News

Sarah: Well we keep plugging away at projects here at QERC. I have been writing postcards to all of the biology departments within the CCCU (Council for Christian Colleges and University) trying to promote QERC a bit, and David has been working outside landscaping during the mornings while it isn't raining. He is switching out all of the non-native ornamental plants for native plants--so as to give a good representation of the plants that grow here in the valley. His hope is to make signs for the different plants, allowing for anyone who shows up at QERC (students, researchers, and even passing tourists) to have and educational experience just by walking around outside the building.

While David has been working outside, he has been fortunate to see many Quetzals fly back and forth right in front of him. The other day he actually saw a juvenile Quetzal with its father. He witnessed the father teaching its baby how to fly into the aguacatillo trees and eat some of the fruit off the tree. Pretty spectacular.

We also have a new neighbor here in the valley. For many months now we have been watching a house go up across the river from where we live and had heard that a gringo was going to be moving in. Harlan showed up at our place last weekend to introduce himself, and since he's been so happy to find someone who he can speak English with, we've talked every day since then! He is an early-retired man who is looking to spend half the year living and saving money in Costa Rica, and the other half the year traveling around the world. Harlan most recently lived in Los Angeles and worked doing documentary voice-overs for different shows including E-Hollywood Story, Pioneers of Primetime, and Modern Marvels. We had him over for dinner last night and had a good time getting to know him better.

And for some not-so-happy news, Lizeth (our housekeeper) told us today that she is putting in her two-weeks notice. It has been a long time coming, but we were still shocked with how soon she'll be leaving. Her husband is currently living with his parents a few hours south of us and is working on building them a house on his parents' property so he can better care for them and their land. Lizeth and the rest of her family have been deciding when to join him, and she finally decided that she wanted some time at home with her kids right now as they begin packing up and getting ready to move. We are really sad about the loss of Lizeth, and a bit overwhelmed as we need to find someone to replace her already next week so she can be trained by Lizeth.

Seasons Changing

David: It is a treat to observe seasons change. I think that an extremely rewarding exercise is to closely observe the changing seasons in a place where you can closely look at the details around you. Here we are seeing more rain, new flowers, new bugs, and we are missing the migratory birds that have returned once again to northern climates to raise kids.

Seasons have changed in more than air temperature and levels of water in the rain gauge. We lost our students to the end of the semester so the crazy college season is transitioning into a slower paced season of projects and short-term student groups and researchers. Actually, right now we have two professional photographers here who are working on a collection of moth and butterfly photographs. They are trying to take a more artistic approach versus the traditional nature photography close up shot.

There is also a married couple who is beginning to use our facilities here and will continue to be here off and on over the next few years. They are combining their biology and sociology interests to put together a very interesting PhD project. The project is looking at the correlation of forest conservation to quality of life of the people that live in the areas of conservation. They are focusing on the area of Los Santos which is an area that we are a part of.

Besides staying busy with hosting and small projects like landscaping with native plants we were lucky to have a couple of our friends visit us recently. Jason and Jana Grenn found themselves in Costa Rica, all the way from Alaska, for vacation and a visit to the Hilles. We were able to take a few days to join them on the south pacific coast and then brought them here to QERC to enjoy the cloud forest.

It was a blessing to share a few days with the Grenns and we had some highlights along the way. Jason and I rented some boogie boards in Dominical and shredded the nar-nar. The waves were pretty big. We spent more time rolling inside the waves than actually riding them. There was one particular rogue wave that as it crashed over me all I could think about was the wave in “The Perfect Storm.” I was Mark Whalberg and Jason was George Clooney. Jason took the brunt of it and went down with the ship.

We drove the Costenara highway south with them and on the way to Ojochal we stopped at a waterfall to check it out. It ended up being a diamond in the rough. It was a beautiful swimming hole with a picturesque waterfall. But, the kicker was that there was a rope swing. As my grade school campers at Mission Springs taught me to say, it was off the chain. A few local kids were there showing off and Jason and I couldn’t come close to being as acrobatic as they were.

We enjoyed a couple relaxing rainy days at QERC drinking hot chocolate and playing Carcassone. Then, we took them on the indisputable thrill of their vacation and probably our time here in Costa Rica. We rafted the Pacuare River again. Only this time in the rainy season and the river was pumping. Roberto, owner of Tico River Adventures, told me that if the river was any higher they would have canceled the trip, and if the group was anyone but us they also would have canceled. It was serious stuff. Normally the river takes 4 ½ hours to raft. The river was moving so swiftly that we finished it in 2 ½ . That means that the rapids were huge too. It was 110% of your daily recommended adrenaline. Sarah and I are back at QERC, still limping around because our muscles are so sore.

There and Back Again

David: We’ve been there and now we’ve been back again. Guatemala. As students we spent two weeks in Guatemala almost exactly five years ago. In need to renew our Costa Rican visas and use some free time at a RCI resort gifted to us by Dad and Mom Gosselink, we found ourselves in Antigua, Guatemala for a week of relaxation and cultural exposure.

Antigua is a very well maintained colonial town that is now the home of a hot tourist spot. It maintains its integrity of a colonial town and makes for a great spot to people watch, eat good food, and enjoy the view of three beautiful volcanoes. We really enjoyed our time there.

One place in Guatemala that has intrigued Sarah and I is the Mayan ruins at Tikal in the northern most part of Guatemala. We thought we might try to work in a visit while in Guatemala. So…… the adventure commenced. We took a very long bus ride and spent all day Tuesday there exploring the ruins. It was worth it as we now can say we have seen the Mayan ruins hidden deep in the rainforests of Guatemala. The ruins were very interesting and impressive. The rainforest was full of life as well. One of the highlights had to have been seeing a troop of Spider Monkeys walk across a set of ruins on their their back feet. It felt like we were in a scene from the Jungle Book. In fact, I did have a giant boa constrictor try to hypnotize me.

Having plenty of time to relax in Antigua, we decided to take another trip to a far off destination. This time it was Honduras. Neither of us had been before and Copan was only a short 5 hours away. Actually, it really didn’t seem that short. The ride seemed long but it was really interesting to see so much of the country side of southern Guatemala. And what was really interesting was that as soon as we crossed the border into Honduras there was an evident difference in the people and the homes. All the men wear cowboy hats. We spent our time in the city of Copan just soaking up the Honduran lifestyle. It was a cool experience for a super long day of travel.

So, Guatemala is a beautiful country. The people are beautiful too. One interesting thing was that we saw many North American couples with their newly adopted Guatemalan babies. Anyway, we had a great time and our visas our now renewed.

Presentation Night...and goodbyes

Sarah: Well they're gone. All of the students. And it's pretty quiet around here, without the constant noise of activity--games, movies, laughter. They will be missed.

So let me recap their last days at QERC. Things were pretty busy as everyone was preparing for their presentations to the community, not to mention all of the lasts--"one last movie night" or "one last game of 7 up 7 down" as their time here in Costa Rica was coming to an end. As Presentation Night got closer, we were all getting ready--lots of cleaning, rearranging the laboratory into a suitable room, handing out invitations to everyone in the valley, and students getting their research in order to make a good presentation.

Then some interesting things started happening...we had a few crucial power outages. And not the kind that are caused by the weather. On Thursday night, the night before Presentation Night, we had our first power outage. We learned that the power was out throughout the entire country of Costa Rica. The papers reported that it was because of a power generator malfunction at Arenal, so the government and ICE (the only power and communications company in CR) turned off the power in order to work on the problem. The students started having minor freakouts, since they were going to present the following night. On Friday late morning, the power went out again. At this point we were hearing reports that the government had ulterior motives for turning it off--some people suspect that it has to do with the fact that the country is going to be voting on whether or not to ratify the CAFTA agreement. The theory is that if the government can show faults in the power company, they can encourage people to vote in favor of CAFTA, because CAFTA would mean privatizing the power companies. Regardless of why the power was turned off...it was bad timing for us! Friday the students were panicking, trying to finish their power point presentations while trying to conserve their batteries on their computers.

We were relieved when the power came back on around mid-day, giving us plenty of time to bake lots of cookies, make refreshments, and for the students to feel ready about that evening. However...Presentation Night was supposed to begin at 7:00, and right at 6:00 the power went out AGAIN. Talk about frustration! We were somewhat hopeful that the lights would come back on by 7:00...but that didn't happen. A few people showed up anyway, and we got a few phone calls, but sadly the power didn't come back on until 8:00. We decided to call as many people as we could on Saturday and go ahead with the presentations Saturday evening at 7:00.

After the frustrating power outages up until Presentation Night (now on Saturday night), we were nervous that people wouldn't come. However, we were thrilled that around 40 people still ended up coming. And our students were a hit! Everyone got really into their presentations, asked questions, and were genuinely interested in their research. Paola Chacon (their Spanish teacher from the beginning of the semester) interpreted for everyone, and she did an outstanding job. The community was so into the presentations, that it ended up going really late--we didn't end until almost 11:00! The hit of the night was Clint, who had done his research on the water quality of the river that runs through the valley. This was a major issue for community members, especially when Clint showed evidence of E. coli in their river. This turned into a community discussion right in the middle of his meeting, where people started trying to figure out who was the cause of the E. coli. It might be a good thing for Clint that he didn't have the right equipment to figure out the exact source that was causing the problem. That will be a future research project.

Sunday the students packed pretty much all day, so that we could all be ready to head into the city on Monday morning. They had one last day in San Jose to do last-minute souvenir shopping, and then we all met up for dinner and a movie for their last night in Costa Rica. We all stayed out at the apartment connected to the LASP office, so we stayed up late playing games and chatting. Most of them got a couple hours of sleep before their transportation picked them up at 4:30 in the morning. We all gathered in a circle and prayed before they left, and there were lots of tears and sniffles. It was a good goodbye.

David and I are now finding ourselves trying to put back together QERC after being overtaken by 13 college students. :) Saturday we leave to go to Guatemala for a week, which will serve as a good relaxing week and a chance to renew our visas one last time before returning to the states in July. We are looking forward to having some down time!

Recounting Old Environmental Times

David: No, I’m not talking about spiking trees and putting rattlesnakes insides the truck cabs of loggers. I’m talking about the two week accounting of what happened during the first portion of the Environmental Science Concentration that Sarah then later joined as we went to the Osa Peninsula for some crazy wildlife adventures.

I know that this is extreme back logging of Costa Rica information but the experience was so unique and interesting that I thought it worth passing along, albeit a month late.
The three-week ESC experience is meant to challenge students in their global perspective of the Earth as God’s creation. Is the Earth just a resource to be used or is it intrinsically more than that? What role did God intend for us to have in the management and stewardship of creation? What problems are the tropical Americas facing in conservation and how is that affecting the lives of the people to whom this is home? And most importantly, what does all of this mean on a personal level for a rich North American, which we all are? The connections from our North American lifestyles to tropical ecological travesties are much tighter than most of us will ever know.

So where do you begin in providing an experience such as this—how about with sea turtles? We started our time at a beach town in the Guanacaste region called Ostional. This beach is one of 10 or so beaches in the world where a specific event called an “arribada”, or “arriving” occurs. The Pacific Olive Ridley, for some proposed scientific reasons, has developed a method of nesting that involves hundreds of thousands of females nesting on the same beach within a three day time span. The females all wait offshore until enough have gathered and then the arribada begins. For three days hundreds of thousands bombard the beach in hopes of laying a successful nest. The trick is that these sea turtle eggs are a prized delicacy. This is causing sea turtle conservation problems all over the world. It is illegal to collect sea turtle everywhere in the world except for Ostional, which is where we took the students. The government has an arrangement with a community cooperative that allows them to harvest a certain percentage of eggs every arribada. It is a controversial setup to some but in the end it is an attempt to meet in the middle of providing resources and conserving at the same time. The students stayed three nights with families from the cooperative and we had the opportunity to witness several Olive Ridleys nesting. It was not the arribada, but it was still impressive.

From there we spent a day having conversations and learning from the people at a non-governmental organization called Casa del Sol (House of the Sun). It is a community based organization that has a purpose of empowering women to cook with solar ovens, use local seeds and produce, and be educated in ways to cook healthy and environmentally responsibly. We also received a little lecture on potential woes of Costa Rica ratifying their part of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. They are worried about their crops and seeds being overrun by genetically modified seeds, which would be more readily introduced into Costa Rican agriculture and more than likely not monitored by multi-national agricultural businesses. These businesses would have the doors to Costa Rican soil opened up to them if CAFTA is passed.

We spent some time at the beautiful Arenal Volcano studying volcanology. The more impacting event here was a visit to a hot springs run entirely sustainably, called Ecotermales. This is a big deal because in that region there are many hot springs that cater to ecotourism and have gigantic environmental impacts to the local ecosystem. Ecotermales demonstrates responsible business practices by using a natural resource while not negatively impacting the land. The students were all fired up over this because it was so exciting to see that when creative ideas are put in place conservation of natural resources showing respect for God’s creation is indeed the most beneficial way for both the land and humans.

We then visited EARTH University on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. EARTH University is attended by agricultural students from all over Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Tuition is almost completely covered for most students and their education is founded on agricultural and environmental principals that they can take back to their homes and implement on a community level. Not only is its mission statement one of meeting the worlds’ needs by taking care of the earth, but also it is an impressively large campus that showcases how a university can be environmentally ethical when it comes to its operation of facilities.

Our last stop before heading back to QERC and then onto Campanario was La Selva research station. It is a place in dense tropical rainforest where some of the top tropical research goes on in the world. They have an impressive campus with fantastic facilities for researchers. It was a chance for the students to see a different model and approach to conservation so they could compare it to others they experienced.

The best thing is that throughout all of this the students were put in ecosystems that showcase the biological diversity of Costa Rica. They were being challenged in their environmental thinking while given a chance to just experience the magnificence of God’s creation. The combination of those two is something that we all need.

Good Times...

Sarah: Whew there’s been a lot going on around here. Once we got back from the Osa Peninsula everything was going so well, like I said in the last entry. Everyone was getting along so well, studying all day, and hanging out together in the evenings. Unfortunately, there were some things that happened last week that disrupted all of this. All of the students had signed a contract upon coming here that they would abstain from drinking and smoking, or they would be sent home. We reiterated that in February as a second warning to all of them. However, 3 of our boys were caught having a casual drink over at the hotel a week and a half ago, and David and I had to tell our bosses at SNU to make the final decision on what their punishment would be. Sadly for everyone, the decision was made in Oklahoma to send the boys home. We took them into San Jose last Friday and they left on a flight Saturday morning. It was tough on everyone to break up the group of 13 students, and the dynamics changed quite a bit around here.

During this time we had one of the SNU professors here, Nancy Halliday, and her husband Frank, and his sister Lydia. It was really great to have them around—Nancy did an excellent job with the situation of the boys drinking and helping with all of the students left, Frank did a great job of hanging out and playing games with students, and Lydia was a great motherly support for those struggling with the whole situation. Each of them also helped out with the research projects quite a bit.

On Easter Sunday instead of having our normal gathering mid-morning, we arranged transportation to take us to the top of Cerro de la Muerte for a sunrise service. We left here around 4 a.m. and made it to the top in time for it to get light out with some beautiful views. It was cloudy over the Atlantic side, but it still was beautiful with the coloring of the clouds. We were even able to see all the way to the Osa Peninsula on the Pacific side, where we had just been a week earlier! It was a neat time to worship God and praise Him for Jesus’ resurrection together.

Later that week Scott came back through, and this time with his family. His wife, Dawn, and her parents were here visiting, along with Scott and Dawn’s 16-month-old baby girl, Selva. They spent 2 nights here in the valley, and it was great to see them. Scott and Dawn were good friends of ours in California, and we had the privilege of knowing Selva for her first few months of her life, so it was fun having all of them here with us at our place.

This week has been just as busy—but not nearly as much drama. The students who were a part of the ESC had to do a group presentation for LASP on Thursday, so on Wednesday morning we got up early and headed back into the city. They had all day to work on their presentation, while David and I got to hang out with Scott for some last quality time. We also had a great time spending the night at Trevor and Laura’s and talking with them and Scott until late both nights. It was fun to laugh and hang out with friends, especially since Scott was leaving this weekend and we’re not sure when we’re going to see him again!

Thursday was fun for David and me to see the group presentations, because we got to see the other groups as well—those that had been in the Advanced Language and Literature program (ALL, the program that I did as a student), and the Latin American Studies concentration (LAS). After the presentations, we took the students out to the OTS library (Organization for Tropical Studies), so that they could find other research papers on their topics in order to include them in their own projects.

And Friday was the most fun of all. The students had received money from a NASA grant to come study here this semester, and apparently there was some money left over to use for a fun and educational purpose. As a group we decided to go white-water rafting. The guides are great because they point out wildlife and talk about conservation and the indigenous tribes who live on the land by the river, so that made it be educational as well. We had a blast. We were on 2 rafts and were on the water about 5 hours, with a stop for lunch as well as a stop to swim in some waterfalls. Everyone had such a great time, and it was a great thing to do together as a group before they leave home. Now they only have 10 days left here at QERC, so everyone is frantic in trying to finish things up before they leave.

Where the Wild Things Are

Sarah: The Osa Peninsula was fabulous. I’ll try my best to do it justice in this blog. We had the best time—it was so beautiful and wild and adventurous…the list could go on. We were the good kind of exhausted all week long—the kind of exhausted you get when you’ve had the longest most full day and you’re so hungry that everything tastes gourmet and anything feels good to sleep on. It was as if all of our senses were completely enriched for the entire week just because of all we saw and did. First off, let me explain that we were in San Jose on Saturday doing grocery shopping and taking a girl to the doctor because she blew a hole in her eardrum, so I was able to upload pictures without it taking hours. Thus all the pictures in this entry. :) AND…David is working on a recap of his first two weeks with the ESC (Environmental Science Concentration), so that will come soon as well.

So here goes…Monday morning we left at 3 a.m. on a bus down south. We arrived at the town of Sierpe in time for breakfast, all of us exhausted from very little sleep, and sweaty from all of a sudden switching to a very hot and humid climate. But that was only the beginning. After breakfast we got on a boat and met up with our biologist for the week, Pablo. Within our 2 hour boat ride to our destination, we stopped at some mangroves. They were fascinating. The students got out and walked along the root systems of the mangroves while Pablo taught about them. The rest of the boat ride was beautiful, and we even saw dolphins along the way.

We arrived in the Osa Peninsula at the Campanario Biological Research Station. Nancy, a North American, is in charge of the research station and was there to greet us as we stepped off the boat—the only way to get to this part of the country. She gave us the ins and outs of the facility—they use all solar energy, use all their rain water for showers, and recycle and compost everything—obviously, no trash trucks are able to make it out to that area—and Nancy also gave us the “be careful of poisonous snakes” talk. I was excited! Though we’d already had a long day, it was only noon. We ate lunch and had a quick rest before setting out for our first hike. Our group was split up into two groups for almost the whole week to make it easier to see things while hiking. Already on our first hike we saw lizards and spider monkeys and heard howler monkeys off in the distance. After a short talk by Nancy that evening, we were all too happy to crash in our beds.

Tuesday was our big hiking day. My group went on a long 4 ½ hour hike in the morning. We saw lots of birds, learned about all kinds of trees, and quite possible sweat more than we ever had in our entire lives. In the afternoon we switched, so my group had 2 activities. We hiked to this new “challenge” that they have set up—on one of their very large trees they have a very skinny ladder leading up to a platform very high off the ground. We got strapped in and were belayed up the tree, and after resting for a while and enjoying the view, we rappelled back down. It wasn’t quite as adventurous as the high ropes we did while working at Mission Springs, but it was still a rush for me being afraid of heights. The other part of our afternoon was hiking over to this VERY large tree, complete with a hole that we could climb down into. We took turns and took a flashlight down with us and were able to see a few roosting bats inside the tree trunk. Pretty cool.

Tuesday night we walked over to some bat caves nearby and waited until dusk when they all came out. And out they all did come. We saw thousands of bats flying out of the caves, and one of our projects was to catch about 10 of them. We took the 10 back with us and weighed them and recorded information about them, and almost everyone got a chance to either touch or even put gloves on and hold a bat! By this time if there was a student who wasn’t hooked on the trip before, they were at that point. Even in spite of the intense humidity and heat and long days with full schedules.

Wednesday we got up early and took a bus down along the coast (beautiful boat ride!) and were dropped off at Corcovado National Park. This is some of the most untouched land in all of Costa Rica and is known as the most biologically intense place on earth. We set off in our two groups, with only the intention of exploring and seeing anything possible. Our day started off great when we came across a troupe of squirrel monkeys (my favorites!). Those were the only kinds of monkeys the students hadn’t seen yet, so that was a real treat. We also got to see some large crocodiles swimming toward us in the river. Other than that, we really hit home on the mammals. We saw lots of monkeys (spider, squirrel and howler), coatimundis, a tamandua (type of anteater), agoutis, and the kicker—we saw a tapir. This is related to a horse, but looks like a mix between a horse, pig, and elephant. We first saw its tracks along the beach by the river, and our guide followed them until he found the tapir sleeping in a thicket. All of us crawled into the thicket a little bit, until we were about 5 feet away from the sleeping tapir. I think it looked like a small deformed elephant!

Thursday we got up and took another boat ride out to an island, where we got a chance to do a lot of snorkeling. It wasn’t the most colorful I’ve ever seen, but we saw some exciting things. Almost all of us got to see a sea turtle swim right past us, which was especially neat for the students who had seen sea turtles laying eggs on a beach only weeks before. And three people, David included, saw a shark. Out of the 5 man-eating sharks in the world, 4 of them can be found in the waters around that island. Not usually in the reefs where we were snorkeling, but nearby! And David happened to see a shark swim pretty much right under him...not a man-eating one, but a large one anyway. What a thrill.

So that about sums up our trip to the Osa Peninsula…I can’t believe we got to go to a place like that! Now that we’re back, the students are realizing they only have about 3 weeks left here in Costa Rica. Most of them are stressing about getting all their work done, so we had a meeting last night to help organize and plan what the next 3 weeks will look like. And after a few weeks of early mornings and early-to-bed evenings, their sleeping schedule has completely switched. On top of that, we are starting to transition back into a time where it is only sunny here in the mornings and a good chance of rain in the afternoons, so it is good that everyone is used to taking advantage of the morning hours. We’ll see if that kind of schedule can continue for them for the rest of the semester…

A Joyous Homecoming

Sarah: Hooray, they're back! Friday late afternoon the entire gang showed up at QERC, finally home again. It was great to see everyone (ok, mostly great to see David...) and fun to have life around QERC once again. And as a bonus, I finally got to see Scott! He was David's professor when he was here as a student 5 years ago, and then for the past 2 years when David and I lived in California, it was Scott who was our boss. Scott became a good friend and it has been a blast to see him.

It has been a full house this weekend. In addition to the 13 SNU students, we have 3 LASP students, plus Scott, plus their driver Franklin (who is a stud). We all ate dinner together Friday night and got caught up on their travels thus far. Again, I'm going to have to have David write about the highlights of the past 2 weeks, but of course he has been busy crazy this weekend, helping with the group and getting things taken care of here at home (and spending time with me). We all went hiking on Saturday morning and had beautiful sunny weather. It was fun for me to have Scott as my "Naturalist", since I was a Naturalist in California working underneath him. Plus, it was great to learn more about the valley in which we live.

Today we had a great time of sharing and praying together with those that wanted to get together this morning. I love those times and it is neat to connect with the students on a deeper, spiritual level. This afternoon everyone has been busy doing their reading for the ESC class and frantically doing laundry. We did take some time to go visit Laura, the Canadian who lives in the valley. She has recently opened up a cafe of sorts on her deck on the weekends. Our students have really taken advantage of it and we usually get a fairly large group to go visit with her and eat her baked goods every weekend.

Tonight we'll have some more time of frantic laundry loads and quick re-packing, because tomorrow we leave really early. It will barely be tomorrow when we leave--we need to load the bus by 3 a.m.!! However, it will be completely worth it. I'm really excited that the 4 students who didn't participate with the first 2 weeks of this concentration decided at the beginning of the semester that they wanted to be a part of this week, because it's supposed to be the best. We are going to the Osa Peninsula, out in the middle of nowhere, where it's supposed to be the most wild place in Costa Rica. My goal is to see a jaguar and a poisonous snake...

Ok side note, I was planning on posting pictures as well, but I've been trying to upload them for an incredibly long time now (thanks, dial-up internet), so I'll have to wait until a later time to add pictures.

Tribute to Rambo

Sarah: Today Lizeth showed up and told me that Rambo had been killed. I didn't believe her at first, I kept saying "No, please no". She and I were both on the verge of tears as she told me that on her way down to work this morning, she found him in the road. She thinks he was attacked by another dog in the valley. Her kids hadn't found out yet, but I understand how they'll feel once she gives them the horrible news. Here's another kicker to the already sad news--I think I heard it happen last night. I was making dinner and I heard some awful yelping outside, and I thought it sounded an awful lot like Rambo. I went outside and whistled and didn't hear anything else, so I thought maybe I was mistaken or it was another dog. Sad, sad day today.

So here, in honor of one good dog, is my list of 10 Good Things About Rambo:

10. He was a picky eater. Rambo would dig through the compost pile to find the one thing that he would actually want to eat, and then carry it around, eating it and savoring every bit.

9. He was protective over certain pieces of food--namely, toast. Rambo would take the leftover toast and bury it--but not eat it. If another dog would come around and sniff around, Rambo would growl and then take the toast and bury it in another spot.

8. He was a good guard dog. Rambo always seemed to run off and bark at things at night and come trotting back to QERC. We never knew if there really was anything there...but Rambo acted like he was on guard duty.

7. He had one incredible overbite. This made it look like he was showing off a huge smile as he'd come running to greet us.

6. He could be counted on to sleep anywhere. In Rambo's mind, anything was fair game. He'd find someone's laundry left outside all folded up nicely and make a bed out of it, or gather shoes together and sleep on them, or a happen upon a towel that someone "accidentally" left outside to snuggle up in.

5. He was persistent. Right around the time it started getting dark and cold outside, Rambo could be found hanging around any door, waiting for someone to open it. As soon as there was an opening, he'd make a mad dash inside in hopes of people having mercy on him and letting him stay the night inside.

4. He was playful. Rambo jumped like a mexican jumping bean and loved it when anyone gave him attention.

3. He was loyal to his family and to us at QERC. Rambo loved to sit and relax and keep people company--he'd follow David and me around everywhere and keep us company when we worked outside.

2. Everyone loved him. No matter how many fleas or ticks he had, everybody loved Rambo and enjoyed having him around.

1. He knew how to love. Rambo was a good dog, and will be greatly missed.

Spiders and Bingo

Sarah: Well David and the crew have been gone a week now and for the most part, it’s been pretty quiet around here. Actually the first night, everyone was gone and it was just me to hold down the fort. So I usually enjoy time to myself and I don’t really get freaked out, especially in this safe small valley. However, it does seem like when I’m here alone, the bugs come out in full force. Last Sunday night it was a particular spider. I went to brush my teeth, and there he was—large and hairy. I’m used to the small spiders that live in every corner in our apartment, but this one was BIG. I didn’t know what to do. I kept entering and leaving the bathroom, sorting it out. I couldn’t leave him there, knowing full well that he might not be there the next time I checked and he might be on his way into my bed. I also have a fear of killing spiders, did I mention that? So I did the only rational thing possible. I took a number of David’s shoes and started chucking them at the wall, yelping and running out of the bathroom with each throw. Finally he fell into the shower, so I tried to drown him with hot water, but he kept escaping the water spray. So I resorted back to throwing shoes at him, and finally I won. As I left the bathroom feeling victorious, I realized how ridiculous the entire past 20 minutes had been and what a scene I had been making. I have to admit I was glad that some students returned the next day…so far we have gotten rid of 5 spider egg sacs and about a dozen spiders in my apartment (ok so THEY have gotten rid of almost everything…)

There are 3 girls and 1 guy who aren’t participating with the other students on the Environmental Science Concentration (ESC). The girls returned to QERC on Monday night, and the guy has been in and out because his girlfriend was here to visit last week. Tuesday night we all went to a very special event here in the community—Bingo Night. These nights only happen a few times a year as a fundraiser for the school. We showed up not knowing exactly what to expect, and found most of the community ready to participate. There was plenty of food available to purchase and lots of prizes available to win. Apparently it’s a pretty competitive event, and even Efrain and Caridad come to win. We were having a lot of fun, though not winning anything, until at last one of our students, Laura, had a bingo. She ended up walking away with a new coffee maker!

The rest of the week has been pretty low-key. The students had a big test they were studying for, so they’ve been pretty non-social. Plus, I think they are enjoying having the building practically to themselves, so it’s been many late nights of them watching movies and chatting, and it’s been a rare day that I’ve seen anyone up and moving before 10:00 am! Ahh the life of a college student.

On the other hand, David’s reports have been really positive. They saw some turtles laying eggs on a beach at night, and now they are staying near Arenal Volcano to study volcanology. David says that everyone is having a great experience and taking away something new they are learning and excited about. I'm sure he'll have much to report on when he gets back!