Costa Rica: Final Farewell Providencia

Note: So these keyboards here are really weird, so I havent figured out how to use some figures... Just a warning if you see typos!

It didnt strike me till this morning. Saying goodbye for real. Yesterday, when some of the families said some farewells, Orlando didnt say much. But Louisa started tearing up this morning at our final breakfast, and I couldnt hold them in either. Kristal and I wrote a short letter in Spanish to them, what we could. They read that aloud. I wrote a longer one in English but theyd have to wait for Jon to translate it. I dont remember what Louisa said. I dont really think I know or understood what she said. But thats when she teared up. And again after we loaded our bags. They told us, "Me casa-Su casa." or My house is our house. We{re welcome back anytime. I gave her a final hug and Louis a hug. Then Orlando said he{s driving with us to drop us off at the village center. Awkward-not-goodbye-hug! That{s okay. We picked up Amber and Jackie along the way. Louis sat on top of the spare tire hanging outside the trunk of the car. I took some final pictures. It{s so funny, these people are always so happy but can never smile in pictures. When I took a picture with Louis, the town mayor made a joke that I could carry him with me in my bag if I wanted since hes so small for 17. But Orlando said he{d miss him too much so I couldnt. Oh well! I still cant believe Im out of Providencia. I miss it there already.

Back in Heredia...

On our way to Heredia where wed rendez-vous with the rest of ISV adventure tour groups, we stopped at the same road restaurant I mentioned before. So our bus wouldnt start for quite some time... We had to push the huge bus for some momentum and there it went down the hill... for awhile... we waited... no return... So Hannah, Amber, and I trotted down the road and there it was sitting on the side again. But our driver fixed it. Not sure what he did. Rigged something by connecting something to the stereo...

We got to the hotel for tonight. Walked to get some lunch at Pizza Hut but the walk was not the same... Not like in Providencia where saying hi is a friendly gesture and not a pickup line. Oh, I miss you already!

Costa Rica: Last day in Providencia

Our last day in Providencia...
280 ecobricks
50 meters or road
over 600 coffee plants on their way to being organic
and a fresh batch of bucashi

This is also our last day of work. This is the day where we finally leave our mark in this community, literally. We hand mixed cement and lined the road with our ecobottles. This prevents the road from erosion. Afterwards we got to imprint our signature! I put Chinita, since thats really the only way the town will remember me. But I put my name next to it and a hand print too. So if you ever do visit beautiful Providencia... you know who that is if you see it. :)

It feels so great to be done but theres also a feeling of incompletion. My heart isnt content on leaving this place... I want to see this road done. I want to see it lined with ecobricks, however terrible of a job it was working with wreaking trash. I want to see all the farms organic. Even though I was sick and didnt get a wink of sleep, I could not miss this last day. My host mom was so sweet, too. I was going to sleep in and skip dinner last night but she came to bring me some lemon and honey and an unknown pill. I can proudly say that I worked my best and put in a lot of effort to this project. Im definitely going to visit this place again.

Coming into this trip, I was really worried about the language barrier. Usually when I dont understand someone, I just become stand offish and not really worry about interacting with them. But this town is so amazing. I find myself more motivated to learn from them and try to understand what they say. I actually teared up explaining this to the group, which was embarrassing. But this language barrier really made me grow as a person. I really feel like I{ve taken away so much from the people of Providencia.

When we got home, Louisa asked if we'd go with her to a friends house. We really didnt understand but went anyway. Actually it was Orland's other brother's house up the hill. I think it was his wife there but she weaves strips of newspaper into baskets, figures, wallets, etc. It was pretty neat. She brought us there to give us a present that we could pick out ourselves. Kristal and I picked out a cute mini wallet. Plus, I saw the only cat in Providencia! I've noticed - Costa Rica is really a dog town. When we returned home I gave her two of my jeans, t-shirts, a hat, a little needle/thread set, and a little hand soccer video game. Surprisingly, I think she is small enough to fit them. Later that night, the town prepared us a farewell celebration. We all dressed up NOT in work clothes. They prepared dinner and a couple skits, a slideshow of our past two weeks, and some final last words.
Now the skits... They were interesting... How would I describe it? Masked cross dressing doctor - pregnancy delivery role play using farmhand tools to deliver a bunny from the town whore. That was just one. The 2nd was a kid band with cross dressing back up dancers. One of the really promiscuous ones with his bra exposed to black boobie balloons is from Vietnam apparently, as Jon introduced. Keep in mind, this small community and most of Costa Rica are heavily Catholic so this behavior in seriousness is frowned upon but a reason for comic relief.

The mouse.

We got home and changed, tidyed up, then something shoots across the floor near Kristal's bed. It was a cute little mouse but we both kinda freaked... So Louis comes by our door cracking up laughing. I don't think I've ever seen him laugh that much. Probably the closest bonding moment we have had, sadly. Orlando comes in with a broom. Louisa comes in with a mop. We tear the room up but of no prevail. Ok - off to bed. But as Kristal goes to close the door, the mouse climbs down the frame and she screams! Louisa comes back with a broom and just starts smashing! Oh my... my mom would freak out. (She is Buddhist) So the mouse is dead and she just sweeps it out the door. Probably the most exciting thing to happen amongst us.

Costa Rica: Bonding time

Free day #2! Most of the group went to Jonathan's adventure park where they ziplined, climbed up inside the a hollow tree, got sling shot up, did a tarzan swing, and some other neat things. You can learn more about little tours he leads at www.santostour.net. Katrina, Hannah, and I decided to stay behind. I still haven't found my 50,000 colones so I'm a little shorter on cash. Instead, Orlando took us to the Rio Savagre (i finally found out its name).

I went fishing with him while the other 2 went swimming. He took us through a different trail and we actually saw the big boulder cave where Orlando's father (the very first person of Providencia) stayed. He also took us to different parts of the river, too. I really felt like Indiana Jones for a bit. Unfortunately, no fish for dinner. There were no trout anywhere!! After that, I finally got to see his little beehinve. I dressed up in the whole ensembleñ overalls, jean long sleeved jacket, a netted hat cover. I looked kind of like someone that might sneak into your farmhouse and murder you in your sleep though. Just saying... Oh, and I also got pricked by this crazy looking caterpillar. It stung like heck but Orlando said its not poisonous and should be fine by tomorrow. Then he grabbed it with his gloves on and stepped on it. Green goo exploded everywhere...

At about 2 we had to meet the rest of the group back at the restaurant for the "extreme lunch" that was part of the "extreme adventure park." Overall I'm pretty satisfied with my free day. I definitely appreciated spending time with my host dad, instead.

Costa Rica: Some History

Some interesting facts compiled about Providencia!

Population 200 people
only 3 different families
The first people of Providencia came only 50 years ago
Amongst one of those was Orlando's father
There are 12 coffee farms
4 are going organic! only 8 to go :)
Finally figured out the name of Juan's restaurant - Cascada de la Savagre, named after the river that runs through Providencia

Quite interesting, I thought. The short period explains a lot of how this place is so small and conserved. Hopefully, it stays this way.

For work, we put the organic fertilizer on Juan's farm first. He wasn't there because his son fell ill and they had to rush to Santa Maria. I separated 2 kg per bucket to be put under each of his approximate 500 coffee plants. After his farm, we went to work on Orlando's farm prepping the same way we did Juan's before applying the bucashi. I pretty much sweated my butt off. Heaving and huffing and puffing the whole time. So after lunch Jon told me to go home and rest instead of doing ecobricks...

I hope I'll be okay for tomorrow's free day. Tonight, we're all meeting at the restaurant and having a sleep over. We all broke into groups and made dinner. We started cooking at 7:30 and finished at 10:30pm. it was pretty good though... almost worth the wait. We made avocado dip, potato chips, potato and eggs, and cauliflower and eggs. We watched the movie Into The Wild based on the book. I've seen it before but now I remember how much I dislike the main character. That'd be another long tangent. In the morning, everyone will leave for Jon's adventure park. Hannah, Katrina and I are going with Orlando to fish and see his beehive!

Costa Rica: Getting Sick

Not the best day for my health. I'm definitely getting sick. My throat is closing up, hard to swallow, chills, pooped 4 times today already, and can barely keep my head up. But I'll go to bed after I finish writing this. Plus, I have splinters on the right toe next to my pinky toe, and tons of bug bites from work today. My whole body is sore from the soccer match yesterday. I lost an earplug on my earphone. But I took a histamine and vitamin c pill. Okay, so I was supposed to take vitamins everyday but haven't. I'm just really bad about taking pills. I want to be able to work tomorrow though. I hate missing days off of anything. I want to work; I paid to make a different, gosh darn it!

Not everything was bad though. We worked at Kylie's host family's farm making a natural barrier of trees around the farm property and digging holes to prevent erosions on the hill. I didn't realize we were going through such high grass to dig these holes so I wore shorts. We had to dig the holes, in Katrina's words, "the size of a big hug." Or a grave big enough for a dog (my comparison, though morbid, is a little easier to keep in perspective, I think). Katrina and I dug about 2.5 pits and a planted a bunch of bamboo shoots 10 inches into the ground. I found tomatoes that grow on trees. I was pretty astonished, but it had a thicker bitter skin. There are actually quite a few plants here that resemble the tomato. So interesting...

Costa Rica: Always Something New

The bst part of this trip is that there´s always something new to learn or do. Our set schedule is as follows:

6am wake up
6:30 breakfast
7 walk to the work site
7:30 start work
9:45 to 10 break and snack time
12pm lunch time
1 to 3pm ecobricks
7:30pm dinner

Even with such long days, there is never a dull moment. Today, we were supposed to go to the waterfall after ending work on the roads project early but the weather was a little clowdy. We might go tomorrow if weather permits. So we worked until 12 for lunch back at the local restaurant, a little hang out in the town. Then stuffed ecobricks for 2 hours which usually would be 3 but today was a discussion day. Our exercise was to pitch a tourist lodge in Providencia to the "locals." We dicussed some issues surrounding community development and tourism, and watched a film about exactly how big hotels and tourist attractions destroy the community instead of reinforcing it. I definitely have always thought that there was no point to traveling if all your money is wasted on isolating yourself on just an expensive luxury hotel. There is no cultural gain from that... This film showed how the government ignored the local protests to stop these constructions. Lots of things are wrong with foreign owned hotel branches.

1. None of the profit really goes back to the people
2. Huge amounts of land are destroyed to build these hotels
3. Unnecessary and wasted water usage for the property, golf fields, etc that could have been used for the locals
4. The locals are alienated
5. Most hotel products are imported from elsewhere since they usually offer a variety of international cuisine
6. The locals protest it, so shouldn´t that say something? If they didn´t mind, then go straight for it, I say.

Anyways, after the discussion we went tot eh community center where we helped cook a community soup with all the families. It was a big big pot... We also played this game of pyramids. If you can imagine there´s not much to do in an isolated village... you tend to make up some crazy games. We arrived at the center and there was this pole maybe 20 feet tall just stuck in teh grount. Jon said we had to climbt to the top and grab the balloon while the pole was oiled up. We all said that is impossible! No one could climb that. But then they demonstrated... you had to build a human pyramid to get to the top. So there are 2 asians in our group. I´m Vietnamese, and Lisa is Japanese. But in Spanish, all asians are really considered Chinas (Chinese). So everytime they were so close to reaching the top, everyone screams "China China, hurry!!!" I ended up topping the pyramid every time and got to the top twice. Jonathan announced to everyone how I should change my career to circus monkey. I guess I didn´t even use the pole but just climbed over everybody to get to the top!!! But man, was that fun... I can´t wait for all the videos to be uploaded. I only got the first time I climbed up, but we didn´t get high enough before we fell.

Costa Rica: Family time

Today was a good day of work. Everyone switched roles so I shoveled some cement as well as dig up the walls of the mountain. I am really enjoying things here. I feel like I´ve been here and known everyone for so much longer than 3 days.... at least a week. All the girls are great. Two of the girls had to go to the hospital in Santa Maria for constipation problems... If I had constipation problems, I´d be happy. Such a time saver. Just kidding. But I guess their symptoms must be much worse and serious than I´ve ever had to experience.

Not to switch from constipation to food... But I stasnd by the belief that food brings people togethere. There is something quite intimate about the interactions through food. You learn, you teach, you find out details of each other´s lives that wouldn´t have been brought up otherwise... Tonight, we helped our parents prepared dinner for the first time. We prepared fried fish, rice, salad, and french fries. So Kristen and I don´t like beans. In Costa Rica, people normally eat it breakfast, lunch and dinner. So as you can imagine, coming here I expected rice and beans 3 times a day but I really lucked out on some amazing parents... that also happen to not really like beans. Orlando likes to fish, so I asked if we could go fishing some time. Hopefully on a sunny day he says, and if I could get some of his honey. Asking all these question has not only improved my Spanish but brought me closer to my host family since none of them really know any English. All of this occurs over meals.

This language barrier is tough, but it´s also a bonding tool if you devote yourself to making an effort. If I  had known Spanish prior to coming here, I wouldn´t gain the same experience and leave this place with as much personal growth. It´s crazy how attached I am already only after 3 days. Everything here is better than in the states. Air is cleaner, food is better and natural, real fruit juice every day, people are kinder, dogs are friendlier, water is cleaner. Everything is better. I am so lucky to know these people.