Back in Business

David: If you are a faithful reader of our blog, and we do appreciate those of you who are, you either thought that the Quetzals had gone Alfred Hitchcock on us and Sarah and I have been fighting for our lives all boarded up inside QERC without communication, or you knew that we spent the month of July in the states visiting family and friends. I’m hoping it is the second because I would be very disappointed that no one tried to make a rescue attempt to save us from dive-bombing Quetzals.

Our time in the states was blessed with great fellowship with our families in Washington and Iowa. Spokane was hot and dry and it felt fantastic. We were able to enjoy the relaxing waters of Loon Lake while in Washington as well. Iowa was hot and humid and it too felt great. We were soaking up the heat every where we went. While in Iowa the family stepped away from the normal summer routine and took a road trip to the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. We finished up our time in the U.S. by spending a few days with biology faculty at SNU in Oklahoma. It was an encouraging time to meet and talk about the progress of QERC.

Alas, we are back at QERC in Costa Rica and ready for more great things here in the cloud forest.

Sarah: As soon as we flew back into Costa Rica, two things happened. First, everything was so familiar that it truly felt like we were coming home. Second, we were greeted with guests right away. A good friend from Mission Springs, Steph Cowell, came to Costa Rica with a couple of her friends. The following day we met up with 4 of our fellow alumni from our LASP (Latin American Studies Program) class of Spring 2002. Three of them brought a significant other, and all of us together spent the next week traveling around Costa Rica, and for us LASPers, reliving memories from our semester together here 5 ½ years ago.

We started off the week by bringing everyone here to QERC, and had a great time being able to relax and hike around on the trails. One of those days happened to correspond when a good friend from the states, Wayne Sneed, was also in Costa Rica. Wayne is the President of Orphanos Foundation, an organization through whom I traveled to Brasil a few times for mission work. He came for a night at QERC to see where we live and experience the cloud forest. That night was definitely a mix of my worlds all coming together, randomly in Costa Rica!

Our Mission Springs/LASP alumni group took off and spent a couple of days at Manuel Antonio, enjoying the beaches and the hiking trails. The major highlight for me, besides seeing three kinds of monkeys and a number of sloths, was seeing a poisonous snake! The eyelash viper was right off the trail, asleep and wrapped around a small branch of a tree. After Manuel Antonio we headed for a quick trip to Arenal Volcano, where we enjoyed a rainy evening by sitting in some really relaxing hot springs and took a short hike over the lava rocks by the volcano the following day. We were even fortunate to see lots of spitting red lava roll down the volcano at night!

After saying goodbye to Steph and her 2 friends, the rest of us LASP alumni and company headed back for a last night in the city. We were able to get together with a number of LASP staff, both from our semester and current staff, for a dinner catered by David’s Costa Rican host mom. It was a great last night for all of us, being back in the LASP building to reminisce about old times before everyone had to leave the next morning.

Now we are adjusting to our life back at QERC once again. We are right in the middle of our rainy season, which means it is possible for it to rain MANY hours of the day. Despite the rain, we are glad to be back to work and have many projects already underway. I have also taken on a couple more tasks during this slower season – starting in September, I will be receiving Spanish classes in San Jose. I am thrilled for the opportunity to refine my Spanish and hopefully become more fluent while the opportunity presents itself to do so. Because I will be in the city 3 days a week for tutoring, I have also agreed to work part-time for LASP doing some administrative tasks for them this semester.