My first month of the World Race adventure has come to end. As I sit down to write this, it is my last night here in Jaco, Costa Rica. Tomorrow afternoon my team and I will board a bus to go back to San Jose to meet up with the rest of M Squad. I can hardly believe the time has gone so fast, and although I am sad to go, I know the rest of the Race is going to keep getting better!
We saw a lot and experienced a lot here in Jaco, so I'd like to update you guys on the highlights of this first month. Costa Rica has a famous saying called "Pura Vida." It means "the pure life" in Spanish. As great as this saying sounds, my team and I quickly found out that Jaco is anything BUT a place where a pure lifestyle is lived….
For the first 2 weeks, we would go to a local neighborhood park and play with children ages 4 to 13. We learned that a lot of them do not have solid home lives, and many of them do not have a father figure present in their lives. They're lucky if their mom's boyfriend is around and doesn't abuse them. And it's not uncommon for a typical Jaco family household to be a place where family members (aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.) come and go frequently. No wonder these kids were so excited to have a couple of crazy Americans come and play with them — they aren't being given much attention at home.
While talking to some of the local missionaries here in Jaco one afternoon, I learned that Jaco is famous for several things: partying, surfing, prostitution, and childhood prostitution. The latter is not commonly known as it is kept hush hush for obvious reasons. I did not see any of these exchanges take place, and I do not know if any of the children we came in contact with were sold on a frequent basis, but I fear that it could have been happening right under our noses and we never knew.
On a much lighter note, we would open up the skate ramp to the local street kids almost every weekday afternoon. It was so refreshing to see kids have a safe place to come and just be kids for a few hours.
On Thursday nights, the Christian Surfers would come and have a bible study under the ranchero. I unfortunately was not able to participate in these bible studies due to a bout of dengue fever, but I know that there are about 20-25 people that come every week!
And on an un-related note, we basically lived in our own petting zoo. We had a tarantula in our bathroom the first week, had an opossum scale the wall and take a walk around one night, saw several iguanas (which we nicknamed LeBron because one of them jumped on to the roof one day and made the loudest noise ever), and were woken up every morning by some LOUD birds, which we nicknamed Chancho.
All in all, it was an interesting first month on the Race, but I wouldn't change it for the world! … except getting dengue. I would go back and change that 😛
