¡Kelly goes Costarazy!

For the first week all the cabinas in the project were full so Christina and I and this older lady, Sheila who is exactly who Emily Pietrowski will be when she gets older, stayed at the school 400 meters away.

The school had nicer accomodations and a bunch more hammocks and so we were quite content…at first.

What we later discovered is that after our shifts we would have to walk alone on a dark narrow sandy path with grass to either side with only our flashlight.  I came to hate grass because that’s where the snakes lived. They told us to keep our eyes peeled for them and stamp our feet as we walked so that they would feel us coming and run away.

So after repeating prayers to match the rhythm of my feet walking in the dark for 400 meters I would be relieved to have survived the path. But then I would enter the gate and deal with Vicky saying a new prayer.

Sheila saw a snake eating a frog on this path and one morning I was lucky enough to see half of a snake already dead. It was black, red, and white stripes and definately looked poisonous.  Sheila was kind enough to move the dead snake off the path so I wouldn’t freak out everytime I saw it and assured me that I didn’t have to be afraid of nature and ooh look how beautiful the scales are on the snake! Agree to disagree. (Emily, that is not something she did that reminded me of you, just an anecdote.)

Christina and I were so glad to move to the cabinas at the project when we did!

Even when we did live at the school we loved our time at la tortuga feliz. I more or less write this so you can get an idea of what it was like and also, I have to admit I’m pretty proud of myself for surviving these things!

After walking for four hours on a dark beach with sand that’s really hard to walk in you are totally ready to collapse. But you can’t. No. You have to face the dog from hell. Her name is Vicky and she is literally a bitch.

I am not afraid of dogs. I admit I used to be when I was younger, but I got over that when I fell in and out of love with canines. I understand that dogs bark when you approach them and have no problem simply calling their name and reassuring them that I’m a friend and not an intruder. No one warned me about Vicky.

My first night, I had the latest shift and of course it was the hardest since I wasn’t accustomed to walking the beach yet. I entered the fence of the school where I lived and heard barking. Again, not afraid. “Hola perro” I say, ‘cuz these dogs speak Spanish and the barking turned to growling. It’s dark and I only have my flashlight and there I see her. She’s a very deceiptful pure white dog and even in the darkness I could see her bare her teeth. “Esta bien, perrito,” but apparently it wasn’t. Vicky would advance and then stop and then move to the side, totally ready to attack.

I’m standing there trying to calm myself down, praying rapidly in my head and I started to call for Alberto, the 17 year old security guard who is always at the school but no one came.  I thought maybe I was being silly, but then she advanced again. This dog doesn’t know my scent and I could see that the light from my flashlight was literally shaking. Yep, this dog made me actually tremble with fear.

So I walked back to the hatchery exhausted and terrified and Fiona from England was kind enough to walk me back to the school. She told me Vicky was crazy and you just have to walk by her with confidence saying her name and it would be fine. I didn’t believe her until she showed me.

So after that I was fine until one time she ran right up to me teeth bared and luckily other people were there calling her name, but that was so scary! Every time I made it inside was a huge relief!

Another lovely trait that Vicky has is her randomness. Sometimes she would be just fine with me and other times no. Some volunteers never experienced Vicky’s wrath and thought she was cute and I pitied their lack of discernment. That dog needs Jesus.

One night I was walking with a guide and I told him about Vicky and said she was my favorite dog sarcastically. He laughed as I told him all the lies I would tell this dog just to live. “Hola mi perro favorito! Que lindo! Te quiero mucho Vicky!” – Mentiras!  He told me something about her that I didn’t understand because of the vocab. He motioned with his arm to his face and I thought he meant she was crazy or stupid or something. The next time I walked with that guide he used the same word in a different context and I realized he had said that Vicky had bitten him once. I finally understood that after I had moved from the school and didn’t have to deal with her anymore. Ignorance really is bliss because if I had understood him the first time, I would not have gotten to my bed that night!

Okay so, I arrived with Christina and 5 other people from around the world. Two from Canada, one from Holland, one from Whales and another from the states. When we arrived we met others from Germany and also someone from Portugal. So the common language was always English with the other volunteers who were there. But, the guides all spoke Spanish.

The first night I was there I was assigned the midnight shift and since the min. time to work is 4 hours I walked until 4am on a really dark beach, just me and this tico I don’t know who only speaks Spanish! He was pretty shy that night so mainly it was me trying to get him to talk to me asking him questions about the project and such. We saw four turtles my first night and I thought that was normal, but I learned that that was actually pretty rare! Two laid eggs and two didn’t. We met another group who transported the first nest to the hatchery and we took the second. We have to relocate the eggs so that they will be safe from poachers and stay with the turtle until it returns safely to the ocean because the poachers would kill the turtle for it’s meat. The tortuga verde or green turtle was the turtle that was nesting while we were there. The cool thing about this turtle is that when you wipe dirt from it’s shell in the darkness, the shell will glow bright green.

Every other day we would trade off with what kind of shift we had. So one night you would be walking and the next you would have a hatchery shift where you would have to check on the nests every fifteen minutes and if you were lucky you got to release baby turtles! I was lucky. On my first hatchery shift I got to release seven baby turtles! They mainly hatched during the night so the day shifts (because someone is always at the hatchery) were a little more boring so I’m glad I brought books to read.

IT WAS SO HOT!! Very humid there! Every morning we would wake up wet especially the morning after we walked! We were pretty much always disgusting with sweat, sunscreen, mosquito spray, sand, and salt from the sea.  So you felt like a queen after showering. I have never appreciated a cold shower more. I didn’t even mind that you had to use a flashlight and shake out the curtain to check for wolf spiders that will jump on you, bite you where there will be swelling and puss. (I was lucky enough to avoid that!) I never showered in the morning because it wasn’t worth doing it before the hottest part of the day so we pretty much swam every day! It was great! So much fun because the water temp. was perfect!

When you were walking you hoped for rain because it was so much cooler and then you wouldn’t have to worry about mosquitos (‘cuz there’s a million of them!) but on hatchery shift, when you’re just sitting there for four hours it was better if it didn’t. Also, on our second day there we all went swimming in the rain and it was awesome!

Also, whenever we wanted we could go find a coconut, mechete it and eat it. Tambien we could go up to a palm tree, pick a peepa (a young coconut) and drink it’s juice. It was so tasty, too! Also very good for you.

Our food was amazing! Jose, our cook from Spain, made the greatest meals – something different everyday! He spoke little English but tries to better it all the time and when I asked him how he learned to cook (in Spanish) he concentrated real hard with a pause and then said “I live…alone.” and smiled. He was awesome!

Everyday I walked under the webs of the only two harmless spiders there to get my food. Everyday I saw a ghecko or some other kind of lizard. Pretty much everyone got bitten by these ants that supposedly sting really bad except for me which I’m pretty proud of.

Also, I never got sunburned. I couldn’t believe it! Especially because my mother went out and bought sunscreen with SPF 30 for her very pale daughter to use against the blaring Costa Rican sun. Well mom, apparently you know more than me ‘cuz I would have gotten 50 but apparently I didn’t need it!

All in all, I’m glad I did it and I’m glad it’s done!

I’m off to Costa Rica tomorrow at 1am! I will go straight off to la tortuga feliz where I am determined to save all the sea turtles.  There is no internet or phone service there so I will be unreachable for two weeks. I am all packed and ready to freak out, i.e. go costarazy!

I am so blessed to be traveling with my good friend Christina Starzl. Whenever I start to get overwhelmed I am so comforted to know she will be with me.  She’s hilarious, joyful, supportive and basically amazing! I thank God for putting her in my life.

I have been so busy this past week getting ready to go that I have not been able to do everything that I would have liked to do.  I really wish I could have seen Luke Gray and Tina Horswill.  They are both awesome people and it’s a tragedy I could not catch up with them before leaving. Hopefully they’ll both forgive my busy schedule and post on this blog! We can keep in touch still!