In the swing of things

All the programs are in place and are in full force here at the Center. March has been an eventful month and the air has been buzzing with activity from the steady flow of students and tourists. Having students from the nearby Escuela Chilamate in the After School Program adds a whole new element to the Center and there has been a lot more life and energy floating around the air.

The After School Program consists of two groups: The first group is officially considered ASP and is for students in 2^nd to 4^th grade. The second group is called the Eco Club and is for 5^th and 6^th graders. When I first arrived to the Center and told shared with others that I was in charge of the ASP, I got a lot of responses along the lines of “Good luck!” and “You’re going to need a lot of energy for that!”. With my optimism and enthusiasm for working with an age group I haven’t worked with before, I thought it would be no big deal and not be that hard. Boy was I wrong. Working with the younger group has proved to be quite the challenge! Because they have so much energy, it is hard for them to pay attention, follow directions and stay on task. Also, because they come directly after their classes are done, they don’t want to feel like they are coming to another class and want to have fun more than anything. Due to this challenge, I have to think of really fun and inventive activities to capture their interest and mask what they are doing as learning. It is a constant learning process for me to see what works and what doesn’t. Now that the group is dwindling down, it is easier to manage the group and see some progress being made.

Another one of my responsibilities is helping with the Bird Club two Saturdays out of the month. A steady group of high school students have been coming to the club consisting of one hour of in-class training and one hour in the field to identify birds. It is great to see the enthusiasm and genuine interest of the people who continue to come to the club. I'm learning a lot about birding along side the students and really developing my skills to take over the group when I have to be in charge. In This week we sat down to plan for International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD) on May 9^th. We are trying to utilize as many of the students and groups at the Center along with help from the Selva Verde Lodge next door to help make it a well rounded and interesting event for everyone. We will have origami, face painting, mask making, various presentations having to do with birds, and a short play and songs performed by the students from the Eco Club in my After School Program. Planning and promotion has begun and hopefully things will run well!

On the same note of planning, we have had a few meeting as a group to see what we can do to create a stronger link between the community and the Center. We have come up with two ideas that will be starting off in the next few weeks. Next week, we will begin to show movies for the public here at the Center free of charge. Also we plan to have a soccer tournament between the target communities we work with that will start April 25^th. With the start of these two events, we hope to promote and distinguish ourselves as a Learning Center. When one asks a member of the community what the Learning Center is, more often than not the response is “Selva Verde”. Although we are affiliated with Selva Verde Lodge, we are a separate working entity that works along side of the Lodge that has a lot more resources to offer the community than most people in the area think. We hope that the residents of the Sarapiquí will respond positively to our efforts and understand who we are and what we stand for.

Sara Rodriguez

Olivia's Blog Entry: Ph Levels, Arm-wrestling, and Sidewalks (Oh My!)

I´m writing on the last day of my short-term volunteer experience with SCLC. I arrived about a month ago with the long-term volunteers: Meghan and Mandi, the English teachers, Sara, the After School Program volunteer, Aysha, the tourism volunteer, and Anna, the Environmental Education volunteer. The last month has been a lot of fun for us, getting to know one another, the Center, and the community we´re hoping to serve. We´ve learned a lot very quickly, about how the center runs day-to-day, the different kinds of birds and monkeys we can see from our porch, and that rice and beans three meals a day sounds boring, but is in fact fantastic.
My job at the center over the past month has been to tackle the closet of mystery, in order to organize the water-monitoring equipment for use with After School Programs and Eco-Club. Turns out, in addition to two types of water-monitoring systems, the center is in possession of a large novelty magnet, walkey talkeys, and various other gems. Currently we´re hot on the trail to replacing some of the expired chemical reagents for testing the river. I love picturing Sara and Anna by the river with their students, reading pH levels.

I have been living with a host family about 2 kilometers from the center, which has been an eventful experience and definitely a boost for my Spanish. In addition to my host mother, and myself, there is always a rotating cast of children in the house, mostly boys between the ages of 5 and 8. Of course at times living in close quarters with so many people speaking rapid-fire Spanish is stressful, and the thought of reading a book quietly in my bed seems a distant impossibility. However, I´ve had a blast with the kids, playing cards, for some ill-advised reason teaching them to arm-wrestle, and seriously debating the merits of Hombre Araña verses Batman (who is for some reason not known as Hombre Murcièlago).

As I get ready to leave Sarapiqui, I know I will miss the staff and volunteers at the Center, as well as other friends I´ve made in the community over the last month. I will definitely miss my walk to and from the center everyday. Although it´s along what I´ve come to think of as ¨The Road of Death¨ (think Pet Cemetery, the first one), with huge trucks powering by every few minutes, it´s definitely one of the highlights of my day. In the 25 minutes, I pass by two bar/restaurants, two small grocers, the school, a shoe repair shop, and very little else besides cows, grass, and houses. This morning my walk was slowed by a woman walking her goats out to pasture along sidewalk, something I will be sure to remember at home in Baltimore. Although I rarely think of it on my walk, the sidewalk that I use every day was built by SCLC, and is used by the whole community to avoid the perilous road. It is a very substantial demonstration of how our efforts can really improve the quality of life in a community, and engage the community in that process. I´m very pleased to have been involved with a group that acknowledges the power of such efforts over this past month.

More updates to come from other volunteers, stay tuned!

Olivia Cumming

SCLC Provides School Packs to Earthquake Victims

In what was the first, of hopefully many mechanisms in which the SCLC is helping victims of the Cinchona Earthquake which occurred on Jan. 8, 2009, the SCLC donated 45 school packs and 15 toy packs to children who were affected by the earthquake.
One of SCLC’s ongoing donation programs is our “School Pack” donations. For just $10 a donor can help purchase a pack of school materials. These materials are then donated to the neediest persons in the local communities.
The SCLC is happy to be able to provide this small ,yet important donation to the community of San Miguel which was heavily impacted by the earthquake. With school starting in just a few weeks, these were important items for families who are trying to return some normalcy to their lives.
The SCLC will continue to work with the National Emergency Commission, the Fuerza Publica and the local Police to coordinate volunteers for community service projects in the region. Look for updates on this progress soon.
If you are interested in helping with the recovery efforts please contact us at commdev@learningcentercostarica.org or by phone in Costa Rica at +(506)- 2766-6482.

Welcome to the SCLC Blog!

Welcome to the debut entry of the Sarapiqui Conservation Learning Center's new online blog: "SCLC Seeds." Starting in January 2009, the blog will be regularly updated by those who are sowing the seeds of activity at the SCLC: the volunteers! The bloggers will post on the progress of our 2009 programs, both old ones and new ones, as well as offer personal insight on what it is like to live, work and play as an SCLC volunteer.





We invite you to check back regularly for new postings and information, as well as to leave comments and questions for our "bloggers."Thank you for visiting us online, and we hope you consider visiting us in Costa Rica as well.





Pura Vida,


The SCLC Team