Here’s a summary of our trip that I wrote for an email list I belong to. I hope to add more details in separate posts, but I’ll put this here to motivate me.
I’ve been trying to think about how to summarize our trip, but it’s really hard to do it justice. Some of the things that stick in my mind are rather small details in the grand scheme of things, but significant to me. And some of the things that would be more interesting to an outsider are hard to boil down! Suffice it to say that we had a grand time.
First 2 days: we went to the area around the Poas Volcano, not far from San Jose (capital of Costa Rica). It’s an active volcano, but doesn’t have lava - just some sulfur fumaroles and such. Stinky, but intriguing. The area around the crater looks like a moonscape, then abruptly turns green. We also had a hike through some cloud forest to see an inactive crater that is now a lake. For a nature experience, I preferred our trip to the La Paz waterfall area - 5 waterfalls along a trail, with some of the ‘common’ CR tourist things: butterfly house, bird exhibit, hummingbird garden, frog house, etc. The lodge we stayed at was nice - they had a trampoline outside and a ping pong table inside, so the boys stayed entertained.
Next week: Habitat work project in San Ramón. We were helping build a playground for a community that includes Habitat and government low-income housing. The two ‘contingents’ had to form a community association to oversee and manage the park, so that was a step of community building. The land was donated by the ‘developers’ who own the land. (It was required to be set aside as green space by the government, but the government doesn’t provide any funds for park development or maintenance.) Many people from the community came to help work each day - ranging from young boys to mothers to older men. We also had a professional work crew (their work also donated by the landowners). So what did we do? Mostly we laid the concrete for the basketball slab. Sound easy and quick? I thought so at first - how long can that take?? I had no idea how hard this is when the technology is limited to an electric cement mixer, wheelbarrows, and shovels! (But at least we had a cement mixer!) This entry might be twice as long if I detailed all the steps we had to do! And it’s not that we were limited to these tools because this was a Habitat project, I got the impression that this is what they use for most construction in Costa Rica (except for really large-scale development, where they might have cement trucks and bulldozers instead of wheelbarrows and shovels). I was a little bit worried at first that my shoulder might not hold out, but on the contrary, I think my left arm was stronger than my right, due to all the exercises I did during PT.
Some visual memories: watching our boys help us parents push wheelbarrows full of concrete, watching young neighborhood boys fight over who gets to push the wheelbarrows or shovel aggregate closer to the mixer, watching women in flip flops (!!!) pushing wheelbarrows of concrete, seeing Santos (i thought off him as “the mixmaster”) covered with cement dust each time he dumped a bag (55 kg, lifted by himself!) into the mixer. Needless to say, none of this would have been allowed on a work site in the US! No kids, no flip flops, respirator on the mixmaster…
A minor sidestep from the slab work, we had to move 3 trees whose roots might be in danger of disrupting the slab. Once we started digging, though, I began to question this - the first tree seemed to have a tap root that went on forever, not side roots that would move the slab. We might still be digging yet (in heavy duty clay) but we eventually cut through. The second tree was smaller and more shallow. The third tree had the roots cut off very shallow, so it might not make it, or it might be fine (my theory is that these jungle trees are hardy!).
We started this once the concrete mixer tilting thing broke (!!!), dumping that load of concrete on the ground, and we had nothing else to do. This mixer was owned by the construction company donating the work crew. Work boss called around and couldn’t find another working one available in the entire town. Habitat had another mixer with a dead motor - they decided to cobble together parts from the two to make a working model (which was indeed working not long after we arrived the next day).
Another large effort was the “play tubes” - imagine giant concrete pipes like you might see along the side of the road for water or sewer work. We leveled off about 6 (or was it 10?) meters to contain the structure. They rolled the 6 tubes down the hill (!!!!), around a corner and through the gate (!!!) and then into place, sort of zigzaggy like a caterpillar. Apparently this is a common play structure in the area. Women and kids from the neighborhood painted the tubes with a base coat, then the kids [neighborhood + ours] and the gringo adults put our handprints on it (and the artist painted our name by our handprints). One of the women from the neighborhood painted a cute face on the front tube, and the kids painted concrete blocks orange for the “feet”.
Third project: build a support for the dedication “plaque” from A and C’s class. M did most of this work, and C helped a lot. We’d briefly looked into having a plaque made here, but I’m glad it was done in Costa Rica instead: we got a very large green marble or granite slab with gold lettering, way nicer than we would have done here and probably at a fraction of the cost! The final activity at the worksite was the official unveiling (even though many photos had already been taken) of the plaque and words by various parties (including a chant and cheer from the neighborhood kids). I was close to tears, while the other mom from our town was in tears behind her sunglasses. But the playground itself won’t be finished for another few months or so. Additional work will be a pathway, a couple sandboxes, a play structure (swings and slide and maybe climbing?), more landscaping, I forget what else. They’re going to build a small pavilion with grill and table across the street.
Habitat Global Village trips always include an “intercultural exchange.” Our Costa Rican partners made us a typical feast meal and invited a dance troupe of young girls that performed for us. They were cute - we were their first ever public performance. We sang “This Land is Your Land” in English and then in Spanish, and then with the Spanish modified to represent Costa Rica. We also performed a relatively easy square dance, then had them join us for the Virginia Reel. I was pleased to see C really get into this with his partner (a boy about his age), because he’d been pretty grumpy about it during practice.
The hotel we stayed at on this portion was pretty nice - our bathroom had a huge shower and a giant jacuzzi tub (big enough for 3 boys!), which was very nice for clean-up each afternoon. My picky eaters were picky (except on steak night!) but the cooks were very accommodating and helpful (one night they brought out a jar of peanut butter… did I mention ours got confiscated by security in the US? It’s too much like a gel. We’d meant to put it in checked baggage).
Final few days: visit to the Monteverde cloud forest area. Our first day was going to be laid back, but due to bad information our “short” walk to the cheese factory turned into a 3+ hour “death march” on the side of the road (with a very occasional sidewalk). The second day was our big nature experience - canopy tour on hanging bridges in the cloud forest (incredible - nearly defies description) with a very knowledgeable guide, followed up with visits to another (bigger) butterfly house, insect museum, reptile and frog house (eh), and hummingbird garden (these are so cool!).
Saturday the big kids and dads went to a zip line tour (also rappelling and a tarzan swing), while the moms and little boys went to “Children’s Hour” at the Children’s Eternal Rainforest (Spanish acronym BEN). They got a wild and crazy extreme sports adventure, we got to hear a story and see monkeys - I think we got the better end of the deal, but so do they (although they were envious of the monkeys! :^). The two single women went on a coffee tour. We met up for lunch then the other 7 headed back to San Jose. Our family went to an amazing “twilight” hike at the BEN - T fell asleep about 30 minutes into this and had to be carried most of the way. (It starts at twilight but it quickly gets dark, so this is really a night time hike in the cloud forest.)
Sunday we sort of noodled around, went souvenir shopping, then headed back down the bumpy unpaved twisty mountain road, only to get stuck in slow traffic heading into San Jose. We got to our hotel pretty late, C & M went to dinner with the two women for our team (they were doing a few days in San Jose) while T, Z, and I read then went to bed. This hotel had a pool but it was ice cold - T and I stuck our toes in, Z jumped in and jumped right back out! Monday morning we had not quite 2 hours to walk around before going to the airport, so got only a tiny view of central San Jose.
Best food memories: amazing fresh juices (my favorites: guanabana [start singing "Manah manah" in your head], cas, and mango), really good steak that we had a few different times, the fried plantains. I’ve also really acquired a taste for gallo pinto (black beans and rice) at breakfast! I could live without papaya, though. :^)
Best nature experience: tie between hanging bridges and twilight walk. I also really liked the waterfalls (I’m a sucker for waterfalls - must be my desert upbringing :^). I do wish we’d managed to see a sloth, and more birds (our guide was more of a plants and insects guy).
Proud mommy moments: Having T sad that he couldn’t work when we started the first day (this was quickly remedied), watching our kids help with the concrete work in their small way, watching the kids play with neighborhood kids despite the language barrier. Z also had an “in lieu of presents, bring balls for Costa Rica” birthday party (as did the 6yo from the other family) and was pretty gracious about that whole thing.
Summary: I’d do it again, even shoveling all that dirt and bruising my leg pushing wheelbarrows. Of course, if we went again we’d probably be building houses instead of a playground, but I’d do that too!
