Staying afloat

Sarah: This is blog #2 - so if you are a devoted follower of our lives and want to read up on our Nicaragua trip, see the entry below before reading this current entry.

Each year it seems that we are more on top of things, more prepared, more organized, etc....and yet, each year we seem to be busier than the previous year! I seriously don't know how that happens. Once January hits, we are usually feeling very confident that our semester program will be easier to run because we have things better planned out than the year before. And I suppose that's true. Yet somehow I'm amazed that right about this time every year, we are wondering if we are going to keep our heads above water and make it to the end. If it's not class preparation, it's trips into San Jose, sick students, injured students, managing 10 students, helping with their research projects, keeping track of finances, and simply doing business in Costa Rica. (And this is not just because we have a baby...as easy as Adele is, it's the other components that are making our lives busier and crazier than ever!)

So a recap of the past couple weeks. After Nicaragua, everyone spent some good quality down time reflecting, getting caught up on sleep, and readjusting their stomachs to our Costa Rican diet. This is often more difficult for some students than for others! The week after Nicaragua, Dr. John Cossel came down to teach his portion on Herpetology (reptiles and amphibians). The first few days were spent here at QERC and the students enjoyed getting to know the lizards and frogs found in our forest.

However, since there aren't a LOT of herps to look for in our high elevation, for the last couple of days of John's week we headed down to the coast. We spent two nights at Dominical Beach, and did a lot of hiking and exploring in the nearby wildlife refuge. Though hot and humid at the beach, it was a nice change from the cooler climate at QERC. And of course there were some exciting herps to find - lots of lizards, a cain toad, a black-and-green poison dart frog, a gladiator tree frog, musk turtles, and a couple of caimans (smaller version of crocodiles). John was actually able to catch a baby caiman, and all of the students gladly passed around, excited for the chance to hold it. Adele and I only joined the group for about half of 2 of the hikes, but she did fairly well hiking around in hot weather!

Another highlight of the trip was an afternoon at a nearby waterhole. This was a treasure David and I discovered a few years ago, and enjoy taking anyone we can to appreciate it as well. The waterhole has a small but beautiful waterfall and a rope swing high on some rocks. It's a lot of fun to watch the local acrobatic kids do flips off the rope swing, and it was good fun for our students to also take their turn.

After Dominical, the students returned to QERC, but John and David and I went on to visit the community of Boruca, where the indigenous tribe Boruca lives. We were there for a short few hours, but it was fun to get to know their home and even more of their customs and traditions. We had a delicious lunch (eaten with just our hands) and a nice conversation before heading back to QERC. Part of the reason we wanted to visit them was to scope it out for a possible field trip in future years for the semester program.

We decided that it would be extremely valuable to include the Boruca trip as a field trip in future years, but for this year it had already been worked out that a few members of the tribe would come and visit our location and do a seminar for us at QERC. Two women and a man showed up the Sunday after our visit with them, and Monday morning gave our students a talk on their culture and traditions. They also spoke about the medicinal plants from their area and how they use the land to do weavings like bags, belts, table runners, etc. A highlight was hearing about the history of their masks and getting an opportunity to purchase some of their most beautiful work. It was a wonderful cultural experience for our students, and a special treat because not even Costa Ricans know much about this indigenous group. Many walked away with souvenirs and gifts, happy to support the people who directly made them.

This past week was a "slower" week - meaning, no professor was scheduled to be at QERC. Because of this, we designated Thursday and Friday to be Spring Break, if the students wanted to take advantage of a longer weekend to do some traveling. About half of our students traveled over to the Caribbean to enjoy some beach time. A few students stayed here with Adele and me, and we had movie nights and some good homemade chocolate baking. And the other few went with David for a one-night birding trip. They stayed with a couple who they'd met here in the valley before, and were able to get in one good afternoon and one good morning of birding. On their way back to QERC, they even spent some time at the waterhole to get in some quality rope swing time. :)