Mission accomplished. On Saturday, April 2, volunteers planted 120 trees along stretches of Buena Vista Beach that were burnt on January 14, 2011, as well as 30 trees around the soccer field behind the community hall of Esterones, about 15 minutes from Samara.  Christoffer Horlitz, First Hand Volunteer who helped organize "Día Del Arbol" (Tree Day), said they started planting around 7:30 in the morning and finished around noon. They were also able to paint barrels that will be used in a recycling center to be set up in front of the town's supermarket. An estimated 30 to 40 volunteers helped out, with a large number of children participating.  The trees were donated from a nursery owned by the Costa Rican Electrical Company (ICE). According to Elizabeth Jenkins, coordinator of the community’s Blue Flag committee, they contacted MINAET to find out what tree species are native to Buena Vista beach and were able to get native species from the nursery, such as guapinol, cocobolo, jicaro and ron ron. With activities like this one, the community hopes to earn more stars on their blue flag next year.  After the hard work of planting trees in the hot sun, everyone was able to enjoy special activities in the community hall such as body painting, storytelling and music, all free of charge. Storyteller Luis Barrantes delighted children with stories with tree themes. Some of the children sat enthralled by the stories for nearly an hour.  Later at 4 p.m. and again at 6:30 people enjoyed free performances by Nicoyan singers and songwriters Max Goldenberg (in the green beret) and Olman Briceño who delighted the audience with popular songs and comical bantar. Jaime Gamboa from the disintegrated Malpais band was not able to attend the event as it was announced.

Goldbenberg and Briceño met about seven years ago, when Briceño was just starting to perform publicly in Nicoya, and the two have been playing together for about four years.  Goldenberg said that the majority of the songs they play are original songs that they have written themselves. 

As a special request, Goldenberg sang a comical piece called "portoncito" about why he was going to fix the gate. His animated facial expressions and eyes added to the playfullness of the song. Briceño also sang a song called "Vibrar con Vos," which he said he was inspired to write after participating in a youth retreat that was held right there in Esterones. 
  
Typical food like arroz con pollo (chicken rice), empanadas and arroz con leche (rice pudding) were also sold by the junta de vecinos (neighborhood committee) to help defray the costs of the days activities.

Projects like this take time according to Uribe, “reforestation projects like these take a few years to get started, you need the right trees, soil and planting technique and you can’t be discouraged by the mortality rate,” he said. 

Uribe also points to Playa Hermosa, where a reforestation effort has been underway since 2009, he said they are now starting to see successful results.

The challenge though is going to be maintaining the healthy trees; Uribe said they are looking for a way to make that happen. “We hope a business in the community will step up and help to pay for the cost of having someone whose job is to maintain the trees,” said Uribe.

The community was very much involved in planting the trees this year. On Tuesday the planters were joined by 35 students from Del Mar Academy who energetically went to work planting trees, there was also a lot of local surfers out planting. Bolaños was particularly pleased with that, “it’s all of our beach but they’re the ones here the most, it’s great they want to help and contribute positively.”

Both Bolaños and Uribe said this project will continue next year, building on what they learned last year, and what they will learn this year, the ultimate goal is to reforest the whole of Playa Guiones.