VCHS Engage: COSTA RICA

The group at Manuel Antonio Beach. Friday, March 16th Today we woke up at our very nice hotel and ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Some students were lucky enough to see a monkey at breakfast trying to steal some bananas! After breakfast we walked less than 50 meters from the lobby of our hotel to enter the Manuel Antonio National Park. Our hope was to find some cool animals, like sloths and monkeys, but when we arrived at the first beach of the park we ended up spending most of our time there hanging out, swimming, and playing ultimate frisbee. Ronald and Enrique modeling in front of our hotel.  Iguanas by the pool.  Cameron Iguana hunting.  Logan trying to rock ultimate frisbee on a sprained ankle.  Mr. Boer has hops! Too bad his team lost in ultimate! :) Enrique, the bus driver does it all!  Enjoying one last coconut water!  After beach time we came back to the hotel to pack up and hit the road...

Sorry for the delay in updates! The last two days we have been so busy having fun that we haven't had time to sit down and write! Wednesday, March 15th--Rafting Today we woke up at the crack of dawn and drove two hours to the Pacuare River to start our rafting adventure. The Pacuare River is one of the top five rivers in the world to raft due to its location and scenery, which is beautiful rainforest. Several of us commented that we felt like we were in an adventure movie throughout the day. We were divided into three boats, of which only one had zero people fall out--the senior boat, way to go Seniors! Sorry about the spills Mr. Boer and Courtney! Halfway through the rafting trip we pulled aside and ate a delicious meal of chicken burritos in the middle of the rainforest. It was definitely a meal to remember as we were surrounded by beautiful scenery, it was lightly raining, and we saw a blue jean frog! After lunch we continued to raft for another two hours and were surrounded ...

The team tonight in downtown San Jose after souvenir shopping. We are already on Day 5 of our Costa Rica trip! In some ways it feels like we have been here forever, but in other ways it feels like the time is flying by! Today we spent almost the entire day at the Asociation Infantil Hogar Sol, an orphanage in San Jose. We were unable to take any photos today due to the nature of protecting the privacy of the orphans, but I think because we did not have our phones and cameras our students and staff were even more engaged and will remember this day for a long time.  Below are some reflections from today:    Gage Galloway The beauty in visiting this orphanage was the opportunity to step away from all of life's problems and just play; nothing in the world could have made these kids happier than to do nothing but enjoy each other's company, even if we could hardly communicate. We were not allowed to ask about the children's past nor should we have, and most importantl...

All of the kids and coaches at the clinic today!  We woke up bright and early today to head to Santo Domingo, a canton of San Jose in the Heredia province. We pulled up to the Santo Domingo sports complex and met several other helpers for today's clinic. Busses started arriving and we gathered together in the gym with over 130 students from different PE classes around the area! Most of the students came in their PE uniforms for their respective schools with lunchboxes in hand.  With only 16 VCHS "coaches" in attendance we were a little bit nervous about how we were going to do in leading so many students. We split the group into four stations: volleyball, basketball, baseball, and soccer. Each group had about 30 students and we rotated them through most of the stations during the 3 hour clinic. Below are some reflections on the clinic.  Volleyball Today was an eye opening experience in the challenge of being patient. Before even coming to this cli...