Busy School Work Week, but Awesome Upcoming Weekend!!

7-27-11

Today was the last real day of Spanish class. We learned more about subjutivo imperfect and I did much better with the homework and the constructions. It was like this last week too, I think that I just need a day to absorb. Actually, we did a practice composition like the test that the teacher graded, when we got back from break she asked me to read mine, I thought it was because I had done something wrong, but it turned out that I was the only one who had  done it right! A little boost for my Spanish confidence…  After I read, the teacher asked us if we wanted to go to the health fair, apparently as part of the health Spanish classes they were doing a little health fair where you could get your blood sugar and pressure, posture BMI % body fat, and a free massage/spine alignment! So of course we went and I got all my measurements done. I had a 95 for my blood sugar 98/78 for my blood pressure and good posture; she could even tell that something had happened to my left ankle when I was young! We didn’t have time for the massage so Kim and I put our name on the list and went back to class. We were first in line when we got out 30 min later! It was good, I got a new girl though, so it was a long massage 15 min, but she was tentative with the pressure. After the health fair I had intended to go to the Pali and get some PB&J stuff since I’ve had a craving, but I ended up going to get pizza with Kim from class. I have a serious addiction to that pizza!

I met up with Karen after pizza to get sources for our presentation for SD class. We ended up going to the ISA office since the Veritas computers are so slow. We found lots of sources and it was neat to see their offices since their program is so big! When we were done I tried to leave to go back and study for my Spanish exam but I didn’t know how to get out. You have to get buzzed in, and I had walked all the way down the long ramp only to realize that there was no handle and that you had to be buzzed out too… I didn’t know what to do so I went back up to ask Karen. I scared the crap out of her too! I eventually got out and went home to study for a few hours before SD class. After Randdie and I got back from class we were both craving some tea /hot coco and cookies. Since it was only Sophie home we decided to bring here in on it too… I played barista and made the drinks. Afterward Randdie taught us the LMFAO dance, I was not good but it was really fun and great bonding time!

7-28-11

Today we had our Spanish exam. I don’t know how it went, but it was 5 essay parts and it took about 2.5 hours. Kim made a 98, the professor told us while she was grading Kim’s test… She also said that it would only take here 5 min to grade what had taken us 2 hours to do. Not exactly motivating… After the test I got lunch with Holly and Julie before returning to the house to get some work done on my paper and presentation. … I got my presentation sketched out in 1.5 hours and I have about three pages done on my paper… tomorrow I’m planning on working all day long so that I will be completely finished so that I only have to work on the presentation on Monday and I can go to Manuel Antonio on Tuesday with Karen!

Randdie and I had to walk through a monsoon to get to class today, but it was worth it. We learned about climate change and watched some awesome SD tourism videos! I have some great ideas for when my family comes! As usually Kelsey asked when our project was due, and what a presentation was… The girl is a moron. She has also told the professor several times (spitefully) that she can’t do anything else because of all the work for this class (work that she had known about for a month). After class it was still raining ( with the loudest crack of thunder right when my professor began to talk about the damage to the ecosystems from climate change…) but not as much. We had intended to got to los Profesionales at 9:30, but the other girls decided to go to a further bar and dance. I couldn’t stay out late since I need to work on my paper, so we didn’t go. However, I did get my own little dance party with Angel, Sophie and Randdie by showing off our LMFAO dance moves. I finally figured out that you have to bend at the waist so I stopped looking like Charlie Chapplan.. Sophie is definitely a natural. Before we started dancing we were reading each other’s palms. Apparently I will have one child and my life will become intertwined with money ( but that’s not good), I will also have one love for most of my life, but at the end I will have three loves… It was a really fun evening; I love hanging out with my Tica family!

7-29-11

I woke up to a rainy day which reflected my mood. I can’t believe how little time I have left here.  I woke up an hour early so that I could go to mass with my mama tica and Randdie. Mass was really interesting, I liked it a lot! On our walk back we passed a big water main break right next to the university. They had a crew working on it, but we were out of water all day in the barrio.

Today was my last day of Spanish class! I did my presentation on the pineapple industry and after the presentations finished at 9:45 class was done. We didn’t know what to do so we just hung around outside in the hall and chatted. I think we might make plans to meet up next week. We waited around long enough, since none of us wanted to leave, that our teacher had finished calculating our final grade. I got a 96 on my presentation an A on my Spanish test, and a A in the class!! After we got our grades we dispersed, I decided to go get coffee before returning home to get started on my 10 page paper… On the way I ran into Jason and talked about his weekend ecology trip. I passed by Nikki (both of them) and Valentina too. I was just the day to see everyone. That’s one of the things I love about being at a small school, you recognize almost all of the people, and the different friend groups intersect. Once I had my café con leche I starting walking back toward the house to get to work. On the way I ran into Brian again and while talking with him Julie and Holly caught up with me. We walked home together, but I decided to go to the Pali to get some PB & J stuff for lunches, and some snacks for the weekend.

When I got home I made a PB & J and got down to business! It was a pretty boring day, and I felt like I was wasting a one of my last few days here. My only consolation was that it was pouring rain outside so I wouldn’t have been able to do anything anyways. When Sophie came home from school I took a break to go walk the neighbor’s dogs with her (she pet sits) since there was a break in the rain. On the way my mama tica got us ice cream from the Dos Pinos supply store! I’m definitely going back there next week, it’s got all kinds of dairy stuff! Afterward I did some more work and had dinner with the family. Guess what was after diner, more work… Surprise Surprise. I just couldn’t seem to focus. Although I did take a break to talk to my mama tica some more, it was during this time that we found out that Randdie (who had taken a bus to Guanacaste to visit her friend) had not arrived at 4:30 like she was supposed to.  It was currently 6:30. The friend called the house to see if she had just stayed home… Umm no. It turns out that she had missed her stop and gotten off at the next one, but just hadn’t called anyone…. I still need to get more info on that one. Afterward mama tica and I talked about my paper and United Fruit, she lived on a United Fruit workers base when she was younger!  We also looked at a map to try and figure out where Randdie was… The rest of the evening was pretty boring, but I figured at least this way I would only sacrifice one day instead of two.

Tomorrow at 5:30 I’m off to Alta Mira, an indigenous community in the southern most park in Costa Rica. Parque internacional La Amistad is actually half in Panama and half in Costa Rica. The community used to be cattle farmers before the park, but now there working with the park for sustainable livelihoods. They are supposed to grow some of the best organic coffee in the country!!  They also make a lot of organic and natural products with resources from the park. I can’t wait to go live on their farm with them!

Ostional Day 2

7-24-11

                The next morning we woke up at 7 to eat breakfast. Afterward we had a sort break before we began the interview process. We decided to go to a nearby dairy farm where monkeys had been sighted in the past. We couldn’t go see the monkeys without paying an entrance fee, but instead the offered us the chance to learn how to milk a cow. As a milk lover I was quick to jump on board. They had all the cows paired up with their babies drinking on one side and a farmer drinking on the other. Milking a cow is actually a lot harder than it looks! You need to have a lot of strength to get the milk to come out. I managed to get the hang of it, and before we left they gave us a cup of fresh milk with the cream still in it to drink. I was in heaven. If I ever become a farmer, I will be a dairy farmer and live happily making cheese and yogurt for the rest of my life.

After our sojourn to the farm we began our interviews with the town’s people to get their opinions of the works that the refuge and development association have been doing. The information we gathered would be used by the Biologists to create a more effective community involvement program.  Karen (principal translator) Dat, Kelsey, Rebecca and I (second translator) interviewed two families as a group. The first turned out to be negative toward the program, of which they were not members citing small town favoritism and politics. They also seemed to be less informed about the project than the video led us to believe. They were somewhat forthcoming, and we broke the ice by talking to them about a Costa Rican squirrel that they had found fallen out of its nest. The next family was headed up by a man who was not a native to Ostional but was in favor of the program. Three members of his family were volunteers and worked with the turtle industry. He was much friendlier and seemed to know more about the program and contradicted some of the politics cited by our first subject. However, his one complaint was that the community was limited to only taking the eggs during the first 36 hours of the Arribada (it must be at least 200+ turtles for them to work). He also mentioned that our host Guillermo was one of the enemies of this idea. What we found out later from our professor is that Guillermo is also an outsider that he was the head of the community association for several years and made the restrictions on harvesting eggs stricter and pushed poachers more. Due to this his house was set on fire (while he and his wife were inside) by members of another community (not Ostional) that wanted access to the egg harvest as well but couldn’t partly due to his restrictions. The responses were intriguing in that they indicated that while the community likes the project and has seen its benefits,  they still viewed the 15 year old program as an outsider that was somewhat imposed rather than something they chose to do (in contrast with our next field trip to Alta Mira).

After we finished the interviews we had some free time to spend on the beach. We all changed into our swim suits and headed out into the water. The currents are very strong at this beach and so you don’t swim out very far into the water. Mainly Karen and I just played in the waves and the sand. There were also several cool pieced of drift wood that we used as props for our photo shoot (Dat had an amazing camera…). We swam for about 2 hours then sat and watched the ocean for 30 min before lunch. After lunch we had to head out straight away, since the drive would take about 5 hours. We thanked Guillermo and his wife for their hospitality and then headed back down the 20 miles of dirt/gravel road until we could turn onto the main highway.  On the way back I noticed how the whole region just had the feel, and atmosphere of the beach, parts of it really reminded me of the drive we take most years to get to Garden City Beach in South Carolina. What added to this was when we stopped for ice cream (at POPs) and it was another open air BBQ restaurant across from a Shell gas station, with several large plastic cows in front, just like the ones at a putt-putt place! I got a familiar feeling again once we were back in the mountains of the Central Valley I felt like I was on my way to Boone.

We made it back into San Jose by dinner time (successfully missing the one way bridge traffic in both directions!). Randdie and I caught up about our different weekends and we hung out with our host family. Tomorrow is a day off from school, yay for sleeping in! 9AM breakfast here I come!

Ostional Day 1

7-23-11

                It was an early morning for me. I was up at 5:45 and left the house at 6:05 to meet my SD class at Veritas for our 5 hour drive to Ostional to see the only sustainable harvesting of turtle eggs. Of course due to Tico time we left at about 15 min late, but I’m really do not worry about exact time anymore, it’s pretty nice! Since the drive was long I decided to take my Dramamine, although it turned out that we spent most of the time on the toll roads which are really well maintained. We stopped for breakfast at one of the many open air restaurants by the side of the road (all of them have really awesome food) for breakfast. The ride was very uneventful for me since I was asleep the whole time… and thanks to antihistamine induced drossiness the ride seemed really short!

We got into Ostional at 12:30 and got settled into our rooms with a family in the town (they have a hostel/camping business and had three dogs, and much to my delight one of them was a little puppy!) and had a typical Costa Rican lunch (chicken and veggie stew, with rice and tortilla chips). We ate in their covered open air porch right behind the dunes and watched the sea. It was idyllic, blue water, black sands, an empty beach in a protected biological reserve. After lunch we had a break so Karen Rebecca, Kelsey, Dat and I (my classmates) decided to explore the beach a bit. The waves were huge and the current in Ostional is very strong, so it’s not that popular for swimming but surfers love it. We saw many of them as we explored the beach and several estuaries. Everywhere the sand was covered with what looked like crushed ping-pong balls. There were turtle egg shells. We learned this about an hour later during our tour with the chief biologist of the Ostional development project. He said that the sea turtles come in by the thousands to lay their eggs in about a one kilometer section of this beach throughout the year. Based on the lunar cycle there are 12-16 Arribadas or Arrivals where hundreds of turtles come at once to lay their eggs (which they can do up to 4 times a year). An Arribada was expected for either Saturday or Sunday night. During our tour we learned about the conflict in between the 100 year old turtle egg harvesting community and the 15 year old Biological refuge which was made surrounding the town. The Refuge and the community have been at odds since the beginning but have reached an easy truce as their mutually beneficial relationship with the turtles has been recognized and supported by the research done by the University of Costa Rica in the biological refuge.

                The community’s main economic activity surrounds the turtles and their eggs. The towns people keep the beaches clean and in good condition for the turtles, and help keep predators away from the baby turtles when they hatch. (since I always wondered why they biologists don’t help the turtles get to the ocean during the dangerous gauntlet that is their journey from the nest to the sea, I figured that you might as well. They have to let the baby turtles move on their own though, since it is during this time that they learn the characteristics of the beach that they will use to recognize it when they return later in life to lay their own eggs). In exchange the community members harvest the eggs that are deposited during the first 36 hours of an Arribada. Taking these eggs does not harm the population since so many turtles come that the nests of the first wave are destroyed by the later arriving turtles. Naturally each turtle lays about 100 eggs and 70%-90% of the eggs/baby turtles are lost naturally due to various environmental threats. Of that less than 1% is lost due to turtle egg harvesting. The sea turtle breeding strategy is based on sheer quantity, since they do not care for their young. As ironic as it may seem, research has proven that the relationship between the community and the turtles has actually led to an increase in the population of sea turtles. In comparison to the turtle nesting population that is 5 miles away, at a national park beach where the process is not disrupted in anyway (pro or con) by humans, is decreasing. This is a great example of sustainability and practical conservation at work.

                After our tour we had an amazing home cooked dinner and watched a video which described the specific activity of the local community with the turtle population. Only people who were born in Ostional are allowed to participate and 70% of the profits go directly to the community members who help with the various turtle activities throughout the year. The other 30% is for administrative costs, funding schools, building projects, environmental education, and a retirement fund for the elders in the community.  This is not to say that the program is perfect, it struggles with small town politics and conflicts between the locals and far away governmental authorities on conservation, but it is a very successful model and the only one of its kind.  After the video we headed to the local bar to try a Costa Rican delicacy. Turtle egg shots in a tomato sauce with a chaser of Imperial. This was one of those bucket list moments and I embraced it whole heartedly. I ate two of the raw turtle egg shots, and they were actually really good! Turtle eggs are much healthier for you than chicken eggs as they do not have any cholesterol, and I didn’t even have to feel guilty since I only ate the eggs that would have been destroyed by the other turtles during nesting.

                After we left the bar we went back to the house to begin our patrol to find the nesting turtles. We walked for about 2 hours and unfortunately only found one nesting turtle, and one that had died (we missed the Arribada by one day…). I was actually the one who found the turtle. I heard a sound and thought it was one of the family dogs who had followed us, when I shined my flash light on it I saw it was a turtle! Our biologist guide found the turtle tracks right after I called out. The turtles don’t mind onlookers, but we gave her room to choose her nesting spot and then crept up to get a closer look. Sea turtles are big, probably about the length of my arm span, and she was about 30 years old. The biologist could tell since the pattern on her shell was so smooth.  It took her about 15 min to dig the nest with her back flippers and another 15 to lay all of her eggs. During that time she was in a semi-catatonic state and didn’t mind our lights or getting petted. The biologist even pulled out one of the eggs for us to look at and demonstrated that it was both soft and hard which is why is wouldn’t break during the 1.5 foot drop into the nest. When she was done laying her eggs she filled in the nest and camouflaged, before heading back to the sea. Surprisingly the turtles move really fast for only having flippers…  After all the excitement we went back to our room to sleep, only to find more wildlife; two spiders, big tropical ones. Bravely Rebecca killed/removed them from the room, but we were all a bit wary as we fell asleep.

Ostional Beach

One of the mangroves

There was tons of cool drift wood on the beach that had been bleached by the sun!

Turtle egg shots!

A 30 year old turtle laying her eggs on the beach!

Dinner and a Movie

 7-22-11

                Today in Spanish class we spent the first hour giving presentations on the food we researched at the market, which was fun as it involved samples and tons of really weird fruits that I had never eaten before. This is such a novelty for us temperate people. Some of the students even have fruit tasting parties where everyone has to bring the strangest fruit they can find for everyone to try. For the second half of class we watched a movie with the advanced one class. The movie was called the City of God (Ciudad de Dios) and it is about a favela by this name in Rio de Janero. The irony is that this favela is very poor and in the center of gang and drug activity and it had one of the highest murder rates in the 60s-70s. The movie was very poignant and moving although very violent. What made it challenging was that the movie was all in Portuguese with Spanish subtitles… I actually did really well! I understood almost the entire movie from reading the subtitles and some from the spoken Portuguese. However, Portuguese has such strong French-like pronunciation that it’s difficult to understand even though it is very similar to Spanish.

                After the movie I met up with my friends who had been on their field trip today, they went to the basilica and market as well, for lunch. We ended up eating at the pizza place again, which was fine by me since they have the best pizza in the western hemisphere. Jessica (from API) and Jason were there as well as the other girls. We had originally planned on going into San Jose, but the weather wasn’t ideal, and most of us still had a lot to get done before our weekend trips. So after lunch we went our separate ways to pack and made plans to meet up at 4 to go to the mall and see Harry Potter (Julie still hadn’t seen it). In the meantime, I packed and finished my homework so that I wouldn’t have to do much over the weekend. When Sophie got back from school we with mama tica to her boss’s house where Sophie is pet sitting. We took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood, which was really nice since I am having dog withdrawal. My mama tica and I also walked to the Pali, super market so that I could buy a flashlight to use patrolling the beach for the turtles.

                I met up with Holly and Julie at 4 (in tico time, so really 4:15) to take the bus to the Mulit Plaza del Este to eat dinner explore and watch Harry Potter.  I had never taken this particular bus by myself before and Holly and Julie hadn’t ever, so we were a bit nervous; especially since there is not a marker for the bus stop. Everyone just knows that you sand on the concrete drain in front of the red building and wave when you bus goes by.  Using our acute sense of vision we were able to track down the bus that went from San Jose to Curridabat. As soon as we got on the bus we hit Friday afternoon traffic. We hadn’t really thought that one out too much… It actually worked in our favor since we weren’t exactly sure where our stop was, and the traffic gave us time to look around for the sign before we had to push the button. For all who care, you press the button right after you see the McDonalds playplace sign.

                The Multi-plaza is what we would call a mall, but it to the Ticos it’s more of a shopping center. it has an open courtyard in the middle and the stores inside are more like what you would find at Stone Crest that at South Park or Carolina Place. We decided to get our tickets early since it was a Friday night, which turned out to be a good idea (thank you Julie!) since the theater was very full, although we managed to get relatively good seats off to the side. Afterward we walked around comparing the difference between the US and Costa Rica as far as shopping went. The options are about the same, Costa Rica is very globalized, although the prices are higher here. Before the movie we went to POPs, a heladaria here that has lots of native tropical fruit flavors. It’s my new favorite place! I got Cas, a type of fruit, flavored ice cream and it was delicious. We also went to the food court to get some dinner before the movie. First off, it is Ironic how popular Taco Bell is here and how expensive fast food is. It costs about 6 dollars for a Taco Bell meal in CR. The same applied to about all of the food, except for McDonald’s, which is, sadly where I decided to get some French fries. I don’t know why, but since I’ve been here I’ve had a craving for them, and I don’t really eat fries that much in the US.

                After eating we went down to the theater early to take some touristy pictures with the gigantic cut outs of Harry Potter, since my last pictures didn’t go so well. The movie was really awesome, the second time. Since I knew the story and had already seen it I was reading the Spanish subtitles as the characters spoke which really helped me relate how idioms and expressions are translated.  Afterward we headed home because all of us had to be at Veritas at 6 AM to meet up with our classes for our field trips on Saturday. We called it an early night, but I hung out with my host family and watched the Costa Rican premier of Modern Family (in Spanish). 

Basilica de La Virgin de Los Angles

Today for Spanish class we went on a field trip to Cartago, the colonial capital of Costa Rica to see the Basilica de La Virgin de Los Angeles; the patron saint of Costa Rica, and their local market. Cartago is about a 30 min drive from Veritas and all the intermediate dos classes went together on a microbus. The ride down was pretty interesting because I got to talk to the one older married couple that is in the program too. The older man’s name is Charles and he is a doctor and director of a physician’s assistant program for a college in Massatustus. He came down here with his wife to work on his Spanish and set up an internship/intensive Spanish program for his students. They will come down here for a month, take Spanish classes in the morning and work at a local hospital in the afternoons. I thought that sounded like a great program, since there is such a need for Spanish language knowledge in the medical field right now.

                We got to the Basilica in time to see the morning mass with the children from the cathedral school. This is two weeks before the biggest religious holiday in Costa Rica, and it’s centered on this church. Just this week many people began a pilgrimage walk from their homes to this Basilica to celebrate the Patron Saint (Virgin de Los Angles) of Costa Rica on Aug 2^nd. The whole cathedral was in preparation for this and they are having many celebrations leading up to it. Today was when the children dressed up in traditional clothes and made a procession to the church to celebrate the culture and history of one of Costa Rica’s oldest cities. We watched part of the mass before moving on to the place under the church where the Virgin appeared to a little indigenous girl. The Virgin came in the form of a stone stature which a little girl found while gathering firewood. She thought it would make a great doll and took it home. The next day she went out again to get firewood and saw the doll again “oh great! Now I have two dolls to play with” and she took it home. However when she got home and looked in the box for the first doll it was gone. She locked up the statue she had found this day and went to bed. The next morning it was gone as well. The little girl ran to the forest and found the statue in the same place; she didn’t know what to do so she took it to the priest. The priest didn’t pay much attention at first and just placed it on his desk to look at later. The next day he couldn’t find it and went to the spot in the woods and there the statue was. They decided that this was a special place and that they should build a church to the Virgin there. Since then the church had been reconstructed several times since its located close to a volcano and had been damaged by several earthquakes. This church is known for producing many miracles and every year people make the pilgrimage to visit the church and ask the Virgin to appeal to God for help. In the shrine there are lots of cases of miniature silver body parts and things that represent things that have been healed after supplicants came to the church. As I learned, places where the Virgin has appeared and have resulted in miracles often have springs of holy water. This is true of Los Angeles as well, I bought a little container in the shape of the Virgin statue that I could put some of the holy water in!

                After the cathedral, we went to the local market to practice our Spanish. Our assignment was to find a fruit or vegetable and ask the vendor where and how it was grown, and what it was used for. There were so many choices and things I had never seen before.  I picked a green circular vegetable that turned out to be a variant of a cucumber. The man was informative, it not very personable. However after I had finished I walked around (and got a cheesy bread empanada thing) and met up with Kim (another girl in my class). She is a combined Spanish and nursing major, and is interested in alternative medicine. For here food she had found a Costa Rican herbalist and was learning about the different natural remedies for various ailments. The vendor’s name was Victor, he was really nice and informative he showed us all sorts of different plants and their uses and he even gave Kim samples of everything to dry and take back to the US for her capstone project.

                It was a really awesome class, but I wish we had had more time to spend at the market. We spent a lot of time waiting for one of the girls to be checked out. She had gotten a concussion a few months ago after giving blood (she fainted) and now experiences periods of sudden exhaustion and semi-seizures. They are worse if she stays out late, and she started to feel bad in the shrine. They called an ambulance to check her out. She turned out to be fine, but she needs rest and her blood sugar was very low. I think she might be anemic as well… It was unavoidable, but it did cut our trip a bit short. To make up for it I’m going to go to the central market in San Jose with some friends tomorrow so that I can see more of the new fruits and veggies.

                My evening classes today got cancelled, but I am going to go back to campus this afternoon to watch the music and arts festival that’s happening today. Afterward, Randdie and I are going to the movies where were going to get VIP lounge seats and pina coladas! 

The Basilica

Inside...

Some of the miniatures that represented things that had been healed

The apparition of the Virgin

Mercado De Cartago

Victor the herb vendor

Let's Dance!

On Wednesday classes were normal. The subjunctive is finally coming back to me and class was easier today. During our break a street vendor came by who was selling agua de pipa (coconut water) and freshly squeezed (as in you order it I squeeze it) juice. I got agua de pipa and felt especially tropical as I sat out in the sun during my break. For lunch we went to a Chinese place (owned by a Chinese family), it was a lot like the Chinese restaurants in the US, though they don’t really compare to the local Costa Rican food.  After lunch I went back to my house to try and get some work done on my 10 page final paper for SD before class. That was only mildly successful, as Angel and I decided to go and get my trenza shortened and get hers tightened. I loved my long trenza but it wasn’t the most practical, it kept getting caught on things… But of course, as soon as I got it shortened I saw some other girls with there’s long and missed mine! Ironically Angel actually had the braider make her’s longer!

                SD class was a bit frustrating since we were going to watch the rest of the Pineapple industry video before we began the sustainable industry lecture. However, the video was online and not cooperating. It kept freezing and we would have to wait for it to load… Ugh! After class I met up with Randdie at the house. Her dance elective was going to go on a field trip to a local Latin dance club and I was going to hitch a ride on their shuttle. We all piled into the shuttle, just a few over the recommended limit… and got to the club a bit after nine. It was early so they had the demonstration pair for the evening dancing, so we all got drinks (sexo en la playa para mi!) and watched them. The couple was really amazing, but a few brave people from the class ventured forth onto the dance floor as the liquid courage took effect. It turned out to be a really fun evening with lots of time to learn and practice the steps, although since it was a weeknight, it wasn’t that full. Randdie and I decided that we would go out dancing next week too (we both have excursions this weekend). I am slowly learning to find my rhythm and when I have a good partner I’m actually a pretty respectable dancer, and even when I’m not I don’t really care, it’s too much fun! We came back relatively early in the shuttle (11:30) so we wouldn’t have to pay for a taxi and because we had class/field trip(me!) in the morning. In all it was a really fun end to the day!

Yeah, lets go to the art museum!

Today class was better, were still doing the subjunctive so it’s all relative right now… On the bright side I did find out that they have te con leche in the second Café at Veritas! After classes we (Julie, Nicky, Holly, Jason and I) went downtown with the intent of eating and going to the national art museum.  However, we left thirty min late since one of the classes got out late and missed first bus. We also had problems deciding where to eat and ordering (it was a-la-carte and some of the girls didn’t speak Spanish), but the major hold up was that two of the girls only had $20 bills. You can use US bills under 20 here but they have to be authenticated because there is a counterfeiting problem.  This meant that both times they had to run the bill downstairs and check it out, making us a bit unpopular with the hungry locals. I can understand if you don’t want to use you ATM card here to take out money if your bank charges a lot, and some people are afraid that it will get stolen (although is more dangerous to have a large stash of cash), but I think you should at least change your money over to the national currency. It would have been so much easier, and drawn way less attention!

                After lunch we decided to walk through the national cathedral since they were having a mass last time we went by. When we left the cathedral we decided to walk through the many parks in San Jose to people since we weren’t sure we would have time for the art museum. We went to Parque Espana, Revolutionary Park, and Escuela Metalica. While we were in the Revolutionary Park we meet up with a group of Ticos who were about our age. One was going to college in Argentina! It was really fun to meet up with some locals our age and practice our Spanish. We made it safely through the afternoon without rain, it was especially nice, since we were pushing our luck in not bringing umbrellas since we would have to carry them around.

                In my SD class we spent the day learning about the pineapple industry. It’s safe to say I am never going to be able to eat pineapple in the US again unless its organic (not that I was super into pineapple before…). Pineapple is a relatively new crop here, introduced to diversity the fruit exports (largely dominated by Banana). The problem is that pineapples need very specific conditions to produce fruit industrially. This means that the land must have very good water drainage and be cleaned (burned) of all other species between each crop cycle. Since they must burn to clean the soil they lose most of the nutrients and therefore apply lots of toxic fertilizers and pesticides (to ensure perfectly pretty produce for North America; the US buys 60% of CR’s pineapple crop). Due to the fact that the soil must have very good drainage, all the run off from the farm (the carcinogenic pesticides) are easily washed into the river where they poison the water table of the surrounding communities and eventually run to the sea killing ecosystems along the way. Some of these pesticides are illegal to use in the US since they are so dangerous to both workers and the environment, but they are allowed in CR (partly due to large fruit conglomerate lobbying). On the bright side, we also learned about the banana industry (which has a much longer history in CR) and due to consumer pressure from the EU is actually pretty sustainable, and are rainforest alliance certified. To be certified they must have water table plans, safety training, and use all parts of the banana harvest (paper, crates to ship the bananas) among other things.  

                After class I lightened things up a bit by going to the tropical dance class again! We learned the salsa, and Costa Rican Cumbia, which is a mixture of swing and Latin dancing!

Rain Forest Fact: A place that is home to 5 % of all the worlds biodiversity is being slowly poisoned by consumer’s demand for cheap tropical fruit.

Guardería and a Trenza

Monday was a regular day of classes.  One of the girls in my class had looked into visiting and orphanage/guardaria (daycare for single mothers). Most of our class, Me, Kim, Valentina, Nicky, Mike, and Liz (the last two not in our class) decided to go when we got out at 12. The guardaria was about a 15 min drive from Veritas. We got there and didn’t really know what to do; they didn’t exactly have a need for us so we decided to just play with the kids. The babies were napping, but the older kids had just gotten back from school and were ready to play! We got to practice our Spanish as we taught them our games and learned theirs. It was at this point I realized my Spanish kid vocab was sorely lacking… We played hide-and-go-seek, elbow tag (my idea, and a big hit I must say), freeze tag, soccer, and we learned some new hand games! In all it was a fun time, if somewhat random. Victor (the shuttle driver) came to pick us up at 3:30 and dropped us off near our houses. I got back and talked to Angel and Sophie about their day, it was their first day back from a 2 week break. Angel had had a day like mine and so we decided to go get trenzas/hair wraps for our hair. We walked to San Pedro mall (about 15 min walk) which is near Angel’s school. There we met up with the lady who makes woven bracelets; she uses the same techniques for your hair! She had about 20 colors to pick from and beads to put on the ends. Angel gets these about once a year, and they can last as long for a couple months! Unlike their little cousins I got when I was little at Myrtle Beach, you do not have to cut your hair to get this type of hair wrap out; you simply clip the bottom and unravel! Also unlike the beach hair wraps these are made with waxed synthetic string that the braider melts together to form a seal that keeps the hair wrap intact. Lots of girls here have them (all coming from the back of their head under their hair) but I was the trend setter for the international students at Veritas.  The only problem is that I asked for mine to be longer than my hair (so you could see it when my hair is down) but it’s actually kind of heavy when it’s not supported by your hair. I’m going to have to go back and get it shortened on Wednesday...

                I was really excited to show my new trenza off to my evening class, but I was actually a little bit late, since we walked around in San Pedro Mall afterwards…  But it wasn’t too bad since we were doing a survey for the school during the first 20 min anyways. During class this week we learned more about our field trip this weekend to Ostional! We are going to see the turtles lay their eggs and visit the only sustainable turtle egg harvesting business. We are going to interview the local people about the conflict between their sustainable turtle egg harvesting and the establishment of the national park (which post-dated their activities). I basically get a test run combining anthropology and sustainable development, hello rest of my life!! I am so excited for this weekend, because we are also going to be at one of the best non-touristy beaches in the country (according to my professor).  It’s my dream excursion! Its jam packed with activities that I love.

Monteverde Part 2

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day and decided to do another excursion. We had decided the night before to go horseback riding and I was really excited! I haven’t been on a horse in about 2 months so I was definitely in the mood to ride. While we were eating another amazing breakfast, one of the girls said that she didn’t want to go riding anymore and managed to convince almost everyone else that it wouldn’t be a fun time and that we would get wet and dirty. I was really frustrated and disappointed since I really wanted to go and everyone else seemed to be moving over to the other girl’s side. They decided to go to the Canopy Sky walk instead which while beautiful was basically the same thing we had done yesterday. I ended up going with them anyways, since on one else wanted to go riding anymore. A shuttle bus came to pick us up and take us to Selvatura, where we would take about a 1.5 mile hike and cross 8 suspension bridges. Once we got to the entrance we found out that the transportation to go back wouldn’t leave until 1 and we were supposed to meet Esteban back at the Hotel to check out at 12. We left him a message and then began our walk. The hike was really nice, it was cool and shady in the park and the suspension bridges are really fun. I love heights and when you walk on them they swing and bounce! Some people in our group liked this more than others… It began to rain pretty steadily when we were on the 7^th bridge, but we managed to finish up without getting to wet (the danger of visiting a rainforest during rainy season…). After we finished our tour at 12:30 we called Esteban again. Since we were sort of on the way out of Monte Verde he decided to just come and get us with the bus driver and head back to San Joaquin. The ride back was uneventful, although we did stop for snacks at the same roadside restaurants and I got tortillas with Monte Verde cheese melted on them! I took my Dramamine again so the ride back seemed short to me even though we didn’t get back until 6.

It was an awesome trip and I hopefully got some amazing pictures (I better have, I filled up a memory card) that I will upload with the post! And to the Patton family: we are definitely going horseback riding during our trip in Aug!!

Rain Forest Fun Fact: The trees in the rainforest do not have any rings because they are always growing due to the lack of sessional change. Partly due to this, rainforests are always regenerating themselves and at any one time most of the trees are not very old. Most only live to be 80 or so.

Cloud Forest 

Canopy tour hike crazyness

Sorry, I can't figure out how to rotate.. Me under a gigantic fern in Jurassic Park

The oldest tree in the reserve, 600!

Diagram of a Cloud Forest

Monteverde Part 1

We woke up early the next morning for breakfast at the hotel at 8:00. The view out our window was amazing! We hadn’t been able to see it the night before since we got in after dark. Jessica and I (my API roommate) walked up to breakfast with high expectations. Many times I feel as if we I narrate my time in CR thought meal times, but really the food is just that good here. Breakfast anywhere in CR is always amazing. We were not disappointed! Breakfast consisted of fresh juice, local coffee, eggs, homemade bread, an array of fresh fruit, and the most amazing French toast of my life. Normally I’m not a fan of sweet things in the morning, but this was freshly made French toast on homemade bread.  I had died and gone to heaven. While we had been eating breakfast the clouds that the Monte Verde cloud forest was named for began to roll in bringing rain with it. The rain showed no signs of stopping soon so we decided to switch our plan for the day and have our free time in the town in the morning and go to the Cloud forest reserve in the afternoon. The town of Santa Elena is a small touristy town with lots of opportunities to shop for souvenirs and some great coffee bars. After some shopping we settled down at one of the coffee bars where they roast and grind their own coffee and watched the rain. We met up with Esteban at 11:30 when the rain had let up a bit. We decide that this would be our best chance to go to see the Cloud Forest biological reserve. We drove up to the park and took a 2.5 hour guided tour (in Spanish) with a naturalist. We learned about many of the unique features of the park that make it a large contributor to the biodiversity in CR (which has 5% of the world’s biodiversity but only .2% of its land mass!). It was an amazing experience and my pictures won’t even begin to do it justice. It started to rain again right when we finished the tour. We walked over to the Colibri café, to stay dry. This was my favorite part of the park. I just know that my mom will be so jealous. In English Colibri means humming bird, and there are about 30 species of humming bird endemic to the Monte Verde region. This café had set up about 12 humming bird feeders with benches surrounding them. The feeders drew about 100 humming birds of all different shapes and sizes! It was really hard to get pictures since they were so fast, but I managed a few good ones. They were so loud! I didn’t realize that something that small could be so loud.

 On our return trip to the hotel we stopped by the Lecheria, or dairy co-op of Monte Verde famous for its cheeses. There is really only one prominent time of cheese in CR, and I have dubbed it Tico cheese, it’s sort of like a mozzarella, and has a very mild flavored so that it can be combined with pretty much anything.  So after two weeks of Tico cheese I was ready for some variety! In addition to cheese they made yogurt and homemade ice cream. I of course had to get some Ice cream. It was amazing, defiantly the best ice cream I’ve had in a long time! After we left the Lecheria we returned to the hotel and had a bit of lazy movie time again (it was a Harry Potter weekend marathon!). We met up again for dinner at an Italian place of all restaurants. I was a bit skeptical at first considering the first dinner, but it was great. I got a veggie calzone with the Monte Verde cheese and loved it. We had another quiet evening at the hotel listening to the ever present rain. 

The next morning...

7-15-11

                It was a very short night for me, I went to bed after the Harry Potter premiere at 3, and had to be up at 7 for my Spanish test. It wasn’t as bad waking up as I thought it would be. When I first got to class I asked the Kim and Joe how they had liked the movie (many people at school had been talking about how the movie was going to be released early here at 3, 6 and 9 on Thursday). I thought this was a bit fishy, since they were going to the same theater as Randdie and I and we hadn’t seen any early times when we bought our tickets. What had happened was that in Costa Rica movies are sometimes re-released to theaters, and many people had bought tickets to part 1 of the 7^th Harry Potter thinking that it was part 2. I like the idea of being able to see movies again in theaters, and I wish they did this everywhere! For example, while we were waiting to get into Harry Potter we saw a sign for the Lion King coming back to theaters! Movies are so cheap here that it is completely worth seeing them again!

                Back to business… So I think my Spanish test went well but I won’t know the results for several more days. We were allowed to leave as soon as we were done with our exam, which worked out really well for me since I had to go back to my house and get my things before leaving with Jessica, Travis and Katie to meet the other API students for our weekend excursion to Monte Verde at 12:30. The four of us met up at Veritas at 12 to take a taxi in to San Jose to meet up with Esteban and then take a bus to San Joaquin to meet up with the other half of our group and leave for Monte Verde. We got to San Jose a bit early which worked out great for me since I hadn’t eaten lunch and I was starving. I got a chicken empanada while we waited for Esteban. We had to walk a little bit to get to the Coca-Cola station where all the buses leave from. I was starting to be very happy that I had packed light. One of the girls had brought a backpack and a duffle bag and didn’t look to happy about the walk (I on the other had only had my backpack and little day bag!).  We just missed the first bus to San Joaquin and sat on the grounds of a colonial church to wait for the next one. It is about a 30 min bus ride to San Joaquin where we met up with Whitney, Katie and Caitlin (I know. Of the 6 girls four of us were in the Katherine name family…). We all piled into the mini-bus, and left on the 4 hour drive to Monte Verde in the central Pacific region. I took my Dramamine and napped nicely for most of the ride (partially unnecessary since I was already about to fall asleep from my late night the day before). This turned out to be the best strategy since we got stuck in traffic for 1 ½ hours due to the design of bridges in Costa Rica at large. Here bridges are only one lane wide, which means that each side must take their turn when crossing. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea, but if I ever meet them I’m going to give him a big smack in the head. I don’t believe that that the money saved from making a one lane bridge could be significant enough to justify the inconvenience.  Luckily I was asleep for most of the ride and only woke up for the snack breaks.

                We got into Monte Verde at 7:30 and decided to go out to dinner at a restaurant called the Tree House. The restaurant was really cool; it was on the second floor of the building and had a huge tree growing through the middle of it. However, this is the second time that I have been to a ‘nice’ restaurant aimed at tourists where the food was mediocre and seemed to be mostly imported. I got my favorite, arroz con pollo, but it was not what I had expected. It had a strange pineapple flavor to it that I’ve not had anywhere else in CR. We decided to just head back to the hotel after dinner since there wasn’t much of nightlife in the small town. We all just piled into one of the hotel rooms, watched movies and turned in early.

Harry Potter!

Today was the day. It all ends this year, the Harry Potter ride is finally over. We went to see the premier at midnight on Thursday (only $4!!), but first we had to make it through class. School wasn’t so hard today, we spent most of the time reviewing for our test on Friday and doing our oral presentations. Mine was on the system of conservation in Costa Rica and I think it went well, it seemed to keep the class interested! After class I met up with my lunch group and we tried a new restaurant down the street. It was a little café that had great food and deserts. I got a taco soup thing and an amazing fruit tart for desert. I went back to the house after to study for my Spanish exam and take a prep nap for Harry Potter! My evening class went well, but I swear that the other anthro girl in my class cannot be an anthro major. She does not seem to be culturally sensitive in any way and she always asks the dumbest questions… I decided to quiz her by asking about Frans Boaz (I had seen an article about him in the newspaper here). I told her about it and said “oh this is something that should interest you too!” but she didn’t seem to recognize the name and she just said oh that’s nice… For the security of my discipline I must think that she’s actually taken any anthro classes, she must be in her first year. After Randdie and I got back from class we started to prep for Harry Potter. I was really excited because it was the first time I had been to the midnight premiere!

 We left the house at 10:30 for the theater; we didn’t even have to take a taxi because we were going with Angel and her friend Carolina whose mom had a car. So the four of us got to the theater early to pick up our tickets and wait in line for the theater to open up (don’t worry, I was a good student and took my notes with me..). While we were waiting I wanted to get a picture of us in front of the Harry Potter ad. We were also trying to take a picture in front of the big cardboard display. Carolina asked a man to take our picture and he said that he was with the Nacion, the big newspaper here and that he would take our picture for the paper (he had a press pass)! He took our picture and got our names and said to check the paper tomorrow to see if we made it in. We checked the next day, but didn’t see our picture…  I guess we didn’t make the cut..

The movie was awesome! I thought it would be hard to stay awake that late for a movie, but it was so exciting that I didn’t even realize it was late. I am definitely planning on seeing it again! When the movie got out we followed the wave of people out of the Multi-Plaza del Este, however, unlike them we didn’t need to wait around for a taxi. Carolina’s mom came to get us! It was an awesome bonus for me since I had to get to bed quickly because I had a Spanish test in the morning…  I didn’t get to bed till 3, but Harry Potter was just so worth it! 

Sorry its blurry... me, Randdie, Angel, Carolina 

Darn flash and evil red-eye!

A Day at the Mercado

Every day that I’m here I’m getting more confident and at home. Life abroad is not that different from the US, people do the same things; they just do them in different ways. For example, me neighborhood could look scary to someone used to US suburbs, but when you look closely at what the people are doing it’s the same. On any given day there are people walking their dogs, working in the small garden in front of their house, and children in playing. From the outside the houses are intimidating and to us look like they are on the wrong side of town; however these are nice homes that the people maintain and express themselves with by painting them different colors. The only thing that differs is the style and that a good gate is considered part of a good house. The people here are generally friendly although they are living their everyday lives and know that you are only passing through. However, just as with any city you should be aware of your surroundings, know where you’re going and what things will cost.

Spanish class went well today, the conversation half was really interesting because we all actually had a non-staged Spanish conversation about art and music. Also one of the guys in my class said that he liked to sing and Profesora asked him to sing for us, and he was really good!           We went to the Central Market today to go shopping after class. Our plan was to go to the market and possibly hit up the mini-Paris for lunch. The bus costs about 200 clones or .50 cents and it comes by about a block from the university. We had to wait for the bus for a little bit, but not too long. It was full today when we got on because of the rain (yes it did come back!), but here, like Boone, the rain doesn’t stop people from going about their business. They just pop up their umbrella and keep on going! We stood for the short ride (about 10 min), during which time I was scouting all the landmarks I could remember from the last time I had gone into town. I actually remembered most of them and I saw our stop coming before we got there, but we didn’t need to push the button to tell the driver because it’s the mandatory stop on the line.

 The bus dropped us off right next to the national theater (which is directly in the middle of a line with the National Cathedral and National Museum. There are about 4-5 blocks in between each land mark so we were actually pretty close.  I pointed out where we were going (the national museum is yellow and right next to the market) and headed in that direction. Here’s the thing, if you walk with a purpose and act like you know where you’re going you will be fine in almost any country, two of the girls were dawdling and looking around (especially conspicuous because it was raining and everyone was on a mission to get to a dry place). Still we made it to the market easily and began shopping. One of the first things I saw was a green and white embroidered handbag. I loved it but decided to hold off since it was $18 and I hadn’t looked around much. I walked around without planning to buy much (I’m not so big on kitchy souvenirs) I wanted to get something that I would use in the US as well. I found and amazing beaded hair clip that was $8. The girl who owned the store was really nice and I got to practice my Spanish with her a lot. I decided to get the green beaded clip as my first real Costa Rican purchase. I walked around and looked at the other stalls before going back to see what the other girls were up too.

One girl had been bargaining for a purse for about 20 min and didn’t seem able to decide. I talked to the shop owner for her and he had already come down half price on a leather purse.  I explained it to here and it still took her another 10 min to commit because she wanted him to come down another $5. At this point I thought she was being a little greedy. This was also the same stall that had the purse that I had wanted I talked to the man and he said he would sell it to me for 15 (originally 18) and I got it down to 12. I decided to get it since it was so beautiful and I could see myself wearing it in the US. At this point we had been at the market for about 1hour and I was starting to get really hungry.  I checked with Julie (who hadn’t actually brought anything yet since her strategy was look at everything act like you want to buy it to find out the lowest price and then tell them that you’ll come back later.  I found this very frustrating and ineffective since it took so long and she wasn’t even looking for any specific item to compare prices. I mentioned going to lunch and she said that she just needed to go back to buy things (and she had forgotten where the stuff she liked was). It was kind of annoying since she didn’t seem able to commit to anything and was spending so much time bargaining only to walk away empty-handed.

After about 30 more min we left the market, by which point it was 2:30 and I was really hungry. We walked back up toward the main plaza to get something quick and cheap to eat (or so we thought).  San Jose is very exposed to the forces of globalization and most of the restaurants in the center are American chains (Taco Bell (ironic..), Burger King, Quiznos, Wendy’s) we decided on Wendy’s thing since it’s a chain it should be about the same price as in the US. Wrong. It was actually really expensive, about double the price as in the US. While we were waiting one of the girls had problems converting the amount and she ordered without checking the price. She was also didn’t have here money out to pay and was trying to use a mix of dollars and colones without knowing what they were worth. She was a bit short and I loaned her the money to make up the difference. I only got one wrap and small fries (no drink) and it was 4.00. Some of the things that happened today I don’t think the girls would have done in the US, it reaffirmed my belief that most of the problems people have while abroad they create for themselves. And needless to say we will not be eating at the American chain restaurants anymore.

Afterward we walked back to the bus stop to head back to campus (some of the girls had class at four).  We made plans to go into the city again next Monday to go to eat at the national theater and the Muso del Oro. I was hoping to go back again this week, but we all have presentations and tests on Thursday and Friday that we have to study for, and an excursion this weekend! We decided to go into town twice next week. After my class I decided to go to the tropical dance class. It was so much fun! We learned the merengue and salsa. The teacher was great, she even showed me how to do some new turns and we demonstrated for the class. Of course since study abroad is 75% girls we had to share all the guy partners, but the girl pairs were really fun too! I’m totally going back next week!

My new purse and hair pin! I'm planning on adding a cross-body strap to the purse when I get back!

El Teatro Nacional

                Sunday was a lazy day for me. I slept in a bit, and had the Costa Rican equivalent of huevos rancheros for breakfast. I spent most of the day a home with my tico family and working on homework. I met Randdie’s parents when they came to pick up the rest of the family for dinner. I couldn’t go because I had a concert at 5:00 at the national theater. We were going to see a Costa Rican group perform soul and gospel music! Since we were meeting at the theater, Jessica, Travis and I were planning on taking a bus into the city. We had planned to meet at four to catch the bus at 4:10. Buses in Costa Rica (or just city buses everywhere I don’t know..) don’t really have a posted route, everyone just kind of knows where the stops are. You also have to flag down your bus. The only problem with this is that most of the buses look alike so you have to read the smallish sign on the front of the bus as its coming toward you to find out where it’s going… Needless to say we missed the bus. We ended up sharing a taxi (it only cost about $5) although Jessica said that in the worst case we could have walked, but it would have been about 30 min.  We met Francy in the theater at 4:50 and she had brought an API cell phone (my third attempt to get a working cell phone in Costa Rica). IT WORKED!! I am now the proud barrower of a little Nokia phone. I was really worried when she first gave it to me because I couldn’t remember what I had done with the SIM activation pin… I was starting to stress when I realized that I was missing out on being at a concert in the National Theater, so I said Que sera, and decide to just let it go and live in the moment… a very difficult thing for a planner like me.

                The national theater was built buy the people of Costa Rica at the end of the 19^th century because they wanted their capital to have more arts and cultural events. The money was raised by placing a tax on coffee production (the main industry at the time).  The theater is gorgeous. It is built in a European rococo style with beautiful frescos, neo-greco/roman statues and gilding everywhere! Off of the main lobby they have a beautiful little café where you can get café con leche (as I did) or cakes, soup, and quiche! I absolutely loved it. It’s my own little slice of Europe in Costa Rica! The concert was really good as well! It was all sorts of Motown, Soul, and Gospel music (in English) performed by a 5 man harmony group. For several of the songs they added modern influences and had guest singers one of whom was a really good dancer and did a little bit of rapping! After the concert they came out into the front of the theater and we got to take a picture with them!  It was a really fun time, and to top it off, when I got back my mama tica had made some awesome pasta and Randdie and I watched Inception with Angel and Sofie.

                Tomorrow I have plans to take a bus downtown after my morning classes with some other students to see El Mercado Central and maybe a museum! As I write this I’m eating arroz con leche and listening to the rain… I am so spoiled!

Two Caitlins and Masterkey

El Teatro Nacional

The mountain view out my window!

A little raccoon friend that stole a woman's muffin at the Volcano

The lagoon at the bottom of the crater 

Small farms we passed on the way up the mountain

The oldest church in Costa Rica

The alter of the church

Excursion Pictures!