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.