Costa Rica Mission Trip 2010

Friday
All sixteen of us, three teachers and thirteen students, are gearing up for our trip to Costa Rica. We'll be flying out today. We will be working with GlobeAware (www.globeaware.org), a non-profit organization that markets itself as a 'mini Peace Corps', giving volunteers an opportunity to work with local villagers on projects the village has deemed important. We will be in the village of Parismina, which is just south of the Tortuguero National Park. Our projects may include rescuing baby sea turtles, working on a recycling center for the village, and helping out in the village school. We'll try to update you as often as possible while we're away!

Here is a link for a google map of Parismina which you can link from the text above: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Parismina,+Limon,+Costa+Rica&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=43.664131,90.087891&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Parismina,+Limon,+Costa+Rica&ll=10.004015,-83.616943&spn=1.703977,2.815247&z=9

Sunday
Greetings from Parismina! We arrived yesterday afternoon, after a bus ride over the mountains, through a huge banana plantation, and finally on a water taxi. After a wonderful lunch, we took a tour of the town and relaxed on the beach, which is just a few hundred feet from our house. Just before dinner, we were given a 'Turtle Talk' from Jerry, who founded the turtle association in Parismina ten years ago. He talked about why the village feels it is important to protect the turtles here, how they do that, and the importance of sea turtles in world ecology. Then we were given the opportunity to take a night turtle patrol, which most of us jumped at. Two groups patrol the beach every night to dissuade poachers, rescue newly laid eggs, and tag and measure adult sea turtles found on the beach. We took the late patrol, which has the best chance of interacting with turtles. We met at the 'Turtle Shack' at midnight, split up into two groups and followed our guides along the beach. We found one nest where the baby turtles had recently hatched (recently as in just an hour or so ago) and followed their tracks to the ocean. There were still some unhatched eggs in the nest, so we covered those back up with sand to keep them warm, and then built a driftwood canopy to protect the nest from dogs and other predators. As we continued walking, we also came across a newly dug turtle nest. We could not locate the exact location of the eggs, so to fool the poachers, we dug a big hole to make it look like the eggs had already been taken. On the walk back to the Turtle Shack, our guides shimmied up coconut trees to bring down a tasty snack of coconut water, and once we had enjoyed that, we were able to scrape out the coconut meat which, when it is this young, is not at all hard. It's not like we are used to seeing it in a grocery store. It was a long night, ending after 3am, but well worth it.

Monday
Our first day of real work! We woke late this morning, as we were all tired from our turtle patrol last night. We headed to the recycling center in town, which has a huge backup of cans and bottles to be recycled. The center is at ground level, and with the amount of rain here, the recycling machines need to be up a bit higher to keep them safe from the water and in good working order. Our job is build a new, higher floor at the center to accomplish this. The room we are working on already has sand dumped in it, and our job is to even it all out at a specific level. As often happens on these trips, we had more hands than tools. We used the shovels we did have, and then made makeshift tools out of old plastic plates, paint trays and scraps of wood. The floor is just about level, and we will head back this afternoon to finish the job.

Tuesday
We finished flattening and compacting the sand in the recycling center, so were now ready to start laying down the concrete.  First, we had to bring in some wire grids for reinforcement along the entire floor, and raise them up just a bit to make sure they would be in the middle of the concrete layer.  Then we were ready to begin mixing the concrete and laying it down. It was much tougher than it looked!  We mixed sand from the beach and rocks from the shore with concrete and water, and mixed, and mixed, and mixed, until it was finally smooth.  We first laid down just small mounds evenly spaced along entire floor, and then based off of those mounds, made lines of concrete.  Then we had a small area ready to fill.  We got through one line, and have four more to do later this week.

Wednesday
A day off. After all that manual mixing of concrete, we need it! We began the day with an early morning boat tour of the river along Parismina, and saw greenback birds, toucans, lizards, cormorants, dart frogs, spoon birds (which are pink, like flamingos) and one lone monkey, though we heard many more.  We had planned to visit the school today, and bring our books that were donated by Mr. Sanchez, but inexplicably, it is closed today, so we are relaxing in the hammocks on the patio before lunch.  This afternoon we have a craft market and a lesson in how to make coconut candy.  We’ve been eating coconuts off the trees all week- it will be a treat to learn how else to eat them!

Thursday
What a night!  The midnight-4am turtle shift saw a leatherback turtle laying her eggs around 1am last night. Once the eggs were laid, the group took them and put them in a new location, to keep them safe from poachers.  They spent about an hour with the turtle, making sure she made it back to the ocean after her long ordeal.  She laid 69 eggs last night, which is a bit low for a leatherback, but we also learned that leatherbacks can lay eggs many times in one season, though they only need to mate once (they save the sperm for future eggs).  Jerry told us that this was likely her third egg-laying of the season, and she may have one more later on.
We are a bit tired on Thursday morning, so headed to work later, but were ready to lay more cement and get our floor done. We got a good system down, lining up three piles of cement in various stages of readiness- Henry Ford would have been proud of our assembly line. 
After our work day, we stopped by the elementary school to drop off some donated books and games.  The children were at recess when we arrived, but ran right over to take a look at their new school books.   Books were donated by Mr. Juan Sanchez of the Kent Modern Languages Department, and Learning Tree Toy Store (www.learningtreeokc.com). 

Friday
Our last day of work- we really wanted to finish the floor, but ran out of both time and materials. Cement mixing is hard work, especially when done entirely by hand.  We thought someone was playing a cruel joke on us when we saw a crew of workers drive by us with an actual cement mixer (a small one, but still!).  In the end, we finished all but the last row of the floor- a job well done. It was satisfying to see the results of our hard work.
Friday afternoon we walked to the far end of the island, and saw amazing things along the way- howler monkeys in the trees above us and a sloth family, including a baby holding onto her mama’s stomach.  Jerry then took us on a jungle tour- after we all applied A LOT of bug spray.  In the jungle (which was only a few hundred feet away from the beach) we saw leaf cutter ants, walking trees, some crazy spiders, and thankfully, no snakes.  Our last day in Parismina ended with a big dinner at our casona with many of the local children we had met during the week.

Saturday
Heading home.  We took a water taxi from Parismina to a bus on the mainland, and rode that again through the banana plantations and back to San Jose.  During the afternoon, we visited Poas Volcano, one of the most visited tourist sites in Costa Rica, likely due to its proximity to the airport.  We took a short hike to the crater, and then a longer hike to a volcanic lagoon.  The weather was very cloudy, so we were quite lucky to have a break in the clouds and see the crater clearly- we could not believe how close we were!

All in all, this was an amazing trip- we met great people in Parismina, felt good about the work that we did with both the turtles and the recycling center, and got to know one another much better.  This trip would not have been possible without the support of The Dominic Rich ’14 Memorial Fund for Christian Mission and Education, The Reverend Cora Cheney Partridge Fund and Father Schell.