Sea turtles, Jabirus, and Ocelots...oh my!

Sarah: The past few weeks have flown by. John Cossel, herpetologist from Northwest Nazarene University, was here for a week teaching about reptiles and amphibians. After that, Sharon Young from SNU was here to find bugs (not hard) and teach about entomology. This was the third of three weeks that the students had professors here on site to teach Topics in Tropical Montane Forest Ecology (the first being Dennis Seigfried from SNU to teach ornithology). All three weeks were busy and tiring for the students, but also proved to be excellent in getting them excited to learn about the critters in the forest right here around us.

After those three weeks were over began some travel time. Most of our students left on a 4 ½ day Spring Break, in which they traveled over to the Caribbean for some much-needed relaxation and beach time. They chose the Caribbean because they won’t be seeing that area of the country during the rest of the semester, and they had a great time renting bikes, exploring Cahuita National Park, and playing in the ocean.

Right after Spring Break, everyone met up in San Jose to begin the Tropical Ecology and Sustainability (TES) course. I did not meet up with them, and stayed here at QERC to host a couple of researchers from the University of Calgary while the group is out traveling. The first half of TES blew everyone’s expectations out of the water! Our 6 students and David met up with 4 students from the Latin American Studies Program and Trevor, our good friend who is the faculty member representing LASP. In only one week, they toured Earth University, hiked around Tirimbina Rainforest Center, visited Arenal Volcano, hiked around Palo Verde National Park, stopped by Casa del Sol, spent some time in Ostional, and ended up back here at QERC exhausted but on cloud nine.

Earth University is an international school for teaching sustainable development and agricultural techniques for tropical countries. The group took a tour to learn about their approach to academics and training students to return to their home countries in order to be agents of environmental change by solving global issues of poverty through sustainable development. Tirimbina Rainforest Center is a privately owned nature preserve originally purchased by a natural history museum in Madison, WI, and is now operated by Costa Ricans with the purpose of promoting research, education, and habitat preservation. The group experienced the Caribbean lowland rainforest with a local guide sharing about rainforest ecology. David claims that their guide Carla was the best guide he’s ever had in Costa Rica! The students enjoyed seeing some cool birds, poison dart frogs, and bullet ants.

At Arenal, the group studied volcanology up close and personal, and had a chance to visit one of our favorite places, Ecotermales. Hot springs are fairly common around the town of La Fortuna, where Arenal is located, and Ecotermales is a family-run hot springs that practices sustainability and conservation efforts when running their business. After a talk from a family member, our group enjoyed time to soak in the warm, tranquil hot springs. From Arenal the group spent time in Palo Verde National Park to study dry forest ecology. They hiked around a lot, studied wetlands, became enamored by the many birds (including the Jabiru, the largest stork in the world standing 5 feet tall), and hit the jackpot when they came across an ocelot on a night hike! The ocelot lounged on a branch in front of them while they were able to watch for about 15 minutes. The picture here is the only picture one student was able to take before his battery died on his camera.

From Palo Verde the group stopped by Casa del Sol, an NGO focusing on local environmental issues that involve cooking, teaching women how to use solar ovens and encouraging families to lessen their consumption of processed foods and increase their consumption of local, native, seeds and grains. The group ate their lunch prepared by the women who are a part of this operation. After Casa del Sol, everyone headed over to the Pacific coast to Ostional to learn about sea turtles. An unexpected surprise was the fact that there was a researcher there who recruited our group to help out with his research on the turtles. Two nights in a row our students broke up into 2 groups, each having a 6-hour shift patrolling the beach in search of the turtles. Once found, the group measured the turtles, tagged them, counted eggs, inserted temperature recording devices for further data collection, and witnessed the entire egg-laying process. On a few occasions this research involved picking up the turtles or wrestling with them in order to take proper measurements!

Now the group is here at QERC to study cloud forest ecology and hear don Efrain Chacon speak about the history of the valley. I’ve enjoyed time to work on my own projects and have some down time, but I have to admit I’m thrilled to have them back!

Nicaragua and other news...

Sarah: A few weeks ago was the start of an 11-day study trip to Nicaragua that David and I facilitated for our students. This was a very similar trip that we did with last year’s semester program, so if things sound familiar….you’re remembering last year’s blog post. :) We went into San Jose on Sunday so we could hear a guest speaker to kick off the trip. Aminta Ortiz, a Nicaraguan with an incredible life-story, spoke to our group about growing up in Nicaragua and living under one of the Samoza’s leadership. She has a very impacting story and enjoys sharing her life and viewpoints with groups who want to hear. After she spoke, our entire group went over to her house where she cooked us Nicaraguan food and we got to hang out with her son and daughter. This was a treat for me, because this was my host family about a year and a half ago when I was working part-time in San Jose.

Monday we headed off to Nicaragua, and after a long day on the bus and a fairly smooth border-crossing, we arrived to our retreat center in Managua, the capital. We took the students on a tour of the historical sites of Managua, stopping at places like the Revolutionary Plaza where the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza regime, the old cathedral that was destroyed in an earthquake, and Loma Tiscapa, one of the most famous locations in Managua. It was here that the U.S. Marines trained the National Guard under the Somoza regime, and where Sandino had his last meal before he was captured and assassinated (arguably the most heroic figure in Nicaraguan history). The place is complete with a museum dedicated to Sandino. In the afternoon we took the students to what we call the “mural church”. It is a church that has all of its walls painted on the inside with murals depicting Nicaraguan history with biblical themes woven in. We also stopped by the Batahola Cultural Center, a really neat center that focuses on reaching out to the community and providing people of all ages a chance to take part in classes ranging from music to cooking. It was an inspiring place to be, after seeing such poverty all around the city.

After our time in Managua we set off for Niquinohomo, Sandino’s birthplace and the small community where our students would take part in their homestay/service learning experience. This too was the same place we went last year, and after a fantastic experience with our students last February, we were excited to return. Each student was placed with a family that they lived with for 6 days, and each family was connected with Rancho Ebenezer, the farm that our students worked at during the days. Our students seemed to enjoy their families and hanging out in the community. Their evenings were filled with countless games of baseball, soccer, traveling around by a moto-taxi, and seeing sights around the small town.

The Ranch where they worked during their days is another very inspiring place, run by a man named Francisco Juarez, whose main focus is teaching and training families to live off of only a ½ acre of land. He puts the family through a program that emphasizes education and family values, and is a process that takes 5 years before the family is complete self-sustainable. The model has proven to be so successful that the Nicaraguan government is working with Francisco to implement the program in poor communities all over Nicaragua in order to fight against poverty. Our students worked alongside the Nicaraguans for the 6 days, helping with projects ranging from shoveling goat poop to feeding the rabbits to building a primitive hut. This is a project that we get very excited about supporting, and as we mentioned last year, if you are interested in taking a group there or supporting them in other ways, look them up (http://www.ranchoebenezer.org/).

While our students were at the Ranch, David and I took the opportunity to scout some places around the country that could serve as potential homestays in the future. With the hope of doubling the number of students we have next year, we would ideally split them up into at least 2 groups. One evening we met up with a couple that were LASP alumni and working in Nicaragua. The project that they are working with sounds very promising. They help set up rural communities with sustainable energy projects, which would be a good fit for a group of our students next year. We also headed out to Ometepe Island and visited a biological research station to see if there were projects going on there for a potential group. The island was beautiful and we enjoyed exploring a little bit, but it doesn’t seem like an ideal location to set our students up for a homestay/service project. Though with many bus rides and taxis, we did feel like we got to know Nicaragua even better this year!

After the time at Rancho Ebenezer, we headed to Granada, an old colonial town to relax a little bit and have some time of reflection. We had some great discussions with our students, and after their experiences in Managua and with their families at the Ranch, it was obvious they were changed people! Their perspectives are now different and they see the world through different eyes, hopefully making them better world citizens and better representatives of Christ.

We also lucked out and were in Granada during the Poetry Festival, so there was a LOT of activity going on. All day there were booths set up, people walking around in masks and costumes, and parades going on. In the evening both nights we were able to hear some famous Nicaraguan and Latin American musicians perform concerts in the center plaza. One of the most famous Nicaraguan singers was there, and sang some incredibly inspiring songs about patriotism and Nicaragua.

We also did some touristy things with our students to give them a break from the intensity of the study-trip, including an island tour. On the island tour, we were on a boat that took us all around small islands, including one called Monkey Island – definitely a highlight!
Now we’ve been back for a week, and enough happened in just one week that I’ll summarize it as well. This last week marked the beginning of professors visiting and teaching classes for the rest of the semester. Dennis Siegfried kicked off the week with ornithology, and it was fun to see the students get into identifying the birds around here.

The most eventful part of the week happened Tuesday evening, however. We also have another professor here, Bruce Hoagland, from the University of Oklahoma. Along with him was one of his graduate students, Scott Shellenberger, who has had involvement with QERC in the past and was excited to come down and show off this special place to his advisor. Unfortunately…while they were standing outside of QERC, Scott was looking up in a tree and took a step backwards and fell down the embankment, almost all the way to the river. He probably fell 30 feet or so, and tumbled hard and injured his back pretty badly. It took many hands and a board to attempt to immobilize him and pull him out of the river, and then it was apparent that he was in enough pain that we needed an ambulance to come pick him up. The good news is that there were no broken bones or internal damage, but he was in enough pain that he was kept in the hospital for 4 nights. Bruce stayed with him the entire time, and David was in and out of the city every day. Instead of being able to stay here two weeks, Scott ended up having to fly back to the U.S. on Saturday after only being here one week.

This weekend didn’t prove to be any less busy, as we welcomed a group of 17 LASP students out to our facility. They had a great time hanging out with our students, and our students did a fantastic job “hosting” them by showing them the trails and exploring the forest with them. Some of our students even convinced some of their students to go with them down to the waterfall and jump off a rock into a small (really really cold) pool of water! It was a good mix of relaxation for the LASP students, and entertainment for our students. Saturday evening our next professor came in – John Cossel from NNU, to teach herpetology to the students. We were excited to have John back at QERC, and while we are hoping that he is able to find many snakes and lizards and frogs for the students to study this week, we are also hoping for an uneventful week this week!