Playa Flamingo is a sleepy, rural fishing village on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

Barbara's Animal Rescue, I was told, was 20 meters before the Banco de Costa Rica. Uninformed as to what I’d actually be doing, feeding and walking animals was what I was expecting to be the extent of my responsibilities.  

There was mention of a spay/neuter clinic planned for my day of arrival, but I had no idea what that entailed. I had been outside of my comfort zone before, but this was different; I would be working in a developing country with a woman I’d never met.

Upon arrival on day one, I saw that there were already about twenty people lined up outside the shelter with their animals. I straightened up, left the car and opened the sliding fence door to her shelter. I was really apprehensive.

I found myself in a big, open bungalow. The air was thick and hot, every inch of the concrete floor was occupied by people, all speaking rapidly in Spanish. There were maybe 30 dogs, and even more cats. Before I even formally met her, Barbara put me to work. When I first walked in, there were no preliminaries or niceties.

“Here,” she said, putting a runt puppy in my hands. “Feed him.”

Never have I known anyone like her, this tiny, frantic, German woman.  Barbara set up the three veterinarians in one of the two smaller bungalows on the property. She had six volunteers in total, including me. She would speak to herself in German, translate her diagnosis of a sick animal to me in English, and then inform the owner in Spanish. Whether it was holding the dogs and cats for their anesthesia injections, “taxiing” the animals down to the main bungalow after their procedures, or keeping an eye on the animals, you knew you were helping.

It’s not very easy to get an animal neutered in Costa Rica, especially at a low cost. Barbara’s quarterly clinics helped everyone in the community: people would round up strays and bring them to her shelter for the clinic, and sometimes people would drop their animals and never come back.

I worked nine hours on my first day at Barbara’s Animal Rescue. It was hard work and lots of chaos. Vets were smoking cigarettes or sometimes chatting on their cell phones during surgery. But despite how hectic and worn the set-up was, never have I seen people work in such a passionate and effective way.

We spayed and neutered over one hundred and sixty dogs and cats that day; all of them survived and only one came back, with a broken stitch. I left sore and dirty, but I couldn’t wait for more. The next day I was given an entirely different set of tasks and skills to learn. It was all I wanted to do. Seeing how one woman carved out an incredible mission and actually made her dream happen has deeply inspired me to pursue my own passion for animal care and service to the community.