Costa Rica, Coffee Mornings and Count the Sweets

I'm back! Did you miss me? It's been a while since I've given any updates on my progress, I know, but I've been away having incredible adventures in Costa Rica! For those of you that are interested I'll tell you a bit about my four amazing weeks there. If you're just here to see my fundraising news, skip to the end to find out what's going on.

During my summer holidays I spent a month in Costa Rica, a Central American country separated from Honduras by Nicaragua, with a volunteering organisation called GVI. The first week was cultural immersion with eight other teenagers from all around the world - we had Americans, Canadians, more Brits and even a Swiss boy. Cultural immersion meant four hours of Spanish lessons a day, salsa class and cooking class and staying with a host family for a week.

This was one of my favourite parts of my whole trip. Staying with the host family improved my Spanish more than the lessons did because my family didn't speak much English so it was up to me to make conversation and pass along information in Spanish. My tican family (tico is a term Costa Ricans use to refer to themselves) were absolutely amazing and I loved spending a whole week as part of their family, with an American girl from my group and two other American students they had staying with them. It was a very busy house!

My tica parents and roommate Kelly

After spending a week in Quepos with our host families, we moved to a hostel in the neighbouring hillside town of Manuel Antonio where we were joined by another eight volunteers. The next two weeks were spent doing construction work at a school in a community called Roncador. It was hard work under a hot sun but we got through a massive amount of work, more than anyone expected. We dug drains to stop the playground flooding, cleared, levelled and landscaped an area behind the kindergarten classroom for a new playground for the kindergarten kids, wirebrushed and painted tin panels for a new roof for the GVI English classroom, filled in the holes in the wall with cement and gave the lunch hall, kindergarten classroom, outside wall and English classroom all a fresh coat of paint!

The playground we made for the kindergarten children

 One day we got to have a sports day with the kids, and while we'd seen them in their lessons and running around during their breaks this was the first time we got to interact with them. They practised their English on us and we practised our Spanish on them, and we got to really meet the people that we were doing all this work for. It reminded us all why we were there, where all our sweat and effort was actually going.

The English classroom as we left it - complete with GVI mural!

They day we left the project for the last time after two weeks there was a sad one and I think part of us wished we could stay for another week and do more. I am so proud of what we achieved throughout those two weeks and I know that the difference we have made will have a very real impact on the kids. It gives them a safer, cleaner, nicer learning environment to learn in and be proud of.

After two weeks of hard work we moved into our adventure week! We started with a trip to the Manuel Antonio National Park where we saw everything from monkeys and baby boa constrictors to spiders, lizards and crabs climbing trees and even a sloth! The next day we took to the beach where I learnt that surfing is just as hard as it looks (which is hard!) but about a hundred times more fun!

On the Monday of our last week we left the Quepos-Manuel Antonio area which had been my home for the last three weeks and drove across to the other side of Costa Rica to Turrialba. For our next adventure we went ziplining and abseiling in the rainforest before embarking on a rafting trip down the Rio Pacuare, one of the best rivers in the world for rafting. We spent two days navigating down class III and IV rapids and on the day in between we hiked to an indigenous village.

When it was time to leave Costa Rica, I was heartbroken. It is such a beautiful country, from the stunning landscape to the warm, welcoming people. Costa Rica will always be very special to me, as my first proper experience of travelling, as will the global friendships that I formed there. For now all I will say is pura vida Costa Rica, and you never know, I might make it down to see you while I'm in Honduras!

Now I am back in Scotland and back at school and it's time to start fundraising again! This week in school I'm running a 'Guess the Number of Sweets on the Jar' at school and on Sunday morning I'm hosting a coffee morning at my house to share my stories and photos from Costa Rica.

Costa Rica felt like a mini version of what it will be like in Honduras and it has made the excitement real and given me something solid to look forward to. I can't wait to get further into my fundraising and closer to my year on Honduras!

Honduras Hiatus

This blog post is just to let you all know that I will be going quiet on the Project Trust front for the next month. Tomorrow I head off to Costa Rica on a volunteering expedition with a company called GVI so all thought on Honduras will probably be put on hold!

A couple of things have been going on since the last time I posted. The silent auction of the handmade quilt didn't work, with no bids, but don't worry! We are keeping it for later and plan to try it with a raffle instead. I have also booked my local hall for a Halloween party on Friday 30th October, which I'll be selling tickets in school for. It is booked for the Saturday 6th February as well, to hold a family ceilidh to celebrate my sister and I's 18th birthday - more news on both of those a little closer to the time!

Once I get back from Costa Rica, I will be working hard to create a leaflet all about my year volunteering and my fundraising plans to be handed out at events and distributed to charitable trusts, who I will also be writing to as soon as possible once I return. I hope to hold a coffee morning at the start of September but that will be planned once I get back. Feel free to come along and hear about my travels - past and future!

This is it from me until the middle of August but I hope everyone has an amazing summer and I'll see you on the other side!

I Promise I'll Calm Down Soon!

A week in and I still can't quite believe it! I'm so excited that I can't help talking about it to everyone - I promise I'll calm down eventually!

After receiving my acceptance letter last Saturday, I am now impatiently waiting for my fundraising booklet to come through from Project Trust. I've not been sitting back doing nothing though. On Monday, as soon as I got into school, I went to my head of year and nabbed all the bake sales at parents evening after school. This may be all the help I get from my school, apart from being able to use it as a free venue, but I'll take what I can get, and everyone loves a bake sale!

I also inquired about setting up a link with my old primary school. I was told to come back after the holidays as everything was wrapping up for the summer but it was a positive response from them. I hope to be able to offer them some Spanish lessons and talks on my experiences both before and after I go, in exchange for (more!) bake sales, a non uniform day, and some other things like that.

Meanwhile, I spent an hour and a half in Stirling library yesterday going through The Directory of Grant Making Trusts, looking for any that support areas like overseas aid, education and young people. I found some that look promising but a large majority don't give grants to individuals which is incredibly frustrating! But I'm not done yet and there was a big chunk I didn't get through yesterday.

Even though I'm not going to be able to run any actual fundraising events until August, I have started with a silent Facebook auction, held by my mum, for a homemade quilt made by my nanny (picture below). I am also looking into dates for a Halloween party in October and a fundraising ceilidh to coincide with my 18th birthday in February. I'll keep you posted...

For anyone that wants to keep more up to date with my progress, check out my Facebook page for my year overseas, Sara's Year in Honduras for regular updates. I have set up a Virgin Money Giving page as well and would like to give a big shout out to my first donor for an incredibly generous donation!  Every single penny means a lot to me and I want to say thank you for your support.


(The handmade quilt for silent auction. Anyone interested can leave a comment here with a bid. There is a reserve price that has been set to cover the cost of materials and time and if this is not met the quilt will not be sold. Thank you for any interest.)

How It All Started...

I first heard about Project Trust when a girl in the year above me at school got a place with them to spend a year in an orphanage in South Africa. I didn't really pay much attention to it apart from being aware of some of her fundraising events. I never really thought it was something I would want to do myself.

But then a returned volunteer from Japan came to our school and talked to us all about Project Trust and her year overseas. From then on I was captivated and I knew I had to try it! Travel has always been a big part of my plans for the future and to me this was the perfect opportunity to combine it with my love of languages and a little bit of procrastination about what I want to do in life!

In June 2015 I set off to the Inner Hebridean isle of Coll for my Selection Course. From the minute I arrived in the hostel in Oban where we stayed the night before an awfully early ferry, I knew that it was going to be an amazing week. I was surrounded by like-minded people who never let me feel out of place for even a second. While on Coll, we didn't have a minute to relax (or miss home, though don't tell them I said that!) but it didn't matter because it was so much fun. We did everything from digging lazy beds, teaching a lesson, fundraising workshops and climbing Coll's highest hill, Ben Hough which stands at only 106m high.

My selection group

I came away from Coll having had the best week of my life, and I don't say that lightly! I left with a completely different idea of where I wanted to go than from when I arrived, changing my mind from doing social care in Peru to teaching English in Honduras. I also left with a bunch of new friends that I hope I will keep in touch with.

The real start to my year though was on Saturday morning. Just before I went out to work, my mum told me I had a letter. I almost didn't dare to hope that it was from Project Trust because we'd been told it would be ten days before we would hear anything and I thought I still had two days to wait. But it was from them and, after almost falling over while running to grab the letter from my mum, I opened it to find out that I had been accepted and Project Trust were offering me a place in Honduras for a year!

I was thrilled because Honduras was my first choice. I will spend the year teaching English to schoolchildren while also improving my Spanish - bonus! We won't find out the final details of our projects until May so until then this is about all I know!

From now on it's all about the fundraising. With twelve months to raise over £6200, it's going to be tough but that's what's going to make it even more special when I reach the end goal. My brain has been going into overdrive ever since the letter arrived, heck, ever since I got back from my selection course, about ways to raise the money but not annoy the hell out of everybody. I eagerly await the arrival of the fundraising pack that's on it's way. I have a feeling that it's going to become my bible for the next year!

So far, I've already looked into making a leaflet telling people about my trip to give out at events and also send to the hundreds of charitable trusts I'm planning to write to. Bring on the envelopes, the stamps and the inevitable hand cramp! I am also planning on having a ceilidh at some point, want to look into doing some bagpacks, and will be having endless bake sales I'm sure. Watch this space for more news!