhausted we almost immediately fell asleep. After dinner we all discussed our plan of attack for teaching English to the local San Rafael residents, we in turn actually helped teaches Spanish to the entire team a little better.