Day 5

Blog Day 5 - Monday
Gorgeous morning! The group met at Esquelada Linda Vista School for day 2 of our morning work projects. The groups separated; the bridge painting group walked to the bridge to finish the decorating part of their project, having painted the main posts yesterday; today the group decorated the posts with murals and design – the little fishing person, soccer balls and turtles, sayings and rainbows. The school group was surprised to be told that a new flower bed would be a vast improvement to the school and with the kind donation of plants from members of the community and from Rodolfo & Rosa’s plantation they had much to do in their three hours of work. Pictures tell 1000 stories and hopefully you have a chance to see the photos of the bridge and cleaned and the new gardens plus the school clean up. Quote of the day from Girly, “as long as I only have to paint these soccer goal posts and not have to pole dance with them, I am just fine”. You had to see her face as she said this, with paint brush in hand dripping with blue paint (Appleby blue), sun beating down and a cheeky smile on her perspiring face. A visit to Rodolfo & Rosa’s plantation was the treat for the afternoon and many went to task to catch their own tilapia fish from the fish ponds (two ponds with 4000 and 6000 fish – slightly less fish now) for lunch. Yummy! The tour that followed had a food connection as we; tasted the juice from crushed sugar cane then sucked on sugar cane, fed the cows, devoured pieces of pineapple freshly cut by Rodolfo, played with “touch me not’s” plants that shriveled to the touch, picked cilantro – a weed from the pineapple fields, rubbed cinnamon leaves into our hands, took the sap from the rubber tree and were amazed to see the white sap solidify into black rubber in our hands, plus many more stories. Back to the plantation Bodega where we had coffee and tea, followed by Yeller and Suntan offering another great ANCHOR. A group activity followed, the Maze which Tatiann (a local lady) showed us the final way through the maze. We took our leave from the plantation, weeeeelllll all left except McT, AmigoCarlos & PapaZuke whose homestay was the plantation, most of the group getting home before the rain started. (This is the rain forest region after all). GREAT day! Tomorrow it is zip lining over the jungle canopy and river rafting but only after we complete the school clean-up project.