Hello,
It is official March 11, 2013 was the official beginning of our volunteer work in Providencia de Dota. We had to be at the Restaurant (our meeting place) by 8:00 am, but of course some of us were late, as we would call it "Tico Time." Once we were all at the Restaurant, Jonathan drove us over to one of the coffee bean plantations.
The first thing we did once we were at the coffee bean plantation was a discussion. Jonathan and Brian told us a little bit of the process in which that plantation was going through. As Jonathan mentioned, the plantation we will be working at was on its last year of the three-year period transition from a normal coffee bean field to an organic coffee plantation. This day is memorable, because it was our introduction to
BROSA! Brosa is the skin of the coffee bean plant that is used as a fertilizer for the plants, so when the next harvest season comes the plants are as productive as if they were composted with chemicals. The smell of brosa is a strong one with hints of coffee, but at the same time it smells similar to dry raspberries and fertilizer.
After discussing the process of the organic coffee plants growth, we went ahead and started discussing how our first night was with our host families. The stories rated all the way from comfortable and learning more about the personal life of our host families to communication problems with the host families for the couple of us that do not know much of the language. We shared our stories with each other and went over some goals that we would like to get accomplished by the end of the trip. To me, the goal was to be overachievers, because I know we are an awesome hardworking group. After laughing and sharing our goals with each other as well as doing some ice breakers we started working!
Once we were done working at the coffee farms, we went back to the restaurant for lunch. Our host families cooked for us some traditional food and brought it to our meeting place. After eating lunch we started making some Eco bricks. Eco bricks are plastic bottles filled with plastic bags using some Eco sticks (twigs). Got to say it, our favorite part was "Stuffing bottles like a boss, in Costa Rica, you know you are going green when you're in Providencia." (You have to sing it like a g6).
Although we were all getting tired, our cultural activity was next. We went up to the school to go play soccer with everyone in the community. It was fun! We got to mingle with the kids, families, and other volunteer groups. We played soccer, made a pyramid, and had time to drink coffee. By the way, the coffee that families consume is produced there! You can drink it straight black without any sugar or milk and it still tastes good! I am calling it, no more Starbucks after this trip only Costa Rican organic coffee products.
Monday March 11, 2013 was the beginning of an amazing volunteer experience that I will never forget. I am glad I took the chance to go to this life changing experience.
Pura vida,
Mariadelia Lopez
International Service Devils
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| Coffee bean plantation. |
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| From these flowers we get coffee. |
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| Coffee beans! |
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| Jonathan explaining what we are going to be doing. |
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| Discussion time. |
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| Sharing our last night experience with the families. |
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| Everyday we are shoveling! |
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| Saul carrying two buckets at a time. Increasing production right there. |
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Charlie and Maria filling up those buckets with brosa.
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| Brosa for days! |
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| Stuffing Eco-bottles! |
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| Damian making Eco-bottles. |
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| ASU-Poly ready for soccer. |
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| Organizing the teams. |
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| Break time. |
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| Saul, Damian, Maria, and Franz posing. |
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| Dray trying to make it to the top. |
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| Albert trying to make it to the top. |
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| Charlie doing a sideways plank. |
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| Soccer brings everyone together. |
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| 1...2...3...Pose! |
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| Done with soccer, now on with softball. |
