Costa Rica Update #1
Costa Rica is wonderful so far. Despite what I had been told, it’s not more expensive than Ecuador… cab fares are identical, laundry prices are identical, food prices are identical, etc. That was a nice realization, although I haven’t had to spend much money since almost everything is taken care of through the study abroad program fees — For $7.5k, it better be.
The other students here are great and I think we all get along well. We have 7 from UGA, and 1 from UIUC. There was a girl here from UCONN named Jessica, but she left because she missed her boyfriend, and her family, and whatever blah blah blah and some other more serious problems. It was weird, she was a total hippie, but after the first day it seemed like she wanted to go home… and we tried to be nice to her and make her fit in, but she totally kept excluding herself from the group and was acting like she was special or something. So none of us were particularly sad when she decided to pack it up and go home.
Our classes are great. I’m convinced we have two of the best professors from UGA as our teachers. They are experts at distilling information down to only what we need to know to be serious scientists, and skipping all the bullshit, because well, they are serious scientists who have been working and publishing for decades.
For instance, I’ve never had a statistics class in my life, yet I understand everything we have learned about it so far. I can’t believe I have really only been learning all of this information for just over a week. We’ve gone through basic statistics, research design, bird flight and identification, plant id, field instrumentation, tropical weather systems, and more in a matter of days. Our schedule is intense… we usually wake up around 5:30-7am (depending), do some internship work around the ecolodge during our downtime, have class for 4-6 hours per day, eat three gigantic meals at some point, and go to bed around 11pm to do it all again the next day. There aren’t really “weekends” here. We get a few hours off here and there, but for the most part every day is a learning experience and some sort of class.
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During our first week here, they threw us into a homestay with a local family. About half of us knew some spanish and the other half knew none. Although I didn’t have much of a chance to speak spanish in Ecuador (go figure), I did know a lot of words just from the spanish classes I took and from having to read signs, menus, instructions, etc. My homestay family didn’t speak any english at all, so I was forced to learn quickly and to use my dictionary at least twice a day. Now I feel confident enough to carry on basic conversations in spanish and not get completely lost.
My family was awesome. The mom’s name is Yenny (pronounced like Jenny), and she has 5 kids: Jessica (18) who didn’t live at home at the time, Jenier (17), Waldier (15), Jacqueline (12), and Josue (9). The dad doesn’t live at home because they are separated, but their grandpa lives in a spare room off the end of the house, so they do have a guy around to look up to. Living with them was a complete riot… they are so hilarious. The grandpa likes to pick on everyone all the time, including me on the first day. They were just all really silly and I really got the feeling that they were happy to have me stay there.
I wish I had some pictures of their house so I could show the difference between living here and living in the states, but I don’t think pictures could do justice anyway. The houses are all mostly (that I have seen) rectangular, with a single pitched tin roof, and concrete and/or wood walls. Maybe about 700 square feet total? It’s small… I know (rich) people who have bigger garages. At my house there were no inside doors, only curtains in the doorways. The one sink was in the kitchen, and the bathroom was kinda half in the house, and half outside. Privacy was definintely not the word of the day, but I didn’t mind much.
There has only been electricity in the area for about 7 years, but they had a fridge, microwave, blender, small tv, playstation, rather large stereo, electric iron, etc. Telephones have only been around here for a year or two, and they work off a radio transmitter to a local tower, so when the power (often) goes out for a bit the phones don’t work either.
It’s definitely rural here, and definitely different than what you find anywhere in America, but it’s not bad at all if you can learn to deal without all the luxuries of industrialization. If given the chance, I definitely wouldn’t mind living here in a similar situation, although I know that doesn’t apply for everyone cause I’m just not very picky and I don’t care about flashy cars, and fancy houses, and big screen TVs. Really I think all I need is my iBook, my iPod, and a gas stove and I’m good to go.
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The homestays ended a couple days ago and we had a big fiesta with all the students and their families. I took some pictures and here are a few of the best. I don’t have more to share at the moment, because I’ve either not had my camera with me when I needed it, or there hasn’t been much to take pictures of since we’re in class all day. Soon we’re going on some overnight field excursions, so the next update (whenever that is) should have a lot more eye candy.
Pics from the Ecolodge San Luis
ESL landscape — overview
ESL landscape — sunset
ESL students — in lab
ESL fauna — cane toad
Homestay Family
Jackie and her grandpa Manuel #1
Jackie and her grandpa Manuel #2
Jackie (right) with her cousin Susan
Josué, the youngest of my homestay brothers
Yenny, my homestay mom, cooking dinner
Kimberly, Rob’s homestay sister (so cute, I had to include her pic)
Homestay Fiesta
Adriane, Mollie, Me, Maggie
Everyone getting ready for the pinata. Notice Rob’s beer is in the hands of his homestay brother who is 13.
Geovanny, Adriana, and Emily
Jackie, modeling for the camera
Me and Maggie, with beer!
Me and Maggie, drinking too much?
Yenny and Me