Raleigh Costa Rica and Nicaragua: July 2008

Saturday, 26 July 2008

Expedition 08D: Phase 2 Alpha Teams Blog 8

Playa Naranjo - possibly the best beach in the world...

Hi it's Dennis again, after 19 days in the Santa Rosa National Park living with spiders and snakes the Phase 1 Alpha 4 team and I made it back to Field base. The Alpha 4 team completed their Ranger renovation project in time to trek to Naranjo beach, a small matter of a 30km day round trip but Venturers and surfers agreed, it is the best beach in the world!

Below a tarantula takes an evening stroll amidst the tents of Alpha 4...

With barely time for the Phase 1 teams to finish cleaning their equipment the new teams for Phase 2 team were announced. Once again fieldbase is a crazy cocktail of excitement and expectation as the new teams begin packing for their new projects.

Here are the new Alpha teams together with one or two pictures I managed to grab.

Alpha 1: Guanacaste Trek - A huge variety of different ecosystems await our adventurers as they begin in cloud forest above 3000 metres and head down to one of the last dry tropical forests left in the Americas.

Katie Baxter, Helen Buss, Alasdair Conn, Juan Pablo Cruz, Goerge Finlay, Lewis Laing, Shakii Pearman, Asley Phillips, Gabriela Sanchez and Mark Taylor with Alex "Coops" and Sarah.

Alpha 2: Coast to Coast Trek - Starting on the shores of the Caribbean Sea this group will walk across a continent in 19 days to the Pacific Ocean.

Left; Che Augustus, Iesha Dill, Colm Doris, Madeleine Gardner, Emma Houston, Shohaib Hussain, Jorge Marin, Meriel Mulhall, Yasmin Vora, Tom Williams with Laura, James and Andy.

Alpha 3: Bosque del Nino - One of the largest remaining areas of forest in the Central Valle. The team will renovate some of the visitor facilities including the main reception and trails.

Team; Vivian Aguilar, Zakina Allen, Ben Haigh, Matthew Hoghton, Rachael Kelly, Jason Reading, Anna Reay, Daniel Rooke, Hugo Ross, Zeko Rubaine with Karen and Ben.

Alpha 4: Playa Junquillal - For the first time Raleigh International will work in this protected area to build visitor trails and look out points (miradors) for the many thousands who visit this beautiful national park.

Left; Jonathan Cox, Edward Davies, Joy Hardyman, Alshauntae Harvey-Hollis, Ben Masterman, Kandrea Romaine, Roberto Ulloa, Daniel Wigmore-Shepherd, Laura Wilkins and Laura Wyglendacz with Aleks and Ali. With Ashanti's birthday on Sunday the team wasted no time in shopping for the beach party on the Pacific Ocean !

Alpha 5: Achuapa - Monte Frio 2 - The team will be pushing hard to turn on the first of a series of small projects to bring clean and safe drinking water to 80 families in the community of Monte Frio.

Team; Santos Yessenia Blando Picado, Susannah Compton, Annabel Gray, Stephen Hosking, Miles Kaye, Sarah Long, Kasia Lukaniec, Sam Newman, William Vasquez and Ashun Wolffe with Carolyn and Manny.

Alpha 6: Miraflor - El Cebollal Abajo - The Miraflor reserve is 206sqkm of beautiful mountainous terrain with tropical savannahs and both dry tropical and mountain cloud forests. Within the reserve there are of communities living through subsistence farming and gaining income from coffee growing. The team will be building two preschools/community centres in the communities of El Coyolito and El Cebollal Abajo where currently there are no facilities for young children to learn.

Team; Rudo Chimbghandah, Makeda DeShield, Wendelle Lightbourne, Joanne Lockey, Rosamund Luther, Jasper Mackisack, Felicity Shapland, Tom Smart, Darwin Solis, Matthew Theakston with Therese and Miranda.

Alpha 7: Miraflor - El Coyolito

Left; Natalie Ali, Hannah Allen, Jamie Beacall, Rebecca Butland, Esteban Castillo, William Hatton, James Lee, Teliqua Mallory, Marie-Claire Streets and Ricai Williams with Amanda and "Jungle" Mike.

Thats all for now but I'll be catching up with the Delta groups today so will post their new Zulu teams later.

Mucho gusto, Dennis ( With special thanks to Katie Baxter, below centre )

Monday, 21 July 2008

Blog Update

Sorry for the delay, but you can now view plenty of photos of the Alpha and Delta groups from around Costa Rica. Added over the last two days we have photos from Alphas 1,2,4, and Deltas 1,2,3,4 & 5. Unfortunately we won't have photos for Alphas 3,5,6,& 7 until Friday - as soon as we do, they will be posted. Also added is the weekly roundup from every group. There are now so many blogs that you will need to use the index on the right hand side of the page to view previous blogs, including this week's roundup. Photos for Induction and Phase 1 deployment have also been added - again, use the index on the right to view them.

It's great to have your comments, so keep them coming.
Hasta viernes
Ross

Expedition 08D&E: Photos from Delta 5

Expedition 08D&E: Photos from Delta 1

Expedition 08D&E: Photos from Alpha 4

Expedition 08D&E: Photos from Alpha 1

Expedition 08D&E: Photos from Delta 4

Here are the photos of Delta 4 to go with last week's blog.

How to send your loved ones a message

It's easy. Scroll down to the bottom of the most recent entry and click the comments link. A box will then appear where you can write your comment - please don't forget to tell us who the message is for including the full name and project group of the recipient. You can select name/URL from the dropdown menu to tell us who it's from (you can leave the URL blank if you wish). Finally, click on 'Post Comment' and you're done.

As you can imagine there are 180 volunteers so hundreds of messages for loved ones, no comments go live immediately and have to be moderated for appropriateness, so please do bare with us.

All comments that are pertinent to the post will be publshed and all personal messages will be delivered (even if they don't appear published). Messages mean a lot to all the volunteers; thank you for your continued support.

Raleigh Lingo

Copy that?

Sometimes our Raleigh technical terms can be a tad confusing so we've put together a glossary for you blog followers. This will appear as a quick-reference section on the right-hand column so you can translate our Tico-terms into something a bit more palatable. And for those keen to brush up their Central American Spanish, we've included some handy translations. Here's a few to get you started...

Alpha, X-Ray and Zulu groups
(Grupos Alfa, X-Ray y Zulu)
The official name for project groups during the phases of CR&N 13A. Alpha will be out on project from 3rd to 23rd February, X-Ray from 24th February to 15th March and Zulu from 17th March to 5th April. Project groups are allocated during induction

Basha
Jungle ‘bed’: consists of a tarpaulin for shelter, a hammock and mosquito net. A basha is hung up between two trees and supported by rope, bamboo and canvas straps

Bodega
A Spanish word meaning store or warehouse

Bravo
A term of endearment for our hard-working Land Rovers. The four vehicles are officially, and imaginatively named Bravo One, Two, Three and Four

C.A.T.I.E.
The agricultural and development research institute on whose campus Fieldbase is situated. Find out more at http://www.catie.ac.cr/

Changeover (Cambio de Fase)
Two day period where all staff and Venturers return from their project sites for some respite before they are all reallocated and sent off to do it all over again...

Chicas, Chicos
Spanish term meaning girls (chicas) or guys (chicos) or both (chicos aswell). As in “Vamonos chicos!” or “Let’s go guys!”

Craic
A way to gauge how people are feeling, usually measured from 0 to 90. If your ‘craic’ is high, you’re pretty happy. If you announce a low craic, people will probably fix you up with an energy bomb and a nice big hug

CR&N 13A
Costa Rica and Nicaragua expeditions 13A

Day Leader (DL) (Líder del día)
Every day on project, one of the Team is designated DL – they are in charge of the day, including organising the day’s briefing, keeping group morale up, dealing with any problems, sticking to schedule and de-briefing at the end of the day. The DL role rotates round the whole group so everyone takes a turn

Energizer (Actividad Levanta Muertos)
An activity to gather the group together and raise energy levels. Can be used at the beginning of the day, or whenever a quick pick-me-up is required

Energy bombs (Explosión de azucar)
A trekking treat – mix together oats, raisins, condensed milk and chocolate powder and roll into little balls of gooey goodness to power you through the day

Fieldbase (FB) (Campo Base)
Refers to the Raleigh ‘office residence’ which is where the Fieldbase staff eat, sleep and work, whilst organising the expedition, manning the radios round the clock, supporting the projects, planning transport and logistics, keeping tabs on the finances and much, much more

Field Base Volunteer Managers (Equipo Logístico Voluntario del Campo Base)
Volunteer support staff for the expedition. The team looks after the ‘behind the scenes’ of the expedition and ensures everything runs smoothly. This consists of three permanent staff members - the Country Director, Country Project Manager and Country Expedition Manager - plus a team of volunteer staff including the, Medic, Photographer, Administrator, Finance Officer, three Logistics (logs) team members and the Communications Officer

Gallo Pinto
A traditional Costa Rican dish of rice and beans (yum!)

Icebreaker (Rompe Hielos)
A getting-to-know-you game

Longdrop (Letrina)
The camp loo. Literally a deep hole in the ground, it is one of the first tasks to complete when setting up jungle camp for obvious reasons! Short drops are similar, normally used for overnight stops when a shallower trench will suffice

Longs (Pantalones)
From 6pm onwards, we all don long trousers and sleeves to discourage the bugs that aren’t deterred by DEET

Maxis
Short for Maxi Pali, the stock-everything shop about a kilometer from Fieldbase where you can buy all those things you forgot/ran out of/lost

Nicas
An affectionate term referring to the native population of Nicaragua

Ninja
A popular game/energizer used by venturers and Project managers alike. Everyone stands in a circle and tries to hit the team members either side of them on the hand via a single ninja movements. Sound effects welcome

POPS
Legendary milkshake and ice-cream parlour chain found all over Costa Rica – perfect for a sweet splurge

Pork and beans (Frijoles con cerdo)
Another staple foodstuff for trekkers: tinned beans with a slightly sausage twang, served cold for lunch. Usually accompanied by dry cracker dust, sprinkled liberally on to the top. If you’re in a hurry, this can be consumed without cutlery straight from the can

Project Managers (PMs) (Guías)
Project staff for the expedition. Each of the groups has at least two PMs who work with the Venturers to develop skills, lead projects and challenge themselves

PURA VIDA!
A very special Costa Rican phrase that means hello, goodbye, I’m great, it’s good, pure life, basically any positive, feel-good thing can be Pura vida!

Radio check (Chequeo de Radio)
As well as a daily SITREP, all Alpha projects are required to complete a second radio call-in each day to check in, receive messages and report any developments

Review (Revisión)
A round-up that assesses how everyone feels, what went well and what needs work. This is sometimes an ‘activity’, sometimes a chat around the campfire, or sometimes just a bit of time to reflect. It’s an important part of everyone’s personal development so we make sure it happens every day

Roadtrip (Paseo Volando Rueda)
The logistics team and some of the Field Base team drive the Bravos on a loop round to each of the accessible project sites once per phase. They deliver kit, supplies, site visitors, messages from the blog and of course the all important post

Ropa Americana
Purveyors of the finest second hand American threads. Perfect for fancy dress/obtaining that long coveted college sports jersey

SITREP (Reporte de la Situación)
Literally Situation Report. A special radio message sent from the satellite project sites back to fieldbase once a day. It follows a certain format and includes all sort of handy information like where they are, what they’ve been up to, what they need and what they’re planning to do next

Tang
A fruity powder that is used to make squash. Jolly useful for taking away the chlorine taste of purified water

Ticos
An affectionate term referring to the native population of Costa Rica

Trangia (Mini Cocina)
A portable cooking stove. Used primarily for trekking, a trangia’s compact design makes it perfect for easy transportation. Literal translation in spanish - mini kitchen. Makes sense

Turrialba
The location of Fieldbase

Venturers (Aventureros)
Participants in the Raleigh expedition. Aged 17 to 24, they come in three varieties: Host Country Venturers (from Costa Rica and Nicaragua), Partnership Venturers (positive young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in the UK who participate in Raleigh expeditions as part of a longer term development programme) and UK and International Fundraising Participants (who work hard to raise money to contribute towards the charities work and expenses in order to take part in the expedition)

Wash up (Revisión Final)
The last few days of expedition, spent debriefing, returning equipment, performing skits, and most importantly enjoying the farewell party (tears alert)

Zero (Cero)
A radio term that identifies the radio controller at Fieldbase. Fieldbase monitors the radios 24-7, listening out on three frequencies for calls from our satellite project sites. When the radio alarm sounds, we might answer something like this: “Hello unknown call sign, hello unknown call sign, this is Zero, this is zero, do you copy, OVER?”