Traveling

I'll make this quick since I am sitting in a hotel writing this entry...this past week started off pretty slow for David and me. We were all alone for the first time at QERC since...November? It seemed pretty quiet around the building. Wednesday for Valentine's Day we took off to explore some more of the area around our valley and went in search of some hot springs that we had read about. We had sort of thought the trip would take about an hour to get there, hang out and swim, and then an hour back. Ahh culture lessons. After 4 hours of travel, with many people "helping" by giving directions, we finally made it to the hot springs. It was super fun, and a good relaxing way to spend Valentine's Day together. It is a day that's celebrated here in Costa Rica as well, but it's definitely not commercialized like it is in the U.S.

Friday we had 3 researchers come who are doing a many-year project that combines Latin American history and science, studying the Quetzal. It was great to have them around and they even interviewed David on video. This interview will be on the website in the next month or so, and we'll post a link so anyone who wants to can see it. It was a great chance for David to share some of the visions of QERC.

Today we came into the city and went to see El Descanso (The Holiday) which finally came out in movie theaters here. It's so fun for us to be able to see movies for so cheap when we get a chance! And tomorrow, REALLY early, we are getting on a bus to Panama in order to renew our visas again. What a pain, right? Yeah, right. It hardly seems real that our job can include paid trips to other countries every three months. The place we're going is on the Caribbean side and is located on one of the many islands off the coast. Once we're back at QERC in a week, we'll be sure to post pictures.

Presidents and Nicaraguans

Sarah: This week has been full. Last weekend we had a Super Bowl party where I was thrilled to watch the Indianapolis Colts win. We also had some visitors last weekend. A group of students from the LASP program came to spend a couple nights away from the city. We were encouraged to see the two groups interacting and forming friendships.

This week the students have been diving hard into their research projects, actually getting to a point where some of them are even collecting data. It is fun to see their enthusiasm for their projects as they are really starting to take shape. We also went into the city for a couple days. As part of their cultural class with the LASP program, they needed to go in to hear a speaker from Nicaragua and be a part of the Nicaragua orientation. A Nicaraguan woman named Amita gave her story to the entire group. She grew up during the Sandanista revolution and lived through many rough times of change in Nicaragua. Amita was barely able to make it through her talk without crying, and it was emotional for us all to hear. After Amita spoke the students learned more about their upcoming trip to Nicaragua—expectations, purpose, and what to bring and not to bring on the two-week trip. The rest of the day they had free in the city to hang out and make any needed purchases for the trip.

The following day was a real treat. The LASP program had scheduled Otton Solis to speak to their group and invited us to sit in on it as well. Otton Solis is the head of a political party called the PAC, and has twice run for president here in Costa Rica. The first time was when David and I were students, and he caused a run-off between the two top candidates by securing a high enough percentage of the votes that there was no clear winner. The second time he ran was about a year ago, and he lost by a very tiny margin. So, Otton Solis is one of the top political figures in Costa Rica, and he allowed us all to come to his party headquarters to hear him speak. It was awesome. He definitely would have had my vote! It was inspiring to hear his views and political stances on many controversial subjects, and my hope is that in 3 years he becomes the next president of Costa Rica.

And finally, today the students left for San Jose. They leave really early for Nicaragua tomorrow morning. And the professor who is with us now, Sharon Young, leaves tomorrow to go back to the states. And then it will be David and me.

David says:

“It’s always more fun to share with everyone.” – Jack Johnson …. And that is why I want to share this with you. Let me just share that life is super crazy here. I know that life seems to be moving at an accelerated pace for most of you as well. But, that doesn’t change the fact I am in amazement with how fast days are moving for us. So many things are going on that are great to see happening and at the same time I have a long list of things I need and want to get that is growing by the hours. Sometimes those things I want to get done somehow get done before the things I need to get done (ie. this blog entry).

Before those things start moving fleetingly from our minds I thought I would just make mentioning of a few things we are excited about. Take a look at the picture of the recycling bins that Sarah painted. We are now an almost fully functioning recycling drop point. We can’t recycle aseptic packaging yet. We are close to being fully compostable too. I am working on the pile and am close to being done.

I have been spending a good chunk of my days helping some of the students begin the implementation of their research projects. Each student is responsible for a semester long research project that works towards the goals of conservation and natural history learning. A student named Becky is setting up 10 meter x 10 meter grids to measure species diversity of fungus. She will be comparing the growth between the primary forest, secondary forest, and disturbed pasture. We’ve been in the field getting here study plots set up. It’s been a lot of work and it gives me appreciation for the many hours of work field researchers put into the pursuit of knowledge.

One of our goals is to get the students plugged into the community as much as possible. We have paired up the students and arranged for them to eat dinner with one specific family twice a month. It is kind of like an “adopted family” program. We are hoping that it will give them a chance to practice their Spanish and feel like the have friends in the community. At the same time it will help them to gain an outside perspective.

And finally, I went hiking on the beautiful Los Robles trail this morning with a visitor from Philadelphia who is checking out sustainable development programs in Costa Rica. We came across a lizard I have not seen here before and were lucky to get a good picture. It is some type of anole. Check, check, check it out.