- Week 5 began with a Monday free of classes, September 15th, ¡El Día de la Independencia! That's Independence Day, for all you readers :) I slept late since there were no classes and I wanted to rest until my body was ready to wake up--I had had a HUGE weekend. I headed downtown at 10:00 am (10 minute bus ride, shorter than normal because the streets were blocked off a few hundred meters in front of the pedestrian-only section of downtown to make way for the Independence Day festivities). I found a spot in the crowd with my camera and watched 2 hours of parades; the local kids, called Josefinas/Josefinos because they're from San José, marched in their snazzy little school uniforms, played instruments in their school bands, waved Costa Rican flags and danced to their school band's tunes. It was really refreshing to see everyone so excited for their country's independence, even though Costa Rica's liberation from Spain was really easily won--without a huge and bloody battle, even! Regardless of whether there was a battle or not, independence from the colonizing European entity is still a BIG reason to celebrate.
- September 16th held a field trip to Atenas with my favorite professor. Prof. Q. teaches both Environmental Group classes on Tuesday, (Rural and Urban Dimensions from 9-12 and Ecotourism & Conservation from 1-4), which makes it easier to have a field trip that lasts all day--we don't have to come back to school for another class, and he makes an effort to include aspects and lessons from both classes into the field trip agenda. I'm telling you, he's the greatest, always looking for the student to feel comfortable and learn at the same time (because it's hard to learn when you're not comfortable, as we all probably know!). So, Atenas is the Costa Rican town to which he returned (with his American wife) after doing his graduate work in Oklahoma. The guidebook I found in my house this morning (left by a previous student, thank you!) said that Atenas, a tiny rural community in the western mountains of Costa Rica's Central Valley, was voted by National Geographic to have the "best climate in the world." So that is their selling point, now, a slogan that can be seen on the backs of buses all around "town."
1)"cow poopy" (Prof. Q.'s exact words) compost pile, where they use worms to expedite the decomposition process, the end product essentially being fertilized soil. They use this product to fertilize the fields where the cows live (to continue growing healthy grass), and in the garden where Agriculture students learn gardening techniques and the veggies are used in the school cafeteria. Completely closed cycle, just how I like it :)
2) Dairy barn where twice a day they milk their 35 cows, 4 at a time. Through a gate on one side, we could see the cutest Costa Rican barn-hand I've ever seen (OK, so at this point I'd only seen three of them) feeding a baby cow with a bottle. I think that's what made me like him :)
3) The baby cow nursery/ kindergarten where baby cows get weaned from their mommies onto yummy green grass (rather than grain and corn, like American cows. Cows' stomachs are not made to digest that stuff! See: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, this great website about cows eating grass, and--if you don't have a problem with seeing innards, this blog.)
I'll just paste the info for you: basically, as cows are fed grain, the pH level of their stomachs decreases (becomes more acidic), which can cause "indigestion, rumen stasis, dehydration, acidosis, toxemia, incoordination, collapse, and frequently death" (Merck Veterinary Manual, quoted in Fanatic Cook blog). If you're not an animal rights lover and don't care about the livelihood of cows, continue reading to see how humans are affected: when the pH of a cow's stomach(s) drops to around 5.5, the bacterial protozoa begin to die, and dangerous E. coli strains begin to form (namely E. coli 0157:H7, found in the human-induced unnaturally acidic stomachs of cattle), which is more likely to cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever, and sometimes fatal kidney failure in humans. (Nina Planck, NYTimes article, quoted in Fanatic Cook blog). I'm not advocating vegetarianism or boycotting the consumption of meat, just the boycotting of the consumption of meat that comes from big commercial farms (you know the type, cows standing knee-deep in their own "cow poopy"--how can bacteria NOT proliferate?) or from a source whose practices you don't know. Anywho, continuing with the field trip saga (but I don't apologize for that little rant, it's important information for anyone who eats in today's consumer society!)
4) Next we tried two of the types of cheese that are made with the milk--these cheeses are sold to the farm's visitors, and served in the school's cafeteria. And might I add that they were delicious---and I do love cheese. I don't know if that makes it easier to believe me because I'm a "connoisseur" (haha!) or harder to believe me because I love almost every cheese...
5) After a short walk through a field with a really interesting tree, we came upon a wooden dock that extended out over a sludgy lagoon, about 15' above the surface of the water. We looked around for a few minutes and finally saw scaly, pointed heads gliding through the water--a crocodile pit. The school keeps these crocs for conservation purposes, making sure their species doesn't die out. In captivity, if there is more than 1 male crocodile, the males will fight to the death. So, this pit had 9 females and 1 male who was rumored to be 4.5 meters long (that means roughly 13.5 feet for us non-metric users. Wow.) To continue closing the cycle, the crocs get fed the unusable portions of any goat, sheep or cow that dies of natural causes. This is not a hamburger farm, just dairy.
6) We visited the baby goats kindergarten area to play with, snuggle with, and pester the little goats, who are there to make it more farmy and to save on lawn-mowing costs. I don't think the goats provided much milk, but they do provide a lovely soundtrack (that incessantly reminded me of home, along with the soothing smell of manure and freshly cut hay--you only wish I was kidding about it being soothing).
7) Lunch at a yummy Atenas buffet across from a park
8) Then a tour of an organic coffee cooperative in the hills of Atenas. We got a tour of the grounds (whoa, no pun intended!), sampled fruit from the fruit trees that shaded the coffee plants, saw the processes through which the cooperative farmers pick, wash/soak/separate, sun-dry, shell, shell again and grind the beans, then we were provided with samples of the coffee and some homemade coffee-complementing goodies from the owner's wife.
9) Prof. Q. was excited to take us to a spring fed, chlorine-free swimming pool in the area; when we arrived, though, the deep end had only 1.5 feet of water in it! It turns out that the pool gets drained every Monday so bacteria and yuckies won't grow in the water in the absence of chlorine. Since we came on a Tuesday it had not yet finished filling up for it's heavy weekend usage. Prof. Q. has promised that he will take us back there some time later in the semester :)
10)In addition to seeing the rural aspects of living in Atenas, one of the main reasons for going on this field trip was to visit the community center that Prof. Q.'s wife started, called Su Espacio (your space). It serves as a central location that offers dance lessons, martial arts classes, English lessons, etc. to the community's kids (or adults).
- Wednesday night held a funny time at Bar Rio where my friends and I each ordered mixed drinks based on their names along. I opted for the cheapest, a Miguelito (which is funny because I call one of my friends here Miguelito), there was a Cerebral Hemorrhage and all sorts of weird names. Most of them were terrible, but it was still hilarious.
- Thursday 9/18 was my mommy's birthday! I called her to sing Feliz Cumpleaños, talked on skype for an hour, then got a call from Dad. He didn't have a sound chip in the computer he was using, so I pantomimed--I'm sure that made the crazy American in McDonald's look even crazier.
- Friday morning I woke up early to follow my previously-planned itinerary, which involved meandering downtown to get some much-needed Mica Time. I am good friends with almost everyone in my group, but sometimes you just need some peace and quiet--although it's quite ironic that I go to the capitol city to get my peace and quiet! Most of my journal entry for today is in Spanish, but I'll translate: I walked to the main avenue of the pedestrian-only section of San José, then climbed a hill to reach the Children's Museum. I thought it would be a great way to start because the exhibits would be in Spanish but at a child's level (which is about my level), but I decided such a colorful museum would be more fun with friends. So, I made my way back down the hill past the cute alphabet sidewalk mural and crossed over the Rio Torres that runs alongside the north side of the city. I explored lots of different streets, not looking for anything in particular, and most of the city parks; in Parque Morazón there was a big festival for kids with music and dancing. I received free entry to the National Art Center and another connected gallery, where I saw two exhibits on modern art and graphic design. Then I hit the National Library to wait out the rain, but decided to continue walking after a while because all that was available to the public was the reference section. I walked through the National Park and finally to the National Museum, which is located on the eastern side of town in an old military fortress (from before the military was abolished in the late 1940s). I tried to read all the exhibit descriptions in Spanish--it's amazing how tired that will make you! I walked through the room of Pre-Colombian gold; an exhibit on mosaic tile fabrication and design; a colonial house model with original furniture donated to the museum; Costa Rica's diverse population roots; Costa Rica's history; the impact of coffee and bananas on its people, environment and economy (provided jobs for people, did wonders for the economy, but any monoculture crop will bring soil nutrient leaching and other problems). Then I visited the secret garden, which had some butterflies in it, then some beautiful wooden sculptures shaped like different animals, a tour of what the military fort looked like (I'm glad I wasn't a soldier back then, tiny dormitories, tiny public bathrooms, crowded showers--hard life in general), and then I learned about the legend of the passionflower; did you know its name is derived from the Passion of the Christ, and that every section of the flower--including color--has a different meaning? If you visit the link, be sure to click continue so you can read the legend in its entirety :) It was a really long day, but I definitely enjoyed my Mica Time!
- Saturday I did wings, beer and football with Matito, and Sunday I attempted to use the internet at his house, watched some more football/ golf, and got walked to the bus stop in the rain. [long.week]
