Nov 18
On November the 8th I visited Karina Hammond at her construction site. This is her third week of volunteering and building a house for a single mom named Adaleidy. Karina works with a wonderful group of people: Jorge, also known as Goku for his long hair, Carlos, Rafael and Eduardo, the foreman. Jorge speaks English very well and practices with Karina. He struggles a bit with her Australian accent but he understands a little bit more every day. Eduardo himself lived in the US for a little while, so he knows a bit of English too.
The construction project is part of the Costa Rica-Canada foundation and the community development association for Piedades Norte in San Ramón. They provide subsidies to low income families so they can build a house in a rural area which also avoids the overpopulation of cities.
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Nov 15
This week is a very special week for uVolunteer. We are celebrating our fifth anniversary. The company started off in Costa Rica in 2006, after the founder of uVolunteer, Nathaniel Amposah-Manu, volunteered himself in Thailand. He thought that volunteering should not cost a fortune, and that is why uVolunteer offers one of the most affordable volunteer vacations currently on the market. Check out our website for more info: http://www.uvolunteer.org/about-us.php
We celebrated on Thursday, November 10th, because volunteer Marshall teaches the community evening classes from Monday to Wednesday, and that way he was able to be part of the celebrations. We started off having some ceviche at the volunteer dorm around 5:30pm. Ceviche is one of the common national dishes in Costa Rica. It is eaten cold, and consists of fish and a lemon based sauce. Karina, a volunteer from Australia, shared her vegemite with everyone. The reaction to its flavor was not as positive as she expected, but at least we had a taste of one of Australia’s favorite foods. Read the rest of this entry »
Nov 04
The Odwira Festival is celebrated by the people of Akropong-Akuapim, Aburi, Larteh and Mamfi in the Eastern Region of Ghana, 30 miles from the capital Accra.
The Odwira festival honors the traditional myths and legends of the people. It is also a period of remembrance of ancestors, a thanksgiving to the gods, and a period of renewal for families and society. Odwira Festival is a week-long series of traditions and rituals performed to purify the town, the people and most importantly, the ancestral Stools of the Chieves. It is also a festival to celebrate the harvest of “new Yams”.
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Nov 04
Madre Verde foundation is one of our project partners located close to San Ramón, where our main office in Costa Rica is situated. Madre Verde Foundation is a private initiative, but it is run so that everybody who wants to contribute can do so.The main goal of Madre Verde is to maintain a water reserve for future generations of Palmares and the Central Plateau.
The staff and volunteers also maintain the area, build new hiking trails, provide environmental education to the elementary school children and take care of the butterfly garden.
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Oct 28
Last Wednesday, on October 26th, volunteer Raili Marks, Karina Hammond and I visited Madre Verde Foundation in Palmares. The purpose of the visit was to be part of a bird watching activity held by two biology students from the Universidad de Costa Rica.
We got up really early to be at the reserve at 6am. Upon arrival we realized that the activity actually started at 6:30am, so we waited a little longer to start the bird watching a bit later. This delay in the scheduled start time is known as “Tico time”, a very common Costa Rican saying, which refers to the fact that Costa Ricans usually start any activity much later than originally planned.
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Oct 17
On Wednesday October 5th we were contacted by Gail Keller, a counselor from Eugene, Oregon. She was visiting Costa Rica for a few days with her brother, husband and niece, and wanted to share the work she does with an orphanage in the US.
On this day, I met Gail early in the afternoon and took a taxi to the orphanage in San Ramón. The home is managed by Doña Roxiris and four tías (aunts) that also live in the orphanage.The home hosts twelve children who are no older than 13 years old. Our volunteers work in the orphanage helping with babysitting, cleaning, tutoring or just giving a hand with whatever is needed. The orphanage is funded by government resources for the protection of childhood and there is also a community group that also fundraises for the home. Volunteers work with the aim of making these kids life as good as it can be while being institutionalized.
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Oct 17
Since I had never been to a retirement party before, I didn’t know what to expect from the Wat Aw Yai School retirement party which I was invited to. On Thursday 29th September, I was picked up by P’ Wiseht at 4pm. When I arrived at the party, some teachers and students were already there. The students were going to do the dance show and thus they were getting dressed up and started to put their make up on. I was helping them and talked to the director of the school. “I am very sad to see p’ Nid leaving”, the director said to me. P’ Nid has been the only English teacher and was working at the Wat Aw Yai school for 30 years and 13 days.
There were more than a hundred people from other schools at the party, including the Aw Yai community. A lot of typical food and drinks from Trat were served at the party, and of course there was karaoke. It was amazing to see how relaxed and joyful the teachers and directors were during the celebrations. They were singing karaoke and telling jokes. It was such a different experience to see them like this, as opposed to when I encountered them during school times. The crowd insisted that I should sing a song as a uVolunteer representative, and so I did.
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Oct 06
Last Tuesday was a great day. I got up early to prepare breakfast for the volunteers in the dorm. Our Dorm Mother (Dona Isabel) was on vacation so I had the honor to cook breakfast, it was great to see everybody wake up and leave for their projects.
Today, Stuart was changing his construction as the project he was working on the house was completed. We walk to the bus stop by the university, waited for the bus to San Pedro and got off at the grocery store called Los Rombos.
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Oct 06
There is a festival that’s coming up for anyone visiting Koforidua this month!! Hopefully you’ll get to see it.
The Odwira Festival is celebrated by the people of Akropong-Akuapim, Aburi, Larteh and Mamfi during the period of September/October in the Eastern Region. The area is 30 miles from the capital, Accra and about 35 minutes’ drive from Koforidua where our volunteer house and the majority of our projects are based.
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Sep 21
In Costa Rica, English has become one of the main requirements for most job applications because the tourist industry increases every year. uVolunteer started a project in 2007 in which our volunteers teach English to people in San Ramón according to this economic and social context. The population to which the project is addressed are to those who don´t have the time or money to pay for private education.
The English community class is a great opportunity to interact with the locals and explore Costa Rican culture. The project began with 20 students and two classes. The project opened as a conjunction between the uVolunteer volunteers and local volunteers like Danilo and Daython, and has been growing since then. The first volunteer to teach at the Evening class was Joachim Mowinckel whose experience can be read about at http://www.uvolunteer.org/costa-rica/volunteer-stories/joachim-mowinckel.php. More than 50 volunteers have contributed with the program during the last 4 years. uVolunteer would like to say thank you so much for all your help.
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