A Busy Week

A little girl at the parade

Classes, chores and adventures have definitely started rolling. We’re now into the second full week of classes, and it is pretty busy. Last week on Wednesday the 15^th we went into Atenas for the Independence Day celebration, which involved a very intense parade, and much festivity. We had the whole morning to walk around and absorb everything. It was very different from a Fourth of July celebration at home; it seemed like almost all the children in Atenas were in the parade in some way or another. I also managed to get a couple of photos of the kids all dressed up.

Working with Arriatna

Thursday the 16^th was our first outreach day, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Each time we do outreach, there are about five different projects that the staff organized for the morning. This time there were people working on fixing up a community center, learning about trees to teach a boy scout troop, painting the lines on a basketball court at the elementary school, helping in the municipal forest and then there was my group that went to the Escuela Central (local elementary) to help plant some trees and flowers in the courtyard. We worked on our own in the beginning, but after awhile we got some help from about 10 kids ages 7-10. It was so much fun working with the kids planting trees (sembrando arboles), even though my helper, Arriatna, didn’t really want to get her hands dirty. We were able to communicate pretty well with each other, but it still made it evident that I have some work to do before I can even carry on a conversation with a 10 year old. This is definitely what I’ve enjoyed the most since I’ve been here. I would love to keep working with the kids at the school, but the outreach group is only four people, so have to rotate.

Continental Divide in Monteverde

On Friday the 17^th we left for our second excursion, this one only one night though, to Monteverde. It was quite a bumpy, curvy and breathtaking ride. There was one point when we were driving up the road (in a sizeable charter bus, mind you) and a fairly large truck was heading down the road. I was conveniently on the side where it looked like we were about to fall off the road. I am continually amazed at how the drivers here maneuver even the largest vehicles. When we got to Monteverde, in one piece thank goodness, we went for the usual orientation hike but this time we also got a field lecture in Tropical Ecology. I’m still not quite adept at taking notes while standing up, on a small waterproof notebook all the while trying not to be distracted be the scenery around. On the hike we made it up to the Continental Divide (at a whopping 4,000 feet above sea level) and we went over to the Caribbean Side from the Pacific where we hiked from. After a day of hiking and lectures the staff knew exactly what we all needed – pizza. We at a very nice restaurant where we had salad, rolls (quite a novelty), pizza (cheese, pepperoni, veggie) and ice cream to top it all off. It was a very welcome change in the menu, although I wonder what it will be like after we’ve been here more than just two weeks.

Humming birds at Monteverde

Saturday morning we had our first field exercise (FEX) for Tropical Ecology in which we were given the morning to come up with a hypothesis about something related to Tropical Ecology, and then collect the data to test it. As this was the first time I have ever done anything resembling research, I was a bit nervous, but I worked with my friend Rachel who is also from Colorado and we measured leaves all morning long. We wanted to test the ratio of area of the drip tips on leaves versus the total area of the leaf to see if that had any impact on the amount of epiphylls growing on the leaf. We measured and photographed a total of 36 leaves, after which I felt like a pro at identifying the Rubiaceae leaf and finding the inflection points to get the start of the drip tip. After we finished up with that we had a quick lunch and then packed up to head back to the center. We did make one quick detour to the Monteverde Cheese Factory, where almost everyone got ice cream or some type of cheese. Consequently, the fridge at the center now smells of cheese and I’m guessing it will be that way through the semester. The rest of the ride home was rainy, but uneventful.

Strangler fig that completely killed
off the tree inside

Sunday, a day off , was much needed. After returning from a field trip, it’s always nice to have a little time off. Unfortunately I think I’m always going to be on early morning time, but I guess it was nice to be out on a run at 7.00. In the late morning I went into town with Rachel and Laura and we went to the internet café so we could finally use skype and talk to family and friends from home. It was wonderful, and very cheap. The only problem is that almost everything in Atenas shuts down around noon, so you have to get there relatively early to get anything done. Some of the few places that are open later are restaurants, so we had a nice lunch at La Carreta. The afternoon rains came pretty early, so I just spent the rest of my day relaxing at the center and getting some homework done.

Monday was a busy, but routine day. We had class in the morning, including a presentation by my group in Natural Resource Management on bananas in Costa Rica. We also started our actual Spanish classes, which is a good thing because I feel like there is much work to be done on that front. We also have our homestay the first weekend in October, so a lot of this class will be devoted to preparing us for that weekend.

Tuesday was farm chore day! I was excited because I wanted to work in the garden or down in the orchard, but unfortunately I got stuck with painting the fence posts around our pool. It was a fairly simple task, but not as exciting as I had hoped. And it resulted in my hands, fingernails and legs all being more green than they should be. My fingernails are still on the green side. In the afternoon we had a 3 ½ hour block of class, which was a bit much. At least on Wednesday we have a morning of outreach to look forward to and only a short Spanish class.

Helen with the kids that did the handprints

Me, Helen, Alex and Rachel working
on the mural

Wednesday was a full but fun day starting with our outreach in the morning. I went to the salon communal, or community center that we are trying to fix up to work on a mural. I was also in the group that planned and sketched out the mural a few days ago, so I had a good idea of what we wanted to accomplish. We immediately started sketching everything out on the wall and soon had an audience of four young boys. It was perfect that they showed up because we wanted to put a border of handprints around the mural, and this way we had kids from the community actually putting their handprints on the wall. We cranked out the mural and of course got very dirty… I will probably have green paint under my fingernails for at least two weeks. In the afternoon we walked over to a neighboring finca that actually looked more like a country club than a farm, with a restaurant/dining area, swimming pools, ponds, a soccer field and most importantly a tennis court. Most of the group played soccer, which was objective of the trip, but now I’m exciting to go there to play tennis! The rest of the afternoon and evening consisted of our second Spanish class and more work trying to finish the lab write up for our Tropical Ecology Field Exercise (TE FEX).