Saying Adios to Costa Rica and our CFCA Family!

Greetings from tropical Los Chiles!

After three days of hard work in the humid 80-degree weather, we had our amazing day off on Tuesday! Once we finished breakfast, we walked down our street to the Rio Frio where we boarded a boat and began our adventure downstream. About every five minutes, the tour guide had the captain pull over to the side of the river and pointed out numerous animals and indigenous trees. We saw Howler and Capuchin monkeys, three crocodiles, a bat, some lizards, and TONS of birds. At one point, we even got to walk through part of the rainforest and walked to the very border of Nicaragua. When we finished, we ate our lunch and then walked to the neighborhood field near the house we are building for the Martinez Espinoza family. There, we saw our friends Jose Carmelo, Isaida, Arturo, Hansel, and many other familiar faces. A game of futból with about 15 kids on each team began and many of the little Costa Ricans dominated the game. Being able to bond with these kids through the game without the language barrier interfering was a great feeling. We were all sad to have to leave for the day, and so were they, but all of the kids hugged us goodbye.

When we returned to the work cite today, the metal roof was added to the house and it made the house look even bigger! We are finishing up the last room with the cement floor and hopefully tomorrow we can begin a new step of the house building process. The house has come a long way since we tore down the Martinez Espinoza’s original house. It’s amazing that in just 5 days we have built the frame of the house already. Ellie, our translator from CFCA, told us a few days ago that this is the fastest a St. A’s group has built a house! We are so proud of our progress and are so motivated to get this house completely finished for the family that we hope that when we leave Friday afternoon, we will have accomplished our goal.

Sincerely,
Maire Lynch ’13