My Friday night began with a call Wednesday night. Roy, who runs the Sea Turtle Project in Buenavista, Costa Rica, had a single volunteer in the Sea Turtle project and it was the middle of nesting season. Erin, the volunteer coordinator in Costa Rica, had convinced the whole Volunteer Visions Costa Rican office to help dig up hundreds of turtle eggs laid by Hawksbills, Olive-Ridleys, Leatherbacks, and Green Sea Turtles. We were joined by four volunteers (Brianna, Katie, Laura, Amanda) who were working in teaching and construction projects and wanted to help as well.
We caught a ten minute ride in the back of a truck down a long, muddy and bumpy road to the river crossing. Even though it was only an hour after low-tide the river was about 100 yards wide and upon first inspection a bit intimidating. Although it ended up being only waist high, carrying anything other than a backpack over your head would be difficult and risk soaking your possessions. On the other side of the river the first thing you see is a mile long expanse of beach, ocean and waves. There are no houses and signs of civilization. We walked a half mile down the beach in the growing darkness to a tiny compound composed of a main building, dorm on top and kitchen below, a bathroom and shower and a small informational hut that is little more than a roof and table. Two fenced in squares about 100 feet by 100 ft housed thousands of developing sea turtles.
The turtle project is run by Roy, a middle-aged Costa Rican who is almost completely responsible its creation, upkeep and funding. Roy gave us dozens of very exact and detailed directions as we walked the grounds between the kitchen and the nesting site. We were to divide into groups of two and take two hour shifts and check the eggs for hatchlings every ten minutes. In the event that we found any, a large green bucket would be half filled with sand and the baby turtles would be placed inside it. When they finished hatching, the bucket was to be carried to the beach 15 feet from the water and the babies watched till the made it to the water.
When not working throughout the night, we played card games like spoons, BS, Gin Rummy and interactive games like Mafia (http://www.princeton.edu/~mafia/oldm.... Teaching everyone the rules of such games for the first time is hard enough, but when you add the fact that we were playing with local Ticos who help with the project and don’t speak any English, it made for both a surreal and incredibly enjoyable experience.
Three nests hatched that night, one at around 9:30 and the other two between one and four (I was sound asleep by that point) and four other turtles laid their eggs. I woke up the next morning to a typical Tico breakfast of eggs, fruit, rice, beans and coffee, only slightly bitten by bugs (others were not so lucky, a mosquito net is a necessity).
The Buenavista turtle project is the perfect place for people who don’t mind feeling separated from civilization for 5 days at a time, are interested in wildlife conservation and don’t mind wearing a ton of bugspray and having rotating sleep schedules. For more information on how you can participate visit our website at www.volunteervisions.org or email me personally at socialnet@volunteervisions.org
-Travis Taylor

All you need to do is get other people involved in our projects! We will supply you with strategies, posters and all the required information!

If you are interested even a little bit about this, send me an email: socialnet@volunteervisions.org

Yes this is legitimate and not a scam, we can become Facebook friends, you can talk on the phone with someone from our office, be put into contact with pass volunteers, see photos, read testimonials.

www.volunteervisions.org

Today we handed out the football uniforms to the women's team of Samara Primary School in our headquarters of Samara, Costa Rica.

The primary school of Samara participates in the national primary school tournament and last year wasnumber one in the Guanacaste province, beating out 450 other primary schools! Unfortunately, till today they had to play in their own clothes because there was no money for football uniforms.

That is the reason why Volunteer Visions started a sponsor program, to be sure that the team not only makes good plays, but also looks good .


Sunday is the start of the first round of the finals. If you want to find out more about volunteering give me an email at socialnet@volunteervisions.org.

www.volunteervisions.org