San Jose again

Sarah: Well we made it back from San Jose. Let me recap our trip. We got in fairly early on Wednesday and did some shopping with Dennis that he wanted to do before returning to the states, and then we made it out to PriceSmart (like Costco) to do some shopping ourselves too. I also need to mention that we now can stay at the sabbatical house that LASP owns anytime we come into the city. So, we enjoyed a free place to stay this time, and we really liked being so close to the LASP office.

Thursday was our day of errands. We had a long list of items to buy again, so we made the rounds to our normal places—a home store, a hardware store, and some random places downtown. We were even able to do some Christmas/birthday shopping! It was a joy to ride busses and taxis all over the city—always a cultural experience. We even made a stop to the National Museum to talk to a guy in the herbarium. There is a tree here in the valley that the quetzals are eating right now, and no one knows what kind of tree it is. There are only 2 trees in the valley of this species. David identified the genus and we went looking for help with the species. This statue was just built in San Jose about a couple months ago, and we saw many, many ticos stopping to take pictures of it.

Since we got most of our errands done on Thursday, Friday and Saturday was spent with people. Friday we went to the doctor. As many of you know, David was diagnosed with thyroiditis before we came down here to Costa Rica. Because of that, he’s not on medication but needs to get blood tests done every 6-8 weeks. The doctor that we saw is also the one that QERC has been using for a number of years, so we set up an appointment to chat with him and also to get David checked up. The doc sounded positive about David, and we’ll get the results of the blood tests in the next few weeks. For lunch we met Anthony Chamberlain (director of LASP). It was intended to be a casual get-to-know you lunch, since we don’t know him well, but we ended up talking about business for the most part. It was great to spend time with him and bounce ideas off him. We went to the University of Costa Rica (UCR) in the afternoon to meet with a professor who is looking to do some research here at QERC in the spring. It was exciting to get to know him and hear of his hopeful plans—he is waiting to see if he has received some grant money to do the research here, which would be catching quetzals and DNA testing them. He would also possibly put radio trackers on them to figure out their migrating habits. Finally on Friday night, we went to have dinner with David’s Costa Rican family. His sister Sophia had her boyfriend and another friend over to eat with us as well. The boyfriend, Pablo, was someone David knew and really liked while he studied here. They were all about our age, so it was fun to eat with them and share a lot of laughter. They will be fun to get together with in the future! It was great to have David’s tican mom cook for us too—she’s a professional chef.

Saturday we went to InBio, a National Biodiversity Institute. It had animal displays (a butterfly garden, snake tanks, frog tanks, etc.), and paths to walk through examples of the different ecosystems found here in Costa Rica. It was beautiful and we saw lots of neat wildlife—both in cages and in the wild (like this wild spider)! And Saturday evening we went out with Luis and Gabi, the couple that was out here at QERC a few weeks ago and who helps us out a lot with business and simple Costa Rican questions. We went to the bookstore where Gabi works, and then went to the mall to do some Christmas shopping with them. We ended the evening by going to a movie, which was a real treat. (We saw The Guardian, a very good movie.)

Sunday we got up and packed up and took off…driving a car! Anthony actually has a car that he’s fixing up and getting ready to sell soon, so while they have an extra car they are letting us borrow one of theirs for a cheap price for November and December. We are extremely grateful! After stopping at our Hipermas to do our monthly grocery shopping, we made it back safely to our home in the valley. We now have plenty of work to do, after a few key purchases and with some items that Dennis brought down and are excited to get back to work.

Routine

Sarah: I guess you can say we’ve settled into a routine, since I’m having a hard time thinking of what we’ve done for the past number of days! A bit of exciting news, we got our rain gauge set up so it’s fun right now to check every morning and see how much rain we got from the day before. Other than that, we’ve done lots of data entering and continuing work on past research projects.

A professor from Southern Nazarene University (SNU), Dennis Siegfried, has been in Costa Rica for the past two weeks at a conference and came out to QERC on Sunday. He brought lots of goodies for us from the states—a laminator, new CR and USA flags, some books we had left, hand warmers, bread yeast, and other random things. Here is the neat connection with Dennis—besides now being a co-worker at SNU, he did the LASP program like David and I did, so he knows some of the same professors. And, to make things even more connected, he studied in the program the same year as Scott and Dawn Smithson, so he knows them fairly well. Scott was our boss while we worked in California the past two years, and he and Dawn became good friends of ours.

Monday we all got up early and hiked Los Robles trail, the only trail I hadn’t done before. It was a long hike, and even longer since David and Dennis enjoyed stopping for every bird and insect along the way. (Take note of the interesting fly we came across.) We had great weather—it only misted a little bit—and Los Robles takes you across one of the ridges so we had great views. The old oak trees on the trail are incredible. They are so big; it reminded me a little bit of being back in the redwoods in California.

Today we visited the family Dennis stayed with when he was a student here, and they were super nice. They were very welcoming to David and I, and we’re excited to get to know them better in the future. The father, Gerardo, told us about a tree that’s fruiting up in the orchards that attracts quetzals, so we drove up in the orchards to check it out. We ended up seeing 4 quetzals up there! What a gorgeous bird. It’s been fun to be able to show someone some of the work that we’ve been doing, and Dennis has been helping with more ideas for the future and taking care of some technical issues we’ve had with the computers. Tomorrow we head back into San Jose for the rest of the week to meet with some people at the University of Costa Rica (UCR), make a few more purchases for our home and the building, and also to do our monthly grocery shopping.

Patience is a virtue

Sarah: It seems to me that whenever I pray for patience, all of a sudden I’m faced with a number of situations that tests that so-called patience I was wanting. So in all honesty I don’t like to pray for patience. But, it we’ve been faced with some interesting situations here in the valley lately that has tested the patience I haven’t prayed for, and thus caused me to pray for patience to come quickly. The first has to do with our first group that came last week. They had only been here a few hours and were getting ready for Efrain Chacon (the patriarch of the family) to come be a guest lecturer, when our power went out. Now, this has happened before, but only lasted a matter of minutes. This time it was getting closer and closer to dusk, and closer to the time Efrain was going to speak. So David and I scrounged up some candles and spread them all around the room. Thankfully, the power came back just as Efrain was finishing up, so we didn’t have to worry about what to do for the group for the rest of the evening.

On a brighter note, it was really great to be able to play host and hostess for the group. They were a group of college students from the States, studying down here at the Center for Sustainable Development Studies. It was fun to get to talk to a number of them. David was a guest speaker for their group in the evening, and he did a great job. He received many encouraging comments afterward, and there were quite a few adults and students interested in what we have going on here at QERC. So, who knows where that will lead in the future! The group got up early to do a field exercise looking at the relationship between hummingbird feeders causing lack of pollination. They even used mist nets to capture some hummingbirds, which was fascinating to see.

Ok back to patience. Last Friday our phone lines went out and didn’t come back until Tuesday morning. Talk about isolation! We weren’t even able to get on the internet, so we were without any communication both within the country and out of the country for days. The only way to talk to anyone here was venturing out in the middle of pouring rain to find someone to talk to. We even lost all power for a good number of hours again on Saturday.

Finally, tonight was another time we really needed to practice patience. We had been planning on having each of the families in the valley over for dinner, to reach out to the community and establish better relationships with them. Today I went to visit Efrain and his wife Caridad to see if they would be our first guests. They were delighted and were planning on coming to dinner around 7:00. So we spent all day getting ready—cleaning, straightening up, preparing topics of discussion, etc. It was almost 6:00 and I had already made the bread, the brownies, the fresh juice, and the salad stuff was ready to go. 10 minutes earlier I had put the rice in the rice cooker, and the chicken was cooking on the stove. When…oh yes, the power went out again. We had no idea what to do! Efrain called shortly after and said it was ok to reschedule for another evening, but we felt awful. We invited them to eat at the restaurant with us, but after Efrain called the restaurant, he said that there were so few guests and no lights that they weren’t prepared for us to eat there. David and I were bummed our meal was ruined—and theirs too. We lit candles and figured the power wouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning, but alas, 20 minutes later, the power came back on. We were putting our meal back together and I called back Efrain. His daughter who lives with them answered (who was also going to come for dinner) said that once the lights went out, Efrain and Caridad turned in for the night! So a simple power outage for 20 minutes caused our entire evening to be changed. Such is life here in the valley! And thanks to whomever of you is praying for patience for us…I think we have a good handle on it. :)

Here Comes The Rain, Rain Rain on My Face, Singing the Rain

David: Think of every song title containing the word rain, then arrange them as a “Rainy Day” play list on your itunes and play them all back to back and they length of the play time would not out last the length of time it has been raining here. We are finally getting some typical October weather in the Talamanca Mountains and that means that it rains hard and long. It can rain in the morning, afternoon, and night. The rain has no consideration in keeping a schedule. It actually kind of feels like winter even though everything is green. We have had some life around QERC the past few days which. Anthony Chamberlain, the director of the Latin American Studies Program, and his family stayed a night here. Their oldest son was with a youth group retreat at a Christian adventure campground here in the valley and he decided that he wanted to baptized in the Savegre River, brrrr. So the Chamberlains came to see the baptismal service. It was great to have some guests here, even though they were not here to use the facility in a scientific way. We enjoyed getting to know the Chamberlains better and witnessing a baptism service.

The day the Chamberlains left a professor from New Hampshire who is in Costa Rica on sabbatical stopped by to check out our facilities. He is collecting aquatic plants for InBio in an attempt to make an aquatic plant field guide of Cost Rica. It was a pleasure to talk with him and about his work. He also is a professor with Au Sable.

And finally, we have our first real group coming in today. It is a very last minute contact that worked out perfectly. We have been getting ready for them and are excited to have this place being used.

Besides the spike in personal contact with people, this week has marked the beginning of some new projects. I have been working outside on a few things including making some stairs that will make access to the river easier so that water quality testing is doable from our property. Sarah continues to grow more confident in her cooking. She is doing a fantastic job. She also has made very good headway on organizing the research papers that are here and in need of order so that future researchers and members of the community can have easy access to the work that has been done. Once they are organized we will scan than to make a digital library and have them bound in hard back and work on a visual presentation that will summarize the larger projects so that the people in the valley can come in and see what has been accomplished here. This is one of the more important goals for us; for the community to have a connection to what is happening at QERC. Of course, filling the hummingbird feeders is one of the more taxing duties that I have throughout the week.

Taxi rides, friends and families, and a dead guy

The past few days we have spent in San Jose. This past weekend, some new friends from San Jose came to visit us—Luis and his wife Gabi. They have worked with QERC in the past, so they came to meet us and while they were here, they took over our kitchen and cooked all our meals for us. It was great to get to know them and they are a great contact and resource for us here in Costa Rica. When they went back home on Sunday, we rode into the city with them.

Since David and I spent most of our time in the city when we were here as students, we really felt like we were at home in San Jose. We had a great time running errands, shopping for QERC, and meeting up with people. We had lots of purchases to make for the reception area, the laboratory, the snack bar, and some things for our apartment. We got to ride taxis all over the city and visit lots of different stores.

One of our errands was to stop by the University of Costa Rica (UCR). We met with a professor of entomology (insects, for those non-biology majors like myself), who is helping us with our own insect collection at QERC. It was fun to be on a college campus, and we hope to make more connections there in the future and host student groups and professors who utilize our facility for education and research.

Our first night we stayed at a hotel right near the downtown area, and it was pretty nice and quaint—with the exception of a bunch of parakeets squawking outside the window and taxis honking at 5:30 in the morning. We had wanted to check out a few hotels in the area. When we woke up in the morning, we went to a market downtown to do some bargaining. When we returned, we were walking back to our room and David saw two policemen standing outside one of the rooms. He glanced in as we walked past, and exclaimed “there’s a dead guy in there!” So later I went back to check it out as well, and sure enough, I saw his legs also. The rest of him was covered up with a blanket. A hotel worked we asked said that he was old and died in his sleep. At this point there were lots of people swarming around the room, and since we had already discussed checking out another hotel, we decided that was a good time to check out. :) So we walked across the street and checked into another one. We liked this one even better and stayed there the next two nights.

One outing that was really fun for us was visiting LASP (Latin American Studies Program), which is the program that we studied with 4 ½ years ago. We made our way to the building and surprised some of our old professors. Only two of the people we knew were there, but we got to meet Anthony Chamberlain who is the director of LASP, but was on sabbatical during our semester. The students are all in Nicaragua right now, along with the rest of the professors, but we had a great time catching up with don Gerardo (who was my professor of the literature concentration) and dona Jessica (who is the receptionist). Anthony will actually be coming out to stay at QERC this weekend, while his son is getting baptized at the Christian campground nearby. It felt like we were with old friends visiting with them, and they have offered for us to stay at the sabbatical house down the road from the LASP building anytime we are in San Jose in the future.

Another really fun outing was going to visit our families that we lived with while we were here as students. We first took a taxi to David’s house, and it happened to be absolutely POURING rain when we got there. We had just seen a teenage boy go into the house, and we even saw the TV turn on, but no one would answer the door when we knocked. But as it was pouring, we couldn’t even walk the 5 blocks or so to my house without getting drenched, so we waited for about 25 minutes under cover outside David’s house. Finally, I saw David’s mom peeking out the window, so after a minute or so, she let us in. She said she thought we were just a couple of gringos passing by, taking shelter from the rain! It was a neat homecoming for David and his family. His mom was so surprised, and she called up both his sisters and his dad and put David on the phone to surprise them. His sister Sophia came home right away and was thrilled to see us. We had a great time chatting with them, and right when we were leaving, his dad showed up. They gave each other big hugs! They all insisted that we call them up next time we are in town and we can go eat there for dinner.

Sophia then drove us to my parents’ house, and they were equally surprised. We were greeted with big hugs from my parents, and it felt great to be home again. My youngest sister was 10/11 when I was last there, and she is now 15! She has changed quite a bit, though my parents are exactly the same. We ended up eating dinner with them—soup, which happened to be one of my favorite things about Costa Rica as a student. My older sister is now married to a guy from Michigan, but she is coming to visit Costa Rica in a few weeks and we’ll get to see her then.

Another friend we met up with is a friend from my college, Meagan Anderson. She and I both did a Summer of Service at the children's home in Brasil, and got to know each other through that commonality. Meagan has been living in the San Jose area for just over a year, and it was really good to connect with her for breakfast before we left the city. And while it was nice and felt comfortable and welcoming to be in the city, I have to admit that it is nice to be back here in the valley and be able to wake up only to the sound of the river behind our house. :)

Down the Road

Sarah: Today was a really fun day for us. A man named Juan Carlos drives a van shuttle service, so we asked him to pick us up this morning. He arrived at 6:45 and drove us to the top of the road, where we began our journey down. Today we wanted to walk the entire road down into the valley (10km) and stop at all of the businesses and shops to meet people and introduce ourselves. First of all, it was a beautiful walk! Being so high up we had great views of the entire valley and cloud forest, so we spent a lot of time admiring God’s creation around us.

We started the day with a really great (and super cheap) breakfast at a Soda, owned by Elsa. She happens to be the mother of Michael, who is a friend of Rigo, Liseth’s husband. (Did you follow all that?) Michael went with us to Palmar Norte when we visited Rigo’s parents. So, we had a nice visit with Elsa, and she even offered to teach me how to make authentic Costa Rican bread sometime. We look forward to continuing a friendship with her and her family in the future.

Continuing down the road, we stopped at some more restaurants and lodges and met lots of new people. There really are not very many shops or pulperias (places that sell food like a mini-tiny grocery store) in this whole valley, we found out! We did go to a very classy art store that had beautiful woven baskets and jewelry and pieces of art from all over Latin America, but unfortunately it was out of our price range. The owner hails from Holland (yay Dutch!) and is married to a Colombian woman, and they travel all over Latin America to find artwork and then sell it in the valley. He is also a biologist and will be a great resource for us!

Have we ever talked about the rain here in Costa Rica? Right now we are in the rainy season, which basically means that it is supposed to rain a lot every day. It rarely starts before 11:00 am, and it can possibly rain on and off (or just on) until around 6:00 pm. The last week and a half have been wonderful days, with only short periods of rain throughout the day, but sunny for the most part. Today was more what one should expect during the rainy season. About halfway down the road (about 10:45) it started raining on us. And as I write this now at 5:30 pm, it is still raining. We still had a great time visiting with people, but our walking speed increased quite a bit and we were both huddled under one umbrella while heavy rain and thunder were all around us! During one of the heaviest times, we met a woman named Ercilia who invited us in to wait it out for a bit. She is a friend of Liseth’s and was really nice. Her 6-year old daughter, Monica, kept bringing out things to show us, like her brand new puppy (yay!) and some of her favorite school books.

Once we got closer to our home, maybe a couple kilometers away, it started raining hard again so we stopped for lunch at another lodge. David ordered trout, and as you can see by the picture, he got a whole trout. We left while it wasn’t raining quite as heavy, but not too far into our final descent, we got poured on again! It was an adventure, and a very fun day of meeting new people and exploring new places.

Inner Contents of a Cloud

David: Here is something interesting about living in a cloud forest; sometimes you are completely in the clouds. This afternoon Sarah and I were watching an episode of “Arrested Development” while taking a break from lab and storage duty as a cloud passed by our bedroom window. It was pretty cool to be inside a passing cloud. I told Sarah to get her head out of the clouds.
Sarah and I had a nice U.S. night last night. We ate hot dogs and French fries while watching the first game of the Yankees/Tigers series. Baseball and hotdogs! It was a good night.
Everyday life is passing fairly fast as we’ve been working on the organization and clean up of the laboratory and storage room. It doesn’t sound like much, but it sure has been. It is funny how rewarding it can be to see an area organized and ready to be used. And it can’t hurt to know what lab and field equipment is lurking on the shelves and in the plethora of storage trunks. We are really close to being done with both of those areas.
We were really glad for the fact that the mess we’ve made here is finally started to clear up when, today, Marino Chacon, who is the eldest of son of Efrain, came by leading a tour group of students from CATIE. CATIE is a university here in Costa Rica where students from all over Latin America come to study tropical agriculture and sustainable development. They came to San Gerardo de Dota to observe the sustainable development model that the Chacon family has set up using eco-tourism for income while protecting the environment. QERC is a part of that story and Marino wanted to share that with them too. It was so encouraging to see this group of ten students coming from all over Latin America because they want to learn how to take care of people and take care of the earth at the same time. It was also interesting to hear Marino share the story of the valley with these students. He shared all the successes of his family as well the downfalls of tourism. Downfalls such as trash production and the effects of the trout ponds on the once bountiful frog population have come along with the blessing of a sustainable business. Are there answers to these problems? Maybe, but sometimes the answers are not easy to put into action. We did just find out that the Hotel Savegre is starting a community recycling program and putting in a water reclamation system to clean wastewater. Those are perfect examples of how a community can show its dedication to conservation, and also earn its certification for as a sustainable eco-tourism business, which goes a long way for promotion here in Costa Rica.
The picture is of the study lounge that is located upstairs in the middle of the dormitory rooms. It is a favorite place of ours for reading because the sun warms the room up and the hanging chairs are really comfortable. We just relocated the library up there, so although you can't see in the picture, the room is one of our most recent accomplishments.

TGIF

Sarah: I can’t believe it’s already Friday! Seems like this week went by really fast. We went on another hike on Wednesday on a trail called La Cascada, and it was beautiful. It was pretty muddy and wet, but we walked along this creek for a while and through the jungle and then saw the beautiful cascades. Looks like a place we might be able to swim in the future! It’s also been a beautiful week as far as weather goes. We’re hoping that last year was a unique year and this year won’t be the same. All week long it hasn’t rained for more than 20 minutes at a time and it’s been really sunny and even warm. Liseth says it wasn’t like this at all last year; the rain actually picked up and rained all day and night during October and November. Today it’s back to the rain…so hopefully it’s not here to stay.

Once again, David’s been staying busy cleaning the lab. It’s been a big task and we’ll both be excited when everything here is clean and ready for guests. Then we’ll be able to get some projects going and be on the trails doing research. Hopefully you can see what a mess he’s created so far by tearing apart the lab! I’ve been able to help some, but with my lack of science experience, especially in labs, sometimes it’s best if I leave the organizing to David. I have read a couple of good books—The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (one of my all-time favorites) and Daughter of Fortune, by Isabel Allende. I’ve also spent a lot of time in the kitchen, trying to figure out this whole cooking thing.

Finally, the last picture is of Rambo. This is Liseth’s dog that often tags along when she comes to work, but today when Liseth went home, Rambo stayed behind. We’re not sure if it’s because he didn’t see her leave, or if it’s because he didn’t want to walk home in the rain. We’re also not sure if he’s planning on staying the weekend until Liseth comes back on Monday and he can follow her home then! He has already made himself at home, taking an afternoon nap on a mop. :) Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Back to Work

Sarah: Happy Monday everyone! Well here’s the story. Yesterday we took the day of rest to heart and pretty much did just that. We were able to download a podcast from Twin Lakes Church in Aptos, CA, which was one of the churches we attended while we were living near Santa Cruz. The church that we actually attended most frequently doesn’t have the capability for podcasts yet, but we were thankful for the message we got to hear. And after that, rest we did! David enjoyed a day full of watching football games, and I don’t think either one of us moved around much during the day.

So today being Monday, it was back to work for us. :) One of our tasks for being here is to obtain a satellite reading of each of the trails on GPS, so to start off our workday we went on a hike. It was beautiful! We went on the trail Las Cataratas (the waterfalls) and it was a great experience. The trails lead us through the forest in a way that it felt like we were new explorers finding our way. We crossed the river a few times, across logs and metal bridges that swayed slightly. And on the steep parts there were ropes for us to grab on. Finally we rounded a corner and saw the spectacular sight of the waterfall, and with all the rain we’ve been getting, it was quite a powerful sight. Enjoy the pics. And as a sidenote, I just realized that if you click on the pictures you can enlarge them--so you should go back and check out those macaws close up if you haven't already.

Palmar Norte

David says : “Mucho calor, si?” (translated as “It’s so hot my face is going to melt off, yes?”) That was the popular phrase of the past two days as we went on a short Thursday-Friday trip with Liseth, our housekeeper, and Rigo, her husband. Knowing that we do not have a means of transportation to leave the valley to seek out any heat, they invited us to visit Rigo’s parents with them. Rigo’s parents, Vera and Francisco (which is a fun name), are in there ‘60s and ‘70s and live outside of Palmar Norte, a small town on the south pacific lowlands about two hours from Panama. If you know anything about the topography and climate and Costa Rica, you know that the pacific lowlands are the quintessential humid jungles of the tropics. Here you experience the type of heat that makes your skin look and feel like fly tape. But don’t worry, it is gorgeous, and the short period of heat is very welcomed when you are coming from a cold mountain community.
Vera and Francisco live an almost completely sustainable life on their own up on a mountainside. They were very impressive, for their age and sadly with Francisco’s heart failing. They grow their own fruits and vegetables and raise cows, chickens, and pigs that provide their milk, eggs, and meat. I think the only thing they have to really buy is feed for their animals. What a life. We also gathered that they don’t get out much when Sarah and I told Vera that we were going to walk on the road towards the river and she had a horrified look of panic on her face that said we would maybe not return because of all the dangers lurking out there (granted there were crocodiles in the river). Their hospitality was incredible and was accompanied by a steady diet of rice, beans, meat, and coffee. Vera also found much pleasure in calling us by as many endearing child-like terms she could think of. We had a great time as we sweated it out. The scenery was beautiful as we could hear Howler Monkeys proclaiming their presence in the forest up the mountains and could see the incredible Scarlet Macaws flying over in small flocks. Wow!