My Family's Modest Quest for Awesomeness... Continues

Editor's Note: A few weeks ago, John Wunderli told us about his family's quest for awesomeness.  This week, we asked him to report on whether they actually achieved it.

The sun set 2 1/2 hours into a 3 hour drive  along winding, mountainous, dirt roads in Costa Rica when our GPS shut down.    With only a vague idea of where we were going and sporadic and seemingly contradictory road signs leading the way, we were getting more  “family adventure” than I wanted. Nothing like the loss of a modern day  convenience to make you realize you’re in a foreign country thousands of miles from home.   Where was the gentle voice of Obi Wan Kenobi telling  you to use The Force when you really need it?   

"Wait,  stop!" my wife said, "that's it!"    

In our blind meandering, we’d unexpectedly come upon the school the girls had  helped refurbish a week earlier. They jumped out of the car to  show me everything they’d done -- what walls they painted, what holes they dug, what fencing they helped  put up, where they played with the kids.  Usually they weren’t this proud of any work my wife has them do  around the house back home.   

But that’s why we were here, I guess, to get out of our comfort zone and see what helping feels like somewhere else  -- you know, to get us jump started further on the path of general helpfulness.  My wife and two youngest girls helped university students build a school, fix up another,  and begin to build recreational facilities in a small town.   The effort was  spearheaded by a Utah resident who spent ten years living in this particular Costa Rican town.  When she got back home, she worked at a concession stand at the stadium of our city's professional soccer team and rallied the university students to provide some extra helping hands.  When we heard  of this trip, we thought it would be good for our family to go as well, but unfortunately, not all our hands were available for the helping part.  We  pulled our 5th and 8th grade daughters out of school for the experience, but  for our high schoolers, the responsibilities of life -- AP classes, nursing  clinicals, etc. --  were encroaching on their ability to drop everything  for a few weeks and help a small town in Central America.  So the high schoolers and I had to meet up with my wife and younger girls after the work had already been done.  After seeing the school and hearing the reports, it is clear those of us who only showed up for the fun stuff got the worse end of the deal.  

One of my girls' many jobs was to take care of the kindergarten kids at the school even though my girls don't speak much  Spanish and the Costa Rican kids don't speak much English.
 
“How  did you communicate?”
 
They shrugged if off.   Apparently, the language of the playground -- pushing each other on  swings and running around holding hands -- is universal.    

As we stood there in the dark, looking at all  the work they’d done.  My wife said the men of the town turned out to do  most of the work that needed to be done.  Theoretically, they could’ve  done it all without anyone from Utah helping out.

The magic here,  however, is the kind that comes from people rolling up their sleeves and  showing love and support to a community.  The visit of the American  students, as you imagine, was a rallying point for the town -- it marked the  time when the work was going to get done… and people really showed  up.
 
It wasn’t  all work.  After we finally got where we were going, we devoted the rest  of the trip to experiencing Costa Rica – swimming in hot springs, zip-lining  across the rainforest canopy, and eating at the base of a  volcano.
 
In the end,  however, the most wonderful moments truthfully were the ones in between the  awesomeness during the three hour drives over dirt roads  through the   mountains  --  with no radio, cell phones, or iPods.   Just the six of us  crammed into our four wheel drive rental car,   luggage in the back and all four  kids sitting across the middle  seat.    I suppose that kind of circumstance could lead to many  different results, including bickering, whining, and all out brawling.   Fortunately, by some form of divine grace (or I thought at times divine retribution), the time was filled almost exclusively with silly songs and  stupid  games.  I occasionally  played the roll of a stern  father figure and  reminded them that I was  trying to concentrate  both on not getting lost and on  not plunging off  the narrow cliff  wall to our certain deaths, but they were in  The  Zone.   Sometimes you'll hear athletes talk about being in The Zone,  where everything slows down and the basket or the ball looks huge.    My kids were seeing jokes and silly lyrics that must have  been  four feet high and  in brightly colored psychedelic neon.    Everything anyone said turned to  golden hilarity.    
 
At the  end of the day, you don't need to go to Costa Rica to help people, or even to  have an adventure, but it does help from time to time to get out of your  comfort zone, break up your routine, and become a little disoriented.