The following is an entry written by our volunteer, Margherita Ladik, who came to us from Italy.  Margherita volunteered with us at Cocles School near Puerto Viejo on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast in October 2008.

A Volunteer Memory by Margherita Ladik

What can I say about my volunteer experience? I
have no doubts, it was unique.  I discovered
the real meaning of the Tico’s (Costa Rican people) common saying "Pura
Vida"; they use that phrase to say ‘beautiful’, ‘ok’, ‘perfect’ and ‘I
like’.

To me, it means that I have tried to do, to the
best of my ability, something I never think to do at home:  to become a volunteer, to share with people
from different parts of the world the same idea and the same dream – to work
together to help somebody to make a better life.

I was a volunteer at Cocles elementary school,
close to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca on the Caribbean 
coast. My host family was a
continual coming and going of many people: mum, dad, two daughters, the
grandmother and grandfather, an uncle and a little nephew; a very
"Big" family with a great sense of hospitality, kindness, generosity
and affection who really made me feel part of the family.

The elementary school of Cocles consists of a
little refectory, two classrooms, a big garden and 150
children. The children, all equal in their white and blue school uniform, had
no English books but loved to learn by doing games and drawing. When they began
to draw, they expressed a strong feeling about their country and their families.
I was a little part of their world and before I came back to Italy, visibly
moved, I collected messages and colored drawings… Sure I will never forget.

It wasn't a vacation, it was the desire to live a
different life, a life of only a few weeks, but, for sure, 
that counts more
than many months made up of the same day "tainted" by a frenetic
rhythm that
often brings nothing. I took a few photographs, I imprinted the best memories
in my mind so that I can just take them out from a little tin-plated box and
they will not be faded because there
are some events in one’s own life that we will always remember with
"bright colors".

In Puerto Viejo I left my Costa Rican mum and her big family, 150 children and their contagious vitality, my new tropical friends, the ocean and its lullaby…and then I left geckos, cute sloths, little iguanas and peaceful alley dogs…catty bugs and mosquitos…very high palms and banana trees that grow up like the oleanders grow in the south of Italy.  Last but not least, I left a part of me; I can see myself riding my bike to school along the dusty road and relaxing on my favourite rocking chair whilst looking up at the night stars.  I taken with me a new Margherita, "Margherita Pura Vida"' an antidote for when the "stone" in myself struggles to win the day.