Coming up in October, our Teaching English and Teaching IT volunteers in Thailand will be able to see some of Thailand’s amazing festivals, including the celebration of the Naka Fire Balls and Loy KraThong Festival where hundreds of lanterns are released into the sky. The “Bang Fai Phaya Nak,” Festival celebrates the amazing natural phenomenon of the Naka fire balls which mysteriously rise from the Meakong River on the full moon night of the eleventh lunar month every year. Phon Phisai, the home base of our volunteers, is the best place to see the fireballs and people from all over Thailand gather on the Mekong River to watch the spectacle. Read the rest of this entry »
Originally from Thailand and transplanted to Costa Rica, uVolunteer staff member, Meaw Chanphum, loves to tell everyone about her beloved home country. Her hometown in Thailand is only 30 minutes from our Teaching English project in Phon Phisai and she spent a lot of time in Phon Phisai while growing up in Thailand. Here are some tips from Meaw for future and current volunteers about things to do in your free time in and around the town. It may be small, but it is packed with culture: Read the rest of this entry »
Tarquin and Megan just left our environmental conservation project in Costa Rica and decided they wanted to leave something behind to help out the center. They knew that it was low in resources and realized that one thing the center really needed was a new saw.
They spoke to our coordinators and donated money for Camilo to buy a saw for the center. On Monday, Camilo delivered the saw to Don Alvaro (pictured above holding the wrapped-up saw), the coordinator of the environmental conservation foundation, and he was incredibly thankful. He was so greatful because it was something that the center really needed and he was thankful to Megan and Tarquin for working so hard during their volunteer placement.
At uVolunteer we are also getting ready to do our yearly projects donations. Our coordinators have been contacting all of our projects asking what materials they need because we believe that giving resources is more useful than giving cash. Check back for updates about our project donations.
Sarah Horton is volunteering in our Media and Arts Project in Bolivia. She gets to spend the whole day surrounded by beautiful art and helps the local staff organize exhibitions and develop their website.
Read about her first two weeks in Santa Cruz, Bolivia:
Our local coordinator Camilo accompanied volunteers Tarquin and Megan on their first day of their environmental conservation project in Costa Rica.
Here is his report from their volunteer project:
The sad day always comes when volunteers have to leave, but our local staff in San Ramon, Costa Rica didn’t want to let them go without expressing our appreciation for their hard work. Royce and I surprised two volunteers, Brett and Alexis, on their last day of community English classes to give them a little gift and send them off with a big thanks. Read the rest of this entry »
At 5:45am my alarm went off. We were going on a wildlife tour of the backwater canals in Tortuguero and if you want to see animals, you have to wake up early. We met our tour guide, Robyn, at the dock and loaded into a low, narrow boat. We took off into the wide river and quickly steered into narrower canals with jungle surrounding us.
Skimming down the canal we saw toucans, huge iguanas perched on low branches, different exotic birds and not to mention trees all around us accented with bright flowers. Although we were tired, it was quite a beautiful way to wake up - coasting through the canals and letting our eyes search from one tree branch to the next. The first thing Robyn pointed out was a crocodile. Initially none of us noticed it, but once we focused our eyes we saw the ridges on its head and its glassy eyes. Then white-faced monkeys swinging on the highest branches of the tree. It was hard to see them at first as well but our driver instructed us just to look for moving things. He had an amazing eye for spotting animals and told us he did it more by listening to the sounds of the animals than by sight. Read the rest of this entry »
We woke up in the lodge early, ready to pack into the van and explore the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. By 8:30 we were back on the unpaved road out of the Lodge and on our way to the remote beaches and rainforests of Tortuguero.
I always find you can learn a lot about a country just by driving through it and Costa Rica is a perfect example. We drove through banana plantations, pineapple fields, pastures of grazing cows and tiny Costa Rica villages that could only be distinguished by the different names of the local bars, always marked with a sign of Costa Rica’s local beer, Imperial. We drove by mountains and volcanoes in the distance and I was amazed by the diversity of the terrain that one little country contains.
For previous entries about the trip click here or read the rest of this entry:
Six new volunteers arrived in San Ramon, Costa Rica last weekend and one of the new teaching English volunteers, Jessica, filled the spots of Nikki and Moritz, who left us a few weeks ago, at a rural school in San Ramon. The teacher there and all of the kids are extremely appreciative of volunteers, especially because our volunteers help out the teacher with proper pronunciation so she can give more individual support to her students.
As is customary with all new volunteers, our coordinator Laura brought Jessica on her first day volunteering and this is what she reported from their trip:
New volunteers always arrive, but the past two weeks I’ve been saying a lot of goodbyes to volunteers that I’ve grown to love. As hard as it is for volunteers to leave each other though, saying farewell to the children they have gotten to know and love through teaching is sometimes even harder. Laura and I visited Nikki and Moritz on their last day teaching English and got to see how important they have become, as teachers and role models, to their students. The energetic and adorable second-graders almost caused Nikki to fall over backwards with the force of their hugs, and then they chased Moritz down the hall to keep him from leaving. Check out a video of that on our youtube page! Read the rest of this entry »
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