Summer Service in Panama

It's not often you supply food to an island of indigenous people who actually need it.

And by "actually," we mean that even a home full of fifteen orphans did not have anything to eat last Saturday the 19th until eight Girl Scouts and their two instructors arrived with bags of food.

Two weekends ago, Girl Scouts Underwater Explorers students - with their Costa Rica Outward Bound instructors Mariana and Erin - completed a meaningful service project in Panama.

"It's amazing that people live that way.... maybe we shouldn't complain as much as we do about small stuff," one of the Girl Scouts reflected after completing the project.

The group packed bags of food (including rice and lentils) at our base camp on Isla Solarte located in the Bocas del Toro archipelago. After spending 1-2 hours organizing hundreds of food packets, they took a boat taxi to Tierras Obscuras (meaning "dark lands") to deliver them to homes and schools. This is when they met the woman with fifteen hungry orphans. They also met some of the locals and observed the classroom settings. It had a profound effect on them, and they spent the afternoon discussing it.

This will not be the end of our community service in this region.  When other Costa Rica Outward Bound courses head to Panama this summer, we hope to help by supplying fresh water to some of the islands.  Scott Brown, our Associate Program Director, has been coordinating projects with Operation Safe Drinking Water which organizes projects for delivering water tanks and building fresh drinking water systems in areas where inhabitants are drinking dirty water and getting sick.  Students' jobs will be to help install rain catchment tanks for indigenous schools and villages in order to catch, store and share the pure rainfall.

We are excited to have found another way to integrate Community & Service, one of our core value elements, into the courses' Panama Phases.  Pura vida!

Around Our Rainforest Base

"Wait... you're in Costa Rica right now?  Oh, how cool!"


This is a common reaction to parents and students that talk to us on the phone.


Base is a frequent term in our Costa Rica Outward Bound vocabulary.  But based on some comments from students and parents, we gather that its purpose, function, description, and location are not as clear as we think.

Base is our rainforest "campus" that contains our homes (for the base staff), our offices, the kitchens, the student and instructor dorms, and our equipment bodega.  It has been our hub since 2002, the year the communications staff left our Manuel Antonio base (bought in 1995).  (Click here to view photos of both bases on our flickr.com "base" tags.)  Students' sleep at this base (located in the outskirts of San Jose) on their first and final nights, during Transition Days*, and the nights before rafting trips (those in Central Valley rivers).

It has developed this mysterious reputation among students and parents especially since it has no physical address other than:

"500m northeast of the last bus stop of San Ramon de Tres Rios; the first right-hand gate after the fourth speed bump."

Sketchy?  Yeah, we think so, too, but that's the nature of Costa Rican addresses.  There are no street names or numbers.

To dispel any "sketchiness" about our base, we have already compiled two blogs to give the base more credibility as a real location:

• From Base to the SJO Airport: explains the base's relationship to the city and airport
• We found our base from space!: show's the Google satellite image of our base

And for a more personal view of our day-to-day lives here, one of our communications employees took photos on her morning jog.  This video shows a lot of the beautiful views on and around base, to the apt tune of "Beautiful Day" by U2:



I think the word you're looking for is: preciosa.  (Literally meaning "precious;" in Costa Rica locals use it to mean "beautiful" in a very emphatic manner when speaking about scenery.)


*These days are for students on longer courses (24+ days) to wash clothes and change equipment 

The Art of a Waterfall Rappel

Waterfall rappelling is easily one of the most photographed activities we have here at Costa Rica Outward Bound.  When editors of local newspapers decide to publish something about one of our alumni in their "Hometown Heroes" sections, they will inevitably choose the photo of the student waterfall rappelling over any others we submit.

This activity mixes both a true challenge with a defining beauty mark of Costa Rica, the waterfall.  It's only natural that students love getting photos from the day they rappelled in a Costa Rican rainforest amidst rushing water.

But in the moment students are about to descend, their emotions aren't as "beautiful" as the photos being taken of them.  Most times groups consist of 7-15 students.  Therefore, the wait at the top for others to descend in front of you one-by-one can be quite nerve-wracking.  Especially as a first-timer, you try to pay close attention - over the loud rushing water, of course - to the instructors who are repetatively teaching the technique to each student ready to begin rappelling.

Never fear.  Not only are your instructors highly skilled at setting up the ropes and carabiners, but these instructions aren't complicated:

Basics:

• Wear shoes with grips on the bottom
• Legs in front of you (as if you were sitting in a lounge chair)
• Wide feet to maintain balance
• Your "break hand" (the one clutched to the rope) stays close to your hip to slow the descent
• Keep feet the same height as your hips 
• Lean back as much as possible (as if you were "standing" on the vertical wall)

Students follow these ten steps to complete a rappel:

1. Put on your helmet and harness; your instructor will tighten them accordingly
2. While waiting for your turn to descend, secure long hair and loose clothing against your body and don't alter any of the safety equipment
3. Allow your instructor to set up the ropes (both primary and saftey ropes) through your carabiners and harness 
4. Your instructor directs you to a rappelling position to begin descending
5. Put your "break hand" (your strong hand) on the rope hanging on your strong side, and your other hand (a.k.a. your "free hand") can hold on to the harness near your navel; the free hand plays no part in helping you rappel
6. Lean back, as if you were lying in a lounge chair, while keeping feet wide
7. Begin stepping backwards over the edge, keeping your shoulders back 
8. Rappelling down the waterfall is a combination of shifting your weight from one foot to the other while keeping your feet wide for balance and your shoulders back
9. To break, the "break hand" holds the rope as close to the back of your hip as possible; conversly, you can descend faster by lifting this hand away from your hips and out to the side; the instructor at the top of the waterfall is in charge of your safety rope (to aid descent and breaking if needed)
10. The instructor at the bottom helps detach the ropes once you have reached the bottom

After the final step, students walk away jubilated.  It is a strong adrenaline rush, and it definitely accomplishes Kurt Hahn's founding mission when he started  Outward Bound in 1941: "to instill confidence, tenacity, perseverance and to build experience through overcoming challenging conditions."

That, and you look good.  

PB Athletics

So, you thought you were coordinated?

Give this PB sport a try.

"PB," as in, our favorite little village of Piedras Blancas.

And "sport," as in, Carreras de Cintas in which athletes stick a peg through a tiny hanging ring while on a horse.

Inevitably, you have been one of the Costa Rica Outward Bound students or staff who have been to PB's adorable remote school (of 3-10 students) to paint, play soccer, meet the kids, deliver books, cook, and/or help in its organic garden while staying at one of PB's homestays.  It has a special place in all of our hearts. For this reason, PB takes any opportunity to fundraise and keep it going for many years to come.

So when the school's 15th anniversary happened this past May, Piedras Blancas civilians and their vecinos (from the towns of Brujo, Llano, and San Isidro) took advantage of the event by throwing a party, during which they sold Tico food and played games with entry fees.

Not only did the Carreras de Cintas sporting event help raise some additional funds, but it taught most of our gringo staff a thing or two about the true art of "pueblo athletics."  Now it's our chance to teach you, too.  Let's break it down, Wikipedia style:

Characteristics
Name Contact	Carreras de Cintas (Belts Race) No
Team members	1 person, 1 horse
Mixed gender	Yes, but typically men are drawn to the sport
Categorization	Individual sport
Equipment	rope/wire, belt, argolla colgada (hanging ring), 5-8cm perno (peg), caballo (horse)
Venue	field (50m minimum in length)
Where played How	Spain, Latin America Contestants on horses ride 50 meters towards the wire/rope to attempt to capture a belt by putting a peg through a 2-centimeter ring

In Piedras Blancas' tournament, there were eighteen men who entered, each paying ₡6,000 (CRC, Costa Rica Colones).  Twenty premios (prizes) were awarded, one handed out to each of the first twenty "belt captures" - the contestants began in a line to make their attempts, then tried one at a time.  After each attempt they got back in line to do it again until all twenty prizes (horse supplies) had been awarded.

In addition to the twenty prizes, a ₡10,000 award was given to the winner of the primary tournament.  This consisted of levels, during which each contestant ran twice.  All of those who captured the belt both times moved to the next level.  The remaining contestant in the final level won the money.

We already had a held our Tico village friends in high regard, but putting a tiny peg through a tiny ring while galloping on a horse adds a whole new level of respect.  This is one sport we would like to see added to the Olympic Games.

Packing List: Sleeping

"Do you recommend that I bring a mosquito net?"

Ahhhh, the popular question about the torpo (Costa Rican Spanish for "mosquito net")....

This easily falls in our top ten most frequently-asked packing list questions, so it's about time that we answered it in a public setting. This also leads us to explain another "optional" packing list item, the hammock.

The quick answer: you can come without both.

Students' course sleeping facilities include:

• homestay homes
• one of our bases (in San Jose or in Manuel Antonio)
• under tarps* in the rainforest 
• inside tents* on beaches

Although tarps and some homestays do not provide enclosed protection against "flying critters," these locations [where such sleeping facilities are provided] are not heavily populated with mosquitoes. Rainforest conditions are not ideal for them, and they tend to inhabit the coasts. At these beach locations, our students sleep in either our Manuel Antonio base or tents. Both provide sufficient protection from mosquitoes.

However, in these same beach locations, some students opt to sleep outside in either a hammock (as shown in these Solarte, Panama photos of Leadership students who set up hammocks, both in our kitchen hut and out among the trees) or on a z-rest*. The reason being, the warm coastal climate can create an uncomfortable warm tent, and some students prefer to be outdoors which may provide more of a breeze. In these cases, we do recommend a mosquito net . Overall, the bugs are not bad, but they can come in unexpected waves.

If you decide to bring them along, here's what you should know when purchasing these items:

• Hammocks: This is a personal preference (based on sleeping on it and transporting it), but keep in mind that you will have to work with your unpredictable surroundings to set it up. (Read "How to Set Up a Hammock" article to familiarize yourself with the process.) Also, there are hammocks you can purchase with mosquito nets built on them.  You can find these at some outdoor retailers.
• Mosquito nets: Purchasing them isn't too complicated.  Find something that you can hang on a branch or rope over your hammock or z-rest.  Torpos can also be found at outdoor retailers.

Sueños dulces.  ("Sweet dreams.")



*provided by Costa Rica Outward Bound