Alpha 7, 8 and 10

Our community projects across Nicaragua encompass a water project by Alpha 7, Alpha 8 are building a pre-school and Alpha 10 have been undertaking a house building project. All are located in remote communities who have embraced our volunteers as their own. We thought the best way for you to see the teams' progress would be through the photos of our brilliant photographer Liz:

Alpha 10: Arenilla, Miraflor

Beautiful Miraflor

 Working together with the local community, building houses with mud cement and mud bricks

 Collecting "barba del viejo" - old man's beard

        

Receiving messages from the blog

 Gathering together for the end of day review

Alpha 8: Siares, San Ramon

                                                  

                                       

 Getting to know the local community

Rakeem 

 Receiving messages from the blog

Alpha 7: Matapalo, Achuapa

Heading out to start work

Tireless trench digging for the water pipes

 Setting up radio to communicate with fieldbase

Receiving messages from the blog 

Everyone is on their way back to Fieldbase which is very exciting! Also just to let you know all of our Explorer Venturers have arrived safe and sound in Turrialba and we will be bringing you an update of their training and arrival tomorrow.

Alpha 8 on Education and Social Justice

Alpha 8 and their Project Comms Officer Jess Adsett considered how Millennium Development Goal 2 can positively impact social justice?

Students at the school in Siares

Here in Siares we are making a positive impact in our community through building a pre-school, with funding from the Myles Robinson Trust and working in partnership with UCA San Ramon, it is our hope to give more children access to education. At the moment 90 children aged 4 to 12 share one classroom with only a sliding wall to separate them. There is a lack of space and it is a disruptive environment, which has meant parents are not sending their children to school. We hope that by building the pre-school it will eradicate this problem as all the communities children will receive the quality and right level of education.  This will hopefully mean more children are able to attend and could even mean children could have a better chance at moving onto higher education.

Mixing cement to lay the foundations

Children attending the current school

The Millennium Development Goals

Education is not seen as an importance by all of the community, especially when it comes to the women. There is a definite acknowledgement that they will eventually be needed in the home tending to the domestic chores whilst their partners work hard from dawn until dusk in the coffee plantations. It is their culture and maybe they don’t know how to change this cycle.

Alpha 8

Although not in primary education a local boy from the community of Siares, Gerald 15, goes to college but only on Saturdays, in the week he helps his dad by working on his plantation. Access to primary education could improve and positively impact this issue as the more children who have access the more it will improve and hopefully, maybe, one day education will be seen as more important.

Mauricio's son

Anthony working hard

There are people in the community of Siares that see education as important, Mauricio a host of Alpha 8, when asked if he wanted to pass the plantation over to his son said he wanted him to focus on his education first and manage the plantation from afar. He believes education will improve his son’s prospects and way of living. If people have this attitude, even in a small community, hopefully by helping promote social justice on a small scale, it could eventually cause enough of a ripple affect to reach a global scale.

Interesting fact about the world 1% of the global population are educated to college level

We are working to help achieve Millennium Development Goal 2: Universal Primary Education, it is our hope that we are making a positive impact as building this school gives every child, no matter their gender, race or wealth, an equal chance and equal start in life. We hope it can inspire them to use education as a way to fulfill their dreams and improve their lives. It has been said that this Millennium Development Goal won’t be achieved by 2015 however this should not be seen as a negative, education is always going to be there and will grow and improve ultimately helping to achieve all MDGs and will hopefully lead to a just and equal society.

Learn more about the UN MDGs >

Learn more about Social Justice Day >

The life of a typical 18 year old girl in Siares, San Ramon

Written by Jessica Adsett of Alpha 8

The most apparent difference between the life of an 18 year old girl in Siares, San Ramon and the life a typical western 18 year old is that in Siares she will be settling down and will be either married or engaged. Family and community are very important aspects of village life and from a young age the girls in Siares are taught this. From as young as seven the girls here are seen helping around the house and by 13, if not younger, are in charge of household chores such as cooking and cleaning. The houses are very basic, made mainly of mud, corrugated iron and wood. They usually consist of two rooms and a kitchen. One room is a living room type area containing basic chairs, pictures of the family and occasionally a television with poor signal. The other room is the family bedroom. On average five family members share a house but in the one where we are staying there are nine. The kitchen is an open fire with perhaps a place to put a basin to wash or to prepare food. There is minimal electricity and even though there are lights, these are only used for a short period of time in the evening. 

Entertainment for a typical teenager here is the daily soap opera “Maid in Manhattan”. This is on daily from Monday to Friday and shows a life far from the reality they have here. The toilet and washing area are outside, with the washing area consisting of a bucket of water and a bowl. The toilet is a cement block with a hole in the ground which we have all had to acclimatise to!

Typical house in Siares, San Ramon

For an 18 year old girl here education is not regarded as important and it is rare if not unheard of for females to be in higher education. It is seen as much more important to be at home. Men however are either in education such as college or university or are working in agriculture,  particularly on coffee plantations. They earn a minimal wage and the work is hard. We visited one of the local plantations and witnessed the hard work they put in to support their families. Recently however there has been a disease that has spread through the crops of coffee and this has meant a drop in the amount produced and consequently a decrease in earnings. Despite this the families have been incredibly friendly and generous, welcoming us into their families and making room for us in their small homes.

Coffee beans

We are staying with six different families who all have young children within them. They are all so grateful to Raleigh for building the preschool which will be so beneficial not only to the community as a whole but particularly to the young women of Siares. The preschool will give the children a safe and less crowded place to receive an education. It will also allow the young women more freedom and time to provide for their families and even gain an education for themselves. As we can see how it will benefit so many people it makes all our hard work worthwhile. Seeing how the families live and how they take such good care of their homes and families even though their means are so basic makes us all grateful for our own home comforts. It definitely has made us realise how lucky we all are and how much we take things for granted.

Protecting the Environment and Unbelievable Treckers

Our guest bloggers have told you all about their PPVs for the community phases but today Clive, Louise, Sarah and Clare will tell you about planning projects in Carara, San Lucas Island, The Treks and Cabo Blanco.

Guest Blogger Louise - Alpha 4 Carara National Park

Carara means place of the crocodiles

We left cloudy Turrialba and greeted sunny hot Carara National Park. We were met by Osvaldo who is the park's administyrator. Osvaldo speaks no English, so our group turned to our wonderful multi-talented Marisa who is not only a great doctor but great at speaking Spanish. She expertly asked our multitude of questions, poor Osvaldo wasn’t quite prepared for this super keen group of ladies and his main answer was ‘tranquilo, tranquilo’, (turns out this means be calm), another word to add to our ever increasing Spanish vocabulary!

Beautiful rainforest, our trail will be running underneath this incredible canopy

PM Emma illustrating one of the trails that Alpha 4 will be working on

He took us to our accommodation for the first phase - a disused former ranger station - where we will be falling asleep to the sounds of the rainforest, pretty exciting! However, for our visit, we spent two nights in Osvaldo’s house, what a lucky man! Whilst sitting outside the house we were amazed to see a huge iguana happily strolling along a branch and a white faced capuchin monkey swinging from tree to tree. We thought it couldn't get any better, but we were wrong...

We were taken into the rainforest to wander around the trails that the Alpha 4 will be improving in Phase 1. As we wandered Osvaldo would stop to point out ants busy carrying leaves at least 5 times their size, an agouti sat chilling out in the undergrowth and a scarlet macaw up in a hollow in a tree guarding the egg it had laid. Later on we even saw an anteater scaling a tree, even David Attenborough isn’t that lucky in a day!

Another beautiful illustration from Emma

We are really excited about meeting our Venturers, sharing this stunning place with them and improving the trails so that the visitors can access this magical place too, bringing in much needed economy to the park to sustain the rangers, protect the park from poachers and ensure the loss of biodivesity is reduced. Pura vida!

Guest Blogger Clare - Alpha 5 San Lucas Island

A derelict prison on an uninhabited island might not be everyone's first choice of accommodation  but nevertheless myself and PMs Sally, Paul and Kate rocked up to San Lucas Island on Monday for a project planning visit. Within minutes of arrival by boat (the only way to get to San Lucas) we began to realise just how exciting a Raleigh project this was going to be. 

Clearing and cleaning San Lucas for Alpha 5

Until 1992 San Lucas person housed some of the most notorious criminals in Costa Rica. As well as the prison a small community farmed on the island and the wives and children of some of the inmates, low security prisoners and ex-prisoners who despite having been released preferred to remain on the island rather than attempt to assimilate back into society. The island is now being transformed into a wildlife refuge, but despite the jungles' attempts to reclaim many of the abandoned buildings, litter, rusted metal, barbed wire and debris create significant hazards for the wildlife. Furthermore the rangers also hope to turn San Lucas into a tourist attraction in order to provide an income to maintain this unique environment and educate about bio-diversity.

San Lucas journey

Half an hour into our visit we had already seen flying fish and pelicans over the surrounding seas. A few hours more and we had seen a troop of howler monkeys, lizards and a snake slithering off into the undergrowth (non-venomous our ranger assured us). Inspired, we set about visiting and planning some of the projects Raleigh would be undertaking. Our project teams will be continuing some of the cleaning work that was started by previous expeditions, removing years worth of scrap and litter and recycling where possible. Another significant problem the island has is poaching, currently rangers struggle to move quickly to different parts of the island if they suspect a poaching vessel has landed. Expedition 13A will be building an access trail through the jungle from one beach to another to help the rangers tackle this threat more effectively.

Paul, Sally and Clare setting up comms

Talking of beaches, San Lucas boasts numerous sandy shores (risk assessing these was a particularly arduous task which we bravely undertook). Crabs, hermit crabs and monkeys in the coconut palms lining the beach added to our fast growing list of wildlife sightings. That evening we sat on the jetty and watched the sun set over the sea, a beautiful aspect which our teams will have every evening. After a good nights sleep, only partially disturbed by the monkeys echoing through the jungle, we left the isolation of San Lucas to return to Fieldbase. 

Risk assessing, tough work

Sunset in San Lucas

The history of the island, the cells with decades of prisoners graffiti, the array of flora & fauna which Raleigh will be helping to conserve makes San Lucas a truly fascinating project. Bring on 13A!

Guest Blogger Clive - Alpha 6 Cabo Blanco 

Sunset at Cabo Blanco

After a day of travelling we finally arrived at the beautiful nature reserve of Cabo Blanco at the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. There we were greeted by Francisco (or Chico) the Head Ranger of the park. Cabo Blanco is an absolute reserve and only a limited number of tourists are allowed in. This means that the majority of the reserve is untouched and the wildlife is truly abundant in this beautiful place. Almost too abundant, during dinner that evening we shared the dining room at the Ranger Lodge with a 2m boa constrictor which was chased from the room with a broom. 

Liz beautiful photography

A well deserved rest for Clive and Zoe

During the day we saw and heard howler monkeys, saw iguanas fighting and a coati patrolling around the lodge. The project is to construct a circular path through the jungle to allow better access for tourists. This will mean a lot of hard work, or “trabajo muy muy duro” as Chico put it, to move the raw materials up from the beach. We are very lucky to have been granted permission to build our own “luxury” accommodation in the form a of a jungle camp in this very special place. That will be our first job when we return with our group of venturers in a weeks time.

Calling Fieldbase to share their experience

Guest Blogger Sarah - Unbelievable Treckers 

The infamous Don Martin dropped us off early evening in Barbilla enough time to organise a place to camp on the edge of the National Park and a guide for the following day (courtesy of Marco) thankfully Scottish Colin, our honorary Spanish translator successfully negotiated a place to stay and a guide. Minor issues over prices were smoothed over with a quick call to trusty Fieldbase and Alphas 1 to 3 learn to always read the small-print first in their trip notes.

Sarah, Colin, James and Gemma

Alpha Girls set up the tent in the community centre to perfect our tent erecting technique while the alpha boys made a delicious dinner of rice and pork (flavouring!) and frijoles, finished off with a delicious and well deserved hot chocolate. Logistical aspects like purifying water were sorted and lights were out at 8pm (rock stars). A 4am wake up call and a splendid nights sleep were met by Marco at the Escuela as we all understood but The bringing back of the key was lost in translation but Alpha 3’s James happily walked back to the community centre to sort the problem out – what a guy.

James, Sarah and Gemma

Our first day of “proper” walking was lead by Roberto, a quiet local guide, a 27 year old who wore wellies (we are sure his patience began to wane after shoe change two of our river crossing) and carrying a tiny bag without any water or food to our knowledge. We had our whale sized hump backs, map and  enthusiasm to boot, not sure that Roberto was that convinced we were going to make the 2 day trek in 1!

As daylight crept in at 6am, we used the satphone then off right into the jungle, like 4 oblivious ants carrying their homes into what felt like the wilderness. Thick mud, steep climbs and descents kept us entertained and challenged us. Our aim was to fit 2 days into 1 so 11am was lunchtime and we had thankfully reached Ernestos house, a welcome opening into the jungle. Here at the small dwelling we filled up on water, sat down in the big green space for refried bean paste and crackers – delicious, no shortage of nuts and fruit and biscuits either.

The legends of Alpha 1

The second half of the day a.k.a day 2 – was more exhausting uphill back into the jungle. The sun breaking through the enormous trees and shafts of light making it through the leaves, it was relentless uphill, slippery and boggy, mud like we had never seen before each hour broken up with energizing nuts and biscuit stops. Fuelled to the top we made it to the clearing, the trees parted and we got more views of the jungle canopy more importantly we were overlooking the indigenous village of Valle Escondido (which means hidden valley), where we saw in the distance Casa Anquilla- where we were camping for the night. By 3pm all Alphas were very proudly catching 40 winks on La Plaza. Dinner was the piece de la resistance – salty cheesey pasta with veg, chickpeas and tomato sauce. A splendid hot chocolate to end, a fantastic feeling of utter achievement with two days done in the time of one. And another world record… bed time of 7pm – marvellous.

 2 days of trekking in one - a well deserved rest for Alpha 3

Late start of 6.30am, our goal today was to reach Rio Pacuare where Don Martin was to pick us up. Another tough uphiller, meandering rivers and slippery downhiller in the glorious Costa Rican sunshine we made or target fifteen minutes early. The corner shop of Bajo Pachare provided Alphas 1 and 3 with the best coca cola we’d had for a long time.  Muchos achievement all round. Bring on the trekking proper!

An amazing 5 days out on PPV (Project Planning Visit) for all. I hope you have enjoyed our guest bloggers - more from them and their project communications officers during phase. Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading the blog so far, for your support of our team and all that we are trying to achieve. Venturers arrive on Tuesday - here we go!