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.