Monkey Mom??: Costa Rica Week 2

Because I was in Costa Rica for so long, I figured I should probably give you a look at my daily schedule so you aren't confused. A lot of volunteer work is doing the same types of things every day, much like a normal job. My days started around 6am, when I got up to get ready for the day. Breakfast was at 6:45am so I could catch the bus to school at 7:15. I took the bus to Londres, a small community inland from the ocean in the middle of the rainforest near a river. The bus ride was absolutely stunning each day on the way to school. I got to school around 7:45 or 8am every morning, depending on how fast the buses were running. I spent around 3 to 3.5 hours there each day and fed the kids breakfast, a snack, and lunch. I usually arrived towards the tail end of breakfast and then helped with lessons. After lessons, we had snack and then some play time. Then we ate lunch before napping. I left after putting the kids down for a nap. I then ate lunch usually out at a restaurant or grabbed a yogurt from the store around the corner of my house before heading back to a different bus to go to the beach. I usually sat on the beach every afternoon and just hung out before dinner, when I would meet up with Jacqueline. We would leave our house around 8pm every night and get into all sorts of shenanigans. She was a fun and wild roommate. Now that you have the background for the week, let's dive in.

Day 1

I went to church with Caterina, Clair, and Jacqueline. We had an interesting time and it was good for me to eat the sacrament, an essential part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was nice to know that some part of my experience was the same as what I would be getting at home.

$1 snow cone at the beach

We spent the rest of the day at the beach. I bought a $1 snow cone from a street vendor. The vendor shaved the ice right in front of us and then topped it with sweetened condensed milk. I had a delicious coconut flavor that I would highly recommend.

We eventually left the beach when it started pouring rain. George (my surfing instructor) and I were planning to have a bonfire on the beach that night, but the rain made that a no go. I went home and talked to Mom on the phone. She's my best friend and I am so grateful for her. She keeps me sane.

Day 2

Nothing new and exciting happened. I just went to school. May in Costa Rica is the beginning of rainy season, so it rained all day. I did get to stay in and play Old Maid with our host mom's grandkids though, so that was fun. I'm a big card games person because we love to play them together as a family back home. Little slices of home can be really fun when you're abroad and in a completely new culture.

Day 3

We had a new girl start at work. Her name is Brittany and she was kind of the worst. She didn't speak any Spanish but refused to work with kids younger than four. I had been working mostly with the kids from four to six because I could communicate with them and play games. I was not Brittany's biggest fan.

After work, I showed her the beach. George asked if I wanted a free surfing lesson, and I turned him down because I was with Brittany. Not five minutes later, she ended up ditching me for some random tourist. She wasn't the kindest of companions. She's also 31 so you can't even make the argument that she was just young and ignorant. You'll hear more about that later.

Once I left the beach alone, I ended up meeting with the missionaries. Claire was trying to figure out what church she liked, so I figured I would introduce her to mine. Jacqueline came along because she has also been questioning her own spirituality. I'm fairly certain nothing will come of it, but it's an interesting thing to talk about and try to understand when you're among other respectful people.

Day 4

Parque Nahomi views

I worked with Brittany again and still did not enjoy working with her. Luckily, the day was made better when I was able to go to a new park. Francisca (my host mom) recommended that Regina and I visit Parque Nahomi and it quickly became one of my favorite places on earth. The whole park is just a small little bit of land surrounded on three sides with ocean. Only a few sparse palm trees block the view. The center of the park has playground equipment as well as benches and tables everywhere. You can even kayak right off the shore. The park has a rocky shore that you can sit on and see all manner of crabs and other small wildlife. I went back to Parque Nahomi all the time, especially because it was only a 15 minute walk from my house down the malecon, or oceanfront walkway.

Day 5

We had a health clinic of 10 new volunteers come in the morning in addition to me and Brittany. It made things a little hectic with around 50 children and 12 volunteers. I entertained the kids by having them climb up my legs and do a flip backwards. My white shirt got absolutely wrecked because the ground outside the preschool is pretty much completely red clay. It reminds me a lot of southern Utah actually.

After work, I went to a cooking class up at COSI. We made delicious taco filling. I followed that up with a visit to Club Republik with Jacqueline. I was exhausted though so I made my way home early.

My mood after a successful day of bus navigation

Day 6

I went on an adventure with Brittany in the morning. During the middle of the night, a massive tropical storm moved through Quepos and caused a ton of damage to trees, causing one to fall over on our normal bus route. However, no one told us this, so we had no idea what was happening when we started taking a different route than normal. We were on the bus for over an hour heading into Londres (a rural farming community) before we finally turned around and headed back. We drove over all sorts of dirt roads and washed out bridges through the rainforest. It was very exciting stuff. Eventually, the bus conductor was kind enough to tell us which alternate stop to get off on and which direction we should be walking.

My favorite part of the whole experience was seeing Brittany freak out, which probably makes me a bad person. She didn't speak any Spanish and she had no clue what was going on. I was doing my best to calm her down, but she was pretty dramatic. She kept going on and on about how much she would miss her children. I didn't even know that she had children, so I asked her about them. After she had been telling me about all their different personality traits and what they liked to do for about 10 minutes, she told me they were MONKEYS. She was freaking illegally jailing monkeys in Florida and considered herself a monkey mother. It was a wild reveal and I still think about it sometimes when I need a good laugh.

After all the bus drama, I had a mellow day at home with my host family and played some card games with Francisca and her grandsons, Antonio and Samuel. They are absolutely adorable. Later, I went to Byblos, another bar, with Jacqueline, Claire, and Caterina. We just talked and played some more games.

Bus ride to Uvita

Day 7

On Saturday morning, Jacqueline and I woke up early to catch the bus to Uvita. We had found a hostel called the Flutterby House that had accommodations in a treehouse on the beach for only $14 a night. We had to go see for ourselves. Uvita is only about an hour and a half long bus ride from Quepos, so it wasn't that long. The bus ride was beautiful too and we saw all sorts of beautiful rainforest scenery as well as farms for various tropical fruits, including bananas, pineapples, and mangoes. We walked from the bus stop to our amazing hostel and were NOT disappointed.

Our hostel was on the beach in the middle of the rainforest. The hostel also had a super mellow vibe and gave us many recommendations. Upon recommendation, we ended up renting bikes and biking about 5-7 miles to a waterfall. Jacquline's brakes broke on the way down the mountain, so it made things infinitely more exciting. We ended up having to walk our bikes most the way down the hill, which was unfortunate because that would normally be the easy part of the ride. At the waterfall, you could go swimming or even cliff jumping there. In Uvita, there are seven different waterfalls that have these capabilities. We loved discovering even just the one.

View from my bed in the treehouse

On the way home, we stopped by a local fruit stand to get some food for dinner and breakfast. We ended up just having fruit and some fancy breads we bought from the local panaderia for all our food for the trip.

Back at the hostel, we made friends with two girls from Denmark named Amelie and Fieda. We talked from about 7pm to 2am before going to our treehouse to sleep until the morning. It's amazing what you can learn when talking with people from other parts of the world. They can open your mind up to so many different ways of viewing what is going on around you. We had a really enlightening conversation about politics and religion.

Life Lessons

Throughout the week, I learned the value of speaking the local language, even if it was only a mediocre effort. I was able to calm Brittany, the monkey mother, down through asking about something she was interested in. I learned I truly love to travel and see new things. Even areas close by can be so different from what you were expecting and anticipating. Traveling can give you a look into so many different lives and cultures, more than even just the one you are currently experiencing.