Sarah: Happy half birthday to our sweet Adele Marie! This past month she seemed to grow up fast and seems more like a toddler in many ways than or small baby!
Highlights from the past month: ~1 new (sharp) tooth ~a second tooth just about to break through ~Just beginning to eat solid foods (loving the avocado!) ~Moving around a lot in her walker ~The few hairs she has are starting to get longer ~First time in the ocean ~First time in the swimming pool, which she loved! ~Loves catching the attention of strangers and smiling at them ~Loves when people sing to her ~Laughs hysterically when Daddy dances for her ~First unscheduled trip to the doctor (just a mild respiratory infection) ~Still loves those hummingbirds ~(Mostly) sitting up on her own ~Loves to suck on her feet
Some of our favorite pictures from the past month (see facebook for even more):
Sarah: Well our semester program has officially finished. Except for the paperwork and cleaning up and evaluations and documenting suggested changes for next year. :)
The rest of April flew past us, as we had activities like the river clean-up day, a day to restock the QERC reforestation nursery, a day of interactions and games with the local Costa Rican English teachers, and with visits from professors Dennis Siegfried (to teach Ornithology) and Frank Johnson (for his second trip, to do a Spanish evaluation of the students). The students were as busy as ever, trying to soak up their last moments in Costa Rica and making final memories. They were a great group and everyone seemed very on top of their work this year. We ended our time with them at QERC with some movie nights, game nights, and of course, their presentation nights. We split the group into 2 this year and invited the whole community to join us for listening to them present their research projects. We had a decent turn out both nights, and the students did great informing those present about what they had been working on all semester.
After presentations, things were truly finished at QERC, and professor Bob Lively came down to see us through presentations and our debriefing/reentry retreat with the students. We love having him come down and participate with us and share in the excitement from the semester and offer his insight and advice to the students as they prepare to return to the U.S. We held our retreat at the beautiful location of Arenal Volcano and enjoyed watching the volcano spit lava rocks all night long. We also took advantage of the location and did some hiking, and Adele tried out her swimming legs. We had great discussions with the students and they were able to reflect and process their experiences extremely well. It's such a fun time of sharing memories and seeing the full impact of this study abroad experience. And finally, after one last night in San Jose, we said a sad goodbye to the students. It's always a sad realization that our students, who have become our friends over the course of 4 months, leave us to head back to their lives in the U.S. It was especially sad for Adele, who will miss having them to entertain her here at QERC!
David and I spent a night with Trevor and Laura in San Jose before they left Costa Rica for the entire summer, and then we renewed our visas before heading back to an empty building. However, it doesn't seem like our lives have slowed down too much with the program being over. Besides the wrap up from the semester, we are welcoming a variety of groups and researchers over the next few months that we are preparing for!
AND...David and I notified the people at SNU a while ago that we will not be staying on for another full year at QERC. We are excited for what awaits us in the States, though we have no set plans yet. We are now in the process of looking for replacements for us to begin sometime this fall. If there is anyone who is interested in this job, or if anyone who reads this knows of anyone who might be interested in the job, please please please have them contact us! You can find the job description at www.snu.edu/qerc-field-manager.
Sarah: Reaching the 30-year old mark is a crazy milestone. I've thought about my 20s a lot recently and realized how much happened in these 10 years. So to say goodbye to my 20s, here is my list of 20 (big) things that happened in the last decade of my life:
1. Graduation from Northwestern College in Orange City, IA, with a major in Spanish, minors in Cultural Anthropology and Religion, a Career Concentration in missions, and a Coaching Endorsement 2. 1 month spent in Taiwan 3. 1 summer spent in Brazil 4. 1 semester spent studying in Costa Rica, with trips to Nicaragua and Guatemala, through the Latin American Studies Program 5. Meeting the love of my life while studying abroad 6. 2 years teaching high school Spanish at Iowa Christian Academy 7. 2 years teaching 5th and 6th graders Environmental Education at Mission Springs Outdoor Education, outside of Santa Cruz, CA 8. Playing varsity volleyball in college 9. Leading 2 mission trips to Brazil and one to Mexico 10. The purchase of our first house - a rental home in Spokane, WA 11. Coaching junior high basketball and volleyball, JV volleyball, and helping out with varsity volleyball and basketball at Iowa Christian Academy 12. Buying my first car - a Saturn Ion 13. Getting married to my best friend, David Charles Hille 14. Giving birth to my beautiful daughter, Adele Marie 15. A tattoo with my sisters 16. Becoming an aunt to my niece Gracelyn, and nephews Gabriel, Benjamin, and Asher 17. My first cell phone and first laptop computer 18. Getting my braces off 19. More trips to Brazil (with stops in Argentina and Paraguay), more trips to Nicaragua and Guatemala (with a stop in Honduras) and a trip to Panama 20. Moving to Costa Rica to work as Field Station Managers at the Quetzal Education Research Center
Sarah: Adele has now reached the 5-month mark! Sure seems like she's in a hurry to grow up these days. She wants to be doing everything mom and dad do, and thinks she can drink out of a glass, talk on the phone, take medicine from a spoon. Here are some highlights from the past month:
~Adele rolled over for the first time! (causing the need for closer watchful eyes...) ~Has found her LOUD voice and went through days of extremely noisy chatter ~Prefers to be with mommy but watch daddy all day and smile huge when he looks at her ~Lots more giggling and laughing ~Prefers to be outside and loves to watch the hummingbirds ~Sleeping by herself all night in her crib (a few nights only...but those were encouraging nights!) ~Loves trying out her sippy cup with water and a very small amount of juice ~No solid foods yet, but she likes to lick our fingers after a meal ~Enjoys trying to suck the juice out of cantaloupe and watermelon ~A doctor's visit - 70th% weight, 95th% height (which explains why sh's growing out of her 3-6 month clothes...) ~2 shots, followed by a day and a half of fever and clingyness to mom ~A new found love for being naked ~No teeth yet, but a high increase in drool and frantic behavior to put everything in her mouth ~A new love for dancing with the students ~Has learned how to give slobbery face kisses to mom and dad
Sarah: Arizona State University has been working on a project called The Transcendent Icon: The Resplendent Quetzal for years. It's a multi-disciplinary approach with the purpose of collecting information about the quetzal in the context of history, religion, science, politics, and art. The overall goal is to connect interested parties so there is good networking for conservation work. This year, ASU is holding a quetzal conference called the Quetzal Jubilee in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama. The Costa Rica portion of the Jubilee was divided into two parts: one in San Jose at the University of Costa Rica, and the second at QERC.
David went to San Jose to participate in that part of the Jubilee, and he also gave a presentation about the research and education taking place at QERC in the name of quetzal conservation. He really enjoyed presenting, and it was a great opportunity to network with professionals within Costa Rica.
At QERC, the conference lasted all day Saturday with a variety of guest speakers and participants. We had a number of members from our community and guests from around Costa Rica show up. Presenters included Leo Finkenbinder, the original founder and director of QERC; Maarten Kappelle, director of The Nature Conservancy for all of Central America and the Caribbean and expert on montane oak forests; and Arsenio Arguero, director of Los Quetzales National Park. ASU also presented a video about their project. It was a great day and fun to host the event at our facility. It was good to connect with people and share ideas that will hopefully develop into better communication and more collaborations in the future.
Sarah: David continues to be extremely busy, so I'll do the reporting for him. For 3 weeks, David took our crew of 10 students and teamed up with the Latin American Studies Program with their professor Trevor, 3 LASP students, and our former boss from California, Scott Smithson, who also served as a professor. The entire group traveled together on an ecological and sustainability tour of Costa Rica. This is easily (and obviously) one of the major highlights of the whole semester for our students. It doesn't come without work though; all of them would agree that the 3 weeks are strenuous both physically and educationally and with little sleep. Yet again - totally worth it!
The group started off their travels by heading to Earth University, where they learned that the mission of the university is to equip their students with the knowledge of sustainable agriculture and environmentally-friendly practices. The university is open to all countries in a tropical setting. From there, the group headed to La Fortuna, where Arenal Volcano is located. Naturally, they studied volcanology and were excited that they had incredible views of the volcano (see picture) and were able to see plenty of lava rocks rolling down the volcano during the night. Here they also had a close encounter with an eyelash pit viper (next picture), and many were very excited about that. :)
From La Fortuna, they traveled to Palo Verde National Park to study the dry forest. While everyone was skeptical showing up to an incredibly hot, dry location, they were reluctant to leave in the end because of all the wildlife they saw - agoutis, howler monkeys, white-faced cappuchins, deer, crocodiles, anteaters, and jabirus (the largest stork in the world). The first week of the trip wrapped up with a couple of nights in Ostional, where they studied sea turtles nesting on the beautiful beach and all got to see this process in action.
After a night in San Jose for a chance to take their first test, the group headed out here to QERC to study cloud forests. They got some great looks at quetzals (picture) and our students in particular enjoyed being "home" for a few nights. (I was personally happy to have David back for a short time - Adele is good company, but I also like to have some 2-way conversations once in a while!) During their time in the cloud forest, the group hiked over to the next valley over and spent some time with our friends, a family who runs a large organic farm. The group harvested bananas, helped in the coffee-making process (picture), ate a lot of vegetables, and milked cows.
Finally, the group spent the last week down on the Osa Peninsula, one of the highlights of the trip (as if the whole trip wasn't a highlight...). They were at Campanario Biological Station and got to do some hiking around the station, collect bats at night, hike in Corcovado National Park, and do some snorkeling around Caño Island (picture). As if this wasn't enough, the remote location they were at allowed them to spend their free time playing in the waves in the water right outside the station.
The group came back from their travels just in time for Easter Sunday. The visiting professor this week, Marty Michelson happens to be the religion professor and pastor, so he led our group in an Easter morning fellowship time. This week he is here teaching a class on Biblical Theology and Global Stewardship. It's a great follow-up to their travels, where they learned all about sustainable practices and now are able to talk about how it all applies to their faith. These pictures are of Marty and Adele, and Adele dressed for Easter.
Sarah: I'll continue our semester journey after Spring Break, the last thing I wrote about with the exception of Adele. We had another week with a professor here, Dr. David Cummings from Point Loma Nazarene University. We were excited to have the involvement of Point Loma this year, and hopefully will get some of their students to join the program in future years. Dave brought along his 10-year old daughter, Sydney. It was a lot of fun to have both of them here. Sydney quickly made friends with our neighbors, who have girls about her age. Even though Syd couldn't speak tons of Spanish, the girls did fine and the local girls showed her around all over the place. Dave did a week on microbiology, and though some students were surprised, they all enjoyed it. :) I heard comments of "I didn't think I would like this week, but I really enjoyed it!" all throughout the week from various students. At the end of the week, Dave and Sydney took off for the beach for the weekend, and our students geared up for their 3-week traveling component.
I'll write more about the traveling component later when it is all said and done, but this past week has been a real treat for me. David's sister, Jordan, decided to bring her youngest son Benjamin (1 1/2 years), and come down and spend a week with Adele and me while David was mostly traveling. I hadn't been looking forward to such a long time here at QERC by myself, so the company was MUCH appreciated! The cousins bonded well - Benjamin loved Adele and was always looking out for her. He always wanted to be giving her hugs and kissing her all throughout the week, and he often imitated her as well. Adele did well "putting up with" his hugs that sometimes squashed her and she definitely watched him and tracked him the whole week. She even held her own toward the end of the week as she started grabbing better and got a hold of his hair and ears at times.
Jordan and I had a great time doing some hikes with the kids, attending the wedding of one of the Chacon granddaughters here in the valley, and staying up late at night scrapbooking and talking. At least twice a day we walked down to our neighbor's farm so Benjamin could see the goose and the bunnies (and the rest of the animals, but those were the favorites!). He is too cute and is always busy and wanting to be outside. We were thankful for beautiful weather the whole week so we could release a lot of that energy outside! It was a lot of fun to introduce them to our neighbors and of course everyone loved Benjamin's big beautiful eyes. He and Adele drew a lot of attention this week! Our apartment quickly turned into a disaster zone, and I got a little glimpse of what my life could be like in the future with more than one kid. :) I don't know how people do it with more than one kid! Jordan talked on Skype often with her husband and kids back home, and while Adele and I were sad to see her and Benjamin leave, we know they were excited to get back to the rest of their family.
Sarah: I'm sure this gets repetitive, but I can't believe how fast these months are going! Adele is now 4 months old and growing into her own little person. She is so much fun and only gets cuter and cuter.
This month we traveled to Nicaragua, spent a weekend at the beach, and had a few trips in and out of San Jose. While Adele is a good traveler, we found that she much prefers the cool climate here in our valley to the hot and humid weather at other locations!
Adele continues to smile all the time, and has even let out a few giggles. She keeps exploring her new sounds and has started to enjoy squealing in a high-pitched voice just for the fun of it. Her neck muscles are getting stronger and she can lift her head high and turn it while on her tummy. She now prefers to be sitting up or "standing" all the time so she can see and be a part of everything going on.
Adele is finally getting through the stage where she has to be with mommy all the time. She still has her moments, but she enjoys going with other people now too. It's fun to see our students take so much interest in her - it's addicting to try to get her to smile! This past month she has also preferred David over anyone. As soon as he walks in the room, her eyes light up and she smiles huge as she follows his every move.
While Adele is sleeping pretty good at night, she still only likes to take frequent but short naps during the day. It makes those 30-45 minute intervals for me a time to run around and attempt to get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time!
Having a baby in Latin America brings some very funny moments for me. I'm sure it's the case anywhere in the world that women love to share with new moms lots of advice. But sometimes the advice I get here creates a lot of amusement. Here are two examples:
1.) Adele often gets the hiccups. Right after she was born, I was told that to get rid of the hiccups I should put a piece of wet paper on her forehead. I though this was funny, but a few different people gave me the same advice. We were at a dinner party with some Costa Rican friends and as soon as she got the hiccups, our friends told me to try it. So I did, and it didn't work. I was told this was because Adele is a gringa, not latina. Later on a Nicaraguan friend gave me the same advice about the wet paper on the forehead and I told her I had tried it but it didn't work. She told me it was because I didn't have enough faith that it would work. :)
2.) I never planned on getting Adele's ears pierced when she was a baby. Apparently that's the right thing to do in Costa Rica. And if you don't get your baby's ears pierced, it's obviously hard to tell whether or not the baby is a girl or boy. I assumed people would be able to tell based on all the pink clothing, the dresses, and the pink blankets Adele uses...but no, people will look at her ears and then ask "is it a boy or girl?" when she's in a pink dress, followed by "you really should pierce her ears so you can tell she's a girl". :)
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. :)
Sarah: This year for the annual Nicaragua trip during the semester program, Adele and I only joined up with the group for the last part. However, because David is usually running around with his head cut off, I'll do my best to report how the trip went. First let me say that all of the pictures are from the homestay portion of the trip - they were too cute not to be included!
Our Nicaragua trip started with a day in San Jose, which happened to be the Presidential Election Day. It was a lot of fun to see - elections here are quite different from in the States. People drove around crazy all day, waving flags of the party they were supporting, honking at everything, and everyone was out on the streets as if in a big party. It was great to see the patriotic nature of Costa Rica, and how festive the day felt.
We spent the afternoon at my former host mom's house, Aminta Ortiz. She is our annual guest speaker for Nicaragua, since she is Nicaraguan and grew up as an active member during the Sandanista Revolution. Her story is powerful, and was translated by her son Sergio and daughter Claudia - both of whom had their own personal information to add to their mother's stories. This is a great intro to Nicaragua, and often very eye-opening to our students, as Aminta and Sergio both had some insight into Nicaragua's history that included the negative effects of the U.S. involvement - most of which isn't taught in our own U.S. History classes.
The following day, everyone took off for Nicaragua while Adele and I headed home to host the large group of 26 people from OTS (which I briefly mentioned in my last blog post). After a loooooong bus ride, the group made it to the capital city of Managua for a couple of days. This portion of the trip included a historical tour of the city, a stop by a cultural center that reaches out to the community by providing educational opportunities, and a guest speaker who is a gringa married to a Nicaraguan. They saw firsthand the effects of recent history, caught a glimpse of the complexities of current politics, and experienced "in your face poverty" as one student put it. Because Nicaragua is night and day different from Costa Rica, it is a wonderful opportunity to experience both during a semester abroad!
From Managua the group headed to their 6-night homestay, in the small community of Candelaria. Those six days would have to be an experience that most people would never dream of doing in their entire lifetime, and it truly was life-changing for our students. They were so far out in the campo that each tiny house had 3 rooms - one bedroom, a living area, and a kitchen, with one lightbulb for the entire house. Each house had one spicket for water, and everyone took bucket showers out behind their houses. The houses had mud floors and each family had a number of animals that were free to roam in and out of the house - dogs, pigs, chickens, etc.
What the students found immediately was how giving and loving their families were. They were given the one bedroom to sleep in, while the rest of the family would sleep in the living area. Their plates were piled high with rice, beans, and the occasional piece of meat - cooked specially for them. The kids in the community were thrilled to have people to entertain them, and so our students spent countless hours playing baseball and running around in the extreme heat.
The project that the group went through was called AsoFenix, which is an organization that works with small communities to better their lives through environmental projects. Our group funded a project that provided the materials to build lavanderas, which served as a system that allowed them to collect their grey water and use it for their gardens. In addition to helping build the lavanderas, our group provided a bit of environmental education for the adults and kids in the community.
Though all students came back to Costa Rica completely jazzed about this type of experience and ready to share how their worldviews had completely changed, the homestays did not come without their challenges. Most students would agree that it was the food that may have been the most challenging. Here is an excerpt from David's journal:
"If I had to give a name to the little game I play every meal it would be 'sshhufuera' or 'van por alla'. It's not necessarily a fun game, but it is a way to help me get through what seems like the endless barrage of meals. The following rules are observed: 1.) A plate of food that is inhumanely possible to eat is served to me. 2.) The only two ways of winning is to either eat all the food and become ill due to a bursting belly or secretly feed various portions (preferably the coagulated milk or tortillas) to the numerous starving animals (dogs, cats, and chickens) who are begging for the food. The rules are simple but the game is complicated by two factors. Six people are in and out of the room constantly who I can't let see me feed the animals. And, the animals I want to have close to me so I can slip them the food at the opportune time are constantly being driven away with a leather whip and either the slurred phrase 'sshhufuera' or the loudly spoken 'van por alla'. When you put all these rules and factors together you really have to hone in your skills to beat the game. In its simplicity it takes patience and a keen observant eye. If one is willing to wait it out to completion you will be rewarded with your food in the belly of a wanting animal and not sitting idle in your stomach, beans upon layers of beans, waiting to be deposited in the latrine. Your host mom may wonder why it takes you 45 minutes longer to finish your plate of food than it does the rest of the family but glory does go to the victor, albeit secretly. I win approximately 75% of the time. The other 25% of time I walk with my head hung low and, in an act of shame, place my plate with food left on it back on the kitchen wood plank hoping my host mom doesn't think I'm 'fresa'." :)
After the homestays, the group headed to Granada for a few days of debriefing and resting up before making the long trek back to Costa Rica. Adele and I met up with them in Granada and I was thrilled with how she traveled on a bus! I was also extremely grateful for how the Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans looked out for me during border crossings and stops on the bus. We happened to be in Granada the same time as the Poetry Festival, which made it a ton of fun. There were booths set up with artisans, a parade, famous poets, and concerts both nights. We had a great time enjoying the culture, and had a great discussion on our last night to debrief the overall experience in Nicaragua. I maintain that this study trip is one of the highlights of the entire semester, and it's awesome to see our students go through an experience like that and come back to Costa Rica changed people.
