Presentation Night...and goodbyes

Sarah: Well they're gone. All of the students. And it's pretty quiet around here, without the constant noise of activity--games, movies, laughter. They will be missed.

So let me recap their last days at QERC. Things were pretty busy as everyone was preparing for their presentations to the community, not to mention all of the lasts--"one last movie night" or "one last game of 7 up 7 down" as their time here in Costa Rica was coming to an end. As Presentation Night got closer, we were all getting ready--lots of cleaning, rearranging the laboratory into a suitable room, handing out invitations to everyone in the valley, and students getting their research in order to make a good presentation.

Then some interesting things started happening...we had a few crucial power outages. And not the kind that are caused by the weather. On Thursday night, the night before Presentation Night, we had our first power outage. We learned that the power was out throughout the entire country of Costa Rica. The papers reported that it was because of a power generator malfunction at Arenal, so the government and ICE (the only power and communications company in CR) turned off the power in order to work on the problem. The students started having minor freakouts, since they were going to present the following night. On Friday late morning, the power went out again. At this point we were hearing reports that the government had ulterior motives for turning it off--some people suspect that it has to do with the fact that the country is going to be voting on whether or not to ratify the CAFTA agreement. The theory is that if the government can show faults in the power company, they can encourage people to vote in favor of CAFTA, because CAFTA would mean privatizing the power companies. Regardless of why the power was turned off...it was bad timing for us! Friday the students were panicking, trying to finish their power point presentations while trying to conserve their batteries on their computers.

We were relieved when the power came back on around mid-day, giving us plenty of time to bake lots of cookies, make refreshments, and for the students to feel ready about that evening. However...Presentation Night was supposed to begin at 7:00, and right at 6:00 the power went out AGAIN. Talk about frustration! We were somewhat hopeful that the lights would come back on by 7:00...but that didn't happen. A few people showed up anyway, and we got a few phone calls, but sadly the power didn't come back on until 8:00. We decided to call as many people as we could on Saturday and go ahead with the presentations Saturday evening at 7:00.

After the frustrating power outages up until Presentation Night (now on Saturday night), we were nervous that people wouldn't come. However, we were thrilled that around 40 people still ended up coming. And our students were a hit! Everyone got really into their presentations, asked questions, and were genuinely interested in their research. Paola Chacon (their Spanish teacher from the beginning of the semester) interpreted for everyone, and she did an outstanding job. The community was so into the presentations, that it ended up going really late--we didn't end until almost 11:00! The hit of the night was Clint, who had done his research on the water quality of the river that runs through the valley. This was a major issue for community members, especially when Clint showed evidence of E. coli in their river. This turned into a community discussion right in the middle of his meeting, where people started trying to figure out who was the cause of the E. coli. It might be a good thing for Clint that he didn't have the right equipment to figure out the exact source that was causing the problem. That will be a future research project.

Sunday the students packed pretty much all day, so that we could all be ready to head into the city on Monday morning. They had one last day in San Jose to do last-minute souvenir shopping, and then we all met up for dinner and a movie for their last night in Costa Rica. We all stayed out at the apartment connected to the LASP office, so we stayed up late playing games and chatting. Most of them got a couple hours of sleep before their transportation picked them up at 4:30 in the morning. We all gathered in a circle and prayed before they left, and there were lots of tears and sniffles. It was a good goodbye.

David and I are now finding ourselves trying to put back together QERC after being overtaken by 13 college students. :) Saturday we leave to go to Guatemala for a week, which will serve as a good relaxing week and a chance to renew our visas one last time before returning to the states in July. We are looking forward to having some down time!