First few days in Costa Rica!

September 6th

Day one. On the way to and in Costa Rica. Left Grandma’s house bright and early at 4.30 am, although it wasn’t even bright at that hour. Had a smooth flight to Houston and arrived at 8.00 am. I had a minor freak out when I was not able to find my flight on the departure monitor, but my stupidity was revealed shortly when I realized my flight to Costa Rica was scheduled to leave from the same gate. I sat next to a lady from, of course, Colorado on my second flight who now lives in Costa Rica after going to CSU and studying abroad in Costa Rica. Since I was broadcasting my affiliation with SFS by wearing the tee shirt they sent us, I conveniently had a couple of other students come up to me saying they were also in the program. I had another minor fiasco when I left the airport without my luggage not realizing that I wouldn’t be able to reenter the airport. I was shoved headfirst into having to speak Spanish when I needed to sweet-talk my way back into the airport. I was able to meet up with our friend from Costa Rica, Teacher Cris shortly after and she took me out to lunch. I considered it a successful day after having only been in Costa Rica for an hour and a half and had a good meal of gallo pinto and plantains, the local rice and beans dish that is eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Upon my return to the airport I met up with other SFS students and we, and all of our luggage, were piled into a huge charter bus for the 45 minute drive from San Jose to the little town of Atenas where the SFS center is located. There are about 35 students and we’re all housed in one dorm with quad style rooms. We were randomly assigned roommates so for the next three months I’m living with Christine, Rachel and Alex. All the students got a brief tour of the center and then we had a wonderful barbeque prepared for us by the cooks. It’s been wonderful meeting loads of new people, although it does feel like freshman year all over again, ice breakers and all. Setting up the room was quite a chore considering there were three hangers in my open closest and no drawers. We’ll see how soon this mess explodes. Unpacking was so overwhelming that I took a much needed break from it all and sat in the hammocks outside and listened to the rain on the tin roof. I think this program is going to lead to many early nights seeing as how it gets dark at 6.00 and we are constantly going throughout the day.

In the center of Atenas

September 7th

Walking up to the dorms

First full day in Costa Rica. The days start early here with breakfast being served at 7.00 am. It was nice, at the time, to be up with the sun out and a plate full of gallo pinto for breakfast. By the afternoon I was quite tired, but for the most part I don’t think I will mind the early mornings. Every day after breakfast we have RAP at 8.00, which is our Reflections, Announcements and Physicality time. Today was another day of ice breakers and introductions. After hearing about all 35 students and some of the professors, we split up and took off into town for the tour of Atenas. After passing through a few barrios, La Presa and Los Angeles, we got to the center of Atenas which is about 5 kilometers away. We were able to exchange money, pick up any necessary items from the super and see the layout of town. After I picked up my mosquito net and rain boots, one of the guys, Wes, and I immediately went to find mamonchinos. Wes had been to Costa Rica before so we both were ready for some of the interesting looking fruit. We received another tour, this time an in-depth one of the center and all the buildings. Our schedule next called for lunch, which was more rice and beans. I think it will take awhile to get sick of rice and beans just because we have such wonderful Costa Rican cooks. After our lunch we spent a good hour and a half presenting skits on all the rules for the center, which are plenty. Keeping to our tight schedule we then had a few minutes break before taking our Spanish placement tests, which was a conversation with the Spanish teachers. When that was done we had more business to take care of, so we all line up and paid our fees, got our ‘mug shots’ taken and then had a medical review. Or in some cases, we waited to do our medical review, but never got that far before dinner was called. More delicious Costa Rican food for dinner, and yes it was rice and beans. Now as I’m writing this I’m warming up from my first of many cold showers at the center and listen to the first rain shower of the day. The plans for a movie night came through and almost the entire group watched Toy Story 3 in the common room after cracking open a piñata for all the September birthdays. After another full day I passed out at 10.00, unfortunately it wasn’t under my new mosquito net because I currently have no way to hang it up.

September 8th

My desk...and my shelves/"dresser"

My bed, wih the mosquito net up

This morning started even earlier than the previous one due to my wonderful internal clock, which decided it was time to start the day at 5.45 am. On the positive side, this gave me time to get on the internet and send out some quick updates and make brief contact with the outside world. I think the early morning is going to prime internet time, seeing as how the internet usually stops working in the afternoon when everyone tries to get on. Breakfast again at 7.00 am and RAP at 8.00 and then the first classes started at 8.30. This morning we had a long stretch of classes, with the intro to Natural Resource Management from 8.30-10.30 and then we jumped into the intro to the Center of Sustainable Development Studies (i.e. our campus and program) from 10.30-11.30. Immediately following we had an introduction, but no lecture, for our Language, Culture and Society class right before lunch. After a lunch in which the cooks threw us a surprise and not only made rice and beans but also pasta! After lunch we had another two hour class session to look forward to in which we got the intro to Tropical Ecology and then an hour and a half first lecture. Our swimming test was scheduled for after class, but the incoming afternoon storms rained on the parade, literally. So, instead we had some free time and then we got our briefing on our first field trip, which is tomorrow. We are going to Braulio Carrillo National Park, Manu, a palmito plantation and the Dole plantation. It sounds like it’s going to be a very busy couple of days, but really interesting. After dinner, just in case they needed to scare us a little more we had a risk management meeting and were told all sorts of horror stories about parasites, dengue, rip tides and theft. This was all a good way to end the evening. But, it was nice to hear the rain, and pretty much only the rain, on the roof and watch the lightning flashing off in the distance. After awhile though off in the distance wasn’t that far and we got a pretty good storm out of it this evening. Now that I’ve finished packing I’m going to start thinking about bed since breakfast is at 6.00 instead of 7.00.

I will try to upload pictures later...the internet right now is very slow. Also, just a heads up but these will probably be my longest entries seeing as how things are going to get busier and busier.

Leaf cutter ant