It seems most of these posts are about field trips and the like, so I'm going to try to update you on my daily happenings. I'm not actually in a rain forest every day, it just seems like it. My daily routine is now habitual. I wake up pretty darn early with the rest of my family, leaving my house usually around 6:45 am to walk to school and get then by 7:30 for class. When I return home, its usually is not until around six at night, which leaves little time to act before my exhaustion from speaking in spanish, humidity, and a long day set it. However, I fit in as much time with my family as I can, as well as completion of homework (since I am supposed to be learning here) and occasional contact with the outside world in the united states. I have also been trying to improve my day to day vocabulary, such as all the fruits and vegetables that I like to eat. So today my host sister helped me make over 70 flashcards for all the different fruits and vegetables I could think of. It is fair to say my flash card habits are still as strong as ever while I am abroad. My only regret about all my field trips is my lack of time during the weekends to hang out with my host family. However, I think they understand, and we all try to make the best of the time we have.
My classes in spanish continue on, with different variations to enhance the learning experience. On Monday, we cooked typical Costa Rican food - gallo pinto (literally translates to speckled chicken, but is just rice and beans), juevos (egg sort of pancake things are common protein additions at lunch and dinner), salsa (with mango and avacado - yum yum yum) and arroz con leche (similar to rice pudding). A great culinary experience all in all. Today for my conversation class, we walked to the UCR to talk with complete strangers (a little nerve racking) about their opinions on obesity, if they think it is a health problem, etc. It was interesting to hear their responses and I think we will continue to do it in the future just to get a better understanding of the cultural norms surrounding obesity. Many of them nonchalantly answered "of course" and "obviously" when we asked them if they knew any obese children. Many talked of food and exercise habits as the causes of obesity, but few mentioned genetics or other predisposing factors. It will also be interesting to see how these mentalities change once we move to more rural locations, and out of the big city. On the way back from our interviewing field trip, our profesor brought us to a small ice cream shop to order churchills, a summer snack we had talked about int class. Imagine a plastic cup with alternating layers of sugary fruit flavored syrup, ice, and dried sweetened milk. It was better than it sounds.
Also, as my move to my rural home stay looms in the distance (next weekend!) my research plan becomes more and more clear (or occasionally completely muddied). My research responsibilities now include going to each school and explaining the study, meeting with teachers, and then eventually returning to actually collect data. Seeing how it all pans out without use of internet, or phone sometime, unaccompanied by a higher authority, and my flustered spanish when talking to professionals will promise quite an experience. I think the research process will be interesting, and a definite learning experience. However, I think what I most look forward to is being able to act on what conclusions we make about our data. I want to make sure I can go back to these villages, talk to school, town and health officials, and see where intervention can begin. Though I like the research process, I am discovering my passion lies in what happens once the research has come to a conclusion.
Tomorrow I go to a coffee farm, and Saturday and Sunday I spend the night with my rural family to meet them and get a feel for the area. Sorry this is a picture-less post, but both those events promise more pictures to come.
The only downside I have found to being abroad today is that the Science Times (a section of the NY Times published every Tuesday that I really do adore) is just not the same when read on the internet. I appreciate more every week the daily free NY Times that CC offers its students.
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