Canadian Nomad

I have now been at Rainsong for over a month and I am totally disillusioned. Before arriving I had done some quick research on cheap places to volunteer in Costa Rica. Rainsong sounded right up my alley, small town in the jungle, work with animals, not to mention the price! I have been disturbed and disheartened by what I have found here.
I do not recommend this “sanctuary” whatsoever. The cages for the animals are far from sanitary, let alone large enough to hold the animals captive in them. It is a sentence worse than death for the poor animals here. The owner, Mary appears to want to run a petting zoo rather than a sanctuary. She has no plans on setting any of the animals free. She has no knowledge of what animal care really is and is uninformed about the dietary needs of the animals. In the time I have been here, two animals have died, and it is not an uncommon occurrence. Mary will sit in her room all day and watch TV and smoke weed while her volunteers, whom the locals call ” slaves”, are working their hardest to keep this place running.

Currently, Mary has three grown porcupines that are in perfect health and would be fine to be set out into the wild. She has an iguana, for only God knows what reason, it too could be set free. She has three howler monkeys that are consistently getting sick, I believe due to the incorrect diet and lack of cage sanitization. The local vet has told Mary on numerous occasions that things need to change around Rainsong or she will be shut down. Up until recently, Mary would refuse to allow us to sterilize the monkey’s bottles after each use and to replace their milks with fresh milk for the next feeding. At any point in time when you try to suggest anything to Mary she would lose it and start screaming at you.

Recently we had a baby howler monkey, sweet Evie, die in the middle of the night because Mary got high and forgot to check on her like she said she would. Evie died because of dehydration caused by Mary overheating the incubator. In my last blog I told the story of the baby raccoon that died from the improper medication Mary gave it. The vet in the area was appalled when she got all this information. After the vet came in to de-worm the animals she demanded that Mary adjust her routines. The cages need to be cleaned with Clorox at LEAST once a week and new animals must be quarantined with one specific volunteer tending to the one animal in case of cross contamination.

Mary is already trying to get out of these new rules. Shocked? I’m not.

We received a new baby howler monkey and Mary insisted that he get his recommended amount of liquids for the day. When the monkey refused to drink more Mary grabbed him from my arms and demanded we force feed him. The monkey was distressed (how could he not be) and bit Mary and she then threw him to the ground. This is not the only case where Mary demanded we force feed the monkeys at Rainsong. She will not try new tactics, or listen to other alternatives. The monkeys are already traumatized being abandoned by their family and then they are put into a hostile environment where they’re being forced to do something they’re resistant to.

Accomodation at Rainsong will be far from what you hope. The shack that Mary calls the farm is poorly built and terrifying to those less rustic. Most new volunteers take one look at the shack and say “f**k this”. I was brave and tried it out. It is not as bad as it looks but it is far from what Mary makes it out to be. If you do not bring a mosquito net expect to wake up covered in bites and possibly a swarm of army ants. She is always expecting couples to stay up at “Honeymoon hut” which is a smaller shack further into the jungle with no walls, no mattresses (unless you want to fight the rat family living in one), no gate to keep the goats out, no electricity and no running water. They would have to hike the 10mins down to the farm to use the kitchen and to go to the washroom.

There are many varying opinions about Mary and Rainsong out there and this is mine. I think that at some point Rainsong was started with the best intentions but got lost along the way. Unfortunately, the volunteers who come hoping to do some good work are supporting this sad situation so it will continue. I can see why Mary insists you pay your “donation” upfront as many will and do leave when they see what’s going on. I can only hope that eventually the vets or authorities will close this place down. Until then I urge you to volunteer elsewhere in Costa Rica.

Tags: animal rights, howler monkeys, Rainsong
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While I was making dinner one night I saw a pair of eyes glowing in the darkness of the night. Slightly worried I called one of the other volunteers down to the kitchen to investigate with me.  It was a strange creature that had lurked in the dark a few nights before, a tepizcuintle, who had returned this evening. One of the other volunteers had named this creature Inspector Squinty (long story). A tepizcuintle is the largest rodent in central America.

Later that night one of the volunteers was going to bed long after I had and saw something strange happen. I got up out of my hammock and just stood there. She asked me what I was doing and I then realized I was sleep walking. So I crawled back into my hammock and went back to sleep, I think I may have freaked the other volunteer out a bit!

The next night we all decided to stay in and watch a movie on my laptop. The laptop died at the perfect moment, because once we turned the light on there were ants swarming around our feet. I was the first to notice and I yelped out. Everyone jumped up on to the picnic table and just stared in awe of how many millions of little ants were all around us. A huge swarm had engulfed Jackie’s backpack that was sitting on a decrepit couch we all avoid sitting on (maybe for this very reason).  We took lots of pictures til they moved on and we decided to call it a night.

I was dreaming about the ant encounter and started sleep walking again. I hopped out of my bed with a loud scream and was in distress because I could not find a flashlight. In a fit of anger I tossed everything off my bedside table searching for my light. Also I did not want to move my feet because I was certain there were ants crawling everywhere. In the middle of this fit I realized that I was sleep walking and got back into bed.

The next night, it was storming and raining outside so we stayed in again. We had now figured out that the ants do not like light, therefore we kept the lights on while watching a movie. There was no “natural” excitement in the night, so Jackie found a way to amuse us all. She tied a fishing line to Kristi’s hammock and after all the lights were turned off she gave the line a tug. Kristi screamed and thought something was attacking her foot. She didn’t notice the line so we were able to do this a few more times before she figured it out. We all had a good laugh.

As the creatures of the night do not like rain, they seek shelter in our room. Poor Melanie woke up at 2am to find her bed and herself covered in ants. When she woke up in disgust she awoke Sonya, sleeping next to her. Sonya herself found a large quantity of ants covering her bed as well. Oddly enough, this is the one night I slept soundly through the commotion.

That morning we all woke up to the sound of Sonya’s shriek. She had been stung by a scorpion that had made a home her pant leg. She was brave and didn’t cry, but you could tell she was in a lot of pain. We all rushed to her aid and got her a cold compress and elevated her leg. The pain subsided after an hour or so but it was still quite tender for the rest of the day.

Tags: Army Ants, Rainsong, scorpian, tepizcuintle
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Rainsong is a wildlife sanctuary on the North Pacific coast of Costa Rica in a small town in Cabuya. They take in injured and abandoned wildlife with the hope of releasing them back into the wild. Volunteers spend many hours each day caring for the wildlife in the rescue center and help to build more animal habitats for the hospital and breeding areas. I really wanted to work with animals so I decided to come here to help out.

The accommodation is very basic and rustic. There is at the moment two beds with a thin mattress, various other mattresses on the floor and a hammock. The walls are simple to say the least, they go up about a quarter of the way then the rest is covered by sheets of tarp. The stairs leading up to the room are varied in sized and quite difficult to go up and down. The gate at the bottom is made for those who are quite slender and it wouldn’t surprise me if some people may have to go through sideways just to fit through. As of right now the gate is being “locked” by a piece of string to keep the goats, pizotes, and Señor Piggy out.

Now for the kitchen, it has a gas stove with three burners, and you must pay extra for any gas you use. The fridge leaks water all over the floor and the interior. That being said, you want to keep your food outside in the other fridge that is not being used as a fridge but as a dry cupboard. Other than that the kitchen is very basic, there is no oven, though there is not much you need an oven for.

The toilet is located a bit of a walk away from the kitchen and is awfully dark at night. I personally have seen worse toilets but the other people staying here are quite horrified by the likes of it. It’s outhouse-ish but with a flushing toilet. The door is merely a sheet draped in front. The toilet is also home to many strange and interesting spiders. Be warned.

The shower is quite nice in my eyes. It’s a bit further up than the toilet and is three walls with a shower head in the middle. There is no roof and you stand on a small plank of wood under the shower head. It’s surrounded by quite a bit of trees and bushes. There has been a few mornings where I’ll be showering, then all of a sudden leaves will start falling on me and I look up and there is a group of white faced monkeys playing in the tree right above me.

Tags: Rainsong
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