Week 2 in Costa Rica!

Brittney being hardcore again... and the two of us hanging out in the rainforest.

We cannot believe that almost two weeks have gone by! It is all going so fast. After an awesome weekend we were thrown back in to the "real" costa rica where no one speaks english and everybody stares when they see an American. It was incredibly refreshing to be back in our home in Cartago and we are begining to get the hang of things. We have finally figured out how to have a semi warm shower, which was a big acomplishment. We went to a kickboxing class with a woman we swear is named Olga and she kicked our butts. We also attended spin and our weekly dance class with Fabian:) After our hike in the Rainforest we have concluded that we have never seen so much green in our life, which means a lot coming from people who live in Seattle. While all the activities are great fun, they are slightly overshadowed by our awesome volunteer work. This week we began to really forge relationships with the people at our placements and are already dreading saying goodbye in a 3 weeks...

Brittney- This week I continued to work with pre-school age kids in the slums and it gets more and more fun as the kids open up. They are so loving and cute that it is hard to ever get mad at them, in fact, Dona Flory (the woman in charge) told me that I need to be much stricter with them! The challenges of the week were trying to keep the kids happy when they didn't have any food for lunch, trying to teach english during a rainstorm (the roof has many holes), and of course trying to understand what anyone is saying. I leave and my mind hurts from thinking so hard haha. The highlights of the week were teaching the kids all the shapes and colors in english, and now we are working on animals. The children are so eager to learn, it is weird to have kids ask to learn. Another highlight was having the kids imagine they were on a island with dinosaurs for HOURS. They have the wildest imaginations. Next week I will continue at Dona Flory's on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday but on Tuesday and Thursday I am going to an actual school to teach English. I am excited to experience another aspect of volunteering. The other highlight of my week was discovering that my hair wasn't incredibly greasy because of the bad water pressure in Costa Rican showers but rather because I brought two conditioners...

Kimberly and Yesley posing for the camera

Photograph by a six year old... oh well the kids are cuter anyways

Picture of me and Rosa, when we took a walk to nearby park.

Caitlin: So far I have only been able to take pictures at San Rafiel Community Center for the elderly. I work here Tuesday and Thursday and upon arrival I had no idea what to expect from this placement. I kind of thought I would be purely creating activities to entertain a huge group of old folks.. And boy was I wrong. I spend most of my time assisting the physical therapist and I have developed relationships with so many of the residents. So many of them inspire me with their positive attitudes and hard work. One individual in particular has made a HUGE impact on me and I dare say he has changed my life. Here is the story of Milton: Milton had a stroke 8 years ago which caused paralysis on the left side of his body and two hip replacements. He has been in a wheelchair since. 11 months ago the PT proposed the idea to Milton that he should start trying to walk again. It took 10 months of convincing and doing exersizes to build up muscle in his legs to get him to try. When I arrived last Tuesday, Milton was struggling with walking between parallel bars, by Thursday he was walking around the room with a walker, this Tuesday he made it up 6 stairs, and today he walked around the room with only a cane. The PT told us Milton comes in every single day and works harder than any other resident. I am not suppose to pick favorites, but Milton is definitely my favorite. Besides his hard work he has a one of a kind personality, I think he actually tries not to smile but cant help it when I walk in and say "HOLA MILTON!" in my very american accent. Today, the physical therapist told me Milton never says more than one line at a time, but today he talked to me for a good 5 min (I dont think he understands I dont speak Spanish). Our conversation included him asking me if I had a boyfriend, me saying no, him pointing to himself, then him telling me sorry, but he is too old for me. Haha. Then he continued with a more serious tone. The stroke effected his speech as well, but the part the PT could understand was that Milton was telling me to be grateful for everything I have and my good health and to enjoy my life because it is just beginning...

THIS IS MILTON WALKING WITH HIS CANE!!!!!

We spent the weekend in Arenal and it was absolutly amazing to say the least. Everything is SO green and beautiful. The highlight of our weekend was going waterfall repelling/cayoning. It was REALLY awesome although we have both agreed that we have never been that wet in our life. We also visited a hot springs as well as a discotheque where we worked on our salsa moves. We stayed at a cool hostel in a stinky room and met a lot of people. Overall the weekend was a success but we were happy to come back to Cartago and begin volunteering again.



In the beautiful rainforest in Arenal and The Basillica- a famous church blocks away from our homebase.

At Volcan Irazu

Left- Brittney repelling a waterfall- no big deal

Below- Caitlin hiking in the Rainforest- she is hardcore.

We couldn't stop smiling:)

Our First 5 days!

Cooking class with Dona Olga

Caitlin enjoying the scenery

A typical street in Costa Rica- notice the dogs

At the highest point in Costa Rica

We arrived in Costa Rica on Sunday and have done so much already. We spent Sunday night getting to know the other volunteers and getting settled into the house. The house has the atmosphere of summer camp with bunk beds and people singing songs in unison. Monday morning we went on a tour of Cartago. The city is a little different than we expected... A few things that caught our attention were that all of the houses and buildings are fenced in and all of the windows have bars covering them (sounds creepy, but it's not), there are dogs EVERYWHERE (the dogs are accompanied by their droppings all over the sidewalks) and there are not any street signs which results in addresses being something like "100 meter north of the fancy house, then 50 meters west past the horse statue, across the bridge...etc" we have yet to find out exactly how their mail system works. The weather is cooler than we expected which is a nice surprise, and the food is way more delicious than we imagined.

Caitlin: I am working in the HIV clinic MWF and in an elderly community center TTh. At the HIV home I have helped with cleaning projects for half the day, and then activities for the patients the other half. At the elderly community center I get to assist the physical therapist and entertain the residents. My first day I got to dance with two old men which I later found out were flirting with me in Spanish. I could take this as creepy, but rather look at it as a compliment! Today was my second day at the home and when I walked in and said "Hola Donas" to all the women and they got huge smiles and said "HOLA!" followed by about 20 kisses on the cheek. I love them all!

Brittney: I have been working at Los Patitios which is a safe place for children in the slums to go while their mothers are working, since they don't really have access to a formal school. I have been teaching the children english and planning activities to keep them entertained. When I arrived I was greeted by 12 or so children running at me saying, "hello teacher". The children are amazing and so eager to learn and thankfull for any supplies I bring. They can get excited about a chewed up broken crayon. It is a lot of work keeping them busy, since nothing is planned, which I have come to find is sort of the Costa Rican way, but it is very rewarding.

We work from 7:30 am to 12:30 everyday then have the rest of the day to explore. So far we have taken 2 Spanish classes, a salsa dancing class and cooking class at our home base, then decided to join a local gym which offers spin classes in Spanish (of course). Yesterday we went on an excursion to the top of "Volcan Irazu" which is the biggest volcano in Costa Rica. Today on an excursion through the city, we stopped at the most famous church in Costa Rica and joined in on the custom of drinking holy water, however we did not crawl there like many of the Ticos. In the past week we have come to realize Costa Rica was the perfect place for us to volunteer because of the loving people, the beautiful scenery and not to mention the endless supply of delicious, fresh coffee! Stay tuned for next week including our weekend adventure to Arenal...

Thank You Sponsors!

Hi Everyone,

We would like to thank all of the people who sponsored our expedition to Costa Rica. We created this blog so you can all follow our trip and see how your donations have impacted the Tico's (term for natives of Costa Rica). We leave this coming Saturday, July 18th, and will be there until August 22. We are going to try to update this blog every week with pictures and a brief message of what we have been up to, so stay tuned!

Thanks Again,

Caitlin and Brittney