Construimos Comunidades

Despite going out to karaoke and staying up until about midnight writing Wednesday's entry, I still woke up at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. I think the excitement of knowing we were going to get to go back to the build site had overwhelmed me so I went for one last 5am run and got to watch the sun rise over the mountains.

The photo doesn't do justice how breathtaking these mountains are in the morning. 

We were all pretty jazzed to get back to the worksite and got to work immediately. Freddie, Donald and Luis had worked so hard on Thursday so that we could build on Friday. Most of the posts were in place so we started carrying the prefabed wall panels over to their scaffolding, handing it up to the people on the scaffolding and they slid it down in the grooves between posts. There were 5 panels that stacked on top of each other to make each wall segment. It definitely required some heavy lifting. It required about 6 people to put in each panel. There was also some digging and concrete mixing to be done so the crew could rearranged a few more of the posts. 

While digging one of the holes I bent over to pick up a rock that I couldn't get with the shovel and heard a huge riiiiip right down the back of my pants. I paused for a minute, not sure how bad it was, then discovered how bad and danced awkwardly to a wall. I happened to be right in the middle of the house when they ripped and everyone, including the construction staff, burst out laughing as I realized the pants were not mendable. It was a priceless moment where you didn't need language to communicate but we all had a connection. To make it worse there was a group of senior citizens sitting outside the community center next door because Friday is pension payday and they all meet at the community center, I'm not sure how much they saw or understood but it was definitely embarrassing. The only thing anyone needed to say the rest of the day was "pantalones" to relive the moment and everyone would crack up. Luckily Donald on the construction staff had an extra pair of shorts I could wear for the remainder of the day and I was extremely grateful.

Got about 2/3 of the walls stood on Friday morning. End of a great week!

Our team with Doña Florinda in front of her new soon-to-be house!

At about 12:30 it started to rain pretty hard to so we cleaned off all of the tools and called it a day. We had one last lunch in the community center and then started preparing for our afternoon celebration. Several other families from the community joined us at the community center in the afternoon for our celebration/closing ceremonies. Our group learned to make Empanadas and then served them with coffee to all the families and kids in the neighborhood who came out for the celebration. After empanadas we sat around while Woody and the construction staff said some final words and we gave Dona Florinda a couple gifts for her new home. Included was a Colorado flag to remember us by and a soccer ball for her nephew, Gustavo, who had been around all week, as long as he promised to share with the rest of the kids in the neighborhood. Seeing their faces full of hope and joy made the entire trip worth it despite all the drama with the building. Freddie said we got about two days worth of work done in the morning alone and ended up only about a day and a half behind schedule, much better than a month (a HUGE relief to Dona Florinda). We then shared some cake and had a pinata for all the kids in the community. The community celebration in the afternoon was a perfect way to end the week.

Empañadas preparations. 

Charles on coffee duty, Alisha and Mike make the shell and Laura fills them (I was in charge of serving). Also a Habitat empañada, Habiñada?

Our team with some of the Habitat families.

Doña Florinda cuts the cake while niece Sophia looks on.

Piñata time! 

For dinner we had delicious traditional Costa Rican soup. Woody and Carlota gave us all awards for completing the Global Village trip and we all relived some of our favorite moments. The leadership and teamwork this week has been phenomenal. Woody and Carlota have been a blast to work with and get to know, answering all our questions about Costa Rican culture. Laura and Mike have been incredible leaders and great spokespeople for our group. Charles has done a fantastic job jumping in to a group of four people who already knew each other very well and it's been so fun to spend time and get to know Alisha even better. AND it's been a neat experience to meet some new people from the other team, who I would love to keep in touch with. I couldn't have asked for better people to surround myself with for the week.

Me with Woody and Carlota. 

Priceless. 
Pura Vida!

Construimos esperanzas

Today we were not able to go to our worksite so we went to the site where the other group was building. We had an opportunity to meet their family who were living in a tiny wooden shack behind the current build. It was a 10x10 one-room house with dirt floors. Their new house will be a huge improvement to their current situation. Felipe, their "Woody", lead us in a great morning devotion and despite how tough it was to not be working he made us feel great about still being here. 

We then came back into downtown Buenos Aires and got to go to the Habitat office and meet their two staff. The expressed sincere apologies for the fact that we were not able to build today. We had an opportunity to talk to them an ask questions about their building process and everything that goes on behind the scenes at HFHCR in their region. They said if there was one message we could bring back to the states it would be that its great to know habitat exists in so many countries and by sending volunteers down to Costa Rica it gives them hope. We went to see another house near the office that was at the end of phase two. It needed a coat of paint and some finish work inside and it was ready for a family. 

Our team with the local HFHCR staff outside their office. 

In the afternoon we went to a farm/zoo and drove through an area of Costa Rican indigenous people. The farm had all kinds of animals. We saw a parrot, touched the horns of a longhorn, Woody had a moment with an ostrich and we all got to ride a water buffalo bareback!

Woody has a moment with an ostrich. 

Riding water buffalo at the farm. 

I'm not gonna lie, it was tough to come back to the hotel and hear the other group tell us how they'd finished putting the panels in for all of their walls, and it took some effort to remember that we are still here building hope for the families, the HFHCR staff and in each other. Right before dinner Woody pulled us aside and said that they had rearranged the floor plan for our house, done a ton of work today and we were going to be able to build on Friday! 

After dinner our team went and did karaoke at a local bar. We had a good balance of Spanish songs (sung by Carlota and Walter, our driver) and obnoxious american songs sung by the rest of us. 

Where words fail, fútbols prevail

Wednesday we hit a muerto (bump in the road), which literally translates to a dead person, and that was what it felt like. Luckily I have a great team with positive leaders and we were able to turn it into a mission moment kind of day. Something that made us really evaluate why we are in Costa Rica. But I'll start at the beginning of the day...

After salsa on Tuesday night I didn't make it up for a 5am run. We stopped at a waterfall on the way to the job site just off the highway. Woody has been working for habitat for 5 years and it's great to have his knowledge of things like highway waterfalls. 

The girls at the waterfall. 

We got to the worksite at about 9 and started mixing some concrete to continue standing posts. Before the first batch of concrete had been completely mixed they told us to take a break, which seemed weird since we'd only been they about 20 minutes. There were a couple extra engineers around looking at plans and taking measurements, things had seemed a little off since the moment we got there, but we went inside the community center next door to our build site and played cards while we waited for further instruction. 

After about an hour Woody came back and said he had some pretty bad news. The local city municipals had decided to widen the street and our house needed to be moved back about 1.3 meters. It was something completely out of the hands of habitat Costa Rica. We were not going to be able to get the walls up this week and we may not even get to build the next couple days. After an initial morale depressor we were able to express how we've all worked in construction before and understand that these things happen, and it was out of anyone's control. The toughest part for me was watching one of the workers tell our homeowner, Doña Florinda, and seeing the disappointment in her face. They estimated that it would be about an extra month before she would be able to move in to her new home. 

We spent the remainder of the morning digging out the posts that we'd just sealed with concrete the afternoon before and played through the "what ifs", "if onlys" and "what's something that has been worse than this" game. We had the opportunity to walk around the neighborhood and look at another project  of nearly finished habitat homes. We met a family who had recently moved into their home and was going through quite a hardship. The mother in the family needed a transplant, but the hospital would not even put her on the list until she had a stable place to live. She is now on the list but recently discovered that one of her sons who lives in the house with her has cancer and was in a hospital in San Jose. She was incredibly welcoming and happy to share her story and to let us into her. It really helped put things into perspective. 

Nearly completed homes. 

At lunch I brought out the soccer ball and played with some of the kids in the neighborhood. I played some music from my phone and listened to a 5-year-old sing along to Hakkuna Mattata in Spanish. Interacting with these kids and building these connections made the stress from the morning seem less catastrophic. Looking at Habitat's mission statement, the goal is to build homes, communities and hope. Although  I came to Costa Rica with hopes of doing the first one, I would now argue that we're having a much stronger impact on the latter two. 

Almost worth leaving my Syracuse hat in Costa Rica. 

Hakkuna Mattata. Hakkuna Mattata. 

All my favorite things:kids playing fútbol, my Syracuse hat and precious dog, pocho. 

After lunch we went to swim and hang out by a river not far from the job site and brought a couple of the kids with us. 

For dinner we had the classic Costa Rican dish, Casado (rice and beans) and then a group of about 15 of us went to the local indoor soccer field and played a game against each other. We brought one of the kids from the hotel, a 13-year-old Costa Rican who was easily better than all of us. There were also some players from the game before who stuck around and cheered us on. The whole experience was a lot of fun, a good cap to the day. 

Fútbol with some local Costa Rican flavor. 

"I didn't know my hands could be sore"

Woke up for another morning run with Woody. I was definitely a little sore from digging the day before. Another delicious gallo pintos breakfast and we were off to site for build day #2. 

When we got to site the workers, Luis and Donald, had already started working and there was some concrete that needed to dry before we could do anything else so we continued digging the septic tank and trench. We were able to get the BFR out from the day before in about 10 minutes. I guess we just needed our time apart. The whole morning was very hot and humid, the sun really beat down on us as we worked and I think we sweat through our clothes within about 15 minutes. 

Mike, Vale, Woody, Laura and Carlota working on the septic tank trench. 

It was a little warm. 

Lots of breaks were necessary. 

In the afternoon we got to start mixing some concrete to set the posts. I had remembered mixing bricks being one of the hardest tasks on my trip to Cambodia. The day and a half of digging made cement mixing actually seem like a nice change of pace. It was a little slower since we had to wait for Luis and Donald to level each post as we went. Each of the posts has vertical groves in it and then the panels of prefabricated concrete make up the wall slide in to the grooves. By the end of the day we had 9 posts stood. 

End of day 2.

After showers Alisha and I went into town with Woody. I had really wanted to buy a soccer ball to play with some of the kids on site. It was nice to see the town with people bustling about. Everyone was genuinely kind and helpful. Having been an obvious outsider in several other countries, it always feel good to be welcomed as a tourist. The soccer ball was an immediate hit. Alisha and I played with the two you girls whose parents own the hotel we're staying at. It's amazing what a soccer ball can do to bring cultures together. 

After dinner we decided to go out to a salsa bar since Valeria has to return to the habitat Costa Rica office on Wednesday and it was her last night with us. Some of the other team joined too. It started with a big circle of all of us dancing and quickly turned in to salsa lessons from Carlota, Valeria and Woody. Dancing in Latin America is a whole different art than in the US. We had a great time getting to know the other team  and another form of the Costa Rican culture. 

Valeria teaches Laura how to dance. 

Getting things done...for Costa Rica!

Monday was our first day on site. The title of this post comes from the fact that the AmeriCorps slogan is "getting things done for America", a phrase we all commonly made fun of during our stints, so this seemed like an appropriate thing to say day 1 on the build site in Costa Rica. 

I woke up at 5 and went for a run with Woody on the airplane landing strip that is right behind our hotel. It has a beautiful view of the mountains and was a great way to start the day. We had breakfast at the hotel, gallo pintos (aka breakfast rice and beans...with eggs) before heading out to our build site 40 minutes away at Potrero Grande. 

When we got to site we were greeted by our foreman, Freddie, and two workers, Luis and Donald. Our task for the day was digging. Lots of digging. 28 holes. 1 ft by 1 ft. 1 meter deep. We grabbed some shovels, post hole diggers, picks and got right to work and worked hard. It was hot and humid and I think we had all sweat through our tshirts by 9am. The expectation was to finish by the end of the day and we finished the holes by our morning break at10:30 am. 

Before work starts Day 1: Mike, Woody, Alisha, Laura, me, Charles, Carlotta, Valeria 

Woody, Valeria and Carlotta cut up some fresh fruit for our morning break, an incredibly nice gesture I may steal for our volunteers back home. We then started working on the secondary project of digging out for the septic tank, which was about 15 ft long by 1.5 ft wide and then a 4 or 5 ft diameter whole at the end. The entire thing will need to be about 2 meters deep. 

Digging holes. 

Laura and Alisha digging. 

We were definitely all ready for lunch by noon and took an hour break. Our homeowner, Florinda had helped prepare lunch, along with another woman who acts as a community organizer in the neighborhood. I had a chance to practice my Spanish with them at lunch. I learned that Florinda has 6 children total, all have moved away to bigger cities except her 20-year old Natalia, but she has a lot of extended family in the neighborhood. Her 8-year-old nephew was at lunch with us. 

View from the house. 

In the afternoon we continued with the septic system and mixed some concrete to put at the bottom of each hole before posts go in. The sun came out during the afternoon which made it exceedingly hot and sweaty. During the last hour we encountered a "BFR", big frickin rock, that took all the rest of all of our strength to get it to budge. Even with 2 people with pry bars under it and 2 people trying to rotate it up, it barely budged. At about 3 we called it a day and decided to finish with the rock tomorrow. On the way home we stopped for some Imperials, Costa Rican beers, to celebrate our first and incredibly succesful day.

After work day 1: exhaustion dirt, sweat and beers. 

A cold shower back at the hotel had never felt better. We had a little time to relax and catch up with the other group before heading to dinner. The restaurant we go to for dinner provides us with a menu of 4 options every night. Tonight the "chef suggestion" was a fettuccine del mare. Fettuccine with clams, mussels, crab, other fish in a spicy tomato sauce. Every single person at the table ordered it and it was worth it! Every bite was amazing. I never wanted to stop eating it. At dinner we shared stories and pictures of family and Coloradan adventures with Woody, Valeria and Carlotta. Family has been a great thing to connect with other people over, and easy to talk about. 

YUM.

While the days adventuring in the rainforest had been fun, there was something about today that just seemed perfect. Every aspect of it. It felt great to work to the point of exhaustion, to make a connection with some great people and have a good time while doing it all.

Crocodiles, the coast, mamonchinos, and piñas oh my!

Day 4 was our big travel day. We left our comfy Marriott hotel pretty early to travel to Buenos Aires. We took most of the day to get there with several stops along the way. Our group of 5 AmeriCorps was joined by Woody, our HFHCR guide, and two of their newer office staff, Valeria and Carlotta, who will be joining us for the build week.

Our first stop was a rest stop that is known to have crocodiles hanging out under the bridge. There were the a TON and it was cool to get so close in the wild, but not be in any real danger. We also saw some beautiful colorful macaws up in the trees but it was tough to get a good picture. 

At the Crocodile stop we picked up some Lychee, "Mamonchinos" and enjoyed them in the bus:

 

Top left: Laura's first impressions, Bottom left: Mike and Alisha, Right: Me and Woody play with the pokey skins.

 

Our second stop was right outside a town called Jaco, overlooking the Coast. It was a beautiful view and great to smell the Pacific Ocean again! 

R to L: Carlotta, Charles, Valeria, Laura, mike, Alisha, me

 

We stopped once more for lunch before rolling in to Buenos Aires, the town we'll be staying in, about 40 minutes from our build site in Potrero Grande. Once we got into town Woody gave us an orientation to the area and what to expect for the week. He took us around to a local pineapple field, where a lot of Habitat homeowners work. He also took us by a Habitat home and we got to see a finished home, as well as the area behind the house where the family used to live. It was amazing to see the difference a Habitat home can make in the stability of their housing, health, and general confidence.  

Piñas y las montañas

 

After our tour we walked around town some, but most things were closed since it was Sunday, and we went to the local restaurant where we have dinner every night. We stayed up for a little bit after dinner and got to know some of the other team. 

(I am a day behind, but it's time to run to dinner now!) Ciao Ciao (yes, they say that as goodbye here)!

Pura Vida

Day 3:

This morning we left La Fortuna for a white water rafting trip down the Sarapiqui River and then back to San Jose for the start of the Habitat portion of the trip.

The morning started with smoothies and coffee from the hostel before heading out to the river. We were on a trip with the same company as the zip-lining and they did a fantastic job taking care of everything for the 36 people on the trip. Just like the zip-lining, White Water rafting was something I'd done before but doing it in Costa Rica was a completely new experience. The whole trip was about 10 miles over 2.5 hrs down Class III and IV rapids on the Sarapiqui River. We were lucky enough to get the sun out for most of the rafting portion of the trip but we were definitely not dry. These were not just float down a river rapids, these were intense and constant for most of the length that we paddled. During the few slower sections you had to remind yourself to look around at the beautiful surroundings. About halfway down we stopped for a pineapple and watermelon snack and were able to jump off 15-ft cliff into the river. Our rafting guide, Antonio, had literally grown up on this river and had about 20 years of guiding experience. At the end of every rapid he had us put our paddles in the air and yell "PURA VIDA!", or pure life, good life. The trip included a typical Costa Rican lunch at the end, Casado, essentially a rice and beans dish with some meat or fish on the side. The running joke about Costa Rican food seems to be that it's always rice and beans, sometimes they mix it up and go with beans and rice.

Our team with Antonio after the trip.

The rafting tour company had then arranged our transport back to San Jose in a private car, which was a huge improvement from the crowded bus. Our driver, Christian, probably would have talked to us the entire 2 hours if we hadn't fallen asleep. He had so much to share with us about the country, the history and the culture. He was excited to answer any questions we had about anything from the climate to their healthcare system.

We arrived at the Marriott hotel near the airport in San Jose and were enthusiastically greeted by Habitat Costa Rica Staff. Our guide for the week is Wadel, or Woody. He seems to have a ton of energy and stories, and couldn't say enough times how excited he was for the week. We had our welcome dinner with the other team that will be down here this week. They are an open Global Village trip of about 12 people from all over the US. At the Welcome dinner we also had the opportunity to meet more of the Habitat for Humanity Costa Rica staff, including their Development Resource Coordinator, Global Village Coordinator and a couple other guides. After dinner they gave us a brief presentation on poverty in Costa Rica (52% of their population is living in substandard or overcrowded housing, including 1.1 million people, about 1/4 of the population living in extreme poverty), the work that Habitat Costa Rica is doing in the country (both New Construction and Home Improvement projects) and the Habitat Costa Rica partner families (families are selected by the government for a home). Everyone on our team, the other team, the Habitat staff members were so excited to be in this room and ready to start the week. It was the kind of contagious Habitat energy, excitement, and passion that I've only ever felt before on Habitat trips. It's impossible to describe, but it's the reason I do these trips over and over again and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. 

Habitat for Humanity Costa Rica staff at our welcome dinner.

I'm pretty sure the direct translation of "Cheers" in Spanish is "Salud" but everyone here also loves "Pura Vida" and after the 3 days I've spent here so far I can see why.

Pura Vida!

We weren't dry once

Day 2:

Day two was the Costa Rica day in my opinion. It involved zip-lining, hiking through a rainforest and we weren't dry once. 

The day started with our zip-lining tour, just inside Arenal forest. We did 13 zip-lines total and the "Tarzan swing". Each zip-line got longer and longer, with the longest at 1400 feet. We got drenched on our way up to the first one but after a few it cleared up enough to see some of La Fortuna while cruising through the beautiful rainforest. The Tarzan swing was a whole other beast on its own. It drops you 114 feet straight down and then swings you up the other side. Charles was the first of our group to go and we didn't realize he was going until we heard a genuinely terrified "OH SHIT" as he dropped down towards the concrete pad and then swung back up into be trees. All the guides were so kind and encouraging, I'd been zip-lining before but this was a whole different experience. 

Top: our whole group

Left: Alisha 

Center: Laura doing Tarzan swing 

Right: Mike 

After zip-lining we came back to the hostel to enjoy some fresh fruit smoothies and relax a bit before the afternoon hike. Charles, Laura and I went into the town to buy a journal from one of the local shops and lunch fixings from the supermarket. When we got back to the hostel it took a while to convince ourselves to brave the rain for the hike and it was definitely worth it. 

The hike we did was about 6 km up Cerra Chato, an inactive volcano, and then down to the lake inside. On a clear day you would be able to see all the way across the lake to the rim of the volcano on the other side and the lake would be a brilliant teal. Unfortunately it was either raining or we were in a cloud the entire time. The rain did not by any means take away from the beauty of the rainforest all around us, and it made for five or six pretty hilarious mudslide falls.

Hiking up to Cerra Chato

Walking stick buddies! 

It took a while to get the all the mud off but when we finally did we grabbed some drinks at the Lava Lounge, a bar and grill. The sangria was great, but one look at the menu and it was nothing compared to the place we'd eaten the night before, so we went back there. This time it was packed full of locals and we felt confident in our decision to go back there. We weren't disappointed.

 "Quando esta in Costa Rica, hace como los Ticos". (our rough translation of "When in Rome...")

I've been overall very impressed with the Costa Rican people, "Ticos". Everyone is so helpful and excited. Even in a tiny touristy town they are not pushy or seem to have any ulterior motive, just genuine. They are patient with my poor high school Spanish/mixed with Italian, and some even speak it back to me, despite the fact that they're fluent in English.


  

Muchos Wristbands

Just got back from our time in La Fortuna and it's been a couple of very successful adventure packed days here in Costa Rica so far!

Day 1:

Alisha and I took a red eye from Denver Wednesday night and arrived in San Jose Thursday morning where we met up with our other teammates Laura, Mike and Charles. We then took a 4 hr very crowded and bump bus ride to La Fortuna, a tiny town outside of Arenal National Forest. The ride was rough and I wished I'd been awake to see more of the beautiful Costa Rican countryside but it was tough to keep my eyes open. We checked in at our hostel and immediately changed into swimsuits to catch a taxi up to La Fortuna waterfall. We hiked down about 400 stairs to the base of the waterfall where we able to swim around. 12 hrs in Costa Rica and I was already incredibly impressed with the beautiful lush rainforest. From there we walked back to the hostel about 6 km and stopped for dinner at a great local place recommended by the hostel staff. I'm not sure if it was the fact that we were the only ones there at 5pm on a Thursday afternoon or the fact that we hadn't had a real meal all day, nor slept much, but it was one of those best-food-I've-ever-had moments. They brought us 2 appetizers on the house, had some fresh fruit margaritas, melt in your mouth entrees and a warm pineapple with rum, brandy, cinnamon, honey glaze for dessert. The sun went down at about 6:00 and I don't think we stayed up much past that but it was definitely a "I can't believe we just got here this morning" kind of day. 

Me and Laura at La Fortuna Waterfall

View from our 5-star hostel. 

The title of the comes from a picture in Day 2's post where you can see every activity gives you a new wristband.