Tomorrow, I venture to a cocoa farm - basically a place where happiness is grown. In addition, we're stopping at a rain forest. AND I get to sleep in a hotel room (I still find that exciting). Who knew so many cool things could happen in one weekend?
Before I return from there, I want to make sure I am call caught up in my story telling, so get comfortable. If you have a long to do list for today and you haven't finished it, you may want to stop now. This post is going to include a video, and pictures and lots of words. The weekend is coming up, so you can leave reading this until then. I won't be offended, I promise.
On Tuesday, spanish and research preparation continued as usual. However, our afternoon had dance lessons scheduled for all enrolled in our program. After an hour, we all had had a little taste of Reggaeton, Salsa, and Merengue. Our teacher's name was Roy (who has been described as "guapo pero muy pequeno! by many of our host mom's and sisters). He is a professional dancer/choreographer. We searched long and hard to find some videos of him actually dancing, as opposed to dances he has choreographed, and eventually found success. Here is Roy dancing (he's the shorter one). He currently choregraphs for the Costa Rican team on a show similar to Dancing with the Stars. We have a few more classes with him, and I'm looking into taking a more regular dance class while I'm here.
My research is finally falling into place, and my research proposal (well, the first draft) was due today at five. It's exciting to learn about the research process, and to have a say in what I am doing. I also now know I will be located in Venecia during my research months, a town in the San Carlos region of Costa Rica. Don't really bother looking it up on google, I did for about half an hour and found out almost nothing about it. My new host family promises to be great, though I already am sad about leaving this family behind. My comfort level here is now that I don't feel like an intruder. My host brother's started school today (they were on summer vacation) so we are all on the same schedule now. And my nightly routine of playing with my host niece, television with the rest of my family, and talking with all of them over meals or while I do my homework will be greatly missed.
Yesterday, we visited the farm of the director of my program. He bought it in the 70s and has since had an organic farm there. One of his friends, Mario, currently lives on part of the land with his family. Mario believes heart and soul in every aspect of organic farming, and it was interesting to hear all the methods he had developed of composting, farming and his beliefs about food and life. It was great fun to tour the farm, and we had a feast for lunch of sandwiches and fresh fruits and vegetables.
Lunch preperation. I wish I could somehow include the wonderful taste of all this fruit for you guys to try. Maybe that's incentive enough to make some of you visit.
The Mangos (or Mangas as they are called here) taste like gold.
One of Mario's sons.
Mario speaking to us, with his youngest son, one of the cutest kid's I've ever seen (especially with all his child size farm tools and hilarious side comments on organic farming).
Chris's farm is also near one of the major water shed's along the continental divide. I thought it was pretty cool to be on the continental divide, a landform I had previously only associated (and visited this fall) with Colorado. Tuesday's schedule had also included the video Flow, which discussed the problems we are facing with water. It brought up an interesting point of if and how people are allowed to own water. CUrrently, water is more expensive to buy then gas for your car. I had never really thought about it like that, and it is definitely an issue I want to learn more about. Some of the farmers and friends of Chris have worked very hard to protect the watershed from developers and companies who want to take the water for profit. As we hiked from the farm to the watershed, we heard many of his stories about the fight, and about how three of his cows were hit by lightening in a field. The hike was wonderful. It was nice to get exercise out of the city, and see the greenery I had seen from the plane my first day here. Its really so beautiful of a country. My research months will be in a more rural location and I hope to spend as much time in the mountains as possible. And now some visual aids for representation of my hike:
A bee hive we found along the way.
Views like this everywhere. While breathing fresh air. Fantastic.
Water from the continental divide, soon to go into an aqueduct and quenching the thirst of many a costa rican.
New fruit discovery - a little tart but really juicy. Could possibly be a ground cherry or something similar. I like them lots.
Learning about the water shed from the farmers.
una vaca. o un toro.
There are just so many flowers here. Its wonderful.
Off to prepare for the chocolate farm. I'm hoping it looks like this, but we shall see. It'll probably be a little different since they speak Spanish here, not English here. Other than that, I expect a similar scene.
I promise a full report on Sunday when I return.
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