Salsa Burns

It has been a crazy few days at Fieldbase, after we all returned from 5 days on our Project Planning Visits, we needed to clean (ourselves and our kit), write up our project plans, risk assessments and casevac plans - but don't worry with our paperwork done, we made sure we had a bit of fun too - welcome to Expedition 13As induction into salsa and celebration of the great bard of Scotland with Burns Night.

Salsa Night

Keiner the HCV Coordinator and local Costa Rican showed us how to salsa

Salsa faces

Greg and Lou had it down (great salsa faces too)

Some salsa flair from Helena and Shane

Burn's Night at Fieldbase

We are incredibly lucky to have Scottish PMs on 13A and Colin and Marie who were amazing ambassadors for bonny Scotland - hosting a night of haggis, poems, hialirty and ceilidh dancing (you have never seen so many sweaty but suprisingly coordinated people in one place!) 

Our running order for Burns night

Vanessa gave us a speech: Preparing the Immortal Memory with her support crew of SLD

Address tae the Haggis by our eminent host Colin (that is a towel kilt yes) and a poem he wrote about the PMs and a mouse who was sadly effected by Millenium Development Goal 7: loss of biodiversity and therefore his home:

To a PM (Mouse?)


Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beasties,

O, what a panic's in thy breasties!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering gossip!

I wad be laith to rin an' salsa with thee,

Or sing murd'ring Bohemian Rhapsody!

I'm truly happy man's dominion,

Has built this random social union,

An' breaks that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At us, thy poor, earth-born PMs,

An' fellow-mortal friends

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! 

It's silly stinking clothes are strewin!

An' nowhere to sleep or clean, O' mattress dream!

An' bleak January's winds ensuin,

Please baith yer smelly bits clean! 

Thou saw the field laid bare an' wast,

An' weary Venturers comin fast,

An' crying their under tarp,

Thou wouldnae live - Till crash!

all our parties long past

Nada will we hiv.

That wee bit heap o' rash an' stubble,

Has cost thee mony a sneaky cuddle!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

Leaving all behind us, life or love,

To thole the Costa Rican heavens above,

Flying here like pastey white doves!

Still we art blest, compar'd wi' them 

The present has toucheth thee: Och if I backward cast my e'e.

On projects all we'll be!

An' forward, tho' I canna see,

Pura Vida!

It was then over to Marie to Toast the Laddies:

Marie giving 'em hell - we beat them (female blogger!) go 13A Ladies

Colin and 40 VMs attempting to strip the willow

Gay Gordons

Elegance, grace and the Dashing White Sargeant 

It was very confusing

Sarah and Liz

Denise embracing her inner lassie

Team ceilidh - an incredible evening - the Scots definitely know how to have a good partay

Role Call: The Volunteer Project Managers

Expedition 13As Volunteer Project Managers (PMs) have arrived safely in Turrialba. 25 slightly wide eyed but excited PMs are ready for 14 days of intensive training and induction into the world of Raleigh Costa Rica and Nicaragua. 

Our fabulous staff team:

Back Row (L to R): Julian, Emma, Colin, Greg, Simon V and Sacha
Middle Row (L to R): Keiner, Kate, Vanessa, Zoe, Gemma, Shane, Holly, Chris, James, Sarah, Victoria, Katharine, Simon B, Louise, Sarah M, Pauline, Alice and Lena
Front Row (L to R): Liz, Clive, Claire, Sally, Marie, Paul, Angie, Helena, Marissa, Dav, Pedro, Rich, Antonio and Gabby
Also VMs on expedition: Denise and Jess

A&E doctor bromance from Dav and James

Chris, Kate, Helena and Vanessa thankful for their arrival at Fieldbase

Fieldbase's Vanessa welcoming Denise to Raleigh

Simon, Country Expedition Manager, indoctrinating the PMs into the 3 bowl system

The 13A Staff Team enjoying their first breakfast together

Greg, Lou and Marie: Pedro must have used a pun...

Intently listening PMs, that's what we like to see: Angie, Tor, Clive, Paul and Dav

The PMs taking a stroll around Turrialba, their new home

To complete our set

You learnt all about half of our indefatigable team yesterday but today it’s the turn of Communications, the advanced Medics and Logistics.

Dav and Katharine, our Advanced Medics

Our advance Doctors bring a wealth of medical knowledge and come in the form of Katharine and Dav – a lot of counting, sorting, labeling and translating is going on in the medical room. They are an incredibly important part of the safety on expedition and we are hugely indebted to their hard work this week (even if the music blasting from the med room is questionable).

The Logistics Team are one of the busiest groups of people on expedition – their job is to make sure EVERYTHING is working, prepped, pumped up, in the right place and most importantly that there is enough food (including our favourite porridge) for everyone. A lot of trips to supermarkets, mechanics and an amazing ability to fix the considered unfixable, the silent heroes who spend a lot of time in the Bodega, our Logistics store room, surrounded by tarps, tools and barrels. Their leader is Alice and her co-pilots are Simon, Greg and Pauline.

Pauline and Alice

Greg, tirelessly counting and checking

Simon B educating the team about our Bravos

The Communications Team comes in the form of a creative team of 3. Holly our resident Artist and Art Historian will be creating fabulous installations, murals and has many other exciting projects up her sleeve for 13A, we are excited to see how she will be drawing links between local Central American influences and the West. 

Holly mapping out our new office mural by numbers (resident artist blog explaining will follow soon)

Liz is our photographer, almost always accompanied by a large lens and camera strapped to her side and will be capturing everything we do; helping illustrate the amazing achievements of the members of Expedition 13A with her beautiful photography.

Liz and Gabby 

I am Gabby and will be your Communications Officer – I'll be the voice of the volunteers whilst they are here, individuals who have dedicated themselves to making a positive impact by coming on expedition with Raleigh International. Whilst they are out on their projects we will try our utmost to express fully the experiences of the volunteers and their achievements. 

We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the blog and the subjects we cover – feel free to ask questions and of course we will pass all your comments on to your loved ones.

So that is the advanced team – we are incredibly excited for the arrival of all Project Managers and Venturers to beautiful Fieldbase in Turrialba, surrounded by mountains with eagles soaring overhead - Pura Vida!

Expedition 13A is in flight

Expedition 13A has begun – the expedition advanced team of dedicated Volunteer Managers have descended on Raleigh Costa Rica and Nicaragua’s Fieldbase in Turrialba. We are enthusiastically preparing for the arrival of 24 Project Managers on the 14^th January and 143 Venturers on the 29^th January.

It is an incredibly exciting time as we prepare for the Raleigh International Volunteers, individuals who are dedicating themselves to working with people from around the world inspiring, developing and challenging themselves; working in partnership, learning to build sustainable communities and conserve the environment.

So who are the advanced team and what do we do?

The Advanced Team top row (l-r): Pedro, Katherine, Vanessa, Greg, Gabby, Alice, Julian and on the bottom row (l-r): Simon V, Jess, Simon B, Dav, Holly, Richard and Pauline 

The team consists of our head honchos Country Director Julian Olivier, Country Programme Manager Pedro Rodriguez and Country Expedition Manager Simon Vorley. A merry band of three who support, train, organise and rally (sorry!) us to be the best we can. They work tirelessly to support all the Venturers, Project Partners, the communities, Rangers and Volunteer Managers, wherever they are across Costa Rica and Nicaragua – no mean feat.

Julian teaching the expedition drivers how to change a tire

Pedro and Simon: blue steel

Our fantastic support crew includes Richard in Finance, who does a huge amount of counting and usually has a calculator in his hand, who will be working alongside Vanessa and Jess who make up our fabulous (and glamorous) Administration Team, keeping us all in line and providing the backbone of Raleigh Fieldbase.

Richard counting

Our wonderful admin ladies

Today we are all getting down to business with a lot of cleaning, counting and sorting but check back tomorrow to learn about the how the other half of Fieldbase live with an introduction to 13A’s Communications, Medical and Logistics Teams. 

If you go down to the woods today...

... you’d meet 12L’s volunteer managers having their trek and jungle camp training.

We all got our bags packed and thought that they seemed heavy but manageable; sleeping bag, mossie net, spare shoes, spare pants – all the essentials.  Then we were divided into teams and given the rest of the kit to divide out; tents, trangias, four washing-up bowls, shovel, machete, bleach, fuel, refried beans etc – suddenly a whole lot heavier and a whole lot less manageable.

Having allocated roles and read the map we headed off, heavy laden and an hour late.  The first meeting place (which we did all find – hooray for navigation training) was a very rickety, disused railway bridge.  
Cue Risk Assessment training.

The question “Would you cross this bridge?” divided the group fair and square down the middle with some screaming “hell yes!” and just as many “you have got to be kidding me!” I guess that’s why Raleigh has a process for sorting this kind of thing out. Having established that risk of death was beyond negligible we turned tail and started walking again.

Camping out that night we all got a bit closer to our fellow team mates and got as much sleep as we could for our 4.30 wake up call.  The next rendezvous was a river crossing.

Water safety is a biggie.  Again it was an opportunity to get close, with the recommended way of getting across the water being in a huddle.

Then on to jungle camp, and the introduction to basha beds or basha hammocks.  For the uninitiated I will explain what these are but if you stay with this blog for a few months I’m sure that you will become very well acquainted with the term.  Basically you have a stretcher like piece of canvas supported by bamboo poles at each end which is then held between two bamboo tripods (basha bed) or roped to two trees (basha hammock).  Then for the home comforts, something to help you stay dry and something to keep you bite free.

Apparently a basha hammock is the most comfortable thing ever if you get it right and the very least comfortable if you get it wrong.  No pressure there then.  With two hours to have their first attempt, and the night, tiredness and hunger closing in not everyone was convinced that they were going to be rewarded with a good night’s sleep – and to be fair some of them were right.  Being suspended in a lop-sided fashion above a nest of ants doesn’t make for a very restful night. But some people slept like babies so I guess it’s something that we can aspire to.

Whisky 3 - Clare, Karen, Dave, Sarah and Phil

Team Whisky 3 – Dangling Dave (don’t ask, you had to be there), Clare, Karen, Sarah (Flynny), Phil and Pauline (out of shot) have asked me to make special mention of the fact that their campsite was twice as far as anyone else’s – so if they look particularly downtrodden in the pictures then that is their excuse and they are sticking to it.

Bienvenido – the 12L project managers have arrived

Our numbers at Fieldbase have increased as the project managers all landed safely in San Jose last night.  They managed to get some brief but well earned sleep before taking the 2 hour bus journey to arrive here this morning.

They were welcomed by a traditional Costa Rican breakfast of Gallo Pinto cooked by Araceli, our cook and new best friend.  The queue for the shower is going to be a little longer, and the cooking pots are a good deal larger but the buzz about the place is the most noticeable difference. 

Everyone is catching up with the familiar faces that they met many moons ago on that training weekend in August (can't believe it was only a month ago!).

This week will be spent with various inductions, training and briefing sessions.  We kicked off with the swimming assessment, to understand each person's level and make sure that no-one gets out of their depth.

Some training sessions are mostly chalk and talk, 

and some will mean getting out there and learning things for ourselves.  

There is a lot to take in and learn but the adventure starts here.

New kids on the block - 12L

The 12L Costa Rica and Nicaragua advance party has rocked up at Fieldbase to kick things off and get everything spick and span for everyone who’ll be joining us shortly.

A small but happy band, the new arrivals are...
Barney who comes here as Deputy Programme Manager.  The medical team are Sarah, Natalie and David, in charge of pills, potions and paraphernalia.
 

Tracey, Phil and Katie are sorting out the logistics, making sure that all the kit and caboodle is in good working order ready for expedition. Martina is keeping hold of the purse strings and Karen is administrating across an extensive range of spreadsheets.  Joss is getting all David Bailey on us and Ruth is writing the words.

We join our Country Programme Manager Pedro, Keiner (a.k.a. K-dawg) who will be looking after the Host Country Venturers (from Costa Rica and Nicaragua) and all supported by our go-to guy, Don Martin.

The plan is that each of the Project Managers will arrive at the weekend, and then all of our lovely Venturers the week after – and 12L will be up to full complement and raring to go.  We can’t wait to meet everyone and get started.  We’ll get the kettle on...Pura Vida!

Venturer Manager Training in a Slideshow

We also created a Slideshow video to show how far the Venturer Managers had come...

Jungle Camp continued...

Jungle Camp Day 2

Our group rose before the sun at 4am to the sounds of the montezuma bird (if you heard one, you'd realise we didn't have much choice in that matter!) in order to have a ‘head start’ on getting the camp packed up to leave at 6. However, we all soon learned that time goes pretty quickly when you have to make a meal from nothing, clean up and pack up your lodgings...so it was quite an achievement for us all to leave for the river crossing at 6.10am!

We arrived at the river as the sun was still emerging over the hills – some relishing the thought of getting wet and wild, some slightly nervous of the soggy saga ahead (I personally was in Camp Damp to begin with). Nevertheless, everyone was in brilliant spirits as we were talked through water safety and learning the different techniques to ‘get to the other side’ – but no chickens, or roads, here. The ‘huddle’ technique won out when we applied our newly acquired knowledge to the art of river crossing (and meant that team bonding got well underway, especially when combined with trying to discreetly get changed afterwards – and failing!). All excellent fun.

Once the foot powder had been applied, we were ready once again for the off on another leg of the trek – TO THE JUNGLE.

Now when we arrived in the lush wilderness in the treetops, I might not have been alone in thinking ‘basha’ was the name of a member of N-Dubz. However a few hours of intense training on jungle survival later and we could all build our own ‘basha bed’ or ‘basha hammock’ from bamboo, tarp and a stretcher - who needs IKEA?!  

While we were constructing our cradles we also made a few friends, some of whom let’s just say ‘left a lasting impression’ (Fieldbase, even today, being an episode of the ‘Itchy and Scratchy show’)...

An equally early finish ensued that evening after a scrummy rations meal, our weary bodies (from carrying our own kit, group kit and jungle camp kit up a HUGE hill) calling out for our self-constructed beds!

Jungle Camp Day 3

Another 4am start, and and after some delicious porridge a bit of a stretching and massage session was needed for our backpack weary postures, here Krisztina is the lucky recipient of Fran's healing hands.

We also needed to wake up for our tools training and the walk back to Fieldbase for clean-up. So at 6am we donned our packs once again (by now a mere extension of our bodies) and went off to learn a bit of carpentry, building and how to safely use large garden and earth clearing tools to be used on the projects, which the venturers will also learn when we arrive. We can safely now say that we could dig a hole or mix some cement with full confidence!

Then a last trek back to Fieldbase. Even though we had all had immense fun, we were extremely happy to see the white bricks and Raleigh logo as we approached! No rest for the wicked though as they say - as soon as we got back we were scrubbing the group kit, making sure it's all ready for the Project Planning visits and for when the Venturers arrive.

We've all learned some brilliant hard skills, bonded even more as a team and put our bodies through their paces and we're all dead proud of ourselves. 

Well done to the whole Jungle Crew!