Our Final Day

July 25, 2009

Our final day began with a much appreciated 7:00 AM wake-up call, and after a quick breakfast, we boarded our bus and departed for the Aldeas S.O.S orphanage. Anticipation on the bus grew until we finally arrived.

As we walked into the orphanage and witnessed the excited children, we knew exactly why we had an extra hour of sleep. We spent the next few hours laughing and playing with children, who appreciated every minute of it. Helping us at the orphanage were local Costa Rican Boy and Girl scouts. Many of the scouts spoke English well enough to hold a conversation with, but some scouts were a different story. Fortunately, even those of us who had only learned a limited amount of broken Spanish over the last ten days were able to communicate well enough to joke and have fun. The scouts helped us plant trees and supervised activities such as arts and crafts. Though difficult, leaving the orphanage was a touching moment for both the children and us. We made our goodbyes last as long as possible before loading the bus and returning to our hotel.

Our final night came to a close with an emotional closing ceremony. We said our farewells to our beloved leaders and Mary Eisenhower opened the microphone to questions allowing each of us to get to know her a little better. After the Q & A session, we broke up into teams and took an “exam” to see exactly how well we’d gotten to know each other over the past ten days. After learning the… substandard… results, the leaders each spoke about the trip and what it meant to them and some of the delegates also took part in sharing their final thoughts. In keeping with the trip’s rollercoaster of emotion, the ceremonies ended with a final dance party – GYFHC Delegate, David, leading the way and one of our last acts as the 2009 GYFHC delegation, a group hug.

-By Elliott Wall (Mexico, MO)

Back Home

After a long day of travel, our GYFHC Costa Rica delegation has returned and all delegates are making their way back to their home towns. Another successful GYFHC!

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
--Margaret Mead

At the Airport

All delegates are checked in and through security at the San Jose airport. Our flight to Dallas is currently on time.

Back to San Jose - 7/24/09

Today, we left beautiful Monteverde for San Jose. Our 4 hour, uneventful bus ride took us to the Britt Coffee Plantation where we ate lunch and toured the facility. While on the tour, we learned about the legend of coffee, the different stages of harvesting and roasting, as well as how to tell a good cup of coffee from a bad one; additionally, we learned how coffee is one of the major exports of Costa Rica, and how it helps to sustain the country. At the conclusion of the tour, we all had the opportunity to purchase coffee straight from the source!

Next, we checked in at the Intercontinental Hotel, where we were greeted by PTPI's President and CEO, Mary Jean Eisenhower. The whole delegation had the opportunity to meet with Mary to fill her in on our Costa Rican experience thus far,and to let her know of all the sites we have seen and service projects we have completed.

To wrap up the day, we all visited Pueblo Antiguo, which is a unique cultural center representing historical San Jose. The goal of Pueblo Antiguo is to recreate what San Jose's main square was like between 1880 and 1930, but the coolest part about Pueblo Antiguo is that all of the proceeds generated benefit the National Children's Hospital. During our visit we attended folk show where we were able to experience authentic Costa Rican music and dance and we concluded our time there with an authentic dinner. It was a great evening!

By GYFHC Delegates Alyssa Vigliotti and Sarah Mathiesen

Magical Moments in the Monteverde Cloud Forest

Thursday July 23, 2009

Day eight started off with a rush. After enjoying the blue morning sky, our delegation began our zip lining tour of the Monteverde Cloud Forest. The tour started off slowly with the completion of what we had thought to be only three short zip lines. Soon after finishing the first three lines, we found ourselves zipping across tree tops in many different ways: upside-down, backwards, and in pairs. To complete our tour, we each plummeted off of what was likely a 30 ft platform to find ourselves dangling from the “Tarzan Swing.” This was certainly, for me, the best way to start off a great day.
After lunch, our delegation split into two groups to complete our service projects. One group left to join Willow Zuchowski, a famous botanist, and the other to help construct a handicapped-accessible viewing platform in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest for the Monteverde Conservation League. The group that went to work with Willow, the botanist, gathered materials for the construction of a garden and removed grasses in order to create a path with benches to view their hard work.
The other group, who went to build the viewing platform, had quite a bit in store for them. The work mainly consisted of digging 18, 2 foot deep holes in which to place the very large supporting wooden poles of the platform. In addition, delegates cleared brush, moved large rocks, carried wood –and whatever else was needed.
Needless to say, after planting 500 trees yesterday, creating a garden and digging the holes for the poles today, GYFHC Costa Rica delegates are certainly qualified for strenuous yard work. We left the service sites today feeling exhausted but happy for a job well done and knowing our contributions will help the Monteverde Conservation League. This may easily be our favorite humanitarian project we have completed so far.
- GYFHC delegates Madison Taylor & Sarah Mathiesen

Children´s Eternal Rainforest

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Today was probably one of the days that "hit the heart" the most. We began with a delicious breakfast as usual. The delegation then headed to the Children´s Eternal Rainforest. An informative briefing held by the VP, Bob Law, and Mia Robert informed us about about every aspect of the rainforest from funding, to cost, to the volunteer opportunities available. During all of this, the bugs were attacking us and we were all so eager to begin our hike. The delegation split, and the hike began. Personally, our group had an advantage of a $2000 telescope to assist our vision! We were able to see a vast group of insects and birds. It was very interesting to see how different the species are from the U.S.

After the hike, the group reconvened for lunch. We then returned to give the Children´s Eternal Rainforest a "gift" of a bunch of trees. When I say "bunch" I mean 300 plus! We established an efficient system for planting and each individual person played a massive part. (By the way, we all went into this project thinking we were each only planting two trees or so. We were happy to say that we planted many more!)

After covering ourselves in bugs, dirt, vines, etc. the group freshened up for dinner and some cultural interaction with fellow delegate and Monteverde resident, Daniel Vargas´ friends. That was most definitely a good time as we played all sorts of teambuilding games that Daniel helped facilitate.

The food is great here, the environment is fantastic, but most importantly the memories we are creating will stay with us forever.
By GYFHC Delegates Stephanie Rodriguez and Gen Montreuil

On Our Way to Monteverde

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

After waking up to the sounds of the birds chirping, cows mooing and monkeys chattering away, our delegation left LaFortuna for Monteverde. We traveled through the windy roads and lush jungles and farmlands to arrive at our hotel. Though the rain kept us from our second ziplining adventure, instead we had the opportunity to come together as a delegation and get to know one another through some rainy-day activities. It was indeed another amazing day in Costa Rica...

Costa Rican Adventures

Monday June 20th

After chilling our room to a wintry 16 degrees we scampered off to breakfast early only to discover that yet again we were the last ones to arrive. Sitting by ourselves like loners we enjoyed yet another delicious breakfast at the Volcano Lodge. The coffee was FANTASTIC and their fruit is like nothing you can imagine! To our utter shock, there was blue sky and for the first time we could almost clearly see the peak of the volcano that we previously thought was a conspiracy for tourism.
We then transferred to the large bus and headed off to the Sky Tram and Sky Trek zip lining outdoor adventure zone. After harnessing up and being attached to heavy metal zip lining equipment we headed off to the gondolas and began our 12 minute ascent to the top of the tour. On our way up we learned that the lake we were so avidly taking pictures of was actually man made. It supplies over 70% of Costa Rica’s energy needs while wind turbines provide close to the other 30%. Once at the top we enjoyed delicious strawberry smoothies before learning how to properly descend the mountain. In order to complete the excursion we had to learn how to get into the correct position which required leaning back into the fetal position so that you had enough speed to make it across the valleys. Although many of us were petrified to take the leap of faith off the ledge we put those fears on the back-burner as we were more concerned about escaping the swarm of beetles that seemed to stalk our delegation down the lines. The zip line trail consisted of 8 lines, two of which were practice lines. Many of the lines took over 30 seconds to cross and one was nearly a mile long and took us at speeds that topped 30 mph. One trail was over 550 feet in the air! The views were breathtaking and nothing you can ever imagine unless you have personally zip lined down yourself!

After we completed the ride down we ate lunch and were fortunate enough to see multiple howler monkeys hanging out and playing in the trees. Our guide Fernando, who is totally awesome, made calls to the monkeys which were thoroughly entertaining. We then got onto the bus and headed out for our hike near the Arenal Volcano. We sat at a lookout point and listened to hear the rocks that fell from the volcano. While some of us were eager to collect volcanic rocks, many of us were tired and enjoyed the relaxing view. Unfortunately and unexpectedly a fierce rain storm blew in and drenched all hope we had to go on our hike.

Unable to begin our hike in the typhoon style rain we headed off to LaFortuna for a shopping extravaganza. After an hour and a half of shopping we returned to the hotel and met with our small groups to continue our discussions about our sustainability projects. Each group met for an hour and discussed and fine-tuned their projects with the readily available assistance of our gracious leaders! During our free time before dinner many of us went down to the river to play in the water and climb on the rocks. Elliot and Daniel, the monkeys that they are, crossed the river and explored a cave that in reality was a four foot hole in the side of the bank wall. Many stayed near the shore while others watched a waterfall.
We went out to dinner for the first time tonight outside our hotel and everyone dressed for the occasion. Instead of our regular baggy t-shirts and shorts, we wore our “fancy clothes” and dined on delicious steak decorated with a carved cucumber and melon ball. Many delegates ordered (non-alcoholic) pina coladas which were presented in whole pineapples! While we dined, a man played a metal xylophone. During dessert one of the waitresses even grabbed David to dance to the music --which was totally adorable and cute.

After a long day of sun and rain we were relieved to see a crystal clear sky with millions of beautiful stars lighting the sky! Although we couldn’t see the lava flow from the volcano its eerie black silhouette still made a powerful statement. Though we hit some sour notes, and I’m not talking about the star fruit, the day was an overwhelming success! Our experiences here have truly been life changing and they will stay with us forever.

GYFHC Delegates, Katie Pearson and Alice Whitten