Proyecto Mosaico: Volunteer Work in Central America

This summer I spent 6 weeks of my summer vacation traveling around Guatemala and El Salvador, and one part of my trip was a stay at the turtle hatchery in Hawaii, Santa Rosa, Guatemala, operated by ARCAS. Before my arrival in Hawaii I was expecting to spend most of my time playing with baby turtles on the sunny beaches. The hatching season, however, started a couple of weeks after I left Hawaii again, which meant that I did not get to see any baby turtles. Nonetheless, I had an amazing time! The park is beautiful and the little houses the volunteers stay in are comfortable. All of the staff and the other volunteers were really friendly, open, and made for a fun time for sure. Work was very different from what I thought it was going to be: instead of doing turtle/ animal related work we mostly did chores around the park which was fun, and then patrols along the beach at night where we actually did get to see turtles laying their eggs- an amazing experience! A couple of weeks before I got to Hawaii, a dead Leatherback Turtle had been washed up on the beach, so in order to preserve the shell we had to inject it regularly with Formaldehyde and clean it thoroughly. Another day, all we did was to sand down coconuts to make necklaces from them. A few days we spent building a new cage for an injured pelican that had been found on the beach. Every day the work in the park was interesting and fun, and never before have I spent time this relaxing and yet rewarding at the same time. Additionally, the meals we had with everyone (volunteers and staff) sitting around the big table in the main area, the beach volleyball matches (“It’s out if it hits the coconut!”), the bonfire, and the kayak tour through the mangroves- all of these events made it an unbelievable experience!

Hello, I am the Executive Director of Education Plus in Nicaragua. I have to say that first of all we would not be able to operate nearly at the level that we do without the help of Proyecto Mosaico. They are certainly our most important partner. Not only do they provide us with excellent, qualified volunteers who are well matched to our program, but they are always promptly in communication with us and the volunteers and willing to help all parties at all points of the volunteership. The people who work for Proyecto Mosaico are professional and very hard working. It is especially beneficial to the volunteer that Proyecto works with multiple projects, so that if a volunteer arrives and doesn't like the project they start with for whatever reason, they can point this volunteer to another organization that is a better fit. They also help us immensely in that they arrange the homestays and classes for the volunteers - things we can't do as expertly as PM.

I've been a vollunteer in the office and helped to create a new programm to work with groups and families. So I get the chance to do a lot of administrative work as well as working directly with groups of volunteers, local people and kids of the neighborhoods. This includes big experience in every field of work.

I worked in two different programs of Proyecto mosaico, including the project "Tortugas de Pacuare" in Costa Rica.
I have never seen more different animals in my whole live, than during my 3 week stay in this project.
All the people of this little island were really nice and interested in talking to us about their lives and ours.

So all in all this projecto was the perfect opportunity to get a lot of new experiences, to improve my Spanish, to learn something about the safety of turtles in this area and to hang out on a really nice beach in my freetime.

It was well organised, the staff is super friendly and open and it was one of the best experiences in my life. There are also possibilities to get in contact with other volunteers, for example there is a contact list with all current volunteers and regular meetings. The organization has great contacts.

I lived in the project Tortugas de Pacuare for five weeks and I would recommend it to everyone. Despite all those mosquitos, we lived in paradise: during the day, we were swimming in the sea, lying on the beach and eating coconuts.

During work, I learned a lot about sea turtles and environmental protection building a hatchery, patrolling for hours by night and guarding the turtle eggs we had just relocated. The experience we made with this giant animals was just amazing, even if work was sometimes very exhausting.

The house was also nice and living with all those interested volunteers was very exciting. In addition to that, I met a lot of lovely costarican people who taught me how to work a turtle and how to cook costaricain food. We all became a familiy soon.

I now want to keep supporting the project so I'm going back. This time, I'll stay three months. I'll enjoy every single day.