Perks of Being a Chaperone

Perks:

1. The official chaperone seat in the front of the bus.
2. Free coffee in places

3. Free snacks in place

4. Beer tickets at Hacienda Guachipelin

Not a Perk:

1. Sleeping in the ‘servants’ quarters next to the horses.

(Which leads me to the next blog post...)

Pura vida,

Jessica Lynn

Official chaperone seat in the front of the bus.

What free beer tickets and a little extra coin get you.

Signs From God

There are funny “Signs from God” around the Flamingo area promoting a Beach Community Church service on Sundays. They are plain and simple and scattered throughout the area along the roadways. They’ve been around for quite a few years, but they seem to step up their game every time I’m here!

A few of my favorites from this trip:

1. Well, you wanted a sign.               -God

2. I want full custody of my children, not just weekend visits.          -God

3. The next time you want to take someone’s name in vain, use your own.                 -God

And…my personal favorite:

1. Honk if you love Jesus. Text if you want to meet him!     -God

Very funny, Costa Rica, very funny. : )

Pura vida,

Jessica Lynn

Volunteering

I don't have many pictures from the last few days of volunteer work. I decided to see with my eyes instead of my camera.

However, here is the recap of the last week in volunteering:

1. La Carpio—City of Hope. La Carpio is a slum outside of the Costa Rica’s Capital, San Jose. CPI has work the Humanitarian Foundation there for years. It’s an incredible story of Nicaraguan Immigrants pull themselves up by their own hard work and faith despite the hardships and poverty they’ve had to endure. Our goal in La Carpio was to play with children at the Model Education center and paint houses. The idea behind painting the houses is that the brightness and cheerfulness in the colorful house instills hope and positivity in whoever sees it. It’s kind of a cool concept. However, on this day, I spent most of my time with Fatima (a Nicaraguan immigrant), the Model Education’s teacher. Her job is to develop the curriculum for poverty-stricken children from ages 2-6. If you think daycare is difficult in the U.S., you should see this undertaking. It’s incredible what Fatima does! I spent a good hour with her talking about how she is more than a teacher to a lot of these kids who come from broken families and no food. She showed me her entire curriculum and how she develops it. It was amazing just to talk to her about what she does.  I had this beautiful moment where I felt like I learned so much more that day than I ever could have if I didn’t know Spanish. I was so grateful for my ability from God to speak another language so that I could just talk and learn from someone else.

2. Kids Camp. Our group met up with 25 boys, ages 10-14, at a Sports Camp. These boys were on a soccer league that is in La Carpio and having been winning most of their games. This is a big deal considering how much pride it has instilled in the community, so as a reward, the kids got to go to a Sports Camp featuring soccer, basketball, and….the pool! Let me tell you, it is the hardest thing in the world to get these guys out of the pool! It’s a luxury rarely seen by these guys, so when we offered to go play bola (soccer) at one point, the most adorable kid name Esteven (pint-sized, big ears, tiny belly poking out, missing his two front teeth) looked at me and yelled, “Bola, no! Piscina, síííííí!” as he double fist-pumped his hands. (Soccer, no! Pool, yessss!). He was so excited to be near a pool. It was so cute that I nearly took him back to the pool myself. J On a side note, it was really cool that once the boys knew I spoke Spanish, they would regularly just ask questions or start conversations knowing that I understood them!

3. Flamingo. We painted a house for a family that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it. I was so proud of the group and the effort they put into doing a quality job. Our site manager, Diego, was amazing as a well. Diego is actually my boss’s son who helped me out on my first group ever at CPI. Since then, he’s kind of been a little brother to me. Of course, given that he’s nearly 18 years old, I’ve never seen the girls in our group so motivated to work! I also haven’t seen the boys so motivated to work either. After Diego asked one of our guys to start painting a huge section of the house, the guy looked at our chaperone and said, “He’s just too good looking to say ‘no’ too.” Haha.

We also worked in a school where we painted and played with children, but the top volunteer moments were listed above. What started out as a struggle to get kids working at the beginning of the week ended as a really well-done project and the kids seeing their project through to the end. If nothing else, I wanted the kids to learn the importance of finishing what they started and not just walking out at 1:00PM because the schedule says we should.

Pura vida,

Jessica Lynn

Exhaustion

Exhausted. That's what I am.

And when that happens, I end up calling the surf shop asking for dance lessons, and I flash a truckload of workers while on the highway.

The surf shop is self explanatory and everyone got a good laugh on the phone. 

The flashing incident was actually pretty harmless because I had my swimsuit on and had pulled my t-shirt up to put on sunscreen. I just don't think the workers knew that based on the waves, winks and smiles I was getting. Whoops. Happy 4th of July, boys!

Pura vida,

Jessica Lynn

Rafting!

From my rafting trip with UD in 2008!

My life has been a blur since Sunday when I picked up my group.  I’ve barely had time to breathe!

Monday was spent rafting the Pacuare River. Did you know ‘Pacuare’ means ‘little toucan’? I didn’t.

I love the drive to rafting because we pass over a place where the “Rio Sucio” (Dirty River) and another river converge and run side by side.  It’s beautiful because the Rio Sucio is orange/brown in color from the volcano that runs from and the other river is crystal clear coming from the mountains.  It’s a gorgeous sight to witness the two rivers merging into one, and yet, maintaining their own identities. It’s one of my favorite views in all of Costa Rica.

Anyway, the rafting trip was a one day excursion that took us 18 miles down the river and fed us lunch half way. It was an awesome trip! We did the same section of the river that I did with UD as a student, so I remembered a lot of the rapids and views.  My raft had a great river guide as well, Roberto, who impressed us with this back flip off the raft. I think I impressed him too with mine. : ) Roberto also let me sit in back and be the guide for about a half mile of river…although I’m pretty sure he was actually the one still steering.

Toward the end of the trip, I got to witness a second favorite view in Costa Rica. As we were finishing our rafting through the canyon, the river narrows to about 50m wide. Your raft takes you between two lush, green covered canyon walls that are hundreds of feet above you and have small waterfalls lining the entire half mile stretch of river. The sight is breathtaking.

It’s been a couple of years since rafting here and I hope and pray I don’t have to wait another couple of years!

Pura Vida,

Jessica Lynn

"Yesica and Kely"

I got to meet up with my good friend, Kelli (or "Kely"), in Heredia yesterday!

She and I studied Spanish and Foreign Language Education together at UD. We also lived with the same host family, Loli and Jesus, when we studied together in Spain.  Our host mom in Spain always called us "Yesica and Kely", and so, the names stuck. 

Kelli has actually been living in Costa Rica since we graduated college, so every year I'm down here, we try to meet up and at least get lunch! We grabbed a cereva and some pizza at local restuarant/bar called Bulevar. It was too short of time together, but it was wonderful seeing her! Until next year... : )

A couple of noteworthy things:

1. I successfully took the public bus there and back! There is no need to take a taxi in the middle of the afternoon when a bus costs a total of $1.19 round trip.

2. I needed another set of pants for volunteer work with my next group. I stopped by the ropa americana store and bought a pair of Old Navy jeans for $11.90. I probably could have had "Hollister" for the same amount if I wasn't worried about my dignity being attached to a brand designed for 14 year olds.

3. I had to sleep on the sofa cama last night at the apartment. My feet actually hung off the end. Who is doing the designing around here?!

Pura vida : )

Jessica

Sewage Sardines

Two nights ago I was staying in a Bed and Breakfast called, La Dehesa, with my group who was about to return to the U.S. the next morning. I was lying in bed reading when I got a soft knock on my door.

Voice: "Jessica?"
Me: "Yes?"
Voice: "Um...Mike* had an accident."
Me: "What?!"

I shot out of bed. Usually when I get a knock on my door like this it means we are going to the hospital.

I opened the door.

Male group member: "Well... we were playing "sardines", and there was a big tank, and Mike..."
Other male group member: "No, no it's okay! In case you're wondering Mike was safe! He's in the shower right now cleaning up."

In my mind, I'm picturing blood, head trauma, the worst of the worst.

Me: "Is he bleeding? Is he injured? Do I need to call a doctor?"
Group of boys: "Hahahaha. No, it's nothing like that. He just fell through the ground into a sewage tank."

Lord.

Chalk that one up to a new chaperone experience. Apparently, this boy had found a great hiding spot for the game of "sardines". That is, until the ground gave way and he found himself plunging into a tank of bottomless, brown, murky water.

He seemed to be able to laugh about it though. He said it wasn't scary, just confusing. One minute he was hiding from his classmates, and the next, he was emerging soaking wet and covered in brown water. He said his feet never touched the ground but that he managed to grab the sides of the tank to keep from fully submerging.

I think we were all grateful for that.

I think we all tried to convince him it was just rain water as well.

Pura vida,

Jessica Lynn