Nitrate-Collecting

Phew.  It's been a long week since I last updated.

Our research project got off to a slow start -- although it's nice to have finals first to get studying and memorizing over with, the timing of our project coincides with our two professors (my project mentors) going to a conference at Duke, as well as Semana Santa, when we can't go out to talk to or interview people during the holiday.  Also, our nitrate testing kits were sitting at customs until Monday, so it was a whole lot of sitting around, making maps on ArchGIS (by which I mean, watching Steven, our resident bioinformatics major, make maps on ArchGIS).

This was definitely frustrating, and it felt like a lot of factors were out of our control, but THANK GOD, we finally got out to the field on Tuesday and even on our low-budget projects we get to do some SCIENCE, i.e. mixing cadmium to react with any nitrates in the water samples and identify the nitrate level.

Basically, our project is to look at the incidence of gastric cancer in the Coto Brus county, in the Puntarenas of Costa Rica.  Costa Rica, as I've mentioned before, has the world's highest gastric cancer incidence, along with Japan.  However, because Japan has mandatory endoscopies, they are better able to catch and treat these problems early, leaving Costa Rica with the highest gastric cancer mortality.

We're looking at different areas of Coto Brus and comparing nitrate levels in the drinking water in high gastric cancer areas to those in low gastric cancer areas.  The best way we've found to do this is to go up to people's doors and ask them for a water sample.  They've all been really happy to give them to us, and it's nice to interact with the locals.  So far, we've found....no difference between the areas.  But now we're going to explore some coffee farms and test the soil there. 

Once we got over the initial frustration of not being able to start data collection, it's been fun!  We've pretty much seen nearly every corner of Coto Brus, including winding, red dirt roads with sharp cliffs on either sides, or thin bridges that creak as the safari drives over them.  There have been beautiful views of gorgeous green mountains everywhere, but also the constant tests of the safari's abilities and confirmation of my faith in our driver Christian's ability to perform a death-defying three-point turn.

Some of these towns are REALLY out of the way.  And for many of them, we would drive, ask for directions, drive some more down hilly dirt roads, and then find a house, or maybe even a pulperia (small store).  We'd ask if we were in the right town, and where we could find the center of town.  Usually, our response would be, "This is the center!"

On our way home, we were graced with the presence of many beautiful toucans.  They were too quick for me to get my camera, but they were gorgeous!

Hasta luego!
Anya