Raleigh Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Monday, 4 July 2011

11G&H Project Groups Announced this Morning!

The phase one project groups have finally been announced! Woohoo – exciting times ahead! Here are the groups;

Here for 10 weeks – the 11G Alpha groups! First up, let’s hear it for our Phase one Trekkers;

Alpha 1 – off on the Turrimacho trek we have…

Abi Rabaman

Claire Smye

Corrie Moxon

Francis Lanuza

Joyce Hiu Tung Law

Jonathan White

Katie Neal

Cebolla Gamboa

Luke Smalley

Mitch Tulloch

Vejuna Zalalyte

Alpha 2 – off on the Guanacaste trek we have…

Charlie Page

Pinki Tse

Daniel O’Brien

Elliot Bartholomew

Esther Lusty

Hannah Bottomley

Fernando Castillo

Jennifer Miller

Joss Tringham

Karen Rocha

Maykol Meneses

Tim hales

Alpha 3 – off on the Miratombo trek in Nicaragua we have…

Catherine Chatfield-Ball

Catriona McIntosh

Daniel Renshaw

Emma Black

Jordan Carter

Kulbir Rai

Lloyd Thomas

Otto Mena Kikat

Ryan Austin

Cindy Fung

Yandry Benavides

Hats off to the trekkers – it’s going to be an adventure that’s for sure.

Next up, the Environmental Projects:

Alpha 4 – off to Volcan Turrialba and Braulio to help develop the facilities for tourist for when the park re-opens we have…

Alex Newman

Bibi Barstra

Catherine White

Dave Winterflood

Evelyn Calderon

Jodie Hastie

Keith Lau Sui Pang

Noe Corrales

Rich Johnson

Ryan Baker

Sarah Canty

Yasim Begum

Alpha 5 – off to La Cangreja National Park to build a trail for wheelchair users we have…

Caesar Schinas

Carla Dunphy

Christopher Tullo

Claire Barnsley

Isaac Hassard

Joanna Bartlett

Lucy Xu

Sara Wilkes

Daran Sarma

Angelina Cheung

Werner Calderon

Yisbel Centeno

And last in the Alpha’s but by no means least…our Community Projects!

Alpha 6 – off to Apantes, Miraflor in Nicaragua to build a preschool we have…

Alfie Carapiet
Francesca Payne
Hugh Packer
Imi Morgan
Jen Clements
Harvey Ka Hung Tse
Kelly Robinson
Lydia Woodward
Maricruz Esquivel Lopez
Saran Kular

Alpha 7 – off to Quebrada Honda in Nicaragua to take part in a gravity-fed water project and supply water for over 50 families in the community we have...

Christina Clare

Chris Vos

Emma Sheehy

Grace Minns

Jasmine Furbert

Jennifer Rodriquez

Justin Shenolikar

Kay Chow

Tricia Ofuono

Sacha Lapins

Jack Smylie Wild

The 5 week Delta’s!

Our Delta Community Projects:

Delta 1 – Off to the beautiful Playa Hermosa for turtle conservation and tree planting we have…

Ben Moye

Cata Aguilar

Charlie Mann

Daniel Fernandez

Deenal Patel

Hannah Laeverenz Schlogelhofer

Harry Touche

Henry Bullard

Kate Richardson

Nella Anderton

Tom Harley

Trino Chan

Zoe Bellamy

Delta 2 – off to the stunning Camaronal to take part in a turtle conservation project we have…

Bea Lee

Becky Talbot

Erick Cardenal

Gabriel de la Esperanza

Georgie Ward

Jade Porter

Kevin Tan

Louis de Dumast

Lucy Williams

Ross Lester

Sophie Flanagan

Will Harbourne

The Environmental Projects:

Delta 3 – Off to Bajo Chirripo Indigenous Reserve to help build a school we have…

Ava Mayer

Belle Tellier

Celia Underhill

Fede Lang

Fer Zuniga

Lucy Firmin

Luke Saunders

Micheal Sanni

Naveen Yarlagadda

Nick Burden

Rachel Neustadt

Rianna Kelly

Sophie Jenkins

Venexia Walker

Delta 4 – off to Chirripo Indigenous Reserve for a one-off project to build a new classroom we have…

Cyrus Afkhami

Bella Pringle

Cat Alabaster

Cristina Bolanos

Doug Ramsey

Eleanor Pike

Felipe Coto

Jasmine Chopra

Jodie Wall

Kayleigh Carr

Laura Hoddell

Maddie Hosker

Sam Berry

Susannah Packer

Wilson Woo

Already our Delta groups are off on their first adventure - Jungle Camp. They left fieldbase after lunch today to trek to various locations in and around the jungle ot far from fieldbase, where they will be putting their new found Raleigh survival skills into good practice; making basher beds, putting up tents, cooking on the trangia’s (small cooking pots that we use on phase… there is definitely a knack to using these!), getting friendly with their new team mates and getting their first taste of trek! So… walking boots on, bags packed, camelbacks full, maps at the ready, bandana’s on, trek song sorted - pretty much just about ready to go then!

Tomorrow afternoon the Delta’s will be returning and the Alpha groups will be off on their own Jungle and Trek Camp adventures. In the meantime, the Alpha’s will spend the night here at fieldbase and continue to settle in after two days of madness, with dinner and a little salsa dancing later on tonight!

As for our late arrivals (Luke, Kelly, Yasmin and Bert (Carla)) we’re happy to say that they all arrived safely at fieldbase this morning, were greeted with some traditional Raleigh breakfast cuisine (…porridge) and were able to join the rest of the venturers just in time for the project allocations.

Just a quick heads up for you keen bloggers at home - when you leave messages on the blog from now on please remember to put the name of who it is to, their Alpha or Delta group and who it’s from. For the 10 weekers these groups will change for every phase so remember to keep an eye out for when they do! Big thanks – happy blogging.

So all our venturers are here, the PM’s are geared up, all project kit is ready and waiting…not much left to do now except to ‘GET OUT THERE!’

Here’s to expedition 11G&H! Bring it on.

Pura Vida! (and Happy 4th July to our American viewers!)

*Blog written by Dawn Tennant and photo’s by Kat Mammone, unless otherwise stated.

Sunday, 3 July 2011

The Venturers have landed!

For those of you back home we apoogise for the lack of blogging over the last couple of days, we've been having some internet trouble. But we're now back on track and just in time because...(que drum roll)... the venturers arrived at fieldbase today – hooray! Yesterday we greeted our Host Country Venturers as they sang and danced their way into fieldbase... literally! After some long and tiresome journeys from all over the globe the rest of the venturers have arrived safe and sound and Raleigh HQ (head quaters) is now well and truly buzzing!

They arrived yesterday and spent the night sleeping in la Escuela Britannia is San Jose. They awoke at 4.30am to leave at 6am to arrive at Fieldbase in Turrialba at 8am, to then finally relax with a warm welcome from all the Raleigh staff and tucked in to a delicious breakfast of Gallo Pinto! (traditional Costa Rican dish of rice, beans, eggs and plantain). Feeling a little perkier after a good feed, the venturers are now busy settling themselves in their new home and getting to know each other. You could say that there is a touch of excitement in the air.

Still yet to join us after a delayed flight is Luke Smalley, Carla Dunphy, Kelly Robinson and Yasmin Begum who will be flying in this evening to be greeting by the fieldbase team who will then bring them back to base early door tomorrow morning to join the rest of the Raleigh 11G&H team. For the family and friends of these guys back at home we will be keeping you updated as soon as arrive at fieldbase.


The Host Country Venturers arrivng at fb!


Let the celebrations begin!


Day one... and the games begin!

More venturers arriving this morning!

First thing's first - introductions and breakfast!

Next up on the Venturers' schedule... training and jungle camp! We'll be back soon with more news and updates.

Pura Vida

*Blog written by Dawn Tennant and photo’s by Kat Mammone, unless otherwise stated.

Ready and Waiting

Only one more day left until our Host Country Venturers arrive to join us here at fieldbase and the Volunteer Managers have been busy filling up the last few days with more preparation and development.

On the schedule for today, Sustainable development… what do we believe would make a better, more sustainable world, and how can we achieve this? How can we contribute these ideas into our expedition projects? Who is involved? What are the motivations behind our projects here at Raleigh? Naturally, these questions provoked some debate within the group as they demonstrated a variety of opinions and some passionate ideas.

The venturers land tomorrow and the team are now more excited than ever. Feeling inspired, motivated and ready to input their efforts and make a real difference, the fieldbase team eagerly awaits their arrival.

Bring on the venturers!

Pura Vida

*Blog written by Dawn Tennant and photo’s by Kat Mammone, unless otherwise stated.

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?”