Raleigh Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Friday, 5 February 2010

Tico-style 10B and project announcements

I'm not sure if the heat is going to everyone's head, but a disturbing new crazy is taking hold of our Turrialba fieldbase. Even photographer Ollie succumbed today - we recorded him getting his Raleigh make-over earlier this afternoon:

It started like this: one fine morning - Wednesday 3rd to be exact - Expedition 10B gathered together on the fieldbase terrace. That fateful morning was project allocation morning. In true Raleigh style, while Venturers lined up nervously at the tables to find out where they'd be heading for the first three-week 'phase', our resourceful PMs prepared some 'skits' or short comedy routines to liven up the announcement process. Any excuse to pop on some fancy dress and our PM team are chomping at the bit...

Alpha Three started innocently enough with a bit of light rapping from medic Joey. But then things took a turn for the worse. Clippers were produced and it was decided that a ceremonial shearing was the best way to initiate members into the team.

Now, luckily most folk were far too sensible to follow suit, but this bold piece of peinado (hairstyling) is really starting to catch on among the troops. It's a free will affair, but the grade two is certainly shaping up to be the Raleigh look of 2010.

Now, back to business: it is my great pleasure to announce the following project allocations for phase one.

Starting at the top, Alpha One adopted a football theme for their skit, which went something like this:

Joining Emma, Oscar and Ben on The Corcovado Trek will be:

Alex Beard, Amy Herbert, Bethany Bowers, Diego Aguilar Munoz, Emma Phillips, Harriet Raper, Isabel Pahud de Mortanges, Jose Efrain Acuna Cruz, Katherine Byrne, Oliver Longworth & Olivia Dowles

Next up, Alpha Two pulled out an unusual performance with a policelady and a man in a sequined red dress:

Joining Ale and Simon on The Guanacaste Trek are:

Anaabel Johns, Argerys Merlo, Caroline Bixner, Edward Abel Smith, Finn White-Thomson, Hannah Pitts, Kit Stephenson, Laura Wagner Veary, Neil McGregor, Nelson Castillo, Telish Johnson & Thomas Smallwood

Alpha Three had a close shave and some rhyming lyrics:

Joining Joey, Adri and Mike on the Coast to Coast Trek are:

Alex de Bois, Anne van Tets, Chris Woodfield, Erving Zepeda, Isabella Vyvyan, James Wilderspin, Nathan Denne, Rachel Stanley, Robert Holt, Rox Quesada Diaz, Urmi Mistry & Veronie Havens

Alpha Four went for a jungle theme:

Heading out to La Cangreja National Park with Richard and Jenny are:

Adriana Keast, Daisy Wright, Fabian Ramirez, Harold Campos, Hugo Proffitt, James Keeble, Jess Gerry, Joseph Talboys, Marijne Mak, Natalya Chapman, Thomas McColm & Yamuna Morton

Alpha Five went back to basics with their beach theme:

Joining Jude, Dave and Christine in Camaronal are:

Charlotte Vowles, Emily Pullan, Juan Carlos Vargos, Laura Forrest, Lucy Benville, Luke Sussams, Michaela Turton, Neil Grant, Nitnin Rishi,Ollie Carmichael, Phoebe Walsh, Samuel Becht, Sophia Carr-Gomm & Will Moody

Alpha Six went West Country with their Bristolian theme:

Joining Tara and JC on San Lucas Island are:

Adam Smith, Anna Dawson, Ben Braithwaite, Carla Fernandez, Emma Selms, James Ash, Mark Ross, Maya Chilaeva, Melvin Hueter, Richelle Stacer, Samantha Malvern, Susana Mora Wint & Thomas Jeggo

Alpha Seven were so quick off the mark we didn't manage to photograph them in their fancy dress finery - but here they are this morning:

Joining Elizabeth, Alex and Ruth in Los Tololos are:

Benoit Grogan Avignon, Clare Davey, Daniela Flores Carpio, Hugh Caims, Isabel Roscoe, James Forde, Jonathan Whalley, Jonathan Worthington, Katherine O'Hagan, Natalie Nakkas, Peter Crosbie & Rebecca Docherty

Alpha Eight created their own OK Corral:

Joining Alice, Heather and Sophie in Miraflor are:

Aida Rodriguez Badilla, Bethany Watts, Charlotte Harman, Hannah Johns, Joshua McWlliam (recently relocated from Alpha One), Kris Stafford, Mark van der Noordaa, Max Milward, Nicholas Ash, Nicola Traynor, Roisin McMillan, Toby Morris & William Smyth-Osbourne

Alpha Nine went tribal:

Joining Nacho, Vanessa and Su in Conte Burika are:

Ally Bhatia, Bryony James, Constance van Berckel, Daniel Willis, David Tippett, Emma Darch, Frederica Bendit, Harriet Palmer, Helen Nuttall, Isabella Somerset, James Lucas, Lai Yin Wong, Sebastian Leon & Suru Eruero

Alpha Ten recreated a period costume drama:

Joining Sofi, Becca and Phil on The Macho Trek are:

Caroline Finnegan, Charlie Hammond, Daniel Lawson, Daniel King, Davinder Sanghera, Ellis Bouw, Francesca Hawes, Henry Lake, Javier Alvarez, Julian Molina, Nicoline Teeuwen & Olivia Boyd

We are now in phase one's final countdown: it's the last day of preparations before we all deploy across Costa Rica and Nicaragua for three weeks of mud, mountains, sunshine, building, digging, carrying and counting turtles. Today, PMs and Venturers are scampering all over Fieldbase, collecting vital equipment, food supplies, doing last-minute washing, checking checklists, stocking up medical kits and making their mental preparations for the journey ahead. Tonight we're holding the mother of all send-off parties - a UV extravaganza with lots of music, dancing and colourful costumes. Tomorrow morning at 4am a convoy of buses will be trundling into Fieldbase ready to take our Alpha groups out to their project sites and trek drop offs. The adventure continues...

Next time: We launch a handy expedition glossary to translate our expedition technical terms - that's Raleighrealia for the rest of you - into laymans terms...

Thursday, 4 February 2010

Jungle camp and sweet salsa music

After 24-hours of intensive training we sent half the expedition out for a night in the jungle to put those camp craft skills into practise...

Gathering bamboo for the basher beds

The legendary 'three-bowl' system

HOW TO BUILD A BASHER BED...

Bind together three poles with some old binder twine, or perhaps a bootlace...

then open it out into a nice stable tripod

Chuck some bamboo into the handy sleeves in the canvas hammocks...

And HEY PRESTO - you've got a lovely, comfy jungle bed. Nightnight!

When practising the CASEVAC (Casualty Evacuation) proceedure at 6am, plump for the smallest member of your group to get the 'injury' or suffer the consequences...

Meanwhile, back at fieldbase the rest of us put on our dancing shoes and brushed up our salsa skills...

Nacho and Tara lead the way with a salsa demonstration

Freestylin'

Next time: find out the latest fashion craze to hit Fieldbase...

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

Warming up...

It's 5am. You've spent the last six hours tucked up in a three meter square box of canvas with seven other people. Three of them snored. Beneath you, the roll mat you borrowed from your mate isn't as cushiony as you'd hoped, and your head's still reeling from the flight/bus journey/orientation briefing. The mosquito that's been buzzing round your head all night has finally given up, only to be replaced by the shrill hollers of farm birds as dawn creeps in. You're absolutely exhausted, and you've got a full day of boot camp ahead - how are you going to pull this one out of the bag?

Not all of us are morning people. But if you're feeling bleary-eyed and fuzzy headed, there is no better way to shake off sleep than a Raleigh warm-up session. This can be anything from a getting-to-know you 'icebreaker', a physical challenge, a best/worst/proudest/most embarrassing moment, or a silly game. My favourite energizer is the Roar Off, a team game where each side stands with their backs to one another and - on a count of three - turns and RRRRRRRRRROARS at the opposition, as loud as they can. For as long as they can. Marks are awarded for volume, endurance and accompanying scary faces. Six of our Project Managers demonstrate the technique in this short film:

This morning, we made Raleigh history by organising the biggest and best Roar Off of them all. This epic event included the now complete Expedition 10B team and is captured in the photo below.

Now, lets rewind to yesterday when the adventure well and truly began. In particular, we'd like to give a big shout out to our Nica contingent (that's our fine friends from Nicaragua, don't you know). Their bus down from Managua was held up by road closures, resulting in a mammoth 27-hour journey. But they made it - and received a warm welcome on arrival at Fieldbase...

Melvin, Harold, Erving, Noyling, Javier, Nelson, Juan Carlos & Jose

And finally, flight delays meant that Neil and Emma were a tad late - just in time to collect James from the airport and tootle back to Turrialba in Bravo Three.

Neil, Emma and James

With the expedition now complete there are heaps of new faces to get to know and our humble Fieldbase is jammed packed with rucksacks, mess tins, hiking boots and the constant buzz of excited chatter. And all this on very little sleep... we're all running on adrenaline, excitement and plenty of sweet, punchy Costa Rican coffee. With only four days to prepare for our first of three project phases, there is no time to waste: after yesterday's welcome breakfast and some introductions, we knuckled down to a day of orientation briefings, paperwork, team building and radio training.

Country Director Julian and Country Programme Manager Ross welcome 10B to Fieldbase

Deputy Expedition Leader Laura flexes her vocal muscles at Medic Joey

Meal times for 160 people are pretty cozy

Essential communications, Raleigh style

Tomorrow: find out what happens when we head off to Jungle boot camp

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?”