Costa Rica June 18-22 2012

These following posts are all about my volunteer work in Costa Rica for a week through Cross Cultural Solutions. Pura Vida!

Volunteer Day 1: June 18
8 am: We gather ourselves and all of our supplies for the day and pile into the Cross Cultural Solutions volunteer bus to go to our volunteer placement at a local elementary school. To be sure that our clothing is school appropriate and culturally acceptable, we must cover our shoulders and knees while doing volunteer work here in Costa Rica. Our supplies for the day include a 10 gallon bucket of thin, white paint; paintbrushes; scrub brushes; and various other school supplies.

8:10 am: We arrive at the school and get out of the bus carrying our supplies. We are not allowed to take pictures the first day here, but we will start our volunteer work right away. The school has a gate that is opened and we are allowed to come in. We leave our things at a small table near the playground and begin our tour of the school with the principal. All of the buildings are painted a bright blue color, even the walkways that lead from one building to the next up a slope. We go into the classrooms that are in session and say hello to the children who are dressed in their school uniforms. They are shy at first, but of course so are we; the language barrier from English to Spanish isn't making introductions much better, but thankfully I spoke enough Spanish to converse with the children. Besides meeting the children and seeing the classrooms on our tour, we saw their playground, the soccer field, the chicken coop, el comedor, and their computer class.

8:30 am: As soon as we finish our tour and get back to the table where our things are, we hear a very loud bell. We had no idea what it was for until the younger kids came out of their classrooms and bought snacks from a small "snack shack" by the playground. The school is very small so the proceeds from the snack shack go to help the school. We slowly begin to talk to the kids in groups and get to know them slowly. But soon, the next thing i know i am speaking Spanish with a group of little girls. I ask them basic questions and they answer, the are in the 2nd grade and are all very sweet and nice (and very forgiving of my Spanish). They politely asked me several questions as well throughout the beginning of recess time as we got to know each other better. I tired to answer their questions the best that I could; I went into this volunteer trip knowing how to speak Spanish, but they do speak quite fast! At this point, all of the volunteers were still standing around getting to know the kids the best that they could and I was talking to the girls when something great happened! I had gotten to know two girls pretty well through speaking with them and suddenly they both grabbed my hands and lead me away to go walk around with them and play on the playground. I was so touched that these girls were willing to reach out to me and get to know me and I was so grateful to be in Costa Rica and to have this fantastic opportunity. The girls lead me on a tour again and then we ran around on the soccer field where all the young boys were playing soccer and some volunteers were beginning to join in. We all quickly learned that the kids loved to play soccer. We played soccer, boys versus girls for awhile and we laughed, and had a great time playing and yelled "GOLASOOO!" every time someone scored a goal. Some other popular games that we played with the kids during their recess were caballos (piggy-back rides) and lanta (tag). The bell suddenly rang again and the kids had to go back inside their classrooms for school. We walked them to their classrooms and said goodbye. It was already evident that the kids had their favorite volunteers that they were getting attached to!

9 am: While the kids were in class, we began our volunteer work. We were told that the rocks, that were at the bottom of a slope that was next to the soccer field, had to be removed from that area and taken up to the top pf the slope so the kids wouldn't trip over them and get hurt. We could also use these rocks to line paths and planters around the school. So with our amazing girl power, we hauled rocks up the slope to be washed and painted. There were 30-40 good sized rocks that we had brought up to the top of the hill. We used scrub brushes and water to wash off the rocks and get the mud and moss off before painting them all white. We worked and scrubbed until we heard the bell for lunch and the kids came out again.

11 am: The kids came out for lunch and we played with them some more and they began to ask us what words meant in English, and of course we told them! It was cute to hear the kids trying to repeat the words in English that we said. When their lunch was over, the kids went back to class and we sat down at the small table to rest while we waited to get the paint bucket open to paint rocks that lined a pathway at the front of the school. While we were waiting, the kids continuously came out of their classrooms and gave notes to the volunteers that they likes the most. The notes were all really cute, with drawings and short messages like "te amo" and other really nice things like that. I ended up getting 6 letters in all and i felt really special that the kids liked being around me and thought that I was nice. One of the reasons that I went on the trip was to make a positive impact on the lives of others and to be a role model to the children in the school. I feel that even just on the first day that I have accomplished that. I also think that as a group of young women volunteers, we have shown the younger girls at the school that if you put in hard work, that your capabilities can be limitless. As we began to paint the rocks, the children's school day was wrapping up and they came outside to see us and to play. The boys played soccer and the girls stood around and talked, but as soon as they realized that we were all painting, they all wanted to paint as well! All the kids came over, but we didn't have enough paintbrushes for everyone. Kids: "Quiero a pintar" Me: "Uno momento, es importante a compartir con sus amigos... damelo por favor... gracias" Kids: "Quiero a pintar, por favor" Me: "Si, pero use un poco pinto por favor".  I think that my Spanish has been improved already just being here and speaking it so much. Of course my IB Spanish 4 class has helped me learn the language and prepare, but this is Spanish on more of a conversational level. The kids were so adorable and very polite and I has a wonderful first day volunteering at the elementary school. I am looking forward to tomorrow already!

Volunteer Day 2: June 19th
8am: We arrive at the school this morning in the bus. We are carrying the same supplies with us as yesterday because we are continuing our work all week. Today the older kids are at the school in the morning so we will get a chance to meet them. They way the school system works here is that they students range from kindergarten to 6^th grade and  they are broken up into two age groups; one group comes in the morning and the other group comes in the afternoon, and then the groups switch the next day. So yesterday we met the 1^st to 3^rd graders and today we will meet the 4^th to 6^th graders here at the school. We began our day touring the school again and going into the classrooms to be introduced to the students of the new group. Shortly after we finished our tour, the bell rang for recess. The kids came outside and had a snack then it was soccer mania! The boys are a lot older so they are a lot more skilled at soccer and they loved to play. It got pretty intense so the girls didn’t play, but all of the girl volunteers played with the boys; again it was boys versus girls. I played soccer for a little while then I went back up the hill to the school to talk with some of the girls that went to the school. It is a lot harder to connect with the girls at this age because I feel that as they grow older they may want to feel more introverted to meeting new people. I talked to the girls with some of the other volunteers and we asked them if they wanted to play soccer with all of us and they said yes! So before we know it there were about 15 girls versus 8 boys and we were all playing on the same field. It got pretty crowded at times but everyone was having a great time laughing and playing. The boys at that age were all very interested in girls so they kept trying to flirt with some of the volunteers but we just kept saying no, no. When the bell rang for recess to end, we wrapped up the soccer game and walked with the kids back to their classroom. We then began the volunteer work for the day, which consisted of painting the rocks that we had washed yesterday at the school. We got paint all over our clothes but at that point nobody really minded too much. It was a fun time painting; we began to sing songs as we painted and we were really enjoying ourselves. We painted all the rocks that were clean then we went back to washing and scrubbing more rocks. We took a short break and ate a banana that someone brought to the school straight off the banana tree. It was a great banana! The kids came out again for lunch and we played a lot more soccer with them. After lunch, we got a chance to volunteer with the children. We first went to the computer lab and talked with the children about their computer games. They were really nice and we helped them with their health fun quizzes in Spanish. They had a program where they could copy and paste and change pictures and it was pretty cool! Then we switched to the kindergarten room to play with the kids, they were all absolutely adorable!! I first played puzzle games with a group of little girls, then I played with the plastic action figures with the boys at a low table. I was making the sounds for dogs and tigers and the other animals that I was pretending to be in the game that we were playing. When it was time to clean up all the toys, we sang the “limpia” song and then we said goodbye. The women up at the kitchen were getting ready for a teacher breakfast that they would be holding in a few days and they were making tamales. I helped make tamales and I learned the right way to wrap a tamale. The kids were all finishing with their classes by the time we were finished making tamales and we joined them in their soccer game. They day was getting hotter as the sun came out and humidity began to really show, it was around 75-80 degrees as we played soccer. It was cool being able to get the boys to talk about their lives with us and form a connection with these kids.  12pm: We load back into the bus as the older kids start to walk home and the little kids are showing up to begin their day of school.

Volunteer Day 3: June 20th

We got to the school this morning and begin work right away since the kids know who we are already. We begin by placing the rocks we painted earlier yesterday around the base of the trees around the school. It’s a little random, but it looks nice with the bases of the trees encircled in white rocks. As soon as we finish placing those rocks, we paint the rest of the rocks that we brought up from the hillside. We didn’t bother washing the rocks today because they weren’t that dirty and it hadn’t really made a huge impact in the past. Right as we finished painting the rest of the rocks, the bell rang for the kids’ recess. We are al very excited to see the little kids again and play with them because we didn’t get to see them yesterday. We were also allowed to bring our cameras today so we could take pictures of the school, the children and of the kids in action at school. The kids come out of their classrooms and we give them hugs and we all start speaking again. I find the little girls that I became good friends with and I showed them my camera. The rest of the recess I was taking pictures and they were running around with my camera taking pictures, of themselves and their friends and of things around the school. Today we played a lot with them on their small playground, the see-saw they have there was insane! It was two metal pipes stuck together and we fit a lot of kids and volunteers in the seesaw and we all went up and down, up and down for awhile on the see-saw. After the wild see-saw experience, we walked around the school holding hands and the kids really wanted to take pictures, so we let the run around with the cameras for awhile. It didn’t take long before the girls knew how to go back and view the pictures and how to change the settings. There was one instance when the camera was accidently switched to video mode and there are a whole bunch of video clips that are one second that were supposed to be pictures; it was really cute. Partway through this, the kids would run up and tickle us then run away, then we would tickle them back and then this would start a huge game of tag, lanta! When recess was over, the kids had to go back into their classrooms and the volunteers spilt into groups to play with the kids and interact with them in the classrooms. I was in the group that got to go into the computer lab with the 3^rd and 4^th graders. I sat between two boys in the computer lab. The one on my right was very loud and talkative and liked to play games on the computer; he kept yelling to his friend across the room. The kid on my left though was quieter and liked to play the educational guessing games. We talked some and eventually got into a deep conversation about the beauty of the night sky with the stars and the moon. The computer lab is always a lot of fun, I enjoy speaking with the kids about technology and it oftentimes surprises me how young they are and how much they know how to do on the computer. Recess time was again and we played more games and this time we played hand games and I got it on video. You can’t really hear it, but we are speaking Spanish and she is explaining to me how the game works! After recess I went back in the computer lab with the kids and one of the little girls was drawing pictures on the computer that said” Te amo Sarah” (pictured above) and it was absolutely adorable. It made me feel really happy knowing that I was making a positive influence on a girl’s life but it was sad to think about that on Friday, only 2 days away, we would be saying goodbye for forever. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the moment and kept smiling away! When I went back outside, there were two adorable kids that were really high energy and tiring out two of the other volunteers running around and playing tag with them, so I took over for a little while and got a chance to talk with the kids and get to know them. The boy liked to climb trees and play soccer and he had brothers and pets and was telling me about his life. We ran up and down the hill playing tag and around the field too and when we got tired, we went in the shade of the trees and talked one on one about life; him climbing trees and me standing on a painted rock. The girl liked Hannah Montana and Selena Gomez music, and when she told me that I brought her over to a table of other volunteer and we all sang some of the songs for her. She was really shy and didn’t want to sing along with us, but I could tell that she really enjoyed our company. We went back in the shade of the tree and talked some more and then the boy came over and they were asking me about phone numbers. I thought they were going to ask me for my phone number because the day before the older boys were asking us for our phone numbers (which we declined to tell them), but to my surprise, they ran over to their backpacks and grabbed out pieces of paper and wrote their phone numbers down for me to call them. The boy handed me the number written in red and told me it was his mom’s number, and the girl handed me her home phone number written in pencil with an orange heart on it. I was so touched that these 2^nd graders wanted to keep contact with me and actually talk to me more; I was almost on the verge of tearing up. I was heartbroken knowing that I will most likely never see these children again and it is impossible for me to call them. I began to explain to them why I couldn’t call them, but then I looked at their faces and I saw joy and happiness and a little confusion with my Spanish speaking skills, and I couldn’t  bring myself to tell them. It was at this moment that I decided two things: 1)I want to definitely volunteer internationally again and 2) my life now has a purpose. I want to travel the world the rest of my life and volunteer. With CCS again in Costa Rica and many other Spanish speaking countries; with my family; to other countries where the language barrier will be so expansive and create difficulties, but the service will be worth it; and finally, with my own family 20 years from now. I want to be that special person to help someone in need, even if only for a few days. That would make the rest of my life, just like my life has been made today; at 16 years of age I now know the path that I will be traveling down the rest of my life. This has been a very life changing trip for me. The week of volunteer work is already half over and I know that I will miss their smiling faces.

Volunteer Day 4: June 21st

8am: We arrive at the school today and the kids do not have school today so we get right down to our work. We are told that today all the teachers from the nearby schools are meeting at the school we are working at to have a large faculty meeting. The first thing we do is go up to the kitchen and help out by setting the tables before the teachers arrive with cups, silverware and napkins. Once all of the teachers arrive, we hand them their breakfast plates with the tamales we made yesterday on them. We also serve them coffee in the school's set of tea cups. All of the volunteers went outside and took a break while the teachers ate and talked and then we went back inside to slear the tables for the kitchen staff and the teachers. Myself and some other volunteers sorted the plates and utensiles into stacks for washing; big plates, little plates, cups, silverware, tamale sleeves, trash, and plastics all had to be sorted out as a part of the clean up process. Once all the things were sorted out, myself annd four other volunteers took up sponges and washed and dried all the dishes from the breakfast. This was no easy task considering that there were about 25 teachers in attendence at the meeting. From this experience I learned that if you get a good system going, then any job can be very simple! I also came to really appreciate the kitchen staff for all their hard work that they put in, not just at the school in Costa Rica, but anyone in general. Once you put yourself in someone else's shoes, it is alot easier to see life through their scope and to appreciate what they do. After we swiftly did the dishes, we went outside to take a short break before continuing with work in the kitchen. We next rolled silverware for the next meal, we put a fork, knife and spoon together and wrapped it in a napkin to create utensil bundles. After completing this task, we went outside to paint rocks that lined the pavement and paths and I went back later and touched up the rocks with more of the runny white paint that we were using. We then had a job in the place that I have been avoiding most.. the chicken coop! We scrubbed all of the mud off the painted tires in the chicken coop with rough scrub brushes and water so you could see the bright colors again. The tires looked at first dull and dirty but as we scrubbed them up and we realized how bright all of the colors were! There were tires that were blue, peach, navy, sea foam green, yellow, brown and purple. It was rewarding to see the product of our hard work in the form of school beautification. Meanwhile, there are about 20 chickens and 1 rooster running around the coop so it got pretty hectic at times! The rooster strutted around the coop trying to protect the hens while we scrubbed tires, it was pretty comical! After we completed our work, we walked around and made sure that nobody else needed help with any other painting or scrubbing work, then we left early at around 11am. 

Volunteer Day 5- June 22, 2012

Painting tires in my Stanford shirt at the elementary school

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.