July 9 - July 12

7/9/2012 at 10:30pm

Today was more or less a relaxing day since I didn't go in to work.  I woke up a bit later, ate breakfast, then walked into town to use the wifi and also to buy toiletries.  I came back around lunchtime to eat, and then after picking up my room I stole Abby's wifi at her house on the front porch and on my way back went to the pulpería to get horchata and cas drink mixes for my family, along with vanilla maiz candies and caramel ones and a tub of passion fruit jam.  I still need to locate coffee, but will do it last thing probably.  Then i took Luis to the plaza to play Frisbee/soccer for a bit, then we came home and had dinner (including chicharrones!).  Somewhere in between lunch and dinner I decided I wanted fried plantains so my papí helped me get the wood stove going and I quickly learned how to do it.  Finally, I made my way over to the church for youth group, where we had a bonfire and marshmallows an Jeffrey convinced me to make a fool of myself singing.  All in all a good night.

7/10/2012 at 8:35pm

Today was a pretty cool day.  I made my way to MVI by myself unsure of how my day would look, and I came to discover that I had Spanish class in the morning, prep with Jenny for her community health initiative, and then I had lunch with a bunch of new Canadians.  After hearing that they were going on a night walk, I furtively asked Alan if there was any way I could tag along.  He said sure and that he'd try to get me a discounted price.  I then went with Jenny to her charla, set up the room (and ran into Nacho, which was cool), and then babysat a two- and a five-year-old the rest of the time.  For me, the older kid was no problem, but the two-year-old cousin was a bit of a handful.  He wanted to just eat all the crayons and play in the water spigot outside and hit things and people with a stick and get into everything and wouldn't listen to me and kept shouting "nooo!" when I'd try to get him to not do something (like smash a keyboard).  But at the end there was this delicious bread someone made and coffee and I met Danny's mom, which was a pretty cool turn of events.

It's a monocot! Inside of a banana plant stem/trunk.

At the night hike at Finca Santamaría, Alan managed to get me in for free by passing me off as a program coordinator.  What a cool guy!  The Canadians were pretty squeamish the whole time except for a couple of girls (especially Annabelle), but all in all it was neat and I got to see a porcupine from far away (it was high up in a tree) and a tarantula and a little scorpion that glows under UV light, as well as a variety of stick insects and grasshoppers and things of that nature.  It was cool because the whole time Alan and I just chatted about biology and mist-netting.  It was pretty cool.  I unfortunately couldn't get any photos but nevertheless it was a satisfying night hike.

My favorite part of today was probably having the opportunity over lunch to chat with Canadians about Costa Rica and their experiences and share some things with them like what I know about the culture and society and also that the toilet paper plant that grows outside the Institute has fuzzy leaves and edible flowers.  I loved seeing their reactions.  If I finish work early tomorrow, I may get to go with them all to the coffee fincas (though I've already been a few times now to fincas).

7/11/2012 at 10:10pm

Check out the camouflage on this cool moth I found!

So after waking up, eating a delicious breakfast of gallo pinto and plantains, I began walking to MVI when my friend Josúe's dad Oliviar (also my papí's friend and coworker) gave me a ride all the way up that huge, long, annoying hill to Los Pinos!  It was a pleasurable walk to the Institute after that, and I even arrived early and so got to chill with Matt and Alan and Grevin the driver for the Canadians and some of the other MVI staff.  I was even offered breakfast, which I just took some coffee and bread but was still pretty cool.  It's like I'm part staff or something, haha!  I love it.  Later I talked with Justin about my data and received some direction, and I need a rough report ready by Friday to present to Sonia and Alberto (who showed up today with water production data for 2012 until now, so I just need 2010 and 2011).  I otherwise began formatting a template in Excel and hung out with John and Alan and thereby received invitations to go to Alajuela and to mist-net for Long-Tail Manakins (a really cool bird).

Canadians being tourists in San Luis from the mirador.

Later at lunch, I nearly threw a small fit I'm ashamed to admit.  Here's what happened: I hear a random Canadian laugh about someone's food on the ground and the dog eating it.  I look over, horrified, to see the dog scarfing down a plate of spaghetti and a Canadian sitting there nonchalantly like it was funny.  I politely yet firmly ask him to not let the dog eat his food because the dog will throw up all over the Institute.  He looks at me and says, "Do I care?"  I reply, annoyed, "People who work here will have to clean it up."  He responds, "I don't care."  I seriously nearly verbally chewed him apart in that moment.  Instead though I quietly took a breath and calmed myself down and attributed it to a miscommunication (he could have mistaken me for a peer instead of an intern slash someone who deems respect here at MVI since I am working here, or maybe he didn't understand my English even though we're both fluent).  He eventually picked it up and was nicer to me the rest of the day, probably after he realized I'm not Canadian and I am an intern three years older than him here at the Institute and had the power to get him in trouble with his professors if he decided to be rude/disrespectful again.

I also got ice cream and a brownie with Alex and Alec today from the cheese factory.  Good times!

A short while later I had the opportunity (thanks again to Alan) to go to Finca la Bella and the Vargas Finca in San Luis.  Alan convinced me to translate Oldimar's tour, saying he'd do the second one, but both Eugenio and his son Marco are bilingual and so didn't need translation, which I didn't know and I know that Alan already knew this since he also lives in San Luis, so he basically tricked me into practicing my translation.  But I loved it and had a blast and it was so cool; it helped that I myself went through the tour once before with Abby and Ryan.  During the second tour I enjoyed chatting with Marco, who has very good English and, oddly, no Tico accent in his Spanish.  Then Grevin gave us a ride back to MVI and another driver (Ronald) who is the receptionist at Don Taco gave me a ride all the way back to Santa Elena.  So cool.

Canadians running around with the trapiche at the Vargas
Finca.  The one on the left is the one I had the problem with.

Later on, I had the opportunity to Skype my family for the first time, which was neat.  I was sitting on Abby's porch stealing her wifi when she and her family finally came home from vacation, which was pretty funny.  So much to do, so little time.

7/12/2012 at 9:40pm

This morning, after thankfully getting a ride to MVI from papí, Abby, Ryan, and I went with Jenny for a tour of the cheese factory and then to Granja Porcina after (a pig farm where the pigs receive the excess whey and cows feed on treated pig manure and all the water gets treated through a lagoon system, so it's all sustainable).  It smelled so bad over there though.  But the piglets were cute!  I forgot my camera at the time so no pictures, but take my word for it that it was pretty cool.  Later after lunch we went back to the cheese factory with Jenny and she bought us all milkshakes, which was cool, and since we were in the fábrica so much I got to see Alonso all morning.  While we had milkshakes, Jenny chatted with me about cultural differences here when it comes to weddings.  Usually there's no engagement like we know it in the U.S., with a ring and the guy going down on one knee and everything; people generally just decide and talk marriage and make plans.  Honeymoons are also a little unusual as are fancy weddings, unless you're upper or upper-middle class.  And there's a tradition here in Monteverde where people give the bride money as she dances!

Being goofy at the cheese factory while waiting for batidos.

In the afternoon, Jenny and I planned for her leadership workshop next week and came up with several dinámicas to help with team-building.  After that I chatted with Gaby and Abina on Facebook and discovered that I had received my housing assignment for Spain.  I sent the family an email.  I'm now excited and nervous for September and I just hope my visa goes through...haha!

Jenny was kind enough to give us a ride back into Santa Elena, then I went home, had dinner, showered (in an attempt mostly to get chancho smell off of me), and dashed over to church even though I was late (the Devil didn't want me going tonight for whatever reason but I stick it to him.  Point for Jesus!).  Pastor Josúe talked about baptism tonight and it brought back such awesome memories of when I was baptized back in January 2009.  That was one of the best moments of my life.