A Day in the Life

The conclusion of week two was just as eventful, if not more so, than week one, but somehow less chaotic. I am finally in the “groove” of work and can answer almost any question that gets thrown my way, what a relief since I am still the only one there sometimes! Answering the phone is coming with

more ease and I have been going to all of our project sites one by one; I have seen almost all of them and have had the pleasure of getting to know the people running those sites a bit better. A lot of what I do is hands-on work with the volunteers, which is a great break from answering the phones.

I figure now is as good a time as any to lay out a typical day at Su Espacio. I will take a Monday as an example because they are usually our most eventful (if not eventful then definitely active) days:

I arrive at work every day at 7:30 and I always find Tina checking emails. I have started to respond to a few of them on my own, however many emails that are coming in right now are from previous conversations between the applicant and Tina, so I leave most of those for her and mostly stick to the new inquiries. After all the emails are checked and responded to, I send out the confirmation paperwork for all of the new applications we receive from our partner programs, which can range from one to four or five a day. This process entails gathering all the applicant information (dates, project interest and information, level of Spanish, special needs or dietary requests, etc.), so we can start to get them paired with a project and a host family. After I fill in all the corresponding information I send them the contract with everything filled out so they can review and sign it and we can get the actual process of placing them started.

Around 8 o’clock the new volunteers arrive. The first week we had two, last week we had eight, and this week we have five, so the numbers fluctuate from week to week. Once everyone has arrived I take them outside and start the “orientation.” This entails me covering topics of safety in the town, host family etiquette, cultural norms, food culture, how to get a cell phone, where to get internet, what to

wear, what you can and can’t eat and drink, how to stay and travel safe, basically how to live in Costa Rica. After I cover more than you ever need to know about this place I take them all out on a tour of the town. I show them where everything important is (the bank, the grocery store, the post office, restaurants, the market, etc.), and then we end at the bus station. We end here because after the tour I have to take everyone to his or her project sites! This is a long process when there are more than a few new volunteers. For example today I had to show a volunteer (and by show I mean take her) to the coffee farm that she will be working at. We took the 9 o’clock bus and got there around 9:30, and didn’t return until noon because there was no earlier bus to return to town! But others usually take around a half an hour to an hour max. At sites I need to give the donation money to the coordinator and get the receipt for our records. I make sure that the volunteer knows what time to get there and act as translator for any questions the volunteer has for the coordinator.

After I make sure everyone has gotten to their sites, the donation money is delivered, and everyone knows where they need to be and at what time I head home for lunch and then back to Su Espacio to

Making Fajitas in the Hostel

pick up the host family money. Then I make the rounds around town delivering all the money to all the host moms (which includes filling them in on what is happening with Tina’s husband, how I am liking Atenas, where I am going to travel to etc. etc.), and when I finally finish with the rounds I head back to the community center (maybe around 3ish). I then man the desk, which includes organizing volunteer schedules, updating the blog/website/Facebook, answering questions for people coming in, taking payments and making receipts for all of the different classes we offer, and am always answering the phone (much to my dismay). Depending on the day I might teach an English class as well.

Around 5 it starts to wind down; we usually have our last English class ending and the volunteers pile into the center for their Spanish class. I take this time to organize behind he desk, make a list for the next day, and to check my email and perhaps write a letter home or start a blog post. Around 6 I usually complete all of this and can take a breath to collect my thoughts and then wait for Spanish class to conclude before I lock up and head home at 7. 

The rest of the week looks very similar except with less carting around volunteers and more work in the center, but you get the gist of it. It is hard work, especially because I am doing most of what Tina and her husband do together but I am on my own, but I love every minute of it and I don’t think I have learned so much in so little time ever before. It is only the beginning of week three and I can only imagine what the rest of the summer will look like!

Also, I just have to note that my little nine year old host sister is sitting at the table next to me eating a midnight snack of tortilla chips slathered (and I do not use that word lightly) with mayonnaise and ketchup. She just informed me that it is even better with tuna on it. I have to say, there is never a dull moment. Welcome to my life.

She has moved on now to wrapping a towel around her head and feeling her way around the house

Street Puppy Love, Look at that Smile!

instead of seeing. And I repeat, never a dull moment. I’ll give her credit, she is pro at entertaining herself!

So as for this past weekend there is really not that much to share besides I had an awesome time in Montezuma because literally all I did was relax. Straight up switched between sitting on the beach in the sun and laying in a hammock in the shade. I did hike to a waterfall, which was awesome. I also did almost put my hand right on top of a scorpion, so there’s that. But I didn’t and everything is peachy keen. I went with another volunteer Matt who is just absolutely hilarious! He was an awesome travel buddy; we took the ferry over and had a couple pretty long bus rides, including the one on the way back where we didn’t even get a seat! (Which is fine, I made a new friend, Kate, and taught her the card game that Will taught me last weekend so that was fun). We played that game a lot this weekend, on the beach, in the hostel, everywhere. We also made fajitas on Saturday night and they were LEGIT.

We did miss the bus on the way there. Once we got to San Jose the first cab driver we took had no idea where to drop us off and so we ended up at the bus station that sends busses to the Caribbean side only. So we took another cab to the correct bus station (the one I though we had to go to, so nice to know that I do remember how to get around that place), but we missed the bus by fifteen minutes. We had to pay another cab driver five times as much as we should have for him to race to meet the bus at one of its stops so we could continue onto Punterenas, then to the Ferry, then another hour and a half bus ride where we transferred one more time and then finally made it to Montezuma. We met up with Annick, a girl I had met last weekend in Manuel Antonio and we also ran into Sam, the awesome guy we met in Manuel Antonio who reminded me of my friend Mike from home, at the bus stop on our way to Montezuma! It was a lot of hanging out and it was awesome! On Sunday I sunbathed for a bit and then spent some quality time in the hammock. I also spent a fair amount of time with the beach dogs too, which was great! They were all so friendly and loved to be pet and they all had such awesome personalities! I think I might start a #DogsOfCostaRica Insta like Hannah’s #CatsOfOrono and upload pics of all the dogs I come across on my travels; I think that might be a fun idea. I also did not make it out unscathed, that makes two weekends for two for getting injured. I was almost to the other side of the river hopping from slippery rock to slippery rock coming back from the waterfall and I was maybe a foot away from stepping onto the back when I lost my footing and fell right into the water, slamming

Making New Friends on the Bus Floor! 

my right knee onto the rocks below the surface. It only bled a little but MAN did that hurt, and still does. The damage is minimal, though, no broken bones and no sprains. I’ll take it. Going to try to break the cycle next weekend, but we will see. Just another day in the life of an adventurer I suppose.

Something that is worth sharing, though, is on our way home we finally made it back to San Jose around 9 o’clock and we asked this taxi driver for a ride to the next terminal and he said a fair price so we headed towards the line of red taxis. As we walked closer we saw this unmarked van standing in the midst of the red government run taxis and we just looked at each other, stopped next to the van (the cab driver was opening the door for us to get in) and Matt goes “ummmmmm yeahhhh, so I think we are going to go take a red taxi instead,” looks at me, I nod, and we bolted. Classic San Jose. We made it just fine though and I was barely in the house for five minutes before I was fast asleep!

It was a wonderfully uneventful weekend and that’s exactly what I was looking for. It was awesome to get to know Matt better because we will be working together for eight more weeks, it makes actually working way better when you are friends with the people there! When it got stressful today we could just laugh about the van or about something else that happened. What a time.

Back to the grind for a few more days then Danielle arrives on Thursday and we head out to La Fortuna on Friday morning! The adventure continues!

Alright, time to work on a Narnia puzzle with the little sis. We have to spend at least, I would say, a solid three to four hours together every evening doing various activities. We do anything from watching the Disney channel, to playing cards (she kicks my ass at War), to playing the Wii (she rocks at them all, I am not too bad at ping pong, but she usually wins), to looking at photos of each other’s family, to her sitting at the table with me while I write (she is doing that now while starting the puzzle), to just running around like a loony, which is always entertaining. She is so spunky whenever she wind a hand, or gets a point, or fits a piece of the puzzle together she shouts something along the line of “SOY LA MEJOR” or runs throughout the house shouting about how she is the best. It. Is. Hilarious! She is a peach and I adore her, so off to puzzle land I go.

Today, my life is just Shelby.