Timoteo and I

2/28/2009

The team has arrived, and as I’m typing I ‘m riding in the bus from San Jose to Cauhita. This will be the third time I’ve taken this 4 hour trip in the last week. Yesterday was a good day overall. We spend the morning looking at future hotel options for the teams, and we checked out of our hotel by 11:00. As I was leaving, I said bye to Jason, the artist, and he gave be a very nice color printed booklet of his artwork. It contained a collection of poems that he had written with his drawings and photos in the background. He said that he hoped it brought me lots of love and happiness. I was impressed by his poetry because I could tell he had put a lot of thought into it. I wrapped his booklet in a waterproof tarp because I plan to hold onto it, and I don’t want it to get water damaged.

We met Timoteo in his house at noon, and we went with him to visit a nearby camp, which looks to be a great place to host future teams. It is our hope that this will make it possible for teams to stay closer to the community in which they are working. Next, Chris and I went with Timoteo to meet the Bribri President although we found out later that it was actually the Vice-President. They have elected a new President since last summer, so it was especially important for us to introduce ourselves. We talked with him and Timoteo and some other men for a while, and as expected the Vice President gladly gave us permission to work on the reservation. After the meeting, we went to the store with Timoteo to buy food for the teams for breakfast Sunday morning. Now that all this has been completed, we have all the pieces in place for the team.

Our drive back to San Jose last night was initially uneventful, but once again driving in San Jose proved to be a challenge. This time we needed to find our way back to our hotel, and it was at night! We did not have a good map, and our hostel was obscure enough that most people would not no where it was. We wandered around for sometime but luckily we had an idea of its location in reference to downtown, so we found downtown with little trouble and eventually stumbled our way back to the hostel. I knew it would be a late night, so I felt fortunate that we were back in the hotel and in bed by 12:30.

This morning I was up by 5:45 because the bus driver was picking me up to meet the team at 6:15. Surprisingly, Chris was already awake. He flies back to the States this afternoon. This was the first time that I had met Chris and fortunately he was a great person to travel with. He was easy-going and flexible, and his Spanish speaking ability proved invaluable. The bus picked me just a few minutes late, and I met the bus driver that Rodrigo hired for the first time. Carlos does not speak any English, so it was a good opportunity to practice my Spanish. It went pretty smoothly and the team arrived as planned. After some local Costa Rican cuisine at Denny’s, we all boarded the bus for our hotel, and we are on our way. The team has been flying all night so all but one of them appear to be fast asleep. Tomorrow the adventures begin!

**To learn more about what Experience Mission is doing, visit our website at www.experiencemission.org.