So it's official! After months of planning, the details of our trip are now final, and we're off to Atenas, Costa Rica to work in an orphanage with adolescent and teenage boys. In talking to many of you individually, it seems like there a lot of questions about this trip, so let me try to do my best to answer them in Q&A form.
Q: How'd you end up picking a little place like Atenas, Costa Rica to do this?
A: It's not so much that we picked Atenas, but that it picked US. We started with some basic criteria -- we want to volunteer in a hands-on way for a month, we want to be somewhere safe, we don't want to spend a fortune, and we'd like to be in Spanish-speaking country if possible. That pretty much led us to Central or South America and then once we factored in the "safe" and "economical" aspects, Costa Rica it was! (no offense, Columbia, but any country whose TV slogan is "The only RISK is not wanting to come home" is just hiding something). When we finally chose to work with RCDP (Rural Community Development Program), they gave us the choice of this quiet, farming town of Atenas or the bustling capital city of San Jose. As many of you know, I wake up from the sound of a car alarm sounding 12 blocks away, so it was kind of a no-brainer from there. As a bonus, National Geographic bestowed Atenas with the honor of "Best Climate in the World", which I'm assuming means 53 degrees with a slight breeze and no bugs.
Q: Yeah, um, WHY are you doing this again?
A: It's a combo of a) wanting to do something good for others, b) wanting to do something different and memorable for us, and c) all the stars aligning to make this possible. Our jobs are both flexible at this point in our lives, we don't have a mortgage or even a rent payment (thanks, Mom and Dad) and no kids, so it just kinda jumped out at us. Plus, leaving NYC for the month of January is always a good idea.
Q: What qualifies you to work with adolescent and teenage boys removed from their homes due to neglect or abuse, or boys who have been taken off the streets?
A: Absolutely nothing. I'm honestly wholly unprepared to deal with these kids and am hoping Kandi can take the lead on this for the first week or so. I mean, I WAS a teenage boy for like 7 years -- does that count?
Q: Where are you living?
A: We'll be staying with a family in Atenas. So far, all we know is that their names are Marielos and Arnoldo (parents) and their three kids, Roxia, Milena, and Roy. Meals will be with the family, so we're hoping for some good traditional Costa Rican cuisine (although, we have little idea what that means at this point). We'll have hot water in the showers, but no a/c. Our coordinator assures us that nights are "perfect sleeping weather." I somehow doubt that a climate that reaches 90 in the day could ever have "perfect" nights, unless somehow it dips into the 40's. No a/c? I see a large, industrial strength fan in my near future.
Well that's it for now. As you can probably tell from the rudimentary style of this post, this is my first ever blog entry. Hopefully I'll improve. On that note, I do plan on doing at least one blog entry a week, and maybe even more. For those of you who have contributed to our fund -- first of all, thank you, and secondly, we'll definitely update you here on how we're using the money to help out the boys. For anyone reading this who's interested in contributing money so we can help these kids even further, please email me at rickdeutsch@mac.com.
Look for maybe one more entry before our departure on Dec 28th. Thanks for reading and wish us luck!
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