One Week More

Some of the baskets I risked my life to put up

They are loving this tree!

You can see one of the babies peeking out here

            I haven’t made a blog post in a few days because there hasn’t really been a lot of news from here at the center. Since I returned from La Fortuna on Sunday, it’s been back to enrichment work, as well as building and adding on to enclosures, and things like that. Not that it’s been boring; it just hasn’t been really blog-worthy. Still, after four days of silence, it’s time for an update!

            Taylor temporarily left on Saturday to go explore other parts of Costa Rica; he should be back later this evening. In the meantime, Erandi and I have been working mainly on setting up a new sloth garden. The way this center is set up, there are several areas that we call sloth gardens, which are basically large outdoor areas with one or two trees, secured off by a fence. There are between one and four sloths living in each garden, depending on the size, and there are baskets hung up in the trees for their food and water, which are attached to a pulley system so they can be brought down, cleaned, and refilled. This is a great setup for the sloths because they naturally spend almost all of their lifetime up in trees, and these enclosures allow them to basically have that same lifestyle. Since Costa Rican law no longer allows centers like these to rerelease animals, one of the main goals of this center is to give these animals a life as close as possible to one they would have in the wild.

            A few days ago some of the workers here at the center set up another fence around a tree that they thought would be good for a new sloth garden. It had a lot of branches stretching out all directions, gave a lot of shade, and wasn’t too close to other trees (so they couldn’t get out of the enclosure). Once the fence was set up, guess whose job it was to set up the baskets!

            The tree they picked is a fantastic climbing tree- low branches, lots of places to hold onto, the works. The majority of the day yesterday consisted of me being up in that tree, tying the pulleys in place, measuring the length of rope we needed for all six baskets, and feeding the rope for the baskets through the pulleys. I almost fell and broke my neck multiple times throughout the day, but “almost” carries no weight! Several times the other volunteers and staff offered to bring a ladder to help, but ladders are for quitters. After a few close calls, at the end of the day all six baskets were in place, attached to their pulley systems. This new garden is specifically for two sets of mother and baby sloths that were previously in a much smaller, less natural enclosure. This morning I was walking around, and went over to see how they’re taking to their new tree- and they clearly love it! The mothers have been climbing and exploring all around that tree, with their babies hanging onto them. Like I said in an earlier post with the kinkajous, it’s really nice to work hard on a project, and so quickly see that your work paid off!

            This afternoon Erandi went into town to get a few things for the center, so I was mostly working by myself. A while back some volunteers had set up a new enclosure to be used by the turtle- it involved a perimeter of cinderblocks and a small pool that they’d made with cement, which was built into the ground. Well, long story short, we no longer have a turtle, so this afternoon it was my job to take all of that down. The cinderblocks could just be moved back up by the toolshed and used for other things. The pool, on the other hand, needed to just be removed and thrown away. Of course, by “removed” I mean the cement pool needed to be broken down into little pieces and hauled away in buckets. Yes; that was my solo project for this afternoon. Moving the cinderblocks was the easy part- the real fun came when I got to the pool. I got the pickaxe from the toolshed, brought it down there, and spent a few hours swinging that thing, busting the pool to little pieces. Not going to lie- it’s very satisfying to absolutely destroy something like that. I may have strained my back a little doing it, but it was worth it. For people that think volunteering abroad is just like a long vacation- when’s the last time you spent an afternoon of your vacation sweating buckets under the hot sun swinging a pickaxe?

            As of today, I have a week left here in Costa Rica. I’ve had a great time in this country, and I’m going to make the absolute most of what time I have left here. This post’s food for thought: “All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”- Calvin Coolidge