I mentioned previously that there is a tradition at the "Home Base" (where all the volunteers live) in Cartago of leaving behind your "handprint" on the wall. Well we added ours too but opted for the family mural as most groups do something like that:
Ours is in the bottom right. The Huish Family was the family with 4 girls who was staying with us. Great people and it was really fortunate that we could share this time with them as the experience with kids is a bit different then what the others experienced.
As most of you might guess, this is Stine's work - I probably could have pulled off a handprint...it would have been smudged. Anyhow, most people have some very poignant quote but we thought "why not" summed up our experience in a broad way..
Luke decided to do his own artwork (surprise, Luke wandered off to do his own thing!):
We did enjoy getting to know all the other volunteers to - a great mix of people from all over the US.
Finally, on Friday night we decided to go out for dinner...but as we were getting ready - we found Luke in the kitchen with Dona Olga getting a special dinner:
Friday was our last day and we were sad to go. Even though it was hard work we had really settled into a good pattern with the kids and they were now used to the routine too. I couldn't believe it when Jakob said that if we ever come back that we should do 3 weeks!
The other women at our placement, Brooke and Everette will stay 6 and 2 more weeks respectively so we will follow up with them to see how that time went.
Here is a shot of us with Don Victor and Dona Melba on Friday (we stopped by the house Friday evening to say goodbye and we were buried in a sea of kids - it was a great experience):
What you don't see in this picture is that there is about 25 kids standing around us and just getting them off of us to take this picture was a challenge ;-)
Kids names from L to R: don't know first one, I think she was a guest, Casey, Michelle (cooks daughter), William and Natalie (cooks daughter) and laying across is Jasmine. Casey (second from left) was one of my favorites, she has a silver tooth and she was always smiling and when we walked to the park she always had to hold my hand and she loved it when I would carry her.
Okay it is late on Friday and everyone has either left for home or off for fun this weekend...Stine is painting our "mark" on the Home Base wall (and so is Luke) and Jakob is hanging out...
So anyway - a quick video of a group of monkeys we encountered in a hike near Arenal:
We had a wild last day with the kids and will miss them a lot. It's amazing how close you can get in just 2 short weeks. That's the great thing about kids - unconditional love. I know we will remember them for a looong time! We hope they remember us too.
Luke jumps rope with Sheyla, Veronica, Jasmine and Pamela :
Our little buddy Mario:
Stine with Alvaro and William:
Pamela eats a mango...
More kids - L to R is Helen, Mario, Nicole, Rebecca (with ball) and German.
We hope to see them again some day...you never know!
We just returned from a visit to a local coffee farm - organic coffee farm actually, which is unusual in Costa Rica.
The owner is an American guy, Ernie, who has lived with his wife here for over 30 years - they raised their kids here - Cris and Tina - so the farm is called Finca Cristina and the brand is Cafe Cristina!
Ernie gave us the grand tour - might have spent a bit too much time talking about how he controls fungus - although I found it fascinating for whatever reason (this is where Stine will tell you it is because I am a nerd of some sort - but come on - who wouldn't love fungus and bug control in a rain forest?!)
To add nitrogen to the soil they have planted trees and then they prune the trees and leave the branches on the ground along with lots of weeds. Then end result is he doesn't have to add chemical fertilizers - he does have a potassium issue but is experimenting with adding some volcanic soil...or something like that!
So here is an overview of the coffee growing process -just because it is still fresh in my mind...so here it goes:
First - they actually do the harvest 4-5 times a year and it takes about 10 days to do the harvesting. This is not a big farm but he produces about 25,000 lbs of coffee a year.
Once it is harvested it is brought to this machine where it is "pulped"- the green thing to the left.
The best way to undertand this is the raw coffee is like a cherry - and the pit is the coffee bean. So the pulp process smashes up the 'berry' and it takes about 6 lbs of berry to get 1 lb of bean (then the roasting process reduces the weight another 20%)...I remember weird stuff!
So then the pulp is composted and he has a huge pile of "american earthworms" that makes this world class soil they reuse in other parts of the farm. During harvest the area below is full all the way to the top of the conveyor belt.
The pulped bean is then washed to remove "slime" and then from there the beans are laid out to dry completely here:
Once the beans are dried they can be safely stored for one year. You can see the 100 lb bags in the back of the above shot.
But wait - its not ready for roasting yet! Then when it is time to roast the bean needs to get a "husk" removed then the beans are sorted for quality - this is done with air blowing the husks away and the sorting table itself is like one of those games many of us had as kids which was either hockey or football and air blew threw holes and the hole thing vibrated. In this process the lighter "bad" beans go to one side and the good beans go to the other.
He says about 90% of his beans are good and the other 10% are grade 2 and 3. He sells the bad stuff (grade 3 to a local wholesaler) and sells the grade 2 stuff at a local flea market...the best stuff is what he sells online directly to companies or individuals.
I'm not a big coffee drinker but when in Rome - even both kids had some too (just a little with lots of milk and sugar)....so wish us well tonight!
We started to take some pictures at the house we are working at - here's the house:
If you look in the back at the top you might see that there are 2 levels - they just added on to the house. They need the room, trust us on that one! 37 kids live here - age 18 months to 23 years old. There is a small courtyard you can see on the right side of this picture...or at least you can see the entrance to it...
If you sometimes feel like you have a lot of laundry - this might give you some perspective:
This is also the new part of the house which is actually really nice - above the room you can see in the back is a master bedroom with a private bathroom and shower.
Here is the park we have spent most of our time with the kids:
And yes - that is a horse that lives nearby. In the trees to the right is a little creek that is just disgusting with the amount of trash scattered about - I'm also pretty sure that all the local home's gray water flows into this creek too so we do our best to keep the kids out. But today - Michelle, the daughter of the cook who helps at the foster home - dropped her purse in the creek and then decided it was so valuable that she would just jump into the creek, up to her neck...she walked home all wet ;-)
More kid shots:
The above shot is Jakob with his buddy Mario - Mario is just adorable.
Will share more again later...off to another local volcano with everyone!
Well we thought that Luke had a clean bill of health after his visit to the Costa Rica clinic - but when we returned home we noticed Luke seemed to have a bit of pain in his ear...so we took him to his pediatrician, Dr Daley and look what she flushed out:
Luke was a good sport letting his dad take this picture! The thorax, since it is soft tissue, fell apart a few seconds after coming out of the ear but the wings, head and legs are still there and you can see how big this was - I couldn't believe that this was in his ear for 2 weeks and he didn't complain...nor did we notice any change in his ability to listen since he normally doesn't listen to a word his parents say anyway...DOH!
********* History of the bug attack below *******
So - back to the attack of the bugs...it started off as a fun horseback ride up into the mountains:
The horses were not in the best shape but my horse had enough spunk that my butt was sore the next day from the 20 minute or so ride. Both of the boys enjoyed the ride too, I think it was their first time riding a horse. Luke is taking a horseback riding class with his friend Alex this summer so Luke will have a little experience under his belt.
Once we got to the jungle - we got our harnesses on and then they put this on our hand:
This is the brake! The zip lines went anywhere from a hundred yards to the long one - which was a quarter mile of some serious 'zipping' through the jungle. It was actually safe. Both boys went along with guides so they did not have to worry about braking. But on a couple of the short zips the boys went on their own as all they had to do was hold on!
As you can see by the video - we were wayyyy up there. But I never felt in danger as you were always connected to a cable - there were always 2 connections, a primary and a safety so when you "arrived" at a platform, they would take the safety line and connect you to a cable and then you would "dismount" the zip line.
So the trouble started when we were high in a tree waiting for our next zip line. A few big black flies started buzzing around Luke who was with the guide waiting. Well, as Luke started moving around the bugs started to get excited too - then suddenly there were more of these flies and apparently they like to dig into hair so they were soon in our helmets - me Luke and Jakob took the brunt of this attack. It felt like you were being stung or bit - it was really uncomfortable - not to mention that we were way up in a tree on tiny platform - the smallest and most precarious one of all of them actually so lucky us!
So Luke is now frantically screaming his head off that he is being eaten alive, the flies are now biting or digging inside his helmet, shirt and the worst part - HIS EARS! The strap from the helmet is trapping the flies in his ears so he is screaming and the guide is trying to calm him down - I'm about 5 feet below Luke so I climb the ladder to the platform with Jakob who is between me and Luke (since we have our safety lines hooked to a cable) - well I'm not much help except to pull these flies (as big as a bumblebee, just all black and with sharp legs!) from his hair and shirt. Luke just wants to get down which can NOT happen as the only thing is to just go to the next platform. So we get Luke's helmet back on and he is completely flipped out as now two women with us are screaming for their lives too!
Essentially we just put Luke on the zip line and push him to the other platform which was just about a hundred or so yards away. He is still not too happy on the other platform as a few bugs are still on him - at this point his helmet goes flying off into the jungle too ;-) But we now have all the bugs off him and a guide takes him to the next platform where things settle down a bit.
We have just one more zip line to go, which is good - as Luke has blood coming out of one ear! So it takes a while to get back to the "base camp" but they had radioed ahead and had a doctor waiting to examine Luke so we took a ride to "La Clinica" where a doctor made sure there were no bugs still in his ear. The bug did bite in this ear but the blood was likely Luke's fingernail or the bugs claws...but he is okay.
Does anyone know a good therapist though ;-) Not sure if that is just for Luke or for all of us~
The good news is we went back to our hotel and enjoyed the evening swimming in the pool and just relaxed so we all had a good laugh out of our adventure later that evening!
