100% Aventura

Hello everyone!

"Adventure Faces"

A couple days ago, Vanessa and I decided we wanted an adventure. So, in talking to our good friend Luis who is a guide at one of the canopy zip-line tours, we got ourselves booked for a reservation at 100% Aventura yesterday morning. Before we left, we made certain promises to some of our friends. Dario made me promise 1) to do the Tarzan swing and 2) to not die. Michelle made us both promise that we would participate in and enjoy all 100% of the adventure. 80% or 90% would not do, but we were also not to go past 100% because we might die. Vanessa and I thought we could comply with all of these promises.

"Nice and harnessed up!"

We arrived at Aventure and found Luis behind the desk at reception. From this moment on, most people in our tour group thought we were creepy tourists trying to be friends with the tour guide because he kept pretending like he didn't know us. We thought it was clearly a joke; the rest of the group did not. We signed our lives away and got nice and harnessed up for the adventure. Before we walked out to the first baby zip-line, Luis walked by and said, "Good luck! You're going to need it," before promptly disappearing into the wilderness. I forgot to mention earlier that Luis is more monkey than human, so you never know when he's going to appear out of the darkness or a tree or something. That's why this job is perfect for him. At any rate, we did the two baby zip-lines and as we approached the third platform, guess who was there waiting for us! Our little monkey, Luis. This was when our reputation as creepy tourists escalated exponentially. When I got to the front of the line, I was joking around saying, "Oh hey! What's your name?" to which he responded, "Uh... Pablito!" A few of the other guides heard this, thought that we didn't know each other, and found this exchange rather amusing. Likewise, most of the other tourists were under the same impression as the other guides. Sarcasm and banter FAIL. Then, when Vanessa got to the front of the line, Luis started fumbling with her safety cable and harness saying, "Oh, sorry. It's my first day. I think this goes here?" as he attached her safety cable to his belt loop. Of course, this is a total lie since he has been working there almost four years, but the rest of the tour group behind Vanessa got more than a little ervous after that!

The Tarzan Swing Platform

The tour was absolutely amazing. As I have said in various posts prior to this one, Monteverde is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Everything is so green and lush, and when viewing the landscape from hundreds of meters above the ground you can see for miles. Sometimes, however, it is easy to get caught up in the beauty around you and forget that you are speeding through the forest on a cable and that you have to brake yourself. I am guilty of this, and one of the guides had to give me a hand (or an entire arm) at the end of one particularly fast cable. It didn't help that the gloves I was wearing were about four sizes too big, leaving the ends of the fingers to get tangled in the harness and cables. So, by the third or fourth cable I had already broken some promises; I had had about 110% of the adventure. By the end of the tour, that number was upped to about 120%. The last thing they have you do is the Tarzan swing in which you stand at the end of a very high hanging bridge, get attached to a single bungee cord on the front of your harness, and jump off. I wasn't scared at all to do this; it was absolutely not the first time I have looked over an edge thinking to myself, "I'm about to jump off this very high point, and I have no idea how the landing is going to happen." However, I did not expect my neck to snap backwards at the first pull of the bungee cord. Don't get me wrong, it was a great thrill, and I'd do it again, but I was in a little too much pain that afternoon and the next day!

See? Cute picture! Thanks, Judgey Tourist!

The tour was topped off by us meeting up with Luis on our walk back up to reception, confusing more tourists as he gave us huge hugs and kisses on the cheek, and solidifying our creepy reputation by asking another tourist to take our picture with him. But todo valió la pena because it's a really cute picture and I had a great time!

I'm choosing to leave out the details of my work days this past week because it's not worth ranting about on a blog. That's way too 2002 for me.

I think I'll post one more before I leave tomorrow morning. Can't wait to see those of you who are reading from Texas in just a few days!

Love,
Erin

Don't Feed the Plants!

Hey y'all!

"Don't Feed the Plants!"

So, the time has come (the walrus said)! We have finished our run of La Tiendita de los Horrores, and it was a complete success! Thursday was our opening night, and considering the dress rehearsal we had earlier that afternoon, we were completely shocked at the outcome. Our dress rehearsal ended at 5:00, and as a staff, we were still pretty worried about a lot of things in the show. But we accepted it and reminded ourselves that the organization's mission is not necessarily the final product of the musical. However, between 5:00 and our opening at 7:00, it seemed like our cast had about two extra weeks of rehearsal. I don't know how they did it, but it was incredible! We didn't even really give them notes. We just gave them food and a couple hours of rest. I think the biggest factor was that our opening night was standing room only. It was a huge confidence boost for the kids to know that so many people in this town were supporting them and appreciating what they love to do. This summer has taught me that kids and teenagers really do need to hear that their teachers, mentors, and family members support them.

Our sound system!

The rest of our shows were equally as wonderful. Alberto, our super-step-grandfather-volunteer, managed to get us a sound system for the show, a task I had been working on for over a week. However, being an extremely respected member of this community has its perks, whereas being a 19-year-old gringa doesn't exactly bring about the same clout. Nevertheless, we got the sound system and it helped our show immensely, so in the end, that's all that really matters. Hopefully one day I will also be a respected member of this community so that accomplishing these tasks will be a bit easier for me. Having this sound system meant that I was on sound board for all the shows. I had never run sound before, but since we only had 3-4 inputs at any given time, it wasn't that difficult. And that way I got to sit in the back of the audience and watch every show! Not a bad trade-off considering all the other interns had to be backstage doing set and costume changes.

The amazing cast of La Tiendita de los Horrores!

Another rather exciting aspect of the shows this year was the talk backs we had after each performance. We always had at least a few people stay after the show to have a little charla (chat) with our cast and staff, and some really great things came out of it. Throughout the rehearsal process we have been talking to the kids about the themes of the show and how they relate to their lives. One thing that kept coming up was that just like in Skid Row in Little Shop of Horrors, there's not a lot for teenagers to do but sit around and do nothing. This, of course, led to talks about underage drinking and drug use among teenagers, but it also led us to discuss what these young adults want to have available to them in Monteverde. The cast, completely unprovoked by the staff, came up with the idea of having a performing arts group where they could come on a weekly basis and be part of an acting group or a dance group just to give off some steam and do something productive with their time. The kids brought these ideas up to some of the parents and members of the community who stayed after the shows for talk backs, and everyone was completely supportive of the idea. They are planning to form a committee to draft a plan and go to the municipality to try and get funding and a location for it. This is really great  news for me because now I can see just how much interest there is in the community for something like my community arts center. And I am so fortunate that Rachel, one of our volunteers, is staying here until December not only to learn Spanish, but also to continue working for Far Corners on a weekly basis. She is going to be able to lay the groundwork for what I want to do in a couple of years when I am out of school. That way, by the time I get here, there will be a bit of a precedent for this idea and the kids will already be jazzed about it! Another exciting thing on the center's front took place last week, but I never blogged about it.

There was a professional dance company out of la Universidad de Costa Rica that came through Monteverde  last week. They were really awesome contemporary dancers and gave a workshop to my kids the morning of their performance. I took the workshop as well, and it was really fun! So that night Vanessa, Michelle, Dario, Luis, and I stayed after rehearsal for the dance show. A bunch of the kids also came a bit later to see what these dancers were all about. The show was really wonderful, but what I didn't know was that the theme of their national tour was spreading the performing arts throughout Costa Rica! They did a video presentation that showed clips from their different workshops they have been doing for the past month and some of the dancers talking about why it is so important for young people to participate in the arts. So, after the show, Dario and I went and talked to the director. I told her very briefly what we want to do here in Monteverde, and she was so supportive. She gave me her card and told me that she could help us apply for grants through UCR and that she was planning on coming back here in October to give a production workshop. Since I won't be here, Dario told me he'd keep his eyes open for this workshop and take lots of notes for me!

Everything this summer seems to be falling into place with my bigger picture. Everyone seems so supportive of what our goals are for FCCMT, and it's amazing how many people are willing to help.

So thank you all for reading about my adventures and my passion this summer. To those of you who have e-mailed me, I really appreciate your feedback and support. It really does mean the world to the volunteers here to know that we have support back at home in the States.

This may or may not be my last post for the summer. If anything it will probably be the last one directly relating to Far Corners because now that the show is done, we're really just striking the space and making it ready for the next group who wants to use it. I have some adventures planned for the rest of the week, so maybe I'll make a post or two about those with lots of pictures!

But for now, thanks for reading!

Erin