Last days

I'm home now!!  It's great to be back home, although I'm missing everyone and it feels like I just woke up from a four month long dream.  Here's an entry that I was writing before I left:

For our last weekend, we went on a “surprise” trip to this beach on the Osa Peninsula.  At least I think that’s where it is – part of the trip being a surprise is that they didn’t even tell us how long the bus ride really was.

The beach, Playa Tortuga, is so beautiful here that I finally realize why all of the Ticos said that Jaco was such an “ugly” beach.  Having caves to run into, crashing waves, and a secluded shore right by some majestic mountains makes palm trees in front of buildings pale in comparison.

 The beach was wonderful, and if it weren’t for the scorching tropical sun we could probably have stayed in the waves all day.  Although afer sitting around at this resort all day, I was getting a little stir-crazy.  To ease my restlessness, and to keep the Spanish muscles working, I now possess a copy of the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter y el Cáliz del Fuego.

  

Our last night was a great note to end on.  We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, Antojitos.  It was Costa Rican Mexican food though, so of course it wasn’t spicy.  There WAS guacamole, however, as well as some veggie kebabs, tortillas, beans, salsa, and potatoes. We went around and everyone said their favorite moment of the trip, or anything that stood out in their mind, and the nostalgia set in.

I chose this program because I wanted something that was completely different from a typical university experience, but I didn’t expect that it was my interactions with the other students that would also be so different from a typical university experience.  But after only knowing each other for three and a half months, its amazing how much we know about each other.  Its a friendship that’s definitely reminiscent of my wilderness orientation trip.  Although about twenty times as long as the wilderness trip, this program also lets you see former strangers in any situation, not just dressed up to go out on Friday night: we've been sweating and hiking up a steep, muddy mountain all day; debating each other during our journal club talks; running around in caves on the beach; painting masks; interviewing indigenous people about their healthcare; dancing in a gringo circle while all the Ticos stare at us; and just kicking it during our long bus rides.  I’ve definitely learned a lot more about these people a lot quicker than I would have otherwise, and I’m so glad that I was able to form very close friendships with people I may never have though.

 

Last Assignment!

We finished up our research with a poster presentation to the Las Cruces community.  Other groups had studied medicinal plants or maternal health care in the indigenous territory (the Ngobe), so the traditional healers and the midwives were invited to come to our presentation, which was great. 

Apparently the Ngobe healers took a tour around the botannical garden afterwards, and were very interested in getting some of the plants for their gardens back at La Casona.  Since relations regarding medicinal plants are a little sensitive with the indigenous communities, since they've had their secrets taken without much regard for intellectual property rights in the past, it was nice to know that we had a positive relationship with the community.

My group didn't have much interaction with people, but we did see lots of interest when we collected water samples from houses.  The people we talked to were genuinely interested in the outcomes of our projects, and they were always very friendly and welcoming.

Yesterday we made some Costa Rican moonshine, i.e. chicha.  This is a take on the fermented corn beverage that the Ngobe and other indigenous groups make.  Ours consisted of pineapple, ginger, maize, cloves, and lots of raw brown sugar.  There's no distilling involved, just fermentation.  It's going to be quite the brave tasting adventure in a few days.

 Doesn't it look delicious?

Today some of us took a quick hike around the jungle -- flashback to our first weekend here.  This time, we went to a little waterfall!  The hike was very necessary to shake off the cabin fever that's the result of two and a half weeks in the same place.  Since when has that happened in this program?  We also haven't got our fair share of nature lately, aside from crawling around in pastures and digging up soil from forests and coffee farms.

Now we just have our papers to hand in tonight, and then we have a surprise trip this weekend!  Scheduled fun time strikes again.

In exactly four days, I will be ready to land in Miami International Airport and then to Logan.  I am definitely ready to come home, see my friends and family, and celebrate United States festivities again (July 4th will make up for missing Marathon Monday), but it's going to be hard to say goodbye to the great people here.  For a bunch of science students who signed up to experience the same schedule and classes day after day, our group is a lot more diverse than I would've expected.  This semester gave me so much insight into medicine through the lens of humanity and anthropology, instead of the biological perspective that I'm used to. As well as more information than I ever dreamed about regarding tropical plants and diseases.

Hasta luego!
Anya

Things I will miss from Costa Rica when I am back in beautiful New England:

1. Sunshine starting at 6 am (even though it sets at 6 pm ERRDAY)

2. Gallo pinto.  Rice and beans, take it or leave it, but warm seasoned gallo pinto with tabasco sauce and sour cream first thing in the morning -- nothing like the GP.

3. Fruit.  Cheap, diverse, and EVERYWHERE.  We've tried fruits this semester that I had no idea existed before: guayaba, guanabana, cas, and maracuya (passionfruit; I'd heard about it before but never tasted it).  The cacao plant even has this delicious fleshy watermelon-tasting fruit enveloping its cacao beans!

4. Seeing people from this program everywhere, all the time.  Basically, always having someone to go to breakfast with.

5. The hospitality and laid back Tico attitude

6. The stunningly gorgeous green misty mountains and jaw-dropping scenery everywhere

7. Watching Jurassic Park while living in Jurassic Park (also noticing that the beach-bedecked, palm-tree filled San Jose from the film is NOT the smoggy, mountainous, zinc-roof covered San Jose)

8. Walking through forests of bananas and heliconias to breakfast

9. Falling asleep to the sounds of cicadas and waking up to the sounds of parrots and toucans

Easter (Pascua) in San Vito

We had a lovely Easter brunch, consisting of a cheesy zucchini casserole, some yucca (a starchier version of potatoes), salad, and ribs for the omnivores among us.  For dessert: trifle!  It turns out that pudding is pretty difficult to obtain in Costa Rica, so it was more like a flan-fruit hybrid decked with nilla wafers.

We had some lovely centerpieces, but they were lacking the necessary peeps and other caramel or cream-filled candy.  While Semana Santa is a bigger deal than Christmas, Easter doesn't hold the weight of the holiday here in Central America -- it's more focused on Good Friday.  The suffering, the repenting for sins, and not so much the chocolate candy and pagan symbols of spring.

Here we are, enjoying our Easter lunch!

We did some egg-painting afterwards.  Some of us got a bit more creative than others.  Most of the eggs had slight cracks, and some even had craters....so when life gives you cracked eggs, paint them into a traumatic brain injury victim:

Then of course, the egg hunt.  This was a whole new saga.  I actually ended up winning, but it came at a price.  I found four eggs, and a giant palm found me!  A branch cracked and fell on me -- but don't worry, it didn't hurt that much and there is no lasting damage, except for my dignity of being attacked by a palm branch.  This garden is becoming more and more like Jumanji as the days go by.

Easter did make me miss home, but I'm glad that people organized a little celebration here -- usually the OTS program doesn't do anything, so it was a nice touch.

Otherwise, it's been data analysis and poster-making time here.  We're giving our poster presentations tomorrow to a group of people, most of them from San Vito.  This will be interesting, as our posters are written in English (except for a Spanish abstract we hand out), so it will be a great exercise in getting our points across.  Nothing simplifies something more than trying to say it in a different language.

Hasta luego!
Anya

Soil and Semana Santa

Data collecting continues.  We've now moved on to soil samples, obtained from coffee farms, cow pastures, and forests, and we HAVE found some nitrates in -- surprise! -- the soil of coffee farms.  Here's Tavid having fun sifting soil samples before they're mixed with calcium sulfate, shaken, filtered, mixed with a cadmium compound, and shoved in our nitrate detect-o-matic.

Yesterday, Good Friday, most of us headed to San Vito in the morning, where they had a procession of the Stations of the Cross.  And no, I didn't give up anything for Lent, but I can always pull out not watching TV or not sleeping in past 7 am or whatnot for 15 weeks.  Aside from the procession, everything was completely closed down in town.  It is a very sober holdiay -- literally, because the only times that alcohol is not sold is the day of, before, and during elections, and Semana Santa.

It was a small procession (although the turnout was probably all of San Vito).  While we only made it through the first seven stations (it was a lot of slow walking and somber singing), it was cool to think that nearly every town in Costa Rica, and likely in Latin America, was doing a similar thing.

I still prefer Easter baskets.

Finally, a giant moth to end this post!

 Hasta luego!
Anya

Things I am going to do when I am back in beautiful New England:

1. Eat Indian food

2. Enjoy driving on paved roads with cars that obey lane divisions

3. Watch TV! I'm not a big TV person so I never thought I'd say this.  It'll really be more like watching computer -- we aren't able to stream video here and I need to catch up on The Office, and I could go for some Always Sunny/Curb Your Enthusiasm.

4. Be jaw-droppingly shocked at my multiple drawers and closets of clothes after living in the same 8 shirts, 3 shorts, and 4 pants for the past 4 months

5. Climb a mountain and enjoy the cool air at the summit

6. Cook!

7. Turn off my watch alarm from its three-month-long position at 6:40 am

8. Go for a looonnng run and realize how little the occasional car beeps bother me when compared to hisses, kissing sounds, and other piropos.

9. Watch my 21-year old friends go to bars without me for another month :(

10. Try to remember to put toilet paper in the toilet and not in the wastepaper basket next to it

11. Do laundry with good smelling dry sheets

12. Obtain dark chocolate and rich desserts.  No one can do gooey, sugary, artery-clogging sweetness like the United States.

13. Listen to the radio and discover if there really is any music that's emerged since January besides Rebecca Black's "Friday" or parodies of it

14. Probably still wear my field pants a couple times a week

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