The narrative continues…on to Days 2 and 3.

Tuesday, we got to enjoy the entirety of the wonderfully structured day that Rich prepares for the volunteers each day. Breakfast at 7:30. First work assignment 8:30-noon. Lunch at 12:30. Rest/Free time in the heat of the day. Second work assignment 3:30-5:30. Dinner 6:00.

We checked the white board to see our work placements for the day. My morning started with “Moving Sensor Cameras.” Didn’t sound too bad, right? Ha! Up the hill, down the ditch, scramble up the roots, around the wasp nest, avoid the stinging ants, don’t drink all your water at once, back down the 30 foot sheer drop, up the other side. Don’t drop the cameras!!

Isabel, Poppy, and I were on camera duty. We followed Eduardo, the biologist out onto his “trails” in the jungle. I use the word “trail” loosely. Here’s it’s a route, known only to Eduardo that gets hiked by 4 people a couple times a year. We went up and over and down and through too many land contours to count. I clawed my way up what-appeared-to-be walls of roots and dirt and successfully avoided the “bad” wasps. All while carrying a water bottle, giant sensor cameras, and a first aid kit in my hands. I went with the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other approach and promised myself I wouldn’t give up, no matter how exhausted I was. It worked! No whining, just persistence. I was really proud of myself, especially given how physically drained I was. Trekking through the jungle turns out to be a pretty exhausting task. And, lucky for me, it gets you surprisingly dirt. I made it back to the camp wearing my blue-now-brown shirt like a merit badge for a morning’s work well done.

During my free time after lunch, I decided to go for a stroll up the hill from camp a ways. Within just a couple minutes, I started hearing monkey chatter coming from the trees around me. When I started scanning the trees, I found myself completely surrounded by about fifteen Capuchin monkeys (those really adorable white-faced ones). There were moms running around with babies on their backs, monkeys literally swinging from tree to tree, some of them banging hard seed pods on the trees to open them, others digging into their fruits and scooping out the seeds with their little fingers. All of them were eyeing me suspiciously, obviously not thrilled that I was in their space. I reached for my camera, only to realize I’d left it in the first aid bag from the morning. (That was the last time I was caught without my camera for the week.) Instead of worrying about snapping the perfect shot, I got to stand their watching and appreciating all the activity going on around me. Listening to the sound of monkeys chattering to each other is actually wonderfully fascinating. After they’d finally all edged their way away from me, I hurried back to the camp to get my camera and returned to try to hunt down a couple that had disappeared into the trees. And I was lucky enough to even get a couple pictures before being chased off by some very territorial wasps.

My second afternoon session was orientation with Rich. He gave us a rundown of all the projects that are happening at the park and all the work that is being done. Especially with all of the physical labor to be done, it was awesome to see why we were doing the work we were doing. That was something that we never got in Liberia. The Why of what we’re doing. All we ever see is our little pixel of the picture and we never know what we’re working towards. Barra Honda was totally the opposite. We had vision from the get go and ran with it the rest of the time there.

Dinner-time included another sunset walk before heading back to Manuel’s. This time, I tried to learn a bit of Cumbia (but failed miserably) before flopping into bed completely exhausted.

Day 3, our wonderful cook Meicel didn’t show up. And nobody can work without a good breakfast of rice and beans. Oscar, Steph, Eduardo, and I took to the kitchens to try to do what Meicel does single-handedly. Lucky for us, it turned out pretty well and we got off to a good start without any more hang-ups. My work for the morning was the most stereotypical “conservation” project you can come up with (besides saving whales): planting trees! After carrying up baby trees from the nursery garden, we set out to planting trees…in the woods. Strange? Maybe a little. Barra Honda is actually a secondary forest which means that it was a forest, and then not a forest (silly humans), and now it’s a forest again. None of the trees in the park are older than 50 years. It’s pretty impressive how it’s turned out for such a “short” time span. After that, we worked on cleaning up the park’s campground area. Really, it’s only space for a couple of tents, but it still has to be kept tidy, mowed, etc. And we even found a little turtle while we were working. After lunch, I had to break down and do laundry. In 48 hours, I’d managed to “filthify” everything I’d brought for 5 days.  They called it a “laundry machine.” I called it a sink with way too many bilingual dials, knobs, and switches. My afternoon work was on mending bat nets. Rich took a couple of us to a giant net that he’d set up in the parking area and showed us how to go about reparing the ultra fine mesh. He pointed to a 2-inch diameter hole and said it’d probably take about an hour to fix. I laughed. Turns out he was right. I actually loved working on the nets. It was incredibly relaxing and obsessive detail work which I tend to be quite good at. Happy Megan.

Third consecutive sunset walk before heading back to the house. We sat around listening to Stefan play some of his awesome guitar compositions and singing along in German. Even though very few of us spoke German, we all had a great time listening to the music. I got a nice nighttime burst of adrenaline when I found a baby scorpion making its way across my bare knee. I had a split moment reconciling my desire to show it to people, take a picture, fling it away, and continue my video of Stefan’s song. What I ended up with was a swinging camera shot, shouting “Look! A scorpion!” and knocking it halfway across the room with the back of my hand. Another excellent day in Barra Honda.

The past week in Barra Honda was so much more than I possibly could have asked for. I never thought I could get so attached to a place in only five days, but the experience was just that incredible. To spare your eyes too much reading at once, I’ve broken this narrative into three [slightly] shorter pieces. The exciting part is the pictures here.

Like I mentioned last week, those of us teaching in Liberia had the week off because of the census. Projects Abroad was kind enough to give us the opportunity to go work for the week on their conservation project in Barra Honda National Park (map here). After a very bumpy two-hour car ride to the middle of nowhere, we arrived at the park in time for a delicious lunch prepared by Meicel, the camp cook, before meeting the other staff: Rich- project director and hilariously sarcastic Englishman; Oscar- former park guide, now PA employee, jungleman, and straight-up beast; Moncho- completely unintelligible PA staff member, super talkative, likes to dance; Eduardo- 21-year-old brilliant biologist, soft spoken but with a great sense of humor. We also quickly got to know the small group of volunteers: Stefan- naturalist extraordinaire, German, musician; Steph- 29-year-old Bostonian, super helpful, awesome work ethic; Isabel, Amy, Sebastian, Luca, and Zach- other PA volunteers. There were five of us there for the week (myself, Poppy, Sarah, Ivan, and Josephine) bringing the week’s volunteer total up to twelve.

When we first saw the volunteers, they were red-faced, sweat-soaked, and completely covered in dirt. My first thought was “This is gonna be fuuuun!!” quickly followed by “I may or may not die!!” I decided then and there than I’d make up for my lack of physical ability by having an awesome attitude about whatever work I was about to plunge into. Turned out that that was an awesome idea…for the whole week! My first afternoon work session started with hauling rocks in the rain. Sounds like fun, right? I thought so. Luckily, the “rain” was more just a drizzle that mingled with the dripping sweat to cool us down a bit. I was working with Poppy, Stefan, and Oscar to move zillion pound rocks and build a retaining wall near the campground. Since I’m a still –ehem- lacking in the strength department, I moved what I could and shouted encouragements as the guys pushed the wheelbarrows up hills and over roots and through gravel. Apparently, having someone screaming “Go! You can do it!! Go! Gooooo!!” behind you is actually more helpful than I realized. At the end of the day, I was caught up in the mud/sweat/rain soaked department and just skipped straight to hosing off so I’d be clean enough to shower.

For those of you who have never had the opportunity to be free to be covered in dirt for an extended period of time, it’s quite lovely. I recommend you try it. It’s “hard-earned” because you had to do something to get that dirty and your companions are right beside you, equally disgusting and everybody’s just really happy. Sounds strange if you don’t know what I mean, but I promise, it’s great. It makes the bugs easier to deal with too. Less spazzing and swatting and more brushing and ignoring.

Also awesome is not having internet access/responsibilities. I spent hours the night before I left taking care of all my computer-limited responsibilities and was able to enjoy the week being completely inaccessible. While it might not be a sustainable state for me, I looooved not having to worry about answering emails, sending anybody anything, or otherwise being responsible to the outside world. I’m also surviving quite nicely without a cell phone. Freeing…just like being covered in dirt in the wilderness.

Our first evening, we made the short trek out to a lookout point where we could see the sunset. The mist from the rains had settled into the valleys making it look like a yellow cloud forest. All we could hear was the crickets and the frogs. Not a hint of car noise or cityscapes anywhere to be seen or heard. After dinner we went to Manuel’s Bar. It takes some guts to build a bar/hotel/pool a million miles from anywhere (and only a ¼ mile from our ranger station), but Manuel’s the guy to do it. Since it’s the only thing anywhere close by, a lot of volunteer nights are spent on his cozy little patio. The least cozy creature was the cockroach the size of my palm (not exaggerating). Bugs, frogs, and everything else seem to be a little bigger in Costa Rica. We spent the night dancing Salsa and Merengue before making the pitch-black walk back through the jungle to our housing.

Stream of consciousness from my Day One journal: Mosquito nets. Giant bugs. A million miles from anywhere. Sunsets. No internet. No noise besides nature. Cold showers from a pipe in the wall. Crickets. 6 people to a room. Bunk beds. No responsibilities. Frogs. Bird calls. So much contentment. Everyone living from a suitcase/backpack. Can I just stay forever?

I thought today would be a good day to reflect on some of the things in my life that I’m most thankful for. Some of them are deep, others are a little sillier but they’re all things I’m grateful to be blessed with.

1. A family that loves, supports, and encourages me
2. Friends who stand by me and put up with all of my insanity
3. Education and training (both high school and Rice)
4. Speaking Spanish
5. Meat (sorry vegetarians!)
6. The experience of having traveling independently
7. Being in Costa Rica
8. Church family
9. My relationship with God and the salvation that He’s given me
10. A great host mom
11. A job that I love (both here in Costa Rica and at the OAA)
12. Internet access
13. Being challenged intellectually, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually
14. Forgiveness
15. My health and my family’s health
16. The opportunities I get simply because I’m American, by no fault of my own
17. Having somewhere to call “home”
18. The chance to study something I love
19. Beautiful photographs
20. The time I’ve been given here
21. Hope for tomorrow and hope for eternity

Last week, as has come to be the norm, I found out about lots of days that I wasn’t working. After making the hour journey to work only to be told there was no school Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday, I went to the Projects Abroad office to insist (for the zillionth time) that I be given a project where I’d actually work. Much as everyone likes to give me a hard time about how nice it must be to have so much vacation, it’s actually incredibly frustrating. While it’s great to have occasional breaks, I’m here to work and I felt like that’s exactly what I wasn’t doing.

So after last week’s “I want more work!” saga (which included Skyping with my wonderful program director at Rice and some emails to the US Projects Abroad office), things finally appear to have taken a definite positive turn. Marielos, the PA teaching coordinator, talked with the teachers at my school to see what needs there were and how I could be helping. I told her I was willing to do non-English work if that’s what needed to be done, just as long as I was doing something…anything! She met with my teacher, Clara, who remembered what I’d told her about loving science and also told Marielos about my comfort level in the classroom with Spanish and the students.  They paired me with a second teacher who is the science curriculum coordinator for the school as well as a fourth grade teacher. I started working with her on Friday. We spent the morning looking up different craft project ideas to teach the kids about recycling and making a overall lesson plan for next weeks’ science classes (I mostly watched since I really had absolutely no ideas what she wanted, let alone what kind of ideas I could come up with). That afternoon, we went through her regular class routine. Unlike Clara, who jumps from room to room in 35 minute segments, Lizeth has her class for a whole 5 hours and is responsible for all subjects except computer, PE, and English. I got to help with Math, Social Studies, and even [triumphant music] Spanish! I absolutely loved Lizeth’s class, more than any of the others I’ve met so far. I don’t know what my continued involvement will look like on the science side of things, but I’m optimistic.

That morning, Clara also left me with the class to myself. While it’s normal for her to wander off for 10-15 minutes at a time (doing I have no idea what), she told me she had to go to a meeting at another school, asked if I’d be okay leading the activity, and headed out. While I enthusiastically agreed to take the class, I didn’t really look at the exercise she’d given me first. It was just matching…with first graders…who don’t know the words…but who thought they did. Seven verbs and pictures can be combined in a lot of [very wrong] ways. By the end of the class, only about 5 of them had shown me the correct combination. The rest just kept showing me different incorrect iterations. After the first couple attempts, I even put all of the correct answers on the board and had them explain it too me, but their papers still looked like balls of yarn that an angry cat had attacked.

Not directly related to teaching (actually, not related at all), but last Tuesday was a great day at Playa del Coco. There were a bunch of us who didn’t have school and so we spent the day at another one of the million beaches within a couple hour radius of Liberia. We got to stay for sunset which was stunning. The link for the pictures is at the top of the last post.

After the disaster that I’ve experienced trying to actually get days to work, it didn’t surprise me to find out that I actually have an entire week off because the teachers are busy. Here in Costa Rica, taking the census is the job of the school teachers and, as a result, students get a week off of class. I was disappointed, to say the least, but I talked with the Projects Abroad office and nagged them until they promised they’d find something useful for me to do. At the end of my teaching placement, I’m planning to go to Barra Honda National Park to do conservation work with Projects Abroad. Since none of the schools are open, those of us who aren’t going on vacation have been offered the opportunity to do a week of conservation work there. So Monday morning, I was picked up to go to Barra Honda. Theoretically, I’m returning from my week of saving the world on Friday evening. This post isn’t actually live, I wrote it before I left because I currently have no internet gasp. Contrary to popular belief you’ll probably find that I’m still alive at the end of this time, though I might be experiencing some withdrawl symptoms. Lots of stories of the jungle when I return!

Pictures from Playa del Coco, Poás, and Guayabo HERE. (The new pictures start at number 34, just after the ziplining.)

It seems that I don’t like to start trips anymore unless they’re a semi-spontaneous, half-planned, mad dash for the bus station. This weekend was no different. Poppy and I left the house a grand total of 35 minutes after I arrived home from work. My bad memory of the bus schedule made sure we arrived to the terminal sweaty and out of breath a full hour before the next bus was scheduled to leave. Since we hadn’t decided what the weekend would look like, we took our time to lay out an activity plan for the following 48 hours which we proceeded to destroy for two days as we changed our minds and readjusted.

The 4 ½ hour ride to San José landed us in downtown just after midnight. NOT the time to be wandering around San José. Poppy and I are both pretty bold independent travelers and we were both instantly nervous and extremely uncomfortable in the city. Our ever-faster steps carried us the five blocks to the “hotel” where we’d planned to stay. I put “hotel” in quotes because, whatever schema you might have of a hotel room, this is a million times worse. Unlike the nice hostels for a couple dollars a night, this was…interesting to say the least. Our tiny room had windows that opened directly into the lobby of the hotel and which couldn’t be latched so anyone could reach into our room any time they wanted. All the noise of slamming doors and loud conversations was right in our room. It was across the street from some sort of kareoke bar that was open ‘till all hours of the night and a block away from the hospital (I’m assuming that’s where all those sirens were headed). The “hotel” overlooked the main San José bus terminal and every time a bus would pull in, the whole room would shake and the windows would rattle. The cockroaches looked pretty friendly though. The “bathroom” consisted of 4 stalls opening in towards a single sink. The labels read “Women’s Toilet,” “Men’s Toilet,” “Women’s shower,” “Men’s Shower.” Poppy and I reached a mutual agreement that we wouldn’t shower on our trip because we felt like we’d come out of the shower dirtier than we went in. I slept with my purse tied to my arm, cuddled like a teddy bear. On top of all of that, on our second night, we were woken up at 3:00 am by a man shouting  “¡Fuego! ¡Fuego!” (“Fire! Fire!”).  I woke Poppy up so we could run out if needed, but nothing happened and we tiredly went back to sleep.

After such a charming introduction to the city, it was no wonder that our first order of business was leaving. For such an ugly city (my apologies to anybody who likes it), it’s located in a beautiful area of the country. Green mountains and cloud forests cut up sharply around the outskirts of the city. After a wonderful Costa Rican breakfast of gallo pinto, we caught a couple of buses headed to Volcán Poás (Poas Volcano). The short walk from the visitor center to the crater lookout smelled increasingly of sulfur and other unpleasant gases. But when we reached the top, we had a great view down into the crater. The billowing steam and gas pouring out of the top partially obscured our view of a turquoise-green acidic lake nested in the center of the crater. To the right, had there not been so many clouds, we could have seen the Carribbean coast. And to the left, the encroaching mists separated layers of mountains of the cloud forests. The strata inside the crater ran from red to brown to grey to black and back again. When the clouds started getting too thick, we took a second trail to the other lake on the volcano and looked out until it too was made invisible by the descending clouds. As we started back, the heavens opened and we were drenched by gallons of water, the thick tree cover only providing moderate shelter. When the rain stopped half an hour later, Poppy suggested that we go back up to the crater overlook. What an awesome idea. Some of the clouds had cleared and the wind changed drastically. We had a way better view into the crater and got to see parts of it that had before been clouded with gases.

After a couple more hours cutting through the mountain roads on our bus, we were back our favorite city (not). We were surprised to find everything closed at 5:30 pm on a Saturday, even in downtown in the capital. We resorted to American fast food before heading back to the “hotel.” Party animals that we are, we were asleep by 9.

Sunday was a slightly more complicated trek to see the most important archeological monument in Costa Rica. A couple taxis and a bus ride later, we’d arrived at the Monumento Nacional Arqueológico Guayabo (Guayabo National Archeological Monument). While all I saw was a bunch of piles of rocks, Poppy was super excited about the ruins. The Guayabo people were apparently known for their civil engineering of aqueducts and roads. Beyond that, the park ranger said to check out their Facebook page (That’s one I haven’t heard before).  We did get to enjoy the walk through the dense cloud forest spotting a couple bright flowers and a lot of ginormous leaves and ferns.

Our ride back cut us super close to missing our bus back from San José to Liberia. We had a great cab driver who got us about 25 blocks in just over 5 minutes arriving at 4:02 for a bus that was supposed to leave at 4:00. I bypassed the ticket office and ran straight at the front of the [now moving] bus determined to get OUT of San José. Fortunately, the driver was gracious enough to stop and even to let us on the bus. Feeling I had cheated death in some small way, I grinned the whole way back to Liberia. I still can’t believe we actually caught the bus.

Most importantly: New Pictures!

My apologies for the sudden radio silence. Wednesday night, I got a call from the school saying “Don’t come in on Thursday or Friday” which for me translated to “Surprise 4-day weekend!!” This started a couple mad hours of planning, packing, coordinating with friends, and literally having to run to the bus station. But once the initial chaos was over, it was a beautiful weekend. I hopped on a bus on Thursday morning, headed for Monteverde, Costa Rica: Map.

My first transfer found me contentedly munching away on a fresh mango from a local farmers’ market while waiting in Cañas and I managed to wedge myself into my bus seat, even full of fresh fruit. The woman who sat next to me on the following bus decided that I wanted her to talk to me for 40 consecutive minutes and, after ranting about education, conservation, and natural medicines, started pulling plants out of her bag and shoving them in my face saying “Smell! Smell!” while jabbing me in the arm to demonstrate different kinds of bug bites. Meanwhile, I tried to continue read my book, but kept getting pinched by the giant woman who was slowly swallowing up my entire [very tiny] seat the more demonstrative her actions became. I happily escaped from her clutches at the next terminal where I saw a fellow backpacker. Thinking I’d seen her somewhere before, I awkwardly asked her if we’d met, but she had no recollection of me and neither of us could figure out why we’d have crossed paths before. Her name was Tanya, she was from Germany and she’s on Month 2 of a 6-month backpacking trip through Cuba and Central America, ending in San Francisco. It took us the remainder of the day to figure out that we’d met last weekend in another hostel where one of the volunteers I was traveling with [hides face in shame] peed on her (long story). Fortunately, she didn’t hold that against me and we ended up spending the rest of our weekend together. Our next bus that took us to Monteverde traverses one of the 10 worst roads in the country. It took us about 2 ½ hours to cover the 20 miles of rutted mountain roads before finally arriving to the little twin towns of Santa Elena and Monteverde. Upon stepping off the bus, we were immediately accosted by people trying to drag us off to one hostel or another. We stood back silently and let them try to outdo each other until we had a room for $6/night with hot water and free breakfast. Not bad for not saying anything. When we got to our [very nice] hostel, we met an Englishman named Joe who was also staying there. The three of us stuck together until Saturday morning when he left. After “cooking” a simple dinner of nachos, Joe, Tanya, Earnest (another traveler), and myself sat around talking, sharing travel plans, swapping stories, and enjoying the cool night mountain air.

Friday morning, Joe, Tanya, and I woke up at 5:30 and headed out to the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve. Being in the rainforest was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. The early morning sun barely filtered through the dense canopy cover and leaves bigger than my torso covered the trails. The whole place reverberated with a continuous buzz from all the insects, big and small, that crossed our paths. It didn’t smell “earthy” like I expected, but rather fresh, like the oxygen factory was on output overdrive. The air was damp, but cool- a welcome relief from the heat of Liberia. Strange birdcalls echoed through the trees, one in particular that sounded like a poorly-oiled machine, but was eerily beautiful. Vines dangled from every branch and everywhere were fallen trees, crushed by the weight of the moss they had once supported. The cloud forests lived up to their name and had a cloudy misty fog in all of the valleys. The treetop islands reminded me of the floating islands in Avatar, minus the eagle-dragons and the blue people. We spent six hours hiking the deserted national park, looking for monkeys and sloths (with no luck), spotting strange and colorful birds, centipedes, and frogs, and nearly stepping on a snake and a pretty nasty looking tarantula.

After six mammal-less hours of hiking, we headed back to the hostel for a nice afternoon nap in the grey drizzle that had set in. After sitting around outside for a bit and chatting, we FINALLY spotted our sloth…climbing on a power line of all places. We ooh’ed and ahh’ed and took lots of pictures. A good thing about the sloth’s lack of speed is lots and lots of time to take pictures. One of the volunteers, Poppy, finally made it to Monteverde that night and  Joe, Tanya, Poppy, and I all went out for dinner together.

Saturday morning was, by far, the high point of the trip. The main attraction in Monteverde, besides just seeing the rainforests, is the canopy tour. Five separate companies run canopy tours of various excitement levels and qualities. Tanya, Poppy, and I picked “Extremo,” the most intense of all of them.  After some delicious pineapple and banana pancakes prepared by the hostel owner, we were picked up and driven way out into the mountains and into the cloud forest. After getting strapped into a million harness straps, helmets, and gloves and listening to a quick safety briefing, we were out on the lines. I’d never been ziplining before and it was a tremendous experience. The 3-hour course was made up of 12 cables, a rappel, and a Tarzan swing. The cables stretched over tremendous valleys- the longest were 1968 ft, 2460 ft, and 3280 ft- and had an average height between 225-540 ft off the ground. All of the shorter cables, we did solo, and two of the 5 longest we did tandem. Flying across these valleys, I could see cows, little houses, fields, and lots and lots of trees out below. The crosswinds were strong and sometimes it was hard to keep going straight. I would have loved to spin around, but I was a good girl and followed the safety rules about holding on. The rides were really beautiful and you could see over the treetops or down into the trees in someplaces.

One of my two favorite things was the Tarzan swing. Looking down a hundred feet from the platform, attached only to a rope like a giant pendulum that swings you out over the valley. Falling a hundred feet is quite fun, especially when it’s instigated by a shove off the edge. Even those of us who wanted to jump were pushed (probably so we’d swing instead of just drop) off the edge of the platform. There’s a brief moment where you’re just in freefall before the rope catches your harness and swings you back on course another hundred feet in the air, looking out over the cloud forest valley. There’s something wonderful about the feeling of just dropping, a bit of fear, but mostly just adrenaline, waiting for the jerk, knowing that everything is going to be okay. Somewhere on my bucket list: bungee jumping.

My favorite part of the whole experience was the Superman cable. This was the longest and highest cable of all of them: half a mile long, 540 feet off the ground. Instead of being strapped in sitting, the harnesses were reversed so I was strapped in at my shoulders and waist and ankles, suspended stomach-down over nothing. On the other lines, we had the option to brake if we were uncomfortable, but not with the Superman. Once I left the platform, there was nothing between the ground and me flying overhead. The noise of the wind and the whistling cable left my ears ringing from the speed. Below, I saw more cows and a little farm and my tiny little shadow, arms out like a wannabe airplane. Speeding headfirst, facedown, suspended over a valley with no way of braking whatsoever ranks reaaally high on my list of exhilarating experiences.

The rest of the afternoon turned grey and we napped before hanging out with some new friends we met while ziplining for the remainder of the evening, swapping stories and lying around in hammocks. I took off the next morning to catch the only bus going north for the entire day and made it back in time for lunch with Yelba. This weekend gets all five stars from me.

Last weekend, I tagged along with five other volunteers to go to Playa Conchal and Tamarindo on the Northeastern coast.  We made our way by bus and taxi to Playa Brazilito and walked to the surprisingly-crowed Playa Conchal. For a beach that doesn’t even have a bathroom, I don’t understand how there were so many people there. We still managed to enjoy the sun, water, and powerful currents and only left around sunset. With some artful manipulation of the bus system and the help of many friendly locals, we made it to Tamarindo for the night. We found beds in Pura Vida Hostel before heading out for the night, grabbing dinner on the way to Club Aqua. I headed back early (wasn’t my “scene”) and caught some sleep before waking up a little after six and packing up to leave. One of the other girls was also up and we decided to split up from the rest of the group (who didn’t leave until about 10:30) and head off for the day. We enjoyed breakfast beachside before realizing that the clouds were far too menacing to make for an enjoyable day in the sand. While waiting for the bus, we started hiking our way back but only made it a mile or two before taxi/busing the two hours back to Liberia.

Because of my crazy/non-existent work schedule, I was lucky enough to have yesterday off because of the Costa Rican census that’s going on this month. I’d heard of a waterfall close by that’s listed by the guide book as the “If you see one waterfall in Costa Rica, it has to be this one” waterfall called Llanos de Cortes. I packed up my backpack with a suimsuit and other essentials and headed for the bus station. It was only supposed to be a half-hour bus ride to the stop for the falls and the bus driver promised me he’d tell me when to get off. But when we reached the town I knew came after the falls stop, he realized he’d forgotten about me and apologized before telling me how to catch a return bus. The second driver over-charged me, but at least let me off where I needed to go. The two-mile walk to the falls followed a pitted dusty dirt road carved through the middle of a forest. Every couple feet, I’d stop and just listen to the sounds around me: bugs buzzing, an assortment of birdcalls, lizards crackling through the undergrowth. After the short walk, I reached the trail part which was basically just a steep 50-meter decent. On the way down, I stopped to take pictures of monkeys and a variety of lizards big and small. I was really blown away by the number of lizard species in such a small area. There were red, blue, green, gray, black, striped, spotted, solid, giant, tiny, medium, waddlers, scamperers, hind-leg runners, and every mixed and matched variety just in a short walk down the hill. When I reached the bottom, the sight of the waterfall finally matched what I’d been listening too the whole way down. The sunlight caught the water and the rocks covered in thick green hanging moss and the slight mist made it seem like something that doesn’t really exist except in calendar photos. Here I was, in a forest in Costa Rica with this gorgeous waterfall all to myself, lizards darting around, monkeys overhead. Absolutely stunning.

If you want to see pictures of any/all of the above, this link includes the pictures from my last trip to Sámara too:  Click HERE!!

Behind the waterfall was a cave that was totally accessible through the pool in front. I carefully navigated my way over the slippery moss (I only fell once!) and climbed behind the falls, following the whole width of the cavern. It was an impressive sight to say the least. I dried off on the beach and sat down to enjoy my lunch: an entire pineapple. I brought one of my handy knives and butchered and ate the whole thing. By the end, my mouth hurt terribly, but it was delicious and I got bragging rights for consuming an entire pineapple. (Also, the idea of spending only forty cents on a pineapple makes me very happy.) A little sticky and very full, I laid in the sun for an hour listening to the water and enjoying the warmth of the sand under my towel.

When I changed back into my clothes for the trip home I learned that a plant of some sort had viciously attacked my shorts while I wasn’t using them. I found my skin suddenly embedded with a couple hundred millimeter-long spines, finer than hair, too short to grab, and with a sharp end perfect for wedging under my skin. With every movement I made, the tiny spines rubbed my shorts and tugged at my skin resulting in burning itchy skin, mottled with red spotting and zillions of tiny dark spines. Not my favorite moment of the day. That made the walk back reaaaaaally comfortable.

The bus home turned out not to be as easy to catch as it was to get dropped off and my walk towards home brought my roundtrip total up to about 8 miles walking. Not too bad for a daytrip. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to go back and enjoy the waterfalls again; it was definitely worth it.

Tuesday was my first day actually getting to play teacher. Clara (the teacher I work with) asked me to step up and lead a lesson. Unfortunately, the lesson was sex-ed with sixth graders. Because those are the words you reeeeeeallllly want to teach a bunch of giggly elementary kids. (Not!) I think I was far more uncomfortable than any of them. I pulled together as much non-awkward confidence as I could muster and went for it. Fortunately for me, this English unit corresponded with their health lessons in science so I didn’t have to introduce the whole topic. Disaster averted. Still not my favorite way to start teaching English.

Thursday and Friday, the albino gorilla made a comeback. We had a school assembly for some sort of patriotic day and another for Farmer’s Day. They started and finished with about a million songs and pledges and flags and hands-on-hearts. And then there’s me. Hands clasped, not singing, and not pledging allegiance to another country’s flag. The kids, of course, thought I was weird. I know there’re plenty of internationals in the US who don’t sing the Star-Spangled Banner or say the pledge, but those instances are infrequent enough that it’s not something I think about. And it’s certainly not a position in which I’ve ever found myself. But now at least I can understand a bit more of what they go through any time we honor our own flag and country.

I’m beginning to be thoroughly convinced that these kids are never actually in class and am stunned that they manage to learn anything. Today was “political propaganda day.” No, really- that’s what it’s called. The students who are running for “student body president” of the elementary school are all affiliated with national student parties. The idea is to teach the kids about civic duty, the voting process, etc. But today was basically just an insane chaotic party under the guise of campaign propaganda. I was completely confused when our forty-minute class ended twenty minutes early because the humongous speaker stacks outside of our classroom starting blaring Spanish pop music. Outside, the kids were running around, having a dance party, painting their faces, eating candy, and sticking flag pins into anything stick-able. I got over the chaos enough to go to another courtyard where another political party was “campaigning.” This one consisted of a couple scantily-clad twenty-somethings dancing around in neon green and pink to the beat of their accompanying drumline. Piled on top of the two conflicting beats were the screams of the sugar-saturated children running around like always. Add to this random teenage boys in hairy old men masks and serial-killer jumpsuits chasing the smaller children around with belts in hand pretending [or not] to hit them. As if there weren’t enough chaos already, the music teacher opened up the drum closet so the kids could run around beating drums in a million different rhythms [or lack thereof].

The best part, I ended up finally getting a meeting with the principal…during all of this noise. I missed 30% of everything she said because of the drums 10 feet outside the open door. I’ve decided to take some initiative and start some smaller groups with students who need remedial English help. My teacher, Clara, is willing to help me find space, time, and students, but I had to meet with the director today to pitch the idea and get approval. She’s behind it and I’ll be able to start next week (There’s a couple more conflicting festivals and assemblies and teacher in-services.) I finally have some responsibility and independence to try teaching on my own with my own preparation and I’m really excited about the opportunity.

I’m at a point where I’m really frustrated with the seeming lack of order and class time.  I still don’t really get the class schedules or the “system” of how Costa Rican schools work. Comparing notes with other volunteers, it seems that my confusion is shared by volunteers working at schools all around the area. The difference is that I care. It bothers me that I have sooo much time off each day (or random days each week) when I came here to work. I’m working with Projects Abroad and Clara to see how I can be working more. It’s not the people who are holding me back, but simply the way “things are done.” Hopefully I can get plugged in before it’s too late. And while there’re some things I can be laid back about, not working isn’t one of them. But I’m not just going to sit here and watch the summer pass me by.

I’ve spent plenty of words explaining lots of things that are happening and lots talking about how Costa Rica is as a country, etc. But I thought I’d switch up the narrative a little and talk a bit about what’s going through my head during this experience thus far and some of the challenges I’m facing.

Firstly, and more than any of the other things I’m feeling right now, I’m really happy to be here. I’m so blessed to have the opportunity to be here and definitely wouldn’t rather be doing anything else.

There’s also a whole mix of other things going on too though. I do miss home (NM), especially since I haven’t been home since December. I would love to see Dad and Mom and Meredith but that’ll have to wait until the end of July. I also really miss my Rice/Agape/Hanszen friends. I know they’re all off having their own adventures and jobs and am looking forward to continuing to hear about those as the summer goes on. My attitude towards being away from the people I care about has been very different than when I was in South America. That time, it was 8 months away from everyone- an entire semester and summer. I knew I couldn’t maintain relationships with everyone for that time. But now, with only three months away, I’m making a much more concerted effort to keep in touch. I’m not so immersed in the I-need-to-be-here-and-not-tied-to-the-US attitude as I was before. I think that’s okay. It’s a different situation, a different time.

I’m not sure yet how I feel about my service. I think the kids are terrific, but I’m wondering what good I’ll be able to do long term. My goal isn’t simply confined to “teach English for two months.” I want them to see more purpose in learning English and instill a greater love for learning. All of my kids come from a really impoverished area and a lot of times, there’s a lack of parental involvement or support when it comes to helping them learn. Even if I can get them pumped up while I’m here, I really don’t know what kind of lasting impact I can have. I spend a lot of time being frustrated because it seems like the kids never have any time to spend in class- they’re either at recess, an assembly, on vacation, or just generally running around screaming.

This may come as a shock, but I’m actually incredibly quiet here (I know, I know, laugh it up). Talkative Megan got left behind in the States along with Obsessive Planner Megan, Unnecessarily Inflexible Megan, High Cleanliness Standards Megan, and Painfully Punctual Megan.  I just operate differently here. It’s strange. There’s really no point in making my own detailed plans and timetables because they will inevitably be changed by some outside force. Just because I’m in a hurry doesn’t mean anyone else is. And if I insisted on American standards for sanitation, I’d never find anything to eat. I’ve found that I can be much more laidback and “go-with-the-flow” here. Granted, if I couldn’t, I wouldn’t enjoy anything about this experience.

As far as clicking with the other volunteers, I haven’t yet.  The high turnover rate makes the relationship dynamic interesting here. Most people are just getting here or on their way out and you’ll only know each person for probably a couple weeks max. The temporary state of everything combined with how different everybody is makes for interesting [shallow] group dynamics. Lack of connections with people here certainly makes me miss my friends back home all the more.

On the physical side of things, the heat is still trying to smother me, but I’m doing better with dealing with it, or at least getting used to it. I seem to be a magnet for bugs, even with bug spray on and am covered in a bajillion bites. Still not as bad as whatever I got in South America, so I’m great.

All that said, I’m still so thrilled to be here.  I’m looking forward to more time teaching and more weekend adventures. Growing in emotional stability and independence is/has been one of my goals for this trip and I think there will be plenty of room to develop in those areas.