last update till November
Hi all,
Some of you may be sighing with relief - "at last, maybe I'll get a break from all these long winded emails of Rob's life..." :)
Our projects have now been confirmed, and the participants arrive on Monday - so naturally, things are a bit crazy. We are more or less ready, although my partner, Mark and I, still have a lot of planning to do, that we plan to finish up tonight and Mon morning...
I mentioned that our first project was likely to be in Guayabo, an archelogical site about 2.5 hours outside of San Jose. Well, that has been confirmed. Last week, we spent two nights in Guayabo, checking out our future home and work site for 3 weeks of our lives. The park is beautiful, and YCI has worked in the park at least 4-5 times in the past. On our tour of the trails in the rainforest and archeological site, the park ranger kept pointing out trails and bridges built by past YCI crews. Also, the rainforest seemed more alive than the one we visited as tourists a week before (and we didn't have to pay to get in!) Our house is fairly spacious with 5 bedrooms (small though), kitchen, bathroom (cold shower!) and a common room. We are right in the park, so we can basically get up and go to work... It'll be nice... There is a lot of work to be done - a concrete set of stairs (a part that has been eroding too much...), refilling the trails with gravel in some parts that have been washed away and building a concrete bridge to replace an older wooden one.
We had been worried about the nearest phone being 2-4 km away (walking), but just 8 days before we arrived to check out the site, they installed a pay phone that is basically on our front porch. So that worry is no longer too big of a deal.
My biggest worry for the next 10 weeks is (naturally, I suppose) that some medical emergency will arise. We have responsibility to look after the participants, so it feels like a bit of a weight. Probably once the project starts, the weight of the responsibility will feel more manageable...
Our second project is even more remote. It is near Quepos (a beach town 3 hours from San Jose). Quebrada Arroyo is 1.5 hours from Quepos by 4x4 truck (20 km). As you can imagine, the road is quite bad in places. We are worried a little about the possibility of medical evacuations from there, as some say that the roads can be impassable at times, while others say that 4x4's can always get in... Who knows? We will find out. Our backup is to ride out on horses. Our closest phone is 45 minutes away. It is a 30 minute walk to the river, then we have to take a sort of a hand-driven cable car/gondola thing over the river, then 10 minutes more up the road to a public phone. This is also another possibility for evacuation, since they say the road is better in Santo Domingo. Of course, we hope that all of our planning will be in vain, i.e. that nothing will happen to occasion the need...
Quebrada Arroyo is beautiful. It is a small community, of about 15-20 families of farmers. Their cacao and vanilla crops have failed to some mysterious disease, so they want to start an eco-tourism project of trails to the local waterfalls, lookouts, build a suspension bridge and a set of cable cars. It will be a lot of work, but promises to be very rewarding. The community is very keen and about 13 of them will work with us in shifts.
We stayed with a family for the 2 days and on the one night we stayed, we had a great time, playing games with matchsticks and making up stories. They have almost no exposure to foreigners, no electricity or TVs and are eager to talk to us. Their innocence is refreshing and astounding. They can entertain themselves with stories of Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. We really enjoyed it, although I think we kept them up past their bed time, as we went to bed at 9:15pm. They tend to get up at 5, but the next morning, we didn't see anyone stirring until 5:45. (It was amazing that we got up at 5, but we are sort of getting into the country lifestyle...)
If I am worried about the remoteness of our project, the other group has a real adventure on their hands - they have a 10 hour trip to get there from San Jose, involving buses, boats and horses. It's a place called the Penisula de Osa near the Panamian border.
In terms of my time in San Jose, we have been busy with orientation, as usual, I suppose. A lot of our time was spent preparing things to go to the field like medical kits, food, kitchen sets, tools and various administrative and educational materials.
Also, I have been still visiting with friends, but haven't had time as much as in the first few weeks. I visited my friend Laura, who is off in California now for a few weeks, Ida, who now has a new baby girl and a husband to match (this was news to me) - not to mention working fulltime and finishing her masters - and had lunch with my friend Johnny and his family. Also, I met with Paul, a fellow Canadian and ex-YCIer, who is working in San Isidro with Netcorps/CWY. And last, but not least, had dinner with Trent, his partner Monique and Jason from my class. Jason was here for a couple of weeks of training before he heads off to Honduras, so it was nice to get a visit in before he takes off. (and me too!)
Another exciting thing was a series of mysterious red bites/bumps that started appearing on my ankles, waist and knees. At first, I thought I had picked up mites/scabies again, like in Guyana, but we were mistaken. But I was kind of worried, especially since it is contagious and is a big pain to get rid of. I was using a lotion for scabies and washing everything I touched a zillion times for 3 days. It wasn't getting better, so I finally went to a doctor (on the recommendation of our nurse) and he diagnosed it as a skin infection that spreads through the pores. Whew! What a relief. I'm on antibiotics for 5 days now and don't have to do so much laundry. Yippee. It's not cured yet, but supposedly in 3-4 days more it will be.
We had a final dinner of sorts with the whole Project Management Team on Friday. It was quite a nice meal with appetizers, pasta salad, eggplant and pecan pie with whipped cream - sometimes one can forget one is in a foreign country with such delights...
So I guess we are ready to go, but I'm not completely sure. We'll find out tomorrow I suppose. Mark and I still have some planning to do for how we are going to work together, etc. but we're pretty close. I still have some shopping and packing to do, but things are getting there.
That said, I think I'll go shopping!
Ciao, take care, talk to you in a few months... Write to me postally (or electronically, if you get the chance...
Rob