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| Painting tires in my Stanford shirt at the elementary school |
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| Hugging one of the girls goodbye, I might just cry! |
8am: We load into the bus to drive to the school. It is a relatively quiet and somber 5 minute drive because we know that today will be our last day at the school helping and being with the kids. I was staring out the window the entire time trying to take in as much as I could and firmly record it to my memory. I was thinking about how to tell the kids that I had become so attached to that today was the last day and that we would probably never see them again. It was very sad to think about.. Today's work was pretty straightforward, we were painting the tires that we had scrubbed yesterday white so the next group of volunteers could come in and paint them colorful again. We broke up into groups of who would be painting in the chicken coop and who would be painting in the kindergarten area, and I chose to be in the Kindergarten area for painting tires. We had finished about 2 tires when the bell rang for the kid's recess at about 8:30 am. The kids found us painting and asked us to play... caballos! So of course we dropped our paintbrushes and went to play with them. We brought them back down to their main play area via piggy-back ride (caballos) and played soccer and caballos and took more pictures and it was a lot of fun as usual. The kids wanted to run around and take more pictures but it was to the point where it was getting so hot and we were really sweaty so we had to politely decline. The weather has grown progressively hotter as we have been here over the past week. It even rained today for about 20 minutes during lunch time. It was at this time during recess that the kids found out that today was our last day at their school and that we would be returning home soon. I told the girl that I had become very close with, and I was really sad. I said: "Estoy trieste" then she said "Porque Sarah?" and then I said "Porqe hoy es el finalmente dia que nosotros estamos aqui. Necesito a regresar a los EstadosUnidos en tres dias." And then she got kinda sad too and hugged me and said "Te amo Sarah" and at that point I got pretty sad and almost began to cry. One of the other volunteers got a picture of us hugging and it looks like i am about to cry!! These children have opened up their hearts to us volunteers over the course of 5 days and were willing to share things with us and be nice to us and I think that society in general could learn how to show more compassion from these amazing children. After the kids recess, some of them began to leave on a bus back to central Orosi, and we made sure to say goodbye to them before they left. We quickly finished painting tires and then went into their English classroom to help out the children with their English pronunciation and spelling. The teacher was giving the children worksheets and we were helping them learn the parts of the house like kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, etc. After the children had completed the worksheet, the teacher let the children color the worksheet and we helped them color in their worksheet as well. Today at recess, some of the kids ran up to me and gave me some of the cute notes, it was pretty adorable. Getting the notes from the children really reinforce that face that I am making a difference in someone's life by being there volunteering. I also braided a lot of hair while I was there too, I braided french braids, normal braids, fishtail braids, you name it, I was braiding it! While I was braiding hair, one of the girls ran in to tell me that she had lost her tooth out on the playground and she showed me her lost tooth. I t was pretty cute that she ran in to tell me that she had lost her tooth. That was the second lost tooth on the playground that day, a boy had lost his tooth earlier, and he wiped off the blood and just kept playing soccer. It was pretty adorable that they love the sport that much at such a young age. After the school day had ended for the little kids, a lot of them began to leave in buses or their parents came and picked them up, the girl i was really close to was leaving and we said goodbye one last time and she walked away and looked back at me through the chain link fence and I looked back at her with tears welled up in my eyes. One of the other volunteers asked if I was okay and I said yes, that I was fine, just kinds sad. As I turned around I saw another volunteer bawling her eyes out as she said goodbye to some of the kids, and seeing her cry didn't help my sad mood that day at all. Some of the older kids began to show up for school and we asked to stay fifteen minutes longer to say goodbye to them. We went down to the field and played one last game of soccer with the kids before going back up to the kitchen to say goodbye to the kitchen staff and some of the teachers. Then we said goodbye to the principal who wished us all a safe journey home. I have learned so much on my experience to Costa Rica. I learned a lot about the culture there, the people, rituals, foods, and traditions. I learned a lot about the beautiful land and I got to sight see in many beautiful places. I am so lucky I got the opportunity to embark on such an amazing international journey at such a young age and I am really appreciative of those who helped to to succeed in making it on the trip. But most of all, I am so glad that I got the opportunity to help others in a foreign country and it has truly changed my life.
4 hours of IB CAS service.
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