Here's Your Sign

The office.

Sensai laying down the hand-made stensil to make over 50 BASE CAMP signs!

Fresh air and fresh paint.

The signs looked so great even before we covered them in 3 coats of marine quality varnish.

Had my 1st back spasm ever after 8 hours of hunched over, uber concentrated free hand touch ups.

Cant wipe that smile off this kids face no matter what.  Love you and the positive vibes Sensai!

Some signs were SUPER 3D!

Worked so hard we all got sick.  This sign project nearly killed all of us.  We almost needed another sign.

| Volunteer Grave Yard | >

Steph supervising.  Despite this face...she approved :)

No Home Depot in the jungle.  Everything was patiently & pain-stakingly hand made.

Our guard dog for our precious signs.

A warning for any intruder:  You think this is bad?  You shoulda seen the other guy...

A GLORIOUS DAY!!!  After months of planning, revising, meeting, planning, re-revising.  After digging dozens and dozens of holes into the jungle floor over the 350 acre finca property, and after weeks of hand cutting, hand painting, and applying 3 coats of boat varnish to protect the signs (hopefully they last more than 6 months).  Planting our first post was a milestone to say the least.

Old sign in foreground.  New & improved signage in background.  Oh the Love Garden is THAT WAY.  Thanks new sign!

That short decrepit moldy thing thing to the right of our masterpiece is the old sign.  It was less that 6 months old.  You can see the new signs were more than necessary.  Reminding us that the jungle always wins!

Big hearts, big dreams.

New sign to El Tigre!  Old sign is in background.

I'm riding a jaguar.

Make way for the machete!

The MUSCLE.

View from the office.

Custom signs for the tree houses and community structures.  I decided to spice them up with some artwork!

Pura Vida = Pure Life.  A common Costa Rican saying.

Castillo = Castle.  Ojos = Eyes (gazing at a waterfall)

Mono = Monkey.

Sol = Sun.

Tortuga = Turtle.

The big task of our volunteer program was the sign project.  Starting out, we had no idea how big this thing was or how long it would take.  At our first meeting, we began to plan.  Sensai was a huge fan of mind maps. If you havent heard of them, I suggest you look them up.  So helpful in organizing and brainstorming.  We were certainly shocked when our simple mind map spanned five 8x11 inch pieces of paper.  

At first we thought, "oh all we have to do is make some signs.  This should be quick and easy."  We forgot that good signs are nothing without a fool proof map.  There was a map in existence made by Matt & Erica with the use of GPS.  We were quite surprised by the inaccuracies we found and the revisions that the map required.  We spent over a week walking all over the 350 acre property with a measuring wheel, mapping every inch as accurately as possible.  Often, we drudged 4 or 5 miles through the mud mapping the trails even before sitting down for breakfast.

There isn't a Home Depot around the corner like in the good ol' US of A, so we didn't have the luxury of making mistakes, scraping material and running out to get more.  We had one shot to get it right.  After a month of solid planning, dozens of meetings with Matt & Erica (to make their vision for the mapping system a reality), and many revisions of our ever-evolving plan, we were ready to make cuts.  Being a sustainable treehouse community, even the cuts had to be planned carefully.  Running our saws off of a generator, we had to plan the most efficient cuts to run the saws for the least amount of time, saving loads of gas.  

After painting about 50 signs, we were pretty happy with our progress.  But then we hit a snag that we overlooked.  Each sign needs to be seen from MULTIPLE directions.  In one instant, our painting/varnishing project portion DOUBLED in size.  Now we had to carefully hand paint intricate letters and symbols on BOTH sides of over 140 signs.  Thanks to the positive nature of the volunteer crew (plus thanks, praise, & encouragement offered by all) we took each day on with open minds and endless potential.  Even though I had to extend my stay at the Finca a few weeks to finish painting signs, we got them all up and in the ground.

In addition to the signs, we also designed mapping stations that display LARGE re-mastered maps of the Finca under an awning that keeps the reader nice and dry.

We had a blast working together on such a unique and inspiring project in such a jaw-dropping atmosphere.  Loads of sweat, head scratching, love, and hard work went into this tool that will be used for years to come.  Thanks to all who chipped in and I want to extend an invitation to all that are reading to head down to www.fincabellavista.com and check it out yourself!