SubscribeSo yesterday wasn't the best of days. It was another sunny and humid day at Rainsong. We were doing pretty well at the beginning. We fed the toucans and cleaned their cages. They are always a riot because they just hop around their cages when you come to feed them. And they are both so beautiful, I have the instinct to sit down and draw them. We fed the iguana yesterday as well, but I have yet to actually see him. There we're a ton of people volunteering yesterday so we were done quick. Tarzan the capuchin was out and about yesterday, and he really likes to get into everything and make a ruckus. One of the long term girl volunteers is really great with him though. Then we fed the baby howler monkeys their milk and took them out to play on a tree in the field behind the sanctuary. I got a couple videos of them hanging around.
Then it seemed like we were finished. We were literally sitting around and eating fruit for about an hour and all of the animals had been taken care of. So Matt and I decide to leave so we could do our laundry and not walk back in the hottest part of the day. It was about 10am at this point, and we had left at 10am at least 2 other days in the week that we had been here. But when I went in to tell Mary we were gonna head out, she proceeds to get a horrible attitude with me. "You're on a FRUIT break," she said (and we have never had a "fruit break" before this...). "It's only 10am, your day isn't over. There's still work to be done." She says as she sits on her ass and blows cigarette smoke in my face. So I'm quite pissed off at this point since she is so sporadic in her "rules" and her extreme lack of respect. How the hell were we supposed to know what else had to be done that day? She is never clear with anyone, and it's really frustrating. She treats us like shitty paid staff members but the truth is we pay HER to come her and to help her. She should learn to have a better attitude with people who are actually on her side. I know she has to deal with horrible situations, like monkey's being electrocuted and locals not caring about the wildlife, but she can't take it out on the people who are here to help her. Her piss poor attitude has ALMOST ruined this trip for us, but the other great people we have met have made it a lot better. And the animals of course, we are truly here for them. I just wish it didn't feel like we were just taking care of her pets. I wanted to do "good" on this honeymoon, and the fact that I don't see the point in a lot of what I'm doing is what's really disappointing me.
Anyways, after Mary had her little fit with me, Matt and I almost left anyways, but decided to stay. Mary came down and bitched about plants and how she couldn't find anything for an hour, and we helped her pot some plants she had started. Those plants are for reforestation projects (see, Mary does do good things, but it's hard to appreciate sometimes). While we were working on that, I spotted what I thought was a tree frog on a leaf. On closer examination, it was actually tree frog eggs! I have yet to see a tree frog in Costa Rica, but seeing their eggs was pretty cool. They are kind of little spherical bubbles in a jelly blob on the leaf, and you can see them swimming around inside. It was really neat.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped to get a couple grocery items, and the rest of the walk was torturous. It was noon by then, and extremely hot. We were already sunburned, so we did not do so well on the walk home. I came in and took a cold shower immediately and then tried to take a nap. Matt made us grilled cheeses and I could barely eat it. But then I took a real nap and woke up feeling much better. While I was sleeping, Matt literally did all of the laundry in the sink and shower of our bathroom. Could I get a better husband? No, I don't think it would be possible. We had rice, beans, and tortillas for dinner. A volunteer friend gave us some of her extra broccoli and green beans (ahhh vegetables!!) and I greatly appreciated that. I really miss broccoli, and they don't have it in either super market here in town. We played cards after dinner, and then had a bonfire on the beach with 2 other volunteer friends. We roasted marshmallows and dipped them in cocoa. The stars were absolutely stunning, and I have never seen them so twinkley. There was also a lightning storm going on in the distance, and wow, was that beautiful. I had never seen one on the beach before.
So our day did get better, mostly because of the cool people we have met. I will miss them when they head out on their other adventures!
Dia 8
Today went pretty great actually. Half of the volunteers came in the morning, and we still got things done fairly quickly. Matt and I fed the porcupines (also known as "porkies"), and they are so friendly and enjoyable. We also fed the squirrels, which are really cute here. They are a very reddish brown, and have thinner and longer tails than in the States. They are feisty and cute. We then cleaned the red river turtles, which are the rarest turtles in the country. We tried to just be helpful where we could, but sometimes I feel like I just get in the way. I got the baby howlers' milk ready after Tarzan had been finally taken back into his cage. We fed them and took them out to the tree in the field again for a long time. It was quite relaxing today, probably because Mary had been gone for most of the day. We keep finding more spiders and a ton of little lizards and salamanders everywhere. We left around 11 today, and the walk back was still hot, but there was a cool breeze. I promised I would clean and organize our hotel room today, so I better go do that. Then we are going out to dinner with some of the volunteers.
Matt and I switched our flight officially yesterday, and we will be coming back this Sunday. I want everyone to know we are still having a great time, and we are learning a lot about the animals, the people and culture, and a lot about ourselves. This trip has disappointed us on a couple occasions, and volunteering at Rainsong has certainly not been what I wanted it to be. But we are making the best of it, and we are having a great time. But 2 weeks here in the same place is about all we can handle. Maybe if we were traveling around the country for the whole time we would have had a better time. But we are almost out of money, and we are going to go back to work. Laura, a volunteer that has been staying at the same hotel, showed us pictures of her time volunteering for a couple days at a sloth sanctuary on the other side of the country. It truly looked amazing. Everything looked clean and organized, not like at Rainsong. We would both like to come back to Costa Rica someday and volunteer there.
We love you all,
Zoe and Matt Knox
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