Volcano and other stuff...

Sorry it's been so long since I've written a blog. I had wanted to write one over the weekend but I kept forgetting...

Last week was cool... on Tuesday we had class about Latin America perspectives of the U.S. and we had a presidential candidate for the 2014 election talk to us. Most people really liked him although I felt like he spoke a lot like a politician and was reluctant to admit how much the U.S. has screwed things up for Latin American countries. One of the readings we had the night before pretty much went through every single Latin American country, gave a date, and explained negative things that the U.S. did to said country that most people in today's day and age might be shocked to know. Basically, if a country in Latin America was looking like it might change its policies or elect someone that wouldn't be in the interests of the U.S., the U.S. would either assassinate said person or send military help/supplies to whichever force would be in the interest of the U.S. This means that we have historically preferred very evil dictators that do things that benefit us as a country over democratically elected people that might do things which hurt us economically/policy wise. Why don't they teach us these things in our mandatory U.S. history classes? Fear maybe? It's frustrating to find out that the things we have been taught in school have been heavily filtered so that they don't make us anti-American... which ends up making me more frustrated in the end than if we could simply admit our mistakes!

On Thursday we went on a field trip to a cool organic/sustainable farm. The 'farmer' guy basically lives off of his land with his family and farms most of it himself. He uses tons of practices that mainstream farming has given up on due to them being time consuming. He pretty much re-uses everything organic that is normally considered 'waste' (banana peels, duck poop, head hair, etc. etc.) in order to fertilize his plants. The sad thing is, he can't sell his coffee for what it's worth because Starbucks (for example) will only give him the same rates that it gives to the mainstream coffee plantations (where no love and care is given to the crops and pesticides/insecticides are used).

I found out that for the last part of my semester (the internship part), I am going to be working on a farm similar to this one. I'm excited to learn hands on sustainable agriculture techniques and probably mostly nervous about the big spiders that working out in the country brings...

During my language class this week we had a pretty relaxed time. Our professor was brand new to the program and mostly just taught us a lot dichos (cultural sayings/expressions) and spent a good amount of time just conversing and working on conversational skills I guess. We didn't have a quiz nor a presentation at the end of the week either, like every other class, so that was awesome... although I think we were supposed to? What ever though, no complaints.

Oh yeah, and by Thursday morning I had to complete a 6-8 page paper over Limón. It was a research paper and was really pretty awful to have to write... I ended up only getting 3 hours of sleep that night and turning in a hastily written paper in Spanish that I might have not read over after completing.... I mean... it's just a paper... and it was late... quit judging me.

On Saturday I went with some other students to the closest volcano. It's called Irazú. It was a pretty nauseating drive up to the volcano but the I definitely enjoyed my time up there. The actual volcano wasn't very adventurous feeling, but being up above/with the clouds was cool. We spent most of our time just chilling up on the highest area enjoying the view and the breeze that came as the clouds kind of drifted over where we were at. Here is a video from my phone of the view:

Evidently, even when it's chilly, you can get really burnt.. and so right now my face is peeling from the pretty bad burn I received while we were at the volcano. 

I didn't do that much more exciting over the last week- basically just school stuff. Tonight I have to write a 3 page paper in Spanish about my experience so far in Costa Rica and then next Friday I have an 8 minute verbal presentation over a topic of my choosing & and group project at LASP about economics. After that, we are off to Nicaragua with just a backpack for everything we are taking. I'm definitely excited and anxious about that portion of my time down here- I think it will be an incredible experience.

That's all for now. Thanks!