the adventures of buckaroo bonzai
Lauren, Clark, and I went horseback riding yesterday with our friend Melvin (who served as our guide). I got several great photos and here are a couple of the best. The rest can be seen on my Flickr.
Yeah, that’s right. Jiminy Cricket on acid. I love the tropics.
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A big ass beetle hiding in a gutter on campus. The size of my hand.
So… a little change in schedule.
Tuesdays I’m now talking a Food Processing class. The professor who teaches it is totally crazy. She’s this really short woman who has the energy of someone 10 times her size. And thankfully, she speaks very clear spanish so I can almost understand everything.
Last week, in the lab, we tested the fat content of milk. And checked processed meat for degree of additives. And observed the effect of various preservatives on fresh fruit. We wear lab coats and hair nets like the geek scientists that we obviously are.
On Wednesdays, I now go work on an organic farm in the community. The family that runs it is really nice (and the mom cooks really good food). They have three of the cleanest pigs I’ve ever seen, a few cows, and a horse or two. It turns out that this farm is one of the places I am going to visit later this summer as part of the UGA Agroecology study abroad… weird! By that time, I’m sure, I will be like family.
On Thursdays, I have a class in Organic Horticulture. We have a few interesting field trips coming up. Unfortunately I missed the first one, because nobody told me exactly when and where we were leaving until it was too late. They sent a guard to my room to wake me up, but apparently he didn’t knock loud enough for me to wake up (I probably had my earplugs in). Next time, I will make sure to know a week ahead of time what’s going on.
Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays I am working at the organic farm here on campus. They have put me in charge of setting up a biodigester for the pig manure. So I have to find plans, make a materials list, and put it all together. Then we are going to measure the methane output and determine how many hours of stove use you can get per day of manure input. Interesting.
I really like it here. I finally have friends so that most of the time when I go to dinner, I see someone I know and can talk to. There is still a lot of free time, which I have so far spent mainly taking photos and reading books. So far I’ve read The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and I’m about 1/4 of the way through The Long Emergency by Howard Kunstler. Interesting stuff.
It doesn’t seem like I’ve been here almost 3 weeks already. But in other ways it does. I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer, but I also can’t wait to come home. I miss certain aspects of American life… as much as there is to love about Costa Rica, there are a lot of things I don’t like about Latin America in general either… but mainly, I just miss my family and my girlfriend.
I recently finished reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. While it was a very interesting and educational book, I couldn’t help but think he was too harsh on Whole Foods. During several of his rants I kept thinking “Does Whole Foods really do this? Do they really promote no-name Wal-Mart-ish industrialized organic agriculture?”.
Whole Foods has responded to Mr. Pollan’s criticism.
And it’s a good read.
I still recommend the book highly, although I think Mr. Pollan has lost some credibility.
On a related note, some regional managers from Whole Foods were down here at EARTH this past week. I found out that not only does Whole Foods get their bananas from EARTH, they have also started buying organic mangoes in the last year or so. One of Costa Rica’s ex-presidents stipulated in his will that his farm land be given to a good cause, and his wife chose to donate it to EARTH. It has been converted into organic mango production with Whole Foods as the buyer.
Additionally, two of the five WF managers that I met were in the process of reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Both of them thought, rightly so, that the book was too critical of Whole Foods. One said (to paraphrase) “If he has such a problem with shipping food around the country, he shouldn’t be shipping his books around the country either.” Ha.
As far as I know, all of EARTH’s profits from their partnership with Whole Foods go directly back into funding the university. Whole Foods has also set up a half-million-dollar program in Guatemala and Costa Rica called the Whole Planet Foundation that gives micro loans to impoverished entrepreneurs so that they can get off their feet and start a business.
So when you read the letter above, take into consideration these things — Whole Foods really does put their money where their mouth is. It’s a shame that Mr. Pollan based his criticisms of Whole Foods on assumptions and hearsay, instead of going to the source.
If only Whole Foods would put a store in Athens…
It’s 5:15 pm. The sun is about to go down.
I’m listening to Country Life by Roxy Music.
Life kicks ass.
The end.
There was what’s best described as a “Food Party” here at EARTH this past weekend. The students from each country made booths and served their typical food. About 10,000 people from the surrounding communities came to enjoy the festivities and most importantly, to buy the food from the students. The proceeds go towards paying the airline tickets for the parents of graduating students.
Here are some of my favorite pictures below.
The entire set can be seen here.
This is my friend Sadai from Bolivia (left) with a friend.
She will be at UGA this coming Fall. Yes!
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Me, Marlin from Nicaragua, and Clark (from Iowa)
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Dancers taking a break.
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Rosa and a friend dance for El Salvador.
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