Flow

Last week, we watched the documentary “Flow,” which is about the privatization of water resources leading to a lack of potable water for much of the world’s population.  We then took a field trip to the town of Concepción de San Rafael de Heredia to see their water source and learn about water conservation efforts there. 

                When we arrived, we were so happy to breathe the fresh, slightly chilly air.  I’ve said it before, but that’s one thing that I love about Costa Rica: even just an hour bus ride brought us to a completely different ecosystem.  The weather here reminded me of Northern California; pine trees and mountains galore.  We met up with an environmental lawyer/activist and a farmer, who have both worked hard on water conservation efforts in the region.

                As we hiked up to see the water source for this county, our hosts explained to us the importance of avoiding privatization of the water supply.  There are several large, powerful international companies that have taken over government control of water supply, claiming they will provide cleaner water for more people.  Most of the time, the opposite happens: public water fountains are shut down, cutting the poorest citizens off completely from the water supply.  Unable to afford iodine tablets for purification, they are then forced to drink untreated water from the polluted rivers and risk death from disease.  The water supply in Concepción is owned by the people (through taxes), which is a very important step.

                After hiking for awhile, our guides stopped us to explain that we had arrived at the border of the protected region.  A law passed in 1888 protected a large area of land in Heredia Province from which much of the water supply originates, stating that no private ownership or building was allowed on this land.  This law has been completely forgotten and ignored, which was clear to us by the fact that there was no difference between the land on either side of the border; private farms and houses continued with no interruption. 

Here's the border of the protected area... there aren't even any signs marking it

                Finally, we ended up at the stream that is the source of drinking water for the region.  Our guides explained that before massive citizen fundraising efforts in recent years, water “treatment” consisted of taking water straight from the streams and dumping in unmeasured amounts of chlorine.  Often, in the rainy season, sediment would be washed into the river and water from the tap would come out brown in color.  Now, they have a much more technologically advanced system that removes sediments and treats the water with the proper amounts of chemicals.  The water in Concepción can now actually be considered “potable.”

Water collection for human consumption... Don't swim in the drinking water stream.

Stream where the drinking water comes from

            One thing that shocked me to learn was that many small towns in Costa Rica still drink river water with chlorine dumped in.  And, according to our guide, that type of water “treatment” is included in the 95% potable water in Costa Rica that you read about in tourist guide books.  He believes that is a flat-out lie, explaining that there is a difference between “safe for human consumption” and “potable;” Costa Rica may have 95% “safe for human consumption” water, but far, far less than that percentage is actually potable.  Yikes!

We found some black raspberries on our hike!

                This was all very educational and thought-provoking, but it was also fun to just go on a hike with my friends in a beautiful place!  We hiked back from the stream (which was very exciting and involved one of my classmates twisting her ankle and being picked up in an ox cart… only in Costa Rica) to ACM director Chris Vaughan’s organic farm.  

View from the road we hiked up

                On the farm, we picked our own carrots for a snack, which we ate along with some gallos (corn tortilla sandwiches) made with homemade tortillas and fresh queso blanco from the region.  The cheese tasted so fresh – one of my friends remarked that she could taste the cow in the cheese.  It was good… but being a Wisconsinite I have to say it wasn’t as good as fresh cheese curds at the Dane County Farmer’s Market in Madison!  We also snacked on home-baked tamal asado (like a dense cake, made with corn flour, sugar and sour cream).  We then took a tour of the organic farm, seeing banana plants and avocado trees before running back onto the bus right before the rain started.  It’s definitely transitioning into the rainy season here; sunny in the mornings and rainy in the afternoons.

Picking carrots

Eating gallos

Tamal asado con pasas (with raisins)

Baby aguacate (avocado) tree

It was a fun, quick field trip in the midst of cramming to finish our research projects!

Exploring San Jose

I would guess that most people, when they plan a vacation to Costa Rica, don’t want to spend much time in its capital city San José.  The draw of Costa Rica is really the nature, the unmatched biodiversity and wealth of ecosystems to explore.  Still, now that I’ve been here for four months I feel like I’ve gotten the chance to experience many of the natural wonders of this country, and I chose to spend my free time in my last weeks here exploring San José (plus, I’ve had a lot of work to do on my project).  

                My friends and I have spent the last couple Sundays working on our projects in a McDonald’s in downtown San José.  I know, I know, McDonald’s? Really?! But it’s in a central location, and is one of the few places with free wifi (though it hasn’t been working lately).  And McDonalds' here are actually really classy – they have a “McCafé” that is just like a regular café, serving fancy coffee drinks and desserts and offering comfy chairs to sit and work at.  We got into a Sunday habit of meeting at Mickey D’s, sipping our coffee as we worked for a few hours, and then wandering around downtown to get ice cream or buy souvenirs from the art market.  It’s been a nice way to spend my Sundays, and I now feel much more comfortable with the bus system after many trips downtown.

Dove statue outside of the Teatro Nacional.  There are dozens of these painted doves all over the city - San Jose's version of the Cow Parade

                We also went on a field trip last Wednesday with our Spanish professors to tour the Teatro Nacional (National Theater).  The building, supposedly built to replicate the Vienna Opera House, is ornate and a very impressive sight, especially when it’s lit up at night.  It was built in the late 1800’s, after exportation to Europe made Costa Rican coffee farmers rich.  These farmers, determined to boost Costa Rica’s appreciation of the fine arts, convinced the government to build this elaborate theater.  Somehow, the coffee farmers didn’t end up paying as much as they originally claimed they would for the construction of this building; instead, an export tax on rice and beans meant that the lower agricultural class, who weren’t even allowed to enter the theater and reap the benefits of this investment, paid for a large percentage.  

                Still, whatever its history, the Teatro Nacional is a gorgeous building.  Each room is ornately decorated, with marble statues and pillars brought from Italy, lavish candle holders and chandeliers, and paintings on nearly every inch of ceiling.   

Dancer statue in the Teatro Nacional. Plus a trash can.

 

Fancy room in the Teatro Nacional.  Connected to this room were the mens' and womens' smoking salons - separate, of course.

The theater. This picture was taken from the president's booth, where the presidente (or presidenta, as the current Costa Rican president is a woman) gets to sit to watch shows.

The most famous painting is Alegoría al café y el banana, which shows coffee and banana harvests.  Our guide explained that this painting was done by an Italian artist who had never actually been to Costa Rica, a fact that is evident by several mistakes.  The women depicted harvesting cacao have very light, European complexions, and are wearing shirts that expose their shoulders; at this time in Costa Rican history, women wore very modest clothing and would never show their shoulders.  Also, the man in the center of the painting is holding his bunch of bananas all wrong – actual banana workers hoist the bunch onto their shoulders upside down.

Alegoria al cafe y el banano painting.  It's hard to take pictures of things on the ceiling; sorry.  But you can see the women with their skimpy shirts on the right, and the man awkwardly holding his bananas in the middle.

                I had another San José adventure last Saturday night with Lauren and my host mom, Vicky.  We decided to get tickets to La Media Docena, which is like Costa Rica’s version of Saturday Night Live.  Lauren and I decided that seeing a comedy show would be the ultimate test of our Spanish fluency.  And we were proud to discover that we understood the majority of the Spanish, and even most of the jokes that were specifically making fun of Costa Rican culture!  We had a great time, and Vicky was especially excited when we got to take a picture with the most guapo comedian at the end of the show :).

                I’m still hoping to explore some of the museums in San José before I go, but I’ve had a good time getting to know the city better these last couple of weeks. 

Highlights

I’ve gotten a little behind on the updates... sorry!  After I got back from my backpacking trip in Corcovado, life got really busy.  I was rushing to finish all my data collection before I left my field site to return to San José, while still finding the time to chat with my host mom or draw pictures with my host sisters.  To catch up, I thought I’d share some of the highlights of the last few weeks.  Luckily, every evening after I tucked in my mosquito net and got settled in bed I would write in my journal before going to sleep, so it’s not too hard to remember what I’ve done:

Monday, 4/9: My host father’s cousin, who used to own a panadería (bakery) in Pueblo Nuevo, came to show us how to make the pastry dough for costillas and empanaditas, which are both made from a croissant-like filled with savory ingredients (like ground beef or melted cheese) or sweet ones (usually homemade jams).  The only difference between the two is their shape: costillas are long and thin, while empanaditas are half moons.  Seeing the pastries in process made me realize why they taste soooo good: in addition to the oil that went into the batter, the panadero (baker) folded three sticks of butter into the dough as he kneaded it!  No wonder the costillas and empanaditas that we made, filled with homemade guava jam, were so flaky and delicious…

Empanaditas filled with homemade guava jam

Yum!

Wednesday, 4/11: I left to go to my San José host sister’s wedding on the beach in Nosara, which is on the Pacific  coast.  It was definitely a bit of a shock to go from the tiny, rural town where I was doing my research to a wealthy beach village where most of the population is foreign and doesn’t speak Spanish!  The whole wedding experience was absolutely gorgeous.  One of my host mother Vicky’s friends rented a house for us to stay in for the weekend which meant we could cook meals together and hang out by the pool.  I felt so content waking up in the morning and making breakfast (eggs, gallo pinto, and coffee) with Vicky – like I was with my own family.  We spent a lot of our time that weekend helping to set up for the wedding, but it was fun to be part of the preparations.  Vicky, my host sister Laura, and I made sangria to serve at the reception… mmmm… Even with all of the work to be done, there was time to hang out on the gorgeous beaches, watch the sunset from a restaurant, and go for a barefoot morning run in the sand (on my run I saw two baby turtles hatch from their nest and swim to the sea!)  And the wedding itself was stunning.  My host sister María José was beautiful, calm and happy.  She works as a teacher in a bilingual Montessori school in town, so she invited all of the little girls she teaches to be her flower girls.  The ceremony was right on the beach in the late afternoon, so just as it finished we were treated to a spectacular sunrise.  Then we walked up a few sandy steps to the restaurant where the reception was held.  We ate delicious food (shish kebabs with chimichurri sauce, baked potatoes with tahini dressing, beans and rice (wouldn’t be a Costa Rican meal without ‘em) and two kinds of salad) and then danced the night away, with a few breaks to admire the stars on the beach.  I felt like I was in a movie, the wedding was so perfect.

The wedding was right on the beach

Flower girls blowing bubbles at sunset

My host family with the bride and groom

Host nephew Julian Andres, host sister Laura, me and host niece Maria Ines

My host mom Vicky and me

Thursday, 4/19: I finally finished counting earthworms!  I figured out that over the course of my project I counted worms in 127 sites, for over 50 hours… yikes.

My study subjects.. we got really close.

Saturday, 4/21: I said goodbye to my host family in Pueblo Nuevo and headed back to my San José family for the last month of my project.

Sunday, 4/22: I ran a 10k trail race in Cartago with my friends Lauren and Tim.  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into… when we arrived at the race site, we were excited because it was in a beautiful location with picturesque agricultural fields and pastures and rolling hills.  Emphasis on the HILLS… more like mountains!  We realized soon after starting that the course was insane: basically 5 kilometers of climbing straight up a mountain, and then 5k back down.  I ended up having to walk a lot of the way up, but the way down was a breeze ;) And the camaraderie afterwards with the other runners reminded me of why I love running races like this.  It was especially fun because all three of us got trophies (it was a suuuper small race) which will make a good souvenir to remember my trip… the race director had a hard time pronouncing our names when he announced us, though :)

Wednesday, 4/25: We went on a day trip with our class to see Irazú Volcano.  Even the drive up to the national park at the peak was an adventure; we drove through the clouds and suddenly emerged above them into sunlight and beautiful rolling hills planted with crops like potatoes and onions (these kinds of crops grow well in the colder climate at the high elevation), with a blanket of clouds underneath us.  It was a beautiful, surreal sight.  When we got to the national park and stepped out of the bus, the climate (pretty chilly) and the vegetation (clovers and dandelions!) reminded me of home.  We walked up to see the crater, which has a beautiful turquoise lake at the bottom.  We also took a short hike to see another volcano, Turrialba, which is quite active right now.  We could see a thick column of smoke coming out of the top… so cool!  On the way back to San José we stopped in Cartago, to see the Basílica.  I learned that this 400-some year old building is called a basilica, not a church, because it is dedicated to a patron saint, in this case La Virgen de Los Angeles.  Legend has it a figure of the virgin was discovered on a rock in the 17^th century, and even when moved would always reappear on that same rock, so the Basilica was built in her honor over that rock.  We saw that rock in the little museum attached to the basilica, along with displays of thousands of trinkets (called exvotos) that people give to ask favors of the virgin.  For example, someone with lung cancer might give a little pewter pair of lungs.

Driving up to the volcano

The main crater

Volcan Turrialba

Oles go to Turrialba

La Basilica

That night, I finally got to see the Hunger Games in the movie theater.  Most movie theaters in Costa Rica, along with many bars and restaurants, have two-for-one deals on Wednesdays, so the movie ticket that would normally have cost me 2000 colones ($4) only cost 1000 ($2)!  Movie theaters are one thing that is way cheaper in Costa Rica than in the US.  

Friday, 4/27: We took another ACM-organized trip, this time to the Pacific coast.  We left Friday morning for Tárcoles, where we learned about the sustainable fishing cooperative there.  The people of this beach town got scared after seeing the fish and shrimp populations plummet when big ships came into their waters and started bottom trawling for shrimp (conventionally-caught shrimp are really awful for the environment; the people in Tárcoles told me that for every one kilogram of shrimp that is caught in a bottom-trawling net, there can be up to 100 kilos of “bycatch,” any other aquatic animal that ends up caught in the net.  These fish and other creatures, all dead, are simply tossed over the side of the boat back into the water.  Several forward-thinking people in Tárcoles worked hard to get a one-year agreement for these ships to leave their waters, and are now fighting to keep them out for good.  Besides the fishermen, the coop also provides a livelihood for tour guides, local women who host tourists for meals or overnight stays, and lujadoras (women who spend hours a day untangling fishing lines).  After enjoying a mid-morning snack of fresh ceviche and a delicious lunch (more fish, of course), we headed to Punta Leona, which is a resort on the Pacific Coast.  We managed to get a great deal to stay here for the night, but we felt like we were in a much more luxurious resort than we should have been able to afford on college students’ budgets.  Our rooms had refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, and showers with hot water (not always guaranteed here in Costa Rica), and the resort boasted two private beaches and several pools!  We all really needed a weekend to just relax, so we spent a lot of our time swimming in the pool and reading on the beach.  The other sixteen ACM students and I were excited to see each other after two months by ourselves in the campo (our Spanglish term for our field sites), so it was nice to catch up.

Fresh ceviche...mmmm...

We stopped along the way to see crocodiles from a bridge.  I wish you could tell from the picture how big these were... probably around 12 feet!

This is a fishing boat used for long trips of up to several weeks.  The fishermen keep all of their supplies (sleeping bag, cook stove, food, even a tv!) in the net you can see at the top, and they sleep in the platform on the bottom.

…And now, I’m busy doing stats analysis and writing my final paper.  I can’t believe I only have two weeks left of this program.  The thing is, I’ve just recently started to feel completely comfortable here in Costa Rica, with the language, transportation, and the culture, and I’m not sure I’m quite ready to leave.  Of course, I can’t wait to see my friends and family in the US, and to buy some decent peanut butter… but it’s going to be hard to say goodbye.  For now, though, I’m trying to enjoy the time that remains as much as I can!

Only in Pueblo Nuevo

Now that I'm back in San Jose, I've been able to add photos to some old blog entries, so check them out!
 
I’ve heard from numerous people about the “Only in Costa Rica” Facebook page, on which people can share stories or photos of uniquely tico events, like crazy motorcycle drivers and unfortunate misspellings on signs.  I thought I’d write my own list of unique experiences I had in Pueblo Nuevo, my field site.

 Only in Pueblo Nuevo…

…Have I spent a Saturday afternoon chatting with my extended host family, while making guava jam over a wood-fired stove.

…Have my host parents taken me on an early evening walk to the underwhelmingly-named “mirador” (lookout), which is a picnic shelter on top of a huge hill with a stunning view of Tortuguero National Park and the Caribbean Sea.  

At the Mirador with Yeimy and Anyell

…Have we stopped on the way back from our walk to pick a snack of sour guavas (eaten with salt) and admire a family of white-faced capuchin monkeys.

… Has my mid-morning snack been “agua pipa” (coconut water) chopped down from the tree with a machete and sipped from the shell, and the sweet/sour pulp sucked off of cacao seeds.

After you finish drinking the coconut water, you can cut it open to eat out the white "meat." This time I was at home so I ate it with a spoon, but out in the field I would use another little piece of the shell to scoop it out.

…Have I had a field of yucca in my backyard and guava, cacao and coconut trees in the front.

…Is nearly everyone in the town related to everyone else.

… Have I watched so many “telenovelas” (soap operas).

… Have I lost a $200 GPS device in the middle of the forest, searched for an hour without success and returned home in desperation, only to return with my host father who found it easily!

… Are motorcycles and bicycles the primary mode of transportation; I’ve often seen an entire family squeezed onto one vehicle.

My host parents Liliana and Marcos on their motorcycle at the Mirador

…Does my schoolwork consist of hiking around a cacao plantation (that more resembles a jungle than a farm) and digging in the dirt.

…Have I spent four hours (which was four hours less than the other workers) helping to scoop cacao seeds out of the pods by hand at the request of one particular cacao buyer.  The work that took forty people eight hours to complete by hand is normally done by just two people in the same amount of time using modern machinery.  Fifteen years ago, however, none of the machinery that is currently used existed, and all of the cacao processing was done by hand like this!

This was the pile of cacao pods that my group scooped out.  It probably took us about four hours to finish this pile.

…Is the sound of a rainstorm amplified many times by pounding off the metal roofs of the buildings.  With a really heavy downpour, it’s so loud that it’s difficult to hold a conversation or watch tv, so most people just end up taking a nap until it passes.

…Have I learned how to ride a bike while holding a shovel and burlap sack full of supplies (the trick is to stick the handle of the shovel underneath the straps of your backpack).

…Does a perfectly clear, sunny day or starry night by no means mean that you can leave the house without a raincoat or umbrella.

…Are the mosquitoes at least three times bigger than mosquitoes in the US; almost completely resistant to DEET as well as clothing; and inexplicably intelligent, able to sniff out gringa blood from miles away but leaving the ticos in peace.  I’m pretty sure some people here think I have varicela (chicken pox),  haha. 

…Are pet stores completely unnecessary.  No dogs or cats are spayed or neutered, so there are plenty of them to go around.  Pet parakeets are plucked off of the trees in the neighborhood.  Geovanny, a sloth researcher on the cacao farm, even has a pet toucan named Pascual!

Pascual the toucan.

…Are there more bars (1) than grocery stores (0).  Oh, wait, never mind… that’s Wisconsin too!  Actually, that’s a lie; there are several pulperías, which are like small convenience stores where you can find basic groceries… I just really wanted to make that joke.

Pueblo Nuevo: the bar is the blue building on the right.

I’m back in San José now, which is a big city and has many of the conveniences (and inconveniences) of the United States.  My time in Pueblo Nuevo was a chance to live a very different lifestyle, and while at times it was hard, I’m so glad I got to experience the tranquilo life in the campo.