Good God I've been bad at keeping up with things lately. Have you ever gotten to that point where you're so busy that you don't even realize it? It's surprising and a bit depressing at the same time. I thought Fridays would work for me to blog, and now those days have turned into a potluck; so after finally having the waters calm some, I can get back to blogging either every Friday or Saturday. I know it's no excuse, but I just felt the need to explain my absence. For the time that I've lacked in blogging, I've made up in progress, and I can't wait to share it with you....
So after a lot of back and forth research, contemplation and comparisons it's official: I will be working with the non-profit Proyecto Mosaico in Costa Rica!!! What exactly will I do? The project consists of patrolling the beaches for turtle eggs that can later be hatched in a sanctuary (unfortunately egg poachers roam the beaches) and helping with agricultural sustainability/community development. I could spend this whole entry explaining this organization, but if you feel so inclined, please visit their website to get a better idea of who they are and what they do: www.promosaico.org.
The date that will begin my tour of volunteering is pretty significant: my birthday. I've said this before in other posts, but I am a person of signs, and I don't think that it's a coincidence at all that Day 1 of this effort starts on the first day of my life. It's going to be a very different feeling of celebration for me this year; not only will I be essentially cut off from the world (no eletricity or wifi so it's been told to me) but I will be surrounded by the simplicity of life. Instead of being with my friends, I hope to be with others who are there for the same reason: to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Of course all of this is built on the fact that everything goes to plan, which if anyone has taken the time to notice, most of my adventures have a few snags. Regardless, the fine tuning of the project is still being done; I'm working on getting through some bureaucratic hurdles and landing a cheap plane ticket. I'm hoping that once all that's cleared and I have a pretty close approximation of the cost, I can start an online fund raising campaign.
So far, those are the updates on this huge endeavor of mine. For some it may not seem like a big deal, as for myself, I honestly have a hard time containing my excitement. It will be the start of a new birth year for me, but also a leap in the direction I hope to take my life in.
I've gone backpacking before, have gotten lost in foreign countries, traveled and have stayed in some pretty unique housing situations, but I've never applied my sense of adventure and added to that helping others. For some odd reason I was under the belief for a good few years, that it would be hard or nearly impossible to see the world all the while spreading positivity throughout it with good works. Last year I was in the middle of applying for the Peace Corps, and yes, I would still like to do that, but essentially what I'm trying to say is that for so long I never knew that one could just up and drop their life to pursue such a happy path. I guess that for so long I've been battling so much self doubt and confusion in my life that I never looked at the bare bones of just living; I'm not going to lie, I'm still struggling with some existential decisions. I feel like I've been slowly approaching a fork in the road of life, and I believe that this trip will finally bring some kind of direction; if so, some very hard choices will be facing me in the future.
I look back at my time of idling thoughts and it makes me wonder... why didn't I see this all before? I felt that the Peace Corps called my name and I still do, but my impatience and zeal for adventure makes it hard for me to have to wait so long to begin that tour of duty; toss in the fact that I refuse to give up my dog and my postponement of the Corps was inevitable but still hard pill to swallow.
There are other ways of approaching volunteerism that don't require a year long wait or what have you, but come at times at a higher cost. With a little bit of time and research however, one can see that the opportunities to help locally or abroad are endless!!! This particular venture in Costa Rica will give me a glimpse of what it truly feels like to combine all these facets of what values I hold close into one setting, albeit for three weeks. I can't live in the future, as hard as it is at times not to, but I do believe that the timing of this whole event was meant to be for some odd reason.
I get to help others, embrace the lives of complete strangers around me, bring positive energy to the world and have some solitude to be one with nature and her wonderful surroundings...
what more can one ask for but to simply smile? Pura Vida!
No comments:
Post a Comment