Field Visit Number 1!

Hey Guys,

We spent the majority of this past week visiting two volunteers at their sites. We were divided into two groups of nine trainees. My group went up north and the other group went down south. The first town that we visited was very rural, as many of the CED volunteer sites are. There were probably 300 people living there. We spent our time walking around and visiting the various different projects that the volunteer has going on. The biggest project that this girl had was working with farmers who had cows and had a business making cheese. We got to see the entire process of how milk is turned into cheese. The volunteer acts as a liaison for the farmers and she goes into San Jose to talk to businesses for them and is also trying to help them with the process of getting a bigger factory.

After two days at the first site, we travelled further north to a town that is almost on the border of Nicaragua. The town is called Caño Negro and it is on a river. The town is supposedly one of the best places for bird watching because there are so many species of birds. However, if you google (or msn search….for you mom) Caño Negro I don’t think much comes up. Anyway, the volunteer works with the men who give boat tours in the river. When we were there they were in the process of building a small tourist center. The volunteer also works in the school teaching English and with women’s groups. We got to go on a boat tour of the river in Caño Negro which was a lot of fun. We saw crocodiles, turtles, birds, and some monkeys. I would definitely recommend that people who love to bird watch make a trip to this town because there is so much wildlife.

In each of the towns we stayed with local host families which were all very friendly. For me, the highlight of the whole trip was taking a trip on horseback with my host father in Caño Negro to go see his farms. I definitely have not rode a horse in at least 10 years so at first it was a little scary, but after I got used to it it was really fun. He took me to one field where he grows corn, and then another where he has about 70 cows. On the way back to our house a huge family of monkeys came crashing past us in the trees that lined the road. They were on the hunt for mangos in the trees, which were plentiful in Caño Negro, and were delicious; I think I ate about 10 in 2 days. We stopped to look at the monkeys as they came past us and we were right at a point where the monkeys needed to make a huge jump to the next tree. Since we were right below them it looked like they were going to fall right on top of us but then instantly they would be in the next tree. The combination of being able to ride a horse, seeing the monkeys, and just the fact that my host dad for only two days cared enough to even pay any attention to me and take me somewhere made this an experience I will never forget.

Overall, the trip was awesome because we got to see exactly what kinds of places volunteers live in and what they do. It is nice to have a concrete idea of what the next two years will be like. It was interesting to observe the differences in family structure, access to resources, living quality, and climate between the communities we visited and our training communities. It was very obvious that the communities that we will be volunteering in will not be as nice or as large as the ones we are living in for training.

Since we got back from this trip we have been continuing our Spanish classes, taking trips into the next biggest city called Desamparados where both programs meet for general training, and getting to know our families better. Today a few of us are going to walk (orrrr take a taxi) to a local waterfall which should be beautiful, I’m excited to take pictures which I will try to upload as soon as I can find fast enough internet.

That’s all for now!

Pura Vida

Emily

PS – Please send me letters! My address is on the side bar to the right!