Parade of the Lanterns (Desfile de los faroles)

Every 15th day of September Costa Rican's celebrate the independence of Central America from Spain.  From my understanding the actual act of independence was not signed until October 29th, but the 15th was the day when they officially started formal discussions about the iminent declaration.  On the 14th day of September, Costa Rican children and family gather at their schools and community centers to sing the national anthen, sing songs of independence and to show off their lanterns, afterward which they parade through town.

Willie is a member of our Guías y Scouts troop (Costa Rican version of Boy and Girl Scouts) 

Why lanterns?  As the story goes María Delores Bedoya went through the streets of Guatemala with a torch to invite the citizens to congregate and participate in the discussion for independence in the plaza in front of the Palacio Naciónal.  I couldn't help but think of the legendary ride of Paul Revere when I heard this story.

Diana (girl to the left) is in our Guías y Scouts troop

On the 15th of September, it is common for children to participate in bands, traditional dances while again parading through town.  No crazy fireworks, just a lot of amazingly precious kids and their families participating in some good, wholesome civic pride.

Here are a few more pictures from the Parade of the Lanterns (Desfile de los faroles)...

Andri is the son of a friend

Gerald (pronounced Harold) was formally a member of our English class

Tortuguero: A Costa Rica Must See

Note: I recommend reading this blog post via the website and not by email as the many pictures and video (don't miss the video if you have time to view) may not appear in your email.  http://peacecorpscr.blogspot.com/

This last weekend we took the opportunity to travel to Tortuguero, which is located in the northeastern corner of the Province of Limón.  So far, our excursion there has been the highlight of our time in Costa Rica as we were able to see the nesting of the Green Sea Turtle and also watched a baby Green turtle, just newly hatched, struggle to finally meet the ocean (see video below).

The town of Tortuguero is located on the outskirts of the Tortuguero National Park (Parque Nacional Tortuguero) which is a prime location to watch turtles nesting on the beach.  Of the turtles that nest in this location, you can see Hawksbills, Loggerheads, Green and Leatherbacks, many of which are endangered.  The nesting season for the following turtles is from mid-February to the end of September, depending on the species with the highest population of turtles, mostly Green Turtles, arriving in the month of August and the beginning of September.

The town of Tortuguero, population 2000 (rough local estimate), is situated with the Atlantic Ocean on its eastern end with a long, flat and wide beach that stretches for miles in both the northern and southern direction.  The western end of the town is bordered by a river which connects with a series of canals, some natural and others manmade.  Some of those that are manmade were constructed so as to float timber down the river as transporting logs over the marshy, swampy terrain would be impossible.  (See history of Tortuguero: http://www.tortuguerovillage.com/english/history.htm)

As the town is only accessible by boat or plane, the town does not have any cars and the houses that are scattered throughout the village are connected mainly by meandering dirt paths which weave their way throughout the village which gives the town a very quaint and leisurely feel.  The center of town is the dock where you can find two supermarkets, a number of sodas or restaurants and a few cabins.  The “main street” of Tortuguero runs parallel to the river and perpendicular to the dock, with the northern half consisting of a paved sidewalk (not unsurprisingly, the majority of the upscale souvenir shops, jewelry stores and restaurants are located on this end).  The northern end of this walkway leads to the regionally famous Afro-Caribbean restaurant, Miss Junie’s.

The animal life that can be found in the park include manatees, as well as caimans, crocodiles as well as numerous fish. The forests are home to jaguars, three-toed sloths, and three of Costa Rica's four species of monkey: Geoffroy's Spider Monkey, the Mantled Howler, and the White-headed Capuchin. Basilisk lizards and poisonous frogs also inhabit the area, along with 375 species of birds, including kingfishers, toucans, blue herons, peacocks, and parrots. There are more than 400 species of trees and approximately 2,200 species of other plants.

Of the above, we were able to see Howler Monkeys, Spider Monkeys, White-headed Capuchins, Basilisk lizards, toucans, caiman, an anteater and kingfishers among others during a canal tour we took the morning of September 3^rd.

However, the real reason we came was to see the Green sea turtle nesting.  We took a night tour on September 3^rd from 10 pm – 12 am where we were able to see the four stages of turtles nesting, laying eggs, cover, camouflage and return to the ocean.  We were not allowed to take any lights nor take pictures during the tour so as not to scare the turtles during this very critical time.  The only way to see the turtles was by infrared light and this was only to be shone from behind by the guides or turtles spotters.  It was really hard to comprehend the turtle's immensity (a mature adult weighs between 250-420 lbs!) and the struggles that the turtles must go through to lay their eggs.  Our guide told us that only 1 turtle out of a 2000 eggs would ever survive to come back to nest after 35 years.

Some other interesting facts:

-Each Green Turtle lays between 100-200 per nest.

-A green turtle can live up to 80 years in the wild.

-Sea turtles mate between 2 and 4 years (on average they nest every 3 years).

-Mating season for Green Sea Turtle is from June to September.

-After 45-75 days the turtles hatch at night and instinctively head for the beach which is the most dangerous time of their life.

Needless to say, I highly recommend visiting Tortuguero should you have a chance to visit Costa Rica.

Our First (Unwanted) Houseguest

We heard a rustling in the plastic bags in the room adjacent to our bedroom. Since we're used to critters in our quarters, we dismissed this sound as most likely that of the geckos which traverse our walls and ceiling, but usually for a quick pass to see what kind of morsel, moth, “zancudo” (mosquito) or other bicho it might be able to capture with its flitting tongue.  We love the geckos because they help keep our room less infested and other than leaving little defecations that appear like rat droppings, they are completely harmless.  We’ve even taken to watching them, staring at the ceiling during the evening (remember, no TV) and placing bets on whether they’ll be able to catch such-and-such bicho.

The next evening Melinda happened to wake up at night to go to the bathroom and was startled to find a toad hopping diagonally across the floor.  She called me and even though we’d been in site for a couple of months at this time, I didn’t dare try to pick it up with my hands although I’ve since seen ticos do this.  I grabbed an empty ice cream container which I had saved to store “chunches” (various random things) and used it to trap the toad like a glass trapping a firefly against the floor, and gently slid the top underneath to seal it.  I then punched a couple of holes in the lid so that it could breath.

I let our host mother know of our unwanted house guest and she recommended that I take the toad far from the house or it was bound to return.  I figured this was nonsense, but followed her directions nonetheless and took the ice cream container with toad in tote next door and liberated it into the drainage ditch where I figured it would find more fitting to its domiciliary preference.

The next evening we heard another rustling in the corner of our room in the area where we store our plastic bags to re-use and low and behold when I moved our bike helmets, the little toad was huddled up in the corner again, appearing vulnerable yet shameless.  I repeated the steps I took to entrap the little nuisance the first time in the ice cream container and set out to take it further from the house, thinking it must know the neighborhood, but certainly wouldn’t be able to find its way back to our room from a little further down the street.  I deposited our little uninvited guest just inside the small “bananera" (banana plantation) down the road a little farther from where we lived, thinking we must have seen the last of him.

Low and behold the fifth morning we happened to hear a noise from the corner of our room and somehow the pest had found its way back inside.  I thought of the “dicho” (or saying) that declares  that “guests are like fish, after three days they start to stink” and this was indeed the case in our situation.  As it was the morning and we were busy getting ready to sit down to eat, I left the trapped frog in the ice cream container on the edge of the counter next to the sink, with a book on top, just in case the toad had enough force behind his little legs to force the lid off his pint-sized prison.  My thought is that after breakfast I would take him across town with me to where I work and let him off in the grounds there.  Surely he wouldn’t find his way back this time!

However, given my rush to eat, get through the shower and eat, I forgot to bring the toad with me.  It was a sweltering day both outside and inside our humble, two bedroom living space.  I passed the entire day at work without a single thought about the prisoner who was now facing cruel and unusual punishment baking inside a poorly ventilated ice cream chamber, inside a larger poorly ventilated room.  At 4 pm it was time to start our English class with several youngsters in our neighborhood when I recognized my error.  Was our poor toad lying dead, either baked to death by the sun, or suffocating from lack of oxygen?  When I opened the door, removed the book and opened the lid, the reality was that he was alive, but close to suffocating in its own waste as he had soiled himself several times over.  Was I now a torturer of defenseless animals I wondered?  What right did I have to entrap him, wasn’t the house built on what was probably the homes of his ancestors?  As a pacifist, I was having a hard time reconciling my negligence with the cruelty in which it was cast upon this poor creature.

I looked around the room to see if I could spot the hole from which this animal must have entered the room.  Searching diligently, I found a small hole below the sink where the pipes entered which must have been his point of entry.  I stuffed the entryway with a cloth shoe protector and headed off to unshackle our pitiable, prisoner of war walking nearly a quarter of a mile from our house and set it free well off the side of the road in an abandoned lot.  I tried hard to free my mind of the torture that I had bestowed upon our unsuspecting boarder.  Was it necessary to rendition and torture this little animal to keep it from pushing itself on us?  What were its motives for returning: was it greed, curiosity, spite or sense of belonging that it was searching for?

I’m not sure whether it was from the maltreatment or for the fact that we covered his tunnel of ingress, but we haven’t seen the toad in our room since.  In the days subsequently, I have found ways to sooth my troubled spirit and only occasionally have had dreams of the crazy, foaming mouthed toad wreaking horrible revenge on both Melinda and I.  I only now feel a soft sting of guilt every time we see a toad after a long, hard rain.

Tico Time or My Least Favorite Tico Word: Ahorita

One of the core requirements when going through Peace Corps training was learning to cope with cultural adjustment.  We were warned about what they refer to as "tico time" and that you can expect when a meeting is scheduled for 2 pm that if you are lucky it will start at 2:30 pm, but more likely at 3 pm and that presupposes that people actually show up.  As a North American, or more generally we're referred to as "gringo" here, this is one of the most frustrating cultural adjustments that we have to make. 

I've heard that the cultural reason behind "tico time" is that ticos place more importance on relationships than they do on being on time.  So, if you're a tico and you're hanging out with your brother and it is 2:30 pm and you're supposed to be at someone's house at 3:00 pm and it takes you 30 minutes to drive there, but your brother asks you to stay longer for a cafecito (coffee break or literally "little coffee"), who are you to say no.  Meanwhile, your community development meeting is supposed to happen at 3:00 pm and the first person shows up at 3:30 pm and 2 others trickle in.  They call you at 4 pm, but cafecito is still happening and you say, sure, you'll be there ahorita (meaning soonish or sometimes, never).  After 1 1/2 hours of waiting around with the 3 members of the community development leadership and making several calls to see if you can get just one more member to show up, as they need 4 to make a quorum, they decide to cancel the meeting having wasted nearly 4 1/2 hours of cumulative time.  Now, I'm generally pretty tolerant of many cultural differences, and believe that a lot of time my culture is too focused on time (or lack thereof) and we end up running around exhausting ourselves all day like chickens with our heads cut off.  However, not showing up to a meeting after given a 1 1/2 hour window opportunity is just plain selfish.  It is placing value on your time above the collective time of others.

I also do not buy the cultural argument about placing more value on relationships than other cultures.  Sure, there is probably some truth to that.  However, when we called the treasurer to the community development association to come to the meeting after waiting for an hour and a half, he was sitting at home doing nothing.  He was sitting there waiting for someone else to show up.  Nor did he call to give an expectation that he would not show up and even if he did you could not necessarily count on his ahorita.

Another cultural phenomena that factors into this is that ticos do not like to say no.  So, if they can't or just don't want to show up, they just don't do it.  When you confront them, they say yes or maybe when they really mean no or most likely not.  This method of functioning is supposedly a way of saving face as ticos try everything they can do to avoid conflict.  It is one big passive agressive society.  So, imagine you have a passive aggressive grandparent, child, mother-in-law or parent that just drives you nuts and multiply that by 4 million and there you have Costa Rica.

Obviously, I exaggerate, but honestly not very much.  This cultural phenomena has many serious implications; important projects are delayed for weeks, months and even years (or they just never get done) and it saps the motivation of the groups performing community development and other important work.  My hypothesis about tico time is that it has grown out of habit, that in the past there was not reliable transportation and therefore, meetings were cancelled and or never happened at all.  I believe that climate also has a factor here as when it rains it makes journeys difficult and sometimes impossible so you have to be a lot more flexible with time.  I have to admit also that somedays it is so hot here, I want to sit around here and do nothing except watch and feel my brain slowly melt to the ground.  Whereas, you cannot change the weather, transportation has improved dramatically and is no longer an excuse for being late or not showing up.  I do have to give it to ticos for their patience and there flexibility though, because if it was up to me, I would have given up a long time ago.

Green and black poison dart frog found in our yard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_and_Black_Poison_Dart_Frog

What I believe is a collared aracari found in our front yard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collared_Aracari

Stop, Still and Listen: Reflections on Time

Time passes much more slowly here, the sounds of raindrops and the calls of birds fill the empty spaces.  A howler monkey growls in the far distance signaling the dawn.  The neighborhood stray dogs bark at the farmer and his dog as they pass by our house on his way out to his farm breaking the morning calm.  This morning we woke up and heard the ocean from our room even though we are probably about a half kilometer from the beach.  All of the daily sounds take on more significance in the “silence”, the bed creaks, our host mother clears her throat in the room next to us, a squeaky gate is closed in the house across the street, and the rhythmic sound of footsteps on the unpaved road appear slowly and then gently fade into the distance.

Here we have no TV, we don’t listen to radio, and our town has no movie theater or other type of diversion which are common in the States.  We don’t have internet in our house, although there are two internet cafés in town, one of which we visit about once a week.   Occasionally we’ll watch a movie which we’ve downloaded to a portable hard drive to entertain ourselves, producing a gentle nostalgia of the lives that we left before we came to Costa Rica.  And in between our daily actions as time passes with the slow movement of a cloud, we listen: a rooster crows, wind tenderly kisses a curtain, a cricket hums, the sound of thunder rumbles in the distance, a pan clatters against the kitchen sink.

In the sounds of the day we hear joy and we hear sadness and all that falls in-between, as people go along in their daily lives.  Time passes, life moves on.  And in the world, all of these sounds amass to create a grand symphony, ever-changing.  Someone is born, another dies.  A car passes a church on the highway as a congregation sings a hymn.  Right now someone is starving; another is listening to the sounds of jet engines on his way on vacation.  Wars rage in distant lands as firecrackers are lit to celebrate someone’s birthday.  A child kisses her mother, a baby coos, a grandfather laughs, a cat purrs.

And, here I sit in my room on my bed, a small speck of sediment making its way from the swift river to the big wide ocean.  How and where and what will be my destination, where will I settle when the waters deposit me on the shores of time.  I am trying to follow this course without fighting it, allowing the river to take me where it wants to, and listening to the sounds to give me guidance.

  Who needs a hammock?

Live Like a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica!

Had to re-post this link which we received from the Costa Rica office.  It is a funny, but also describes some of the daily challenges and cultural differences we have as volunteers here in Costa Rica.  Have fun playing "Live Like a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica!"

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2YDS7Pm6kwEMjkyYThmOGYtMWEyMS00MzkzLWIyYjgtNTNkZWE1Njg2OWRj&hl=en_US&pli=1

If you want to see what is is like to be a Peace Corps volunteer in other countries, check this link out.

http://www.livelikeapcv.org/

Managing Solid Waste - Something Which We All Take For Granted

One of the direst environmental issues here is the crisis that Costa Rica has with dealing with solid waste (as well as many other developing nations).  They don't refer to what we throw away in our garbage cans as garbage, but "residúos solidos" because the majority of the things we throw in the trash are actually not trash, but can be recycled or reused.  In fact, only 7% of what would traditionally be called "trash" is actually trash.  On top of that approximately 58% of that "trash" is actually biodegradable and is taking up space in trash cans (or "basureros"), attracts all kinds of animals and "bichos", brings with it diseases in addition to it literally just doesn't smell good.

 
Before coming to Costa Rica, I didn't really think too much about trash and how it is managed in our country.  We separate our recyclables (and at my former job our compostables) and put our waste in plastic bags and off it goes every so often with guys that come by in the garbage truck early in the morning and wake us all up with the sounds they make.  But where does all of this go?  Where is the closest landfill to where we live?  And how much of that trash is really garbage and how long does it take for specific types of materials to decompose?

In Costa Rica they have a decentralized system for treating solid waste which is handled at the municipality level.  Therefore, if there are 82 municipalities in Costa Rica you have 82 different ways of managing the solid waste that accumulates at an alarming rate day by day.  Supposedly, although I have not read it and couldn't find it online by a simple search, there is a law that orders municipalities in Costa Rica to take care of solid waste within their regions in an orderly, regular and healthy manner.  However, in my experience here in Costa Rica, it is obvious that this is not happening and that there is no accountability to require that this occurs or to punish those municipalities which are not making it a priority to deal with this issue (nor is there sufficient money given to the municipalities to tackle this mounting issue).

In many rural communities here the municipalities do not have a method for picking up trash.  In fact, only 75% of the country is covered by some method of collecting trash.  The other 25% of the communities have two options: throw the trash in vacant lots or burn it, both with obvious terrible effects for the environment.  Out of the countries municipalities only 34% have sanitary landfills to deposit trash and out of those only 5 of them operate legally and out of those only 1 is operated by a municipality.

In Talamanca, we do have trash collection at the municipality level and the trash is transported over an hour north to a landfill in Limón.  However, the issue with the garbage collection is that the service is not regular leaving garbage to sit out on the banks of the streets and allowing stray dogs to break open the bags, scattering trash everywhere in search of food.  And despite the fact there is trash pick-up many people still burn their garbage.

Littering here is also a cultural habit that is passed down from parents to their children.  I was told one time that in the past here everyone used to litter, but that was when the majority of what was thrown on the ground was organic and decomposed.  As the years passed and the people here began buying their food in plastic containers, it didn’t register that the plastic that they were throwing on the side of the road would not decompose for at least 500 years.  Another issue here that I wouldn’t have thought about previously is that the trash that collects on the side of roads and in people’s yards accumulates water which then become nesting grounds for mosquitoes which carry and spread dengue of which there has been a recent outbreak in this area.  It also has a devastating effect on the animals that happen to consume this garbage as they think it is food; oftentimes dying of hunger because their stomachs are filled with plastic and they cannot each anything.    

Additionally, Costa Rica has lacked education about the effects of this ever-accumulating trash and lacks the institutional and financial means to tackle this issue which, before coming to Costa Rica, I took for granted in the United States.  For instance, what is plastic made from (answer: petroleum – another reason to not use plastic as it helps to encourage wars in oil-producing nations).  Were you aware of the big floating garbage “soup” in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that is said to be twice the size the state of Texas?  See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch.  If we don’t act soon (meaning NOW), we’re really going to be doing some irreversible damage, if it hasn’t been done already.  

My municipality, although it lacks the coordination for regular trash pick-up does have a nascent system for recycling among mainly large and small businesses in the area and is an example to many other communities and municipalities in Costa Rica.  In fact, they are able to recycle many things which in the States I would throw away and which is considered (as far as I know) non-recyclable like the chips wrappers and what they call “tetrabrik” or “tetrapak” which are the milk and juice cartons which are composed of cardboard, aluminum and plastic.  However, they still lack a system for domestic recycling which is one of my project goals here for the next two weeks.

So, when I go to the local supermarket, Palí, to buy a soda or buy some chips, I am much more likely to refuse those that contain plastic and am especially careful of such wasteful items such as Styrofoam.  I encourage all of you who are not already doing so to reuse and recycle.  And for those of you who are already doing that I encourage you to think about the cycle of waste and to think about reducing or rejecting (the cornerstones of the 4 R’s: Rethink/Reject, Reduce, Reuse & Recycle).

As for me, when I return to the States I’m going to question more the consumption which leads to what I would call a disease, because in the end, it is making us all sick.

Directions “a la Tica” or How I Got Lost Before I Found Myself in Costa Rica

If you’ve ever been to Costa Rica and tried to get around San Jose as a foreigner you were probably surprised to discover the lack of street signs and the confusing manner in which “Ticos” (as Costa Ricans call themselves) give directions.  For instance, if I want to go from the Parque Central (Central Park) to the Mercado Central (Central Market) the directions might be: From the northwest corner of the park, walk 200 meters (100 meters = one block) west and 100 meters north and you will find the entrance on your left-hand side.

If you don’t happen to know that 100 meters roughly equals a block, independent of how long the block is, nor have an internal compass or don’t know certain points of reference, then you are going to find it very difficult to get around Costa Rica.  Although the streets do have names, hardly anyone knows them with the exception of perhaps Paseo Colón / Avenida Central.  Nor do the majority of the streets have street signs to give you any point of reference.  To top it off, people who live in San Jose are generally lousy at giving directions.  Ticos also happen to make references to places that no longer exist.  For instance, you might hear one say “…and make a left at the old Coca Cola bottling factory” which hasn’t existed for a long time or that you’ve “…gone too far if you reach the old tree that no longer exists because it fell down last year during a major storm.”

Houses, at least in rural towns in Costa Rica, do not have address numbers and are differentiated by their color, the color of their gate, a particular plant or tree that might be planted in their yard, the number of floors or the style of roof that it may have.  For instance if you want to get to your friend’s house, you might hear the following directions: Walk up the hill 800 meters until you find the house with the white and blue gate and the palm tree which was struck by lightning last year.

This cultural difference in defining points of reference and giving directions highlights the difference in development between Costa Rica and the United States.  Although Costa Rica is a well-developed country in many manners, and certainly superior to the United States in many social and political aspects (for instance, Costa Rica has no standing army and has not had a war since a short Civil War in 1948) this is one striking example of infrastructural development that we take for granted in the United States. 

I believe that this lack of a simple system for orientation is a result of rapid development without proper planning which oftentimes occurs in the need to catch up with the countries and economies of more industrialized, developed nations.  It also is an example of one of many inefficiencies which can make certain supposedly simple pieces of business much more difficult here (another example of development that we also take for granted is an organized and efficient system for collection of garbage and recycling which I will touch on in another blog post).

During my first four months here, I’ve learned to take and give directions “a la Tica” and come to know and appreciate a lot which we take for granted back home.  I’ve also realized that development takes patience, and is a never-ending but potentially rewarding process.   Furthermore we cannot cast a critical eye on the development of other nations without also looking critically of the development that needs to happen in our own country.  In fact, in relation to the widening gap between rich and poor, homelessness, racism and immigration, our national debt and the increasingly hostile divisions within our government, we have a lot of work to be done at home.  With hope, when I return from the Peace Corps in two years, the lessons I’ve learned in development can be used and applied in the United States, in my own backyard where we, too, have so many problems and inefficiencies which are waiting to be attended to.

Roasting Cashews - Costa Rican Style

Did you know that cashews actually grows on a fruit, one nut (it is actually a seed in the botanical sense) per fruit?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashew

During our training we had the opportunity to visit other volunteers in Guanacaste and we were invited by a neighbor of theirs to harvest the cashew nuts (or marañon in Spanish) and then roast them over a fire to eat.  Roasting the nut helps to burn off the otherwise irritating toxin found on the shell (or "cascara") as well as give them a really excellent flavor after breaking the shell to extract the nut.

Harvesting the nuts took a reasonable amount of time since there is only one nut (seed) per fruit.  Cashews are just as expensive here as in the States and for good reason.  It gave me a real appreciation for what it takes for a jar of cashews to arrive in a jar in the grocery store in the States.

Anyway, here's a few pictures of us roasting and sharing some cashews with our fellow Peace Corps volunteer hosts and some of our new friends (their neighbors).

The toxins on the shell are flamable and it is necessary to roast the cashews for a long time before they are ready to eat.

One of our hosts helping us move the cashews around so they don't burn and to help stoke the fire so that the cashews roast more quickly.

Happily posing for a picture after we've eaten the fruits of our labor.  The cashews were harvested from the orchard of the gentleman seated in the middle. 

Some Photos from Our First Month of Service in Costa Rica

The following are a few pictures we've taken during our first few weeks in Costa Rica with some captions to explain the context.

This is a picture of a cricket that almost scared us to death our first week.  It was sitting right outside the entrance to our room.  We tended toward fear when encountering new "bichos" during our first few weeks here.  We're becoming a little more accustomed, but have found a little fear is probably a good thing.

I helped save this sloth with a co-worker as it was trying to cross a busy street which you can imagine is not a smart thing to do if you are not very fast.  Here's a picture of him happily climbing a tree from the ground after we took him there far away from the crowded road. 

We took a group of children to Cahuita National Park on a school trip and this boy wanted his picture taken.

This is definitely one of the most beautiful snakes I've seen - it's called an Oropel - which I wrote about in my first post which is poisonous, but is very docile unless provoked.  This one was located at Cahuita National Park.

This is a picture of some kids playing soccer on the beach during a sunset about 4 km from our site.

A Day in the Life – Our first month at our site

It’s 6:18 pm and it is 85 degrees and practically 100 percent humidity here.  We’ve gotten used to the tiny ants inside our room, but the ones outside in the lawn bite hard, which defies their minuteness.  We bought a fan, but we use it sparingly as we’re sensitive to the electricity use which our host “mother” has to pay.  We go to sleep with a mosquito net and usually take a shower before we go to bed to make it easier to withstand the heat.
 
The sound of rain outside is soothing, they call it “pelo de gato” or cat’s hair, as the rain is soft and fine.  At times, it can rain really heavily, but so far we’ve had little rain since arriving although we’re located in a tropical rainforest  and it historically rains the entire month of May and the beginning of June.   The rain usually drops the temperature a degree or two, which can really make a difference when you’re trying to get to sleep at night.

Our morning routine usually includes a walk and some exercises using a combination of resistance bands and a yoga mat along with a 30-40 minute walk.  Afterward, we eat breakfast with our host mother which usually combines rice, beans and eggs and sometimes meat although this morning we had tamales with chicken and a sausage in a bun.  A lot of the food we eat here comes from our host families or a neighbor’s farm, the majority of which is grown organically.  It has given me a new definition of “eating local” since a lot of the produce and/or meat only travels a kilometer or less to get from farm to table.

One of my favorite pastimes here is to sit on the front porch and read a book.  Although it is still, if you pay attention there is always movement, a bird flying by and just about grazing the ground, a butterfly fluttering in the wind, the sounds of the barking of the neighbors’ dogs as they talk to each other over the distances and the sounds of bicycle tires passing on the dirt road as a child rides by to go to school.

When it gets too hot and we’re not working, we usually take a trip to the beach or take a dip in one of the creeks (or criques in Spanglish) or small rivers here.  If we can’t find water to escape the heat, I’ll take the shade and a nice cool wind.  ¡Qué rico! (How wonderful!)  We pass the time chatting with neighbors, playing fútbol with our host mother’s nephews or visiting one of the neighboring towns to get a better understanding of the geography and diversity of the region.

In our first three months we have been tasked with writing a community diagnostic, which underscores both the strengths and the challenges of the community which we will eventually present to various community organizations.  Given these challenges and strengths and the skills which we possess as volunteers we will prioritize projects and collaborate with our community to tackle some of the pressing issues.  Much of our time thus far has been spent in interviewing people of all ages, gender and background, making community maps and seasonal calendars to better know the community resources and times of local holidays, harvests and times when people are either busy or available and getting to know our counterpart agencies and personnel.

So far, we’re slowly getting accustomed to our life here, although a call home or an email from a friend makes us a little homesick.  But we’ve been here in Costa Rica for now over 3 months and we’re starting to feel like we’re actually really doing this – finally realizing the dream which began more than a year and a half ago (in November 2009) when we first decided to apply to be Peace Corps volunteers.

Afraid of the Dark

The first visit we made to a volunteer’s site during training, I swear I regressed back to childhood and became afraid of the dark again.  We arrived to the site in the dark so had no bearings and what types of animals or “bichos” (generic for any insect or unknown animal) would be lurking in the shadows.  After tales of bats – one of which got disoriented by a fan and beat its wing into the face of our host, scorpions – some of which are the size of your hand and a story about how a spider which died our host’s ear (who was told by the PC doctor to leave it there and it would disintegrate and exit naturally), we were not prepared to go to sleep.  Not only was it hot, but we were thinking and dreading the worst and did not have a flashlight with us for when we needed to get up and go to the bathroom or get water.

In the middle of the night, my wife and I were startled awake by something which crawled across our legs.  My heart palpitated rapidly and I became over-sensitized to every slight sound or movement around me.  My wife’s concurrence regarding the unknown animal which scurried over us only underscored the validity of my worst fears.  We sat and clutched each other for what must have been an hour and placed a small sheet over us should the same thing happen, despite the fact that we were already both overly hot and having a hard time getting to sleep.
When we needed to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, we waited until we couldn’t wait any longer.  Not only did we not know where the light was, but we also had no idea where we had placed our flip-flops and who knows what we might step on as we fumble blindly through the room searching for a way to illuminate our way through the lurking shadows.
My wife managed to find her way to turn on the light while I clutched her hand only to find that the room was empty (except us of course) and we were able to do our business and eventually fell asleep again, light as it would be.  Welcome to Peace Corps, Costa Rica!  However, this first visit turned out to be very useful in preparing us for our new site in terms of the heat, the bugs and some “basic training.”
Rule #1: Always know where you put your slippers should you have to get up in the middle of the night and you don’t have light. 
Rule #2: Always keep a source of light close to you (flashlight or know where to find the wall switch).

Now that we’ve been in our site for almost a month, we’re not fazed by large flying cockroaches (well, at least we know they are not going to kill us), huge toads which like to hang outside our door when it rains, and large grasshoppers, beetles, cicadas or crickets of varying sizes and Martian quality.  We do have a great deal of respect for snakes, which we’ve been told are plenty, although we’ve only seen one that is venomous so far, knock on wood.  We make sure to keep our “foco,”or flashlight, with us handy at all times, scan it in front of us when walking at night, make sure to keep an eye at our feet when walking through the thick underbrush or “mata” and always wear boots and long pants when walking in the “campo” or countryside.  But, that’s not to say that the next time I run into something unknown I’m not going to run wildly and scream at the top of my lungs like a girl.   

Welcome to the Jungle!

I know that this blog is LONG overdue.  My apologies, but before signing up for the Peace Corps I really had no idea how busy I would be.  The first three months of training averaged between 12-14 hour days including practicing our Spanish with our training host families and any time we had which was free, which was usually one day or so every two weeks, was used as a mental health day.

I’ll go back in a further entry and reflect a little on our application process and training experience, but the current news is that my wife and I are finally Peace Corps volunteers as we had our swearing in ceremony on Friday, May 13^th at the house of the U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica (see link for recording of swearing in ceremony http://www.livestream.com/usembassy/video?clipId=flv_b9ff1d1d-676b-4098-97a7-06a19ca0fecb=).  Even after the lengthy application process and receiving our invitations to Costa Rica, we were still only “aspirants” until we met all the training pre-requisites in relation to language, security, technical, health and cultural integration.  

Very few Costa Rica Peace Corps volunteers from our group are actually located close to the beach.  Not only did we win the lottery when we were chosen to serve our time in Costa Rica, but then they place us in one of the most beautiful places in the whole country just a stone’s throw away from more than a handful of stunning beaches and ocean scenery as well as lush tropical jungle and mountainous region inland.

In our first week here we met a young gentleman in the community who is a wood-working artisan as well as a farmer and fisherman, among other things.  He offered to take us on a hike on his farm which has an overlook of our site where you can see all the way to the coast.  As he used his machete to chop a path through the thick “mata”, he told us in English, “Welcome to the Jungle”.  Turns out he’s a fan of Guns & Roses and rock music in general, but his utterance could not have been more appropriate.  We encountered “hormigas valas” – huge ants more than an inch in length which can make you ill with fever if you’re bitten, a snake (luckily non-venomous), “cara blanca” monkeys, huge blue “chicharas” (cicadas) making all kinds of “bulla” or noise.  We could also hear the distinct call of the howler monkeys in the distance.

On our return trip our guide chopped down a bunch of bananas from a tree and shook the group to make sure that all the ants and any other rodents had dispersed before carrying it with him telling us that one time his friend didn’t use the same precaution and was bitten by a venomous snake (same family as the rattle snake, but silent) and he had to carry his friend down the hill over his shoulder.  If his friend used his own power to descend the hill, the venom in his blood would flow more quickly through his body and he’d have less of a chance to live.  Turns out they made it to the street below and another friend was able to take the injured friend to the hospital on his bike.  After a two day stay in the hospital with a dose of anti-venom and antibiotics he was fine.

We're living in an area with plenty of cultural diversity: indigenous, Afro-Caribbean, Ticos (what they call Costa Ricans here), Nicaraguans, Panamanians, Europeans, and North Americans.  In addition, the county we live in is among the poorest in Costa Rica although unfortunately there are not many volunteers.  We feel very fortunate to be serving here as coming from the Bay Area we really were accustomed to diversity and certainly like the idea of being placed in a region that needs our assistance.  Also, it fit perfectly with our Peace Corps preference for region which was the following regions in this order: Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean.

Some highlights from our first week include saving a sloth "perezoso or more colloquially cúcula in Spanish" http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradypus_tridactylus from the street with one of my co-workers as it was trying to cross a busy street.  I grabbed a big log and he used his gloves to help it onto the log and then we moved it off the road and to a tree where it could safely climb to its safety.  We've seen howler monkeys (or "congos") http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alouatta_palliata and white-faced capuchin monkeys ("cara blancas") http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cebus_capucinus.

We've also seen both the Strawberry Poison Dart Frog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Poison-dart_Frog and the Green and Black Poison Dart Frog as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_and_Black_Poison_Dart_Frog.  We've also seen an Oropel which is a venemous snake in a National Park nearby (luckily off the trail) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WecCixv3W6g.

There's so much more to tell and I'd like to post some pictures soon, but I'd like to publish this today, so forgive me if this is short.  Thanks for your patience and I will try to update this blog weekly so you can keep track of what we are doing.