Live-in Volunteers

Above, please watch dozens of video testimonies of former volunteers at The Monkey Farm so you arrive with a good idea of what to expect here.

• Our Mission:  To make God fully known and fully loved through creating a radically inclusive community of people living, learning and loving together. 
  workaway Costa Rica
• Our Vision and 10-Year Plan:

  We are creating a community of world-changers learning to embrace the local culture, food, living style and living within their same weekly budget. Some examples are cooking on a wood fire, showering outdoors without hot water, raising and processing our own meat, eggs and dairy products, with an openness to learn all we can.  We nurture through nature in rescuing our planet, our people and our primates.  

  We believe in teaching a man to fish, rather than giving him a fish. The Monkey Farm is currently creating the World’s first wildlife rescue center that is self-sufficient and sustainable and teaching it to everyone we can. Within the next 10 years The Monkey Farm will be known worldwide as a model for other rescue centers to follow for this and many other reasons.  We will be independent from outside sources, for feeding and care of ourselves and the animals. Should any disaster occur, we will continue to operate without a problem. We freely share our knowledge with others in order for them to duplicate our successes.

  All recuperated monkeys will be free range, not kept in cages. This will enable them to return to the wild when they decide they are ready rather than have the decision be forced upon them, or worse holding them captive long after they are ready to be free.

  We combine permaculture water conservation methods, such as Hugelkultur swales and retention ponds which will create lush, year-around food forests and tropical gardens in a dry tropical climate. During dry season, people flying overhead in airplanes will look down and see a green section in the middle of all the dryness and wonder what is down there. We teach others how they can grow abundant food themselves, even with a shortage of rainfall.

  We will create a plan to grow all the food that we eat, all the food for our animals, all the medicinal plants and products we need for medicinal purposes. We will use what we learn to teach others in this climate how to grow food for themselves and their animals with only six months of rain.

  We do not charge volunteers to come and live at the farm or for anything for that matter. We do not believe that our source of revenue should come from the very people that are giving their lives to the farm. Our volunteers are our family and not people to be taken advantage of by charging them to help us. Because of them, we have a never ending flow of people bringing in new ideas and new energy and leaving with new knowledge and inspiration.

  Nor do we charge an entrance fee for anyone to come and learn about our farm and our animals. If we charged a fee, we would limit the number of people that could learn from our projects and experience our animals and our medicinal plant gardens. We want everyone to freely learn and enjoy our farm.

  We will never burden our immediate community with the usual and predictable once-a-year fundraiser dinner with auctions and t-shirt or calendar sales, rather we like to think outside the box. Instead, our financial plan comes from King Solomon, the wisest and wealthiest man who ever lived. King Solomon had twelve revenue streams, one to provide all his needs for each month of the year.* That way, if one revenue stream had a bad year, he had eleven others to pick up the slack.

  Like King Solomon, we will create twelve revenue streams to give us financial stability.  We currently have four revenue streams in place and will add additional streams as we can. We will continue to work to build each revenue stream until it reaches our goals.

  Another unique feature of The Monkey Farm is that we are not just animal lovers, but we are people lovers as well. We continuously seek out opportunities to help, teach, and enhance the lives of our fellow men and contribute to our community. We will continue to feed the homeless every Tuesday evening. For those homeless ready to leave their life on the streets, we readily embrace them with a permanent home, community and family within our farm. We support them in every way we can, pointing them to God as we do. We provide free equine therapy to children with disabilities every Saturday.  Every Monday and Wednesday night, we volunteer to teach English to the local adults two nights a week so they can get better jobs to provide for their families. We give away Free excess goat’s milk to children with cancer, malnourishment and even anemic adults. We also give away our excess eggs and excess produce to poor families who are struggling. We assist in community trash pick-up and encourage recycling by demonstrating creative recycling projects that can be done.                 

  Our volunteers care for all the animals and most of all, we care for each other. Sustainable Living begins with Sustainable Relationships.  We are building lifelong friendships here at The Monkey Farm. Our wildlife and farm animals alike will receive the best of care. Every aspect of The Monkey Farm will be standardized, systematized and tightly controlled to eliminate errors, especially in the areas of animal care. There will be no room for discretion. Exact instructions will be given in the form of a written system and followed to the letter. We will continuously work toward maximum efficiency, improving our systems and eliminating waste of all types. 

  Our facilities will be painted in tropical colors and always evoke a “magical” and fun atmosphere.  We will appeal to all age and income levels due to our mission of self-sufficiency and commitment to community service. We will have something for everyone.

  *1 Kings 4:7, 1 Kings 4:27

   

• Who We Welcome as Volunteers:  A clear vision starts with a clear mind. We welcome emotionally mature volunteers at least 18 years old, who live out their faith by being dedicated to a healthy lifestyle, free from illegal drugs, tobacco or alcohol abuse and who present this image with their personal appearance. We also require our volunteers to speak respectfully; cursing and/or foul language are not appropriate for the happy, healthy, positive atmosphere we are cultivating. If you wish to join our family and be in a “clean” healthy atmosphere, this is the place for you. A positive attitude and self-motivation are a must. You must be as eager to produce results as we are to see them. 
   

• Minimum Time Commitment:  We have a three-month minimum volunteering commitment due to the time invested in teaching all our systems and procedures. There is no maximum time-limit as long as everyone is happy.  Many volunteers end up staying longer than their initial commitment and many more, as you can see in the videos above, return two and three times for another stay at the farm. workaway Costa Rica

• Weekly Schedules:  We work hard for 30 hours a week, with everyone being pretty flexible about scheduling.

• Typical Day:  The daily work flow is pretty organized. We rise early in the morning when the rooster crows. Breakfast is at 7:00. We work on daily tasks from breakfast to about 9:00. These are daily tasks such as milking goats, collecting eggs, feeding the poultry, horses, goats and rabbits, cleaning pens and enclosures, etc. Then we work on projects to advance the farm towards our goals. This could be planting new gardens, building or repairing fences, creating shelters for animals, making a solar food dehydrator, or solar hot water heater, a natural living swimming pool or any number of ideas that our volunteers come up with. We share cooking and cleaning duties.

  We then eat lunch and relax from 12:00 to 1:00. After lunch, the volunteers on the schedule for that day go back to working on their projects. Then we start the daily tasks again about 4:00 and finish at 6:00, at which time dinner is served.

• Free Days:  On your free days, you can take a break and relax, walk 1 kilometer to the beach, go to town, ride the horses, go snorkeling, surf fishing, spear fishing, diving, go on a day trip, read a good book from our library, or watch a movie on the barn wall with our projector or go explore the many amazing waterfalls, volcanoes and natural attractions that Costa Rica has to offer. There is also some equipment to go snorkeling and fishing, (the beach is just half a mile away), or you can bring your own equipment.

• Nearby:   We are just a few kilometers from a quaint tourist town, Playas del Coco, where there are restaurants, several grocery stores, doctors, dentists, banks, souvenir shops and fruit stands. We go into town for something nearly every day.

• Cost:  There is no charge for the volunteers to live and learn at the farm, however since we had a devastating Tropical Storm in October which destroyed most of our gardens, there is only a small amount of food growing on the farm. Until we are growing more food, we are all pitching in to purchase our food communally in bulk. A volunteer should plan to contribute $20 per week toward communal food and common items.

• Budget Suggestion:  In addition to the $20 you will contribute per week for communal food, another $30 should be budgeted for personal eating out, ice cream, activities and any other extra things that you would like to do or buy for yourself. This is a suggested total budget of $50 per week as a guideline only. workaway Costa Rica

• Housing:  Provided is either a bed in the shared volunteer cabin or a place to pitch your tent.  The volunteer cabin is very rustic, primitive and made entirely out of wood. It has cracks in the wavy floor and holes in the screens and the door doesn’t quite close right. A mosquito net is a good thing to bring for your bed. The good news is that the roof doesn’t leak!  There is a small separate room, somewhat private, suitable for a couple or two friends staying for a longer time. There are four other twin bunks in the common area of the small cabin.

  We refurbished another area in the barn which has one king size mattress in the loft above. There’s not much privacy though. We plan to build some very cool hobbit house style private rooms in the future for volunteers, but right now, it’s very primitive.

  We have one bathroom in the volunteer cabin and have finished half of our first humanure composting toilet made out of recycled glass bottles.

• Camping:  We have infinite camping opportunities. If you have your own tent or a hammock that would be fantastic!

   

• Communal Facilities:  We have an outdoor communal kitchen area in which we all share prepping, cooking and cleaning duties. It has a large grill, a gas burner, a wood bar-b-que, microwave, pots, pans, dishes, utensils, tables and a refrigerator and freezer for common use. We also have a root cellar for food storage.

   

• Laundry:  We have a nice washing machine and dryer for your clothes that you are free to use on your days off.

   

• Showers:  We have an outdoor jungle shower beside the volunteer cabin. We have no hot water on the property, but the water is the temperature of the ground outside, which is usually quite warm. After a hot day, we find it quite refreshing.

   

• Electricity:  Both the volunteer cabin, the barn and all outbuildings have electricity.  The outlets are standard United States type outlets. If you are coming from Europe, you will need to bring an adapter.

   

• Menu and Special Diets:  We cook, clean and eat our meals together as a family. We eat extremely delicious and healthy food here.  We are growing lots of herbs, medicinal plants and fruit trees. We are also raising and processing our own meat and eggs here like your great-grandparents’ farm, so this is not a suitable place for vegetarians or vegans. If you want to learn how to ethically grow and process your own meat products, this is a good place to learn!  We cannot accommodate the diet of a vegetarian or vegan as we cook many dishes with our own milk, cheese, eggs and meat.

  We are currently making goat cheese, ice cream, yogurt, kombucha, kefir, pickles and medicinal teas. We also have our own bees which produce a very high-quality medicinal honey.
   

• Potable Water:  All water on the farm is clean and safe to drink right out of the faucet, as it is in most of Costa Rica. There are several water faucets and large sinks around the farm.  We do not yet have hot water, but hope to install passive solar water heaters.

   

• Internet Connection and Wi/Fi:  We do have fairly rapid internet and a wi/fi connection, normally sufficient to video chat with your friends and family and “show them around the farm”!  However, we are in a developing country, so occasional outages can happen.

   

• Gardens and Fruit Trees: We have a small scale successful aquaponics system, in which we are growing tilapia and many different kinds of herbs, fruits and vegetables.  We have several raised square food gardens and have started a small food forest. We have many papaya, soursop, moringa, avocado, lime, star fruit, water apple, mangosteen and many other fruit trees in various stages of growth and production.

• Animals: We have 13 horses, about 30 goats for milking, about 20 sheep, 2 pet pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, peacocks, a cat, dogs, rabbits,  turtles and tilapia. We do not have wildlife here yet as we are just now applying for our permits. We expect to have our wildlife permits in the next two months or so. 

• Bee Keeping:  We have our own mariola bees which are very low-maintenance tiny sting-less bees. They produce a very high quality medicinal honey. Of course it can be eaten, and is delicious but we prefer to save it for medicinal uses such as burns and cuts on ourselves and our animals.

• Currency and Cash:  Both Costa Rican colones and U.S. dollars are readily accepted pretty much everywhere here. You can pay in all the grocery stores and most restaurants with most credit or debit cards such as Visa and MasterCard.  There are five Automated Teller machines in Playas del Coco and five banks in which you can withdraw cash or exchange currencies.

• Vaccines:  The only vaccine we recommend that you have current is your tetanus vaccine.

• Medical Care:   We have several really great doctors, dentists and pharmacies in town that are available should you need them. There are two emergency medical clinics in town that are open 24 hours a day with ambulance service available. The nearest hospital is CIMA hospital approximately 20 minutes’ normal drive away.

We really are just getting started and still far away from being self-sufficient. If you don’t have knowledge of basic permaculture principles, you can take a free course online by clicking here. workaway Costa Rica    workaway Costa Rica workaway Costa Rica                workaway Costa Rica

Life is good at the Farm! Good hard work, nice friendly like-minded people and an international environment make this a magical place.  We aim to make a change in this world, one step at a time. Check out our photo galleries to give you a better idea of what to expect.

Check our photos now! • Check us on Facebook

                workaway Costa Rica workaway Costa

If you feel like you want to support our activities with fundraising, please ask how we can help you do this. If you feel like this is the right place for you, please fill in the application!                                                 workaway costa Rica