A couple of cultural experiences

            It has been a while since my last post, so I have much to update everyone on! We just finished exams that are a huge a weight off my shoulders, but in a sense bitter sweet since it means my time here at SFS is starting to come to an end. We now have a week long spring break followed promptly by a direct research project which entails a week of traveling while doing research and what I imagine will be a rather lengthy paper on the findings of our study. Needless to say I am thoroughly excited for it.

            Over the past few weeks I have many cultural interactions, and experiences all over Costa and Nicaragua. These interactions have helped shape my perspective and understand of the culture and society down here.

            The other day I was taking a cab into the center of Atenas (the town we live in), and a little small talk with the cab driver ended up turning into a friendly conversation about the presence of Americans that live in Atenas, and on a broader scale all the ones that live in Costa Rica. Granted this isn’t the case for all the expats but he had a rather negative view. He said that many move down here and don’t even bother to learn Spanish. He continued to say that it would be fine if they even tried to communicate but often times he said they never try or want to assimilate into the culture. The ones that live in Atenas mostly go into San Jose to do all their shopping even for groceries, which certainly does not support the community they live in. I just thought that was a valuable perspective to have, especially as I make my choice in where to buy and how to communicate. Often trying and failing is better than not trying at all.

            Another cultural experience is the time we spend with an English school. In Atenas there is a small government funded English school that Costa Ricans can apply to be apart of. It is completely free and costs them nothing but commitment; even books and supplies are paid for. The goal of the school is to assist the students to find a job that requires speaking English, especially now with globalization speaking English is a huge advantage here in the job market. Normally the jobs are tourism related or at calls center, both of these are very sot after. I think this is a great example of globalization and our effect on the rest of the world, considering many of these jobs in the service industry working for Americans in some manor. The relation that SFS and the English school have is a perfect! It allows us to practice our Spanish and understand the Costa Rican culture, and they get the benefit of practicing there English. Whether it’s a soccer game or hanging out in the park the time we spend with them is always a blast!

Update

The novelty of waking up at 6:30 everyday is wearing off. None to less I am still having a blast down here. As everyone knows a few Sunday’s a go was super bowl Sunday, and despite being several countries away I was still able to watch the great game on a projector (crazy what globalization has done). After Sunday the week started fast, Monday through Wednesday was filled with about 6 hours of class everyday. When I saw the schedule I am not going to lie I was a little intimidated, but the 18 hours flew by since all the classes were all so interesting.  As Denzel Washington said in Remember the Titians, “I don’t scratch my head unless it itches, I don’t dance unless I hear music, I will not be intimidated that’s just the way it is”.

             In class we spent the majority of the time learning about Costa Rica’s energy profile, which is surprisingly comprised of 80% renewable 70% of which is hydropower.  This makes Costa Rica one of the leading countries in alternative energies.

             After hitting the books hard for a few days we took a wonderful trip to Monetverde. This adventure started at 4:45 Thursday morning and was filled of excitement. The drive up there was three hours long on a single lane bumpy turny road with several hundred-foot drop-offs less than a foot away from the road with NO GUARDRAIL! If that didn’t keep you awake the breath taking views certainly would. While there we studied the tourism industry there and competed our tropical ecology lab. For my lab I investigated the effectiveness of drip-tips on leafs in the cloud forest, seeing if the size of drip-tip effected the amount of moss that grew on the leafs.  I spent three hours measuring the area, and amount of moss on leafs with a caliper (results will follow in next weeks post). 

            Once we were done trekking through the depths of a very dense moist forest we had a field lecture right in the middle of the reserve on the effects of tourism. Tourism has put Costa Rica in a strange situation. With 200,000 visiting every year tourism has become a good portion of their economy and has played a key role in their country’s development.  At first tourism seems like a great stimulus, but after time the detrimental effects show their face.  Tourism is rapidly growing and is changing small culture rich towns into cities that closely resemble that of an American city.  These changes are uprooting locals, and using massive amounts of resources, for example a golf course down here requires the same amount of water as a town of 3 to 5 thousand people.  In the end we concluded that tourism is an important and essential part of this country’s economy and development it just needs to be carried out in a sustainable way.

            To close out the week me and about 10 other students volunteered at chili cook-off to raise money for a local orphanage.  It was put on by a local community of retired Americans so it was far from a Costa Rican cultural experience, but it was none to less extremely funny to see fifth-teen or so 60 plus American women putting on this event that attracted nearly 1000 people who were mostly all Americans.  Everyone was in good spirits eating chili, and raising money for a good cause. 

Week One at the SFS in Atenas Costa Rica

           Good Morning! It’s nine am Sunday morning marking the end of my first week at School For Field Studies. I arrived here in Atenas Costa Rica after spending two weeks traveling through Nicaragua visiting various cities and attractions. I can say from the little time I have spent here in Costa Rica I can already tell huge difference in the two countries. Nicaragua is much less developed, and many of the people there are not as well off as those in Costa Rica. Nicaragua has no big chain restaurants, and no major have developed cites that I saw. Costa Rica is very different! Not in a better or worse way. Costa Rica has many more paved roads and in the capital San Jose they have just about everything that a big city in America might have. None to less walking around the capital is still a very cool cultural experience.

            In just one week I am already in love with my home at the SFS campus. It is dorm style living with about 34 other students, 28 of which of ladies (I am not complaining). On that note though it is a very cool thing to live, work, and studies with people that have the same environmental passion as I do. Here at the center everything is about conservation, and sustainability.  From the organic orchard of fruit (which we can pick from at our pleasure) to the food compost where all of our organic trash, and paper product go, everything is environmental friendly. The compost is very cool cycle and has many purposes. Besides the basic purpose of keeping some of our waste out of the dump it feeds 5 pigs, and is used as fertilizer in the orchard and garden.

            All of my classes (language culture and society of Costa Rica, Tropical ecology and sustainable development, Principles of resource management, and Economics & ethical issues in sustainable development) are taught outside either in the outside classroom, the form of a guess lecture, or on a hike through the various forests. At first I thought the campus would get boring after three months, but what I did not realize is that every Thursday, Friday, Saturday is spent on the road traveling to various parks, and learning environments. Everyday is pack full of activities and learning experiences. Also this is achievable because I am in class six days week, which is a blessing because each day of school is different, filled with new and exciting things.

            This past trip was to Barulio Carrillo National Park, an organic farm, and a Dole plantation. The trip served mostly as an introduction to the rainforest and to see and understand the differences between a small organic farm, and a mono-crop plantation.  Seeing the difference between the small organic farm, and the Dole plantation was truly an eye opening experience. The organic farm was completely off the grid, in no way shape or form where they connected. For power they had solar panels, a natural spring for water, and 80% of the food they ate was from the farm.  All 86 hectors (2.4 hectors to an acre) was maintained and farmed by the small family. They were truly on the cutting edge of sustainability and organic farming. The best part was that they learned much of this from a government program that was implement about 10 years ago. It’s awesome to know that the option is out there, and that the government is supporting the change. The issue is organic farming is much more labor intensive, more expensive, and harder to do on a large scale. If you are going to farm as they do you really need to be devoted and strong passion for the environment and doing what is right.

            This farm was a small slice of haven compared to the majority of farms in Costa Rica. The Dole plantation was also a cool experience, and it was clear that they were on the right track keeping the environment in mind. They were part of the Rainforest alliance, an organization working towards environmental, and social economic sustainability.

            Well that is it for know there will be posts evolving more leadership and culture to come. If you have any question please email me at bsn002@marietta.org, and I will post the question with an answer when I get the chance just keep in mind I am on the road a lot and even when I am at the center internet is far form reliable, and extremely slow when it is working.

A quick tidbit about the difference from Costa Rica and United States:

            Costa Rica and the United States have many differences besides just being miles away from each other. The differences go into culture, climate, economy and geography.  These differences create a distinct variation in the way Costa Ricans live and Americans live.  One of the largest differences in Costa Rica is the pace of life and the lack of willingness to confront an issue or topic. For instance many Costa Ricans will just delay, simply put off a deadline or task until the next day. Where as in the United States we Americans love to get right to the point, and rarely ever beat around the bush. Another cultural difference can maybe best summarized by the Costa Rican saying “Pura Vida” which literally can be translated into pure life. This Costa Rican motto is used often in day-to-day life, and the meaning goes much deeper than just pure life. The motto is an expression used to display several things such as strong community, perseverance, good spirit, and once again relating back to the differences in the pace of life “Pura Vida” also means enjoying life slowly.  This slow pace of life, which is strongly valued by so many Costa Ricans is very different from the United States where everyone seems to be trying to do a million things at once, and deadlines are firm.  The last major difference between Costa Rica and the United States is three fold: geography, climate, and the shire mass amount of species that reside here in Costa Rica. The temperature, differing elevation, and dense rainforests create the perfect environment for organisms to thrive.

Bridges to Community

Where to begin? I have been down in Nicaragua for 10 days now, and everything is going swimmingly! I am currently at a small hostel on a island in Lake Managua (the largest lake in the country). While here I am just catching up on sleep, doing some sort hikes, and participating in a little volunteering that the hostel helps to organize. Before arriving here I was on a learning experience of a life time! I was with the office of civic engagement working with Bridges to Community to build  home in small community with 15 other Marietta College students and staff.  The organization Bridges to Community is a very interesting and promising organization. They are a non-profit that focuses on community development and service learning. As a organization their goal is to bring people together from all types of cultural, and social-econoic backgrounds and unite them, and a community here in Nicaragua to build a house while learning from one another, truly a transformational process. An extremely cool part about Bridges is their focus on creating a sustainable relationship with the communities they work with. For example the community that the we worked with had been preparing for almost a year for the two houses to be built. Bridges comes in and works with the community leaders to establish a relationship and figure out how this specific community functions. Once the relationship is started then the true community development can start. Just about everything about the relationship in done with the sustainability and the community in mind.  Look at Flavio's family, the one we build the house for, will pay ten dollars a months for about 6 six year for their new home. The best part about this money is that it does not go back to Bridges, but into a community development fund.

Needless to say Bridges to Community is a transformation organization. Not only are building a home for a family for makes around $140 a month, but more importantly they are allowing people such as myself to learn from these truly amazing people. What we did down here may changed the people lives we help for ever, even more importantly they changed mine. The knowledge and cultural experiences I gained while building this home, and in down time on the work site far out weighs the significance of the house that we build for Flavio.