Our stay in Las Cruces is going to be interesting, but busy. We picked up Hector, our ethnobiology professor yesterday on the way to the station. We start with his first lecture this morning and our activities for the rest of September include some interesting ethnobiology-related field trips to herbaria and indigenous communities. We also are going to be nailing down our topics for our first set of research projects this week. Dr. Ortiz, the health director for the Coto Brus area who brought us to see the barracks in the coffee plantation and to the other Ngöbe territory is going to construct a list of possible research projects that we can choose from if we don’t already have one in mind. Its a really cool opportunity to have his input. He really understands the health needs of this area, and if any of us execute projects that he suggests, we’ll be providing him with data that he can actually use in the future. Its very cool to be in a place where we have such a reliable connection to the community and its needs.
Although I’m very excited to be back at Casa Wilson, living with my classmates again, it was bittersweet to leave San Jose. I was just getting adapted to getting around by bus and taxi, getting to know the geography of the city a little better and feeling more and more comfortable with my host family.
On Saturday, I celebrated my birthday Costa Rica-style by going to school. Yes, we have school most Saturdays. In the morning, we drove to Heredia to visit the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBIO) that maintains a park with a butterfly garden, snake, frog and tarantula exhibits and areas that represent the various ecosystems found in Costa Rica. They collaborate with researchers and volunteers in order to catalog and document the diversity of species found in Costa Rica, and they have a free database available to the public via their website. While we were there, we visited the butterfly garden, saw iguanas just cruising around the park, saw snakes, tarantulas and poison dart frogs (all in cages). Some really cool stuff – and they brought out a baby boa constrictor for us to hold, and Mumsy, no joke, I held the snake all by myself :) You would have either been proud or screaming. I don’t know which. I have proof.
Our afternoon was spent at the OTS office listening to lectures about viruses and bacteria that cause diarrhea and discussing issues in vaccine distribution around the world. We were learning about diarrhea in preparation for a lab that we are going to start this afternoon. Mariace stopped at the San Vito hospital last night to pick up some caca for us to test in lab today. Should be interesting. We also had birthday cake at the OTS office on Saturday – it was sad to cut up such a happy looking pastry.
I went out to dinner with a couple girls after class. We went to an Italian place near Universidad Costa Rica that my host family told me about. We ate really tasty pasta and pizza – a nice reprieve from la comida tipica of Costa Rica. We all shared a piece of cheesecake for dessert. The girls sang to me for my birthday, and when the waiter heard, he brought over a candle, put it in our half-eaten piece of cheesecake, lit it and took pictures for us.
The highlight of the day was, naturally, going out dancing at Castro’s. Rachel did my hair for me and we met up with most of the class there. It was a really busy night at Castro’s. At one point there was hardly any room to move on the dance floor, but it was still a blast. I danced with a really nice Tico for most of the evening. It was definitely a birthday to remember, and a good way to bid farewell to San Jose before returning to the sticks of Coto Brus.
After arriving in Las Cruces yesterday, we had some free time to kick around the soccer ball a couple of guys bought in San Jose, and after dinner the group went into town for the Independence Day festival in San Vito. There was crowd gathered in the street in the center of town and they were sending off groups of kids to carry the torches to the nearby towns to symbolize the torch-carrying that brought the news of independence all the way from Guatemala. People in the crowd brought homemade lanterns, and after all the send offs happened, there was music playing. We started dancing in the middle of the crowd of Ticos and quickly become the center of attention with people circling around, taking pictures and watching without joining in. They were clearly missing out on the fun, although we got one Tica to join us.
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