The end

So I guess this will probably be my last blog... it's a weird feeling to be leaving my final host family tomorrow... Even though I've been looking forward to coming home, I know that I will forever miss this country and my time in it.

Anyways.. to recap the past week!

On Thursday we mostly spent our time caring for the oxen. In the morning Felipe and I fed the pig and gathered some zacate from the hill/plot of land near where we found the snake. After feeding them we spent a lot of time cleaning up around the corral. There was a thick layer of mushed down old reeds and leaves and stuff like that. After we were done cleaning, Felipe began working on a little canal for water during the rain so that it doesn't pool into the corral nor ruin the roads by creating big cracks and stuff. During this time a university student and his father showed up because the student is doing a project for his class and needed to set stuff up on the farm. The dad at first mistook me for a Costa Rican until he spoke to me and I didn't understand what he was saying. Oh well. During lunch a little itty bitty red ant bit my hand and seriously for 2 days it was a little bump and itched... I can't imagine getting bit by a ton of them.

This is the kind of stuff I was cleaning up- they were all matted down and covering everything

Felipe carrying freshly cut zacate down to the corral

My favorite animal I got to become friends with in Costa Rica. I don't remember his name but I fed him a lot and he started to let me pet him while he'd eat... a good lookin ox if I do say so myself!

On Friday I went with Oscar to work taking down some kind of chicken-wire fencing around this storage building. During the work Oscar took down the "bee" hive and got some honeycomb for us to eat. I put bee in quotes because they weren't honeybees- they were some different type of bug that doesn't even have stingers (I think they can bite though). I had never eaten raw honey but it was pretty dang good... and who would have thought that bee's wax was actually the consistency of wax?! I spent the rest of the working day helping make more water canal things in the dirt road and went back in the evening to help out as well.

the hive thing

up close

On Saturday I got to sleep in a little bit. Diego (the son of a farmer friend?) and Felipe woke up super early and went all the way down the mountain to bring up heavy wood towards the top. They lead the oxen down as well to be with the others. I fed the pig and then met up with them (probably at about the halfway point of the mountain) and carried the wood with them. We would take 1 thing of wood on our backs for about a minute or two and drop it off with others and then go back for another. There weren't that many but they were super heavy, especially walking uphill with them. I was with them for a few hours before Felipe was satisfied enough to say that we would do the rest tomorrow.

The wood payload where we left it for the next day

Felipe and Diego resting before making our way back up

That evening I went with Felipe to a gathering of local oxen farmers, 2 of which also have trapiches to harvest sugar cane. It was a little uncomfortable and I didn't really move from where I sat down because I didn't know anyone and it being a Spanish social setting made that even harder. I had a good time though and it was nice to just experience it.

So this was in the house... Felipe said he put on his pants one time and one stung him on his thigh- I have since been paranoid. I didn't even know scorpions existed here! However, Costa Rican scorpion venom isn't very dangerous to humans.. it just hurts.

On Sunday Felipe told me to rest since it was a Sunday- during the morning my host brother-in-law was visiting and used his 4 wheeler to move the wood the rest of the way to the house with Felipe. I literally chilled the whole day and worked a little on my essay.

This is how they make coffee in Costa Rica traditionally. It's a sack that they put the coffee in and then pour hot water in. It doesn't seem all that special to me but ticos will tell you they can taste the difference so I guess I trust their opinion.

On Monday Felipe had to go to a funeral and told me to just work on my essay due Thursday. I fed the pig in the morning and took a bunch of pictures to show my path... and I finished my essay. That's abut it.

A walk through from the corral to the house (52 photos)
I wanted to make a slide show but I couldn't really think of a time effective way to do that online so I just made a public facebook album instead.

On Tuesday I fed the pig and worked on the water canals more with Felipe. I also spent a part of the day cutting up brush that was eventually burned in a small fire. I was expecting to go back out in the afternoon but no one came and got me :p...

And finally, today, we spent the morning removing all of these old zacate reeds and burning them in a big fire. It was toughish work moving the reeds because they were all interwoven but we got it done and by the afternoon the hillside was pretty 'clean'. After a lunch break with Felipe, we worked on some final water canals around the storage shed because there is a ton of erosion occurring on the flat area it sits on and he is trying to avoid that as much as he can.

bringing the trash down to burn

Starting the fire. I was pretty sure that it was going to set the whole hillside on fire...

                                 

Okay, it was definitely close to setting the whole hillside on fire but Oscar kept a good enough eye on it and we had some water that we could use when we needed.

While I was raking to clear the path for digging the canals this guy ran out.. I think he's a baby tarantula? I wasn't a big fan :p

After three and a half months, I miss a lot of things and people from the United States for sure. Life here hasn't been as comfortable and hasn't always been as entertaining (without video games and close friends) but in all, is has been incredibly valuable to me. I'm so thankful for the time I've had here and I like I said, I'm definitely going to miss this place.

Tomorrow morning I leave with Felipe to go 'to town' to catch the bus to San Jose. I hope to meet up with some of the other students that will be taking that bus route so that I don't have to travel alone and then get a taxi or something dumb. Thursday and Friday will be days of reintegration and probably a lot of reminiscing/story telling with the other students before we leave for the airport on Saturday in the pura mañana (my flight leaves at 6:35..)!

Thanks for reading and/or keeping up with the blog... hope to see you all soon!

Animals and stuff

I decided to write a blog since I have free time.. and then I won't have to write a huge one later in the week.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I woke up at the normal time. I had breakfast and then Felipe told me that we were going to Puriscal (a different canton/district of San Jose than the one we are living in). I asked him "right now?"  in two different ways and he responded with yes both times. So, I got ready kind of fast and then after an hour of waiting (lol), we headed out- me, Felipe, an uncle whose name is prounced Hi-me, and Oscar.

We drove for about 2 hours through mostly curvey well paved roads. When we finally made it to our destination, I noticed tons of cow trailers and could her a voice or something through speakers not too far away. When we got out of the car, we walked over to this place where they were auctioning tons of cows. There were stands filled with people looking at and bidding on the cows as they came through one by one and got auctioned off. We walked around a bit and just relaxed. Jyme (maybe that's how it's spelled?) had 5 baby cows that got auctioned off so we were there for him to collect the money. Also, the cows that I went with Oscar to get a few days ago would have been here for auction if they were fat enough.

It was a little disturbing to see honestly.. the cows were just stuck in their own filth, hitting each other and probably really scared. The guys with the cattle prods and long sticks were just laying into them at times to get them to move where they needed to go. I've never been to anything like that and for a second I started to imagine slavery in the U.S. and how many people people were treated probably a lot like this animals, getting poked and yelled at in a language you don't understand and then being pushed off into a cage in front with tons of people looking trying to inspect you to see what you are worth to them. That thought made me want to cry though, so I stopped thinking about it...

On our way back, we had different random stops (probably since they had all gotten payed from the cows).. and I of course had diarrhea. I thought I was good when we left but after about an hour of driving, I started to lose hope and asked if there was a bathroom near by. They found a place and I took care of business and then we were off again. I felt kind of bad for making us stop but if we hadn't I would have been in some serious discomfort and in retrospect, I might not have made it.


We got back a little before dinner and I chilled for the rest of the night. I think Felipe went without me to care for the 2 oxen still in the corral.

This morning I got up and went with Felipe down to the corral. I cared for the pig while he collected and brought some zacate (that purple/green food plant) for the oxen. We fed them and then went back for some more zacate in the place that we needed to clear out. While I was cutting the small stuff that was left in the places we'd already cut (because it's going to need to get cleared out for sugar cane), Felipe said that he saw a culebra (snake). I was kind of excited to see it because I hadn't seen one yet but I stayed back pretty far while Felipe did work. Evidently as he was clearing with his machete it tried to bite him (luckily he wasn't clearing by hand) and I think he cut it towards the back half. The snake kind of fell/slithered down the hill and then started hiding under a coffee plant. Felipe kind of slid down the hill after it and then waited for the snake to get in a good position- and then he got it right under the head- instantly 'killing it'. He got it on a stick and put it on a stump for me to see but he still told me to stay back from it. It's body and mouth were still kinda slowly moving for about 30 minutes until it just fell off the stump with its mouth open.

a few seconds after killing it

He wanted me to take a picture with it.. :p

it was draped over the stump and started curling like you can see here. Kinda interesting...

It was a little nerve racking afterwards because evidently these snakes usually live around others. We didn't find anymore though- which I suppose is good? We fed the oxen what we had collected and then got to cutting up these old lemon trees that had never gotten "planted." They were thorny and all close together and a pain in the butt. Felipe would up root them with this big sharp metal rod thing and then I would carry them off under the Guanacaste tree. I made a video of the trip back and fourth to the lemon tree to kind of a give an idea on where I was at. Sorry it's shaky and not very great..

While making my trips back and fourth.. I found a stick bug! It was so cool and so stick-like... I loved him. After putting him back in a tree though, I eventually lost him :(

Stick bug! He was missing one of his front legs.. it probably got pulled off when I was carrying the lemon trees :(.

In his natural habitat

We moved the plants for a few hours and ate lunch.. and then once all the lemon plants were done, we picked some oranges from a tree and enjoyed them. I also went back to the mango tree nearby that didn't have any ripe mangos last week and found the a good one on the ground! It was delish. So we had a mango and oranges snack and then I planted the mango seed with Felipe's supervision. One day, that seed will provide delicious mango fruit for generations to come.

After our snack we lead the cows up to the house so that they could get some exercise in the field up here, I think.

And that's all for now. Thanks!

Pressin' on

Hey, so lots of stuff has happened this week- I guess that's a given. I'll try to remember from where I left off....

On Tuesday morning Felipe finally gave me my own machete and strap. I look pretty legit while I have it on, in case you were wondering. We went with a chainsaw back to the place where coffee had been cut. I spent the whole morning tossing and carrying stripped/cut coffee plants up to the road. I lost count at about 60 but I'm pretty sure there were probably around 90-100. It wasn't easy work but I enjoyed it. During this time, Felipe was cutting trees and stuff up the hill a little ways, making a different wood pile next to mine. After lunch, we shoveled manure into bags.

Shoveling manure! It reminded me of raking and bagging leaves..

During the evening, Felipe got me and we went back down the hill with a chainsaw again. I fed Mr. Pig all by myself this time and watered the 3 plants there (I guess that's my daily duty) and Felipe, using a chainsaw, began cutting apart two really big mandarina trees that had been uprooted in order to eventually plant sugar cane. All I could do was carry off the cut up parts into a pile on the side of the dirt road so, instead of standing around in the chainsaw exhaust, I went over under the Guanacaste tree (the same one from the first day) and just chilled for a while before carrying more.

On Wednesday I moved the manure bags out of the corral with Oscar while Felipe brought up 2 young oxen. We fed them and while I was cutting up some food for them I gave myself a small cut on the side of my left index finger... it was bleeding a lot and I had to just rub it on my dirty jeans until it closed up. I had a lot of resting time that night and there was a really nice rain that came through.

On Thursday we went to go retrieve the two cows that we had moved last week. Turns out I completely misunderstood what was going on when we moved the same 2 cows last Sunday.. Felipe had actually purchased them but was using a friend's land for them to graze on. (I thought they were sold to some guy or something?) So we walked over and brought them back, fed them (all 4 together), and then lunched. I had a smallish paper due the next day for my Language/Literature concentration over poetry we were given to read and my reflections over whichever topic I chose.. so I spent the majority of the evening working on that. I believe Felipe took down the 2 cows that night and left the 2 oxen in the corral.

On Friday we did the usual stuff, feeding animals and what not, and then I went with Felipe and Maria del Carmen into town to meet up with some professors and other students in the area. I got some time to catch up with 4 of my friends, talked with the professors, and then we headed back home. That night we went down to get the 2 oxen and brought them up to the little grazing area right in front of the house. I got to lead one all by myself. In case you were wondering, gee means go and hessah means stop (I spelled  them phonetically).. and you say manso or mansito to kind of calm them- it means 'gentle' I guess and is the opposite of bravo/brava (wild/untanmed).

Mixing up the ox food

On Saturday morning, Felipe and one of the relatives here got the oxen moving in the old trapiche (there is a new one too). I was told that the structure and many of the parts are 200 years old, although some of it has been replaced. The trapiche is where the oxen walk in circles, grinding sugar cane and getting the juice. There is also a stove with a huge bowl thing where the liquid is evaporated and leaves a more pure and syrupy form of the sugar. I got to help a little but mostly I just watched and chilled at the house. I helped get some food for the oxen afterwards and then took them back down to the corral with Felipe.

Here is a video of the Trapiche in action

Once the tub that collects the sugar cane juice gets filled, they have the oxen stop and then begin pouring it into this big bowl thing.

A fire is started underneath the vat and after some time, the liquid begins boiling

After 3 or four hours, the stuff that's left is put into this wooden.. tub? They scrape it up and put it into little molds to harden. Each mold only sells for about $1.00 USD.. As I understood him, Felipe said that really, they make it more for the family than as a thing to sell.. because honestly, it isn't worth all the work otherwise. I counted and it made about 56 molds. 

On Sunday I watched for the entire morning while a guy came and built a rock/cement/concrete box to capture some natural flowing water that is coming out of the side of the mountain. It's coming out pretty slow now but evidently during the rainy season, it will be a good source to add to the strength of the water that goes all the way down the mountain for the cows. It was cool to watch- I helped find some rocks and move sand around and stuff but mostly, I didn't do very much.

Constructing the water collector thing. You can kind of see the remains from one that was there in the past- they used it's remaining parts to help strengthen the newer one.

a while later, after cement had been put all around it and the opening on the top had been fitted

Lunch Break!

Sunday evening I got offered to go with a host uncle and grandpa to some place. I was uneasy because I literally had no real idea where we were going. We made a pit stop at my grandpa's sister's house and there were lots of people moving around and lots of stuff going on. I met, for the second time, a guy named William, a very light-skinned native Nicaraguan that lives in Maryland with his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. His wife is a part of the family I am "technically" in and they come to visit every year. We had some nice conversations in English (I was honestly really curious to hear his opinion on American/Nicaraguan/Costa Rican politics and culture. I ended up going with my grandpa, William, and his wife to a couple relative's houses that they wanted to say goodbye to. It was nice and I got some good food and some Coca-cola- which I hadn't had in a while for sure. Me and William shared contact information- he seems really interested in moving to Costa Rica and trying to have some job/connection with foreign students in Costa Rica. The pit stop ended up being "the trip" in all and we got home pretty late (9:15).

Today, Monday, Felipe left to some business thing in the morning. I went down with Oscar to feed the oxen and then we were tasked to go all the way to the bottom of the mountain to bring up 2 oxen that they are wanting to sell. When we finally got to them and he more-or-less lassoed them, he called Felipe and someone else and they decided that they weren't fat enough during this season to sell well. So we walked back up empty handed.. and it's a really brutal walk. Random note: I rolled up my sleeves to try to help my farmer's tan.. not sure if it worked.

I really like this guy! He was trying to lick the camera when I was taking pictures- their tongues are kind of sandpapery.. and super long.

This is from today.. and it is what we feed to the cows usually. A single banana plant (what looks like a tree) will only produce one crap of bananas. Instead of cutting down the plant once they get the bananas, they let them grow and use them to feed the animals. Behind the sack there is a machine that chops up the leaves/trunk and shoots them into the feeding trough. 

Just as an FYI... as I understand it, cows are the name of the animal in general. Bulls are male cows. Oxen are castrated male cows. 

Farm life - With photos!

I really have procrastinated too much on this and now I either have to write a huge post or just be super vague... I guess we'll see what happens.

Here are some pictures...

This is the house I'm staying at! I've been able to chill on the porch during the late afternoon and it was especially nice when it rained on Sunday!

Under the porch during the first rain of the year!

This is the Guanacaste (national tree) that I sat in on the first night- you can see the big tree trunk that Felipe was resting on.

a bit of the view near the Guanacaste

On Tuesday (my first morning), I got up relatively late and got ready to work with my host brother Oscar. I didn't know exactly what we were going to do but we got on a motorbike while I had to hold a 20 foot pole with a blade on the end for harvesting something... I know you fear for my life now, don't worry, I was fearing too. We went for about 5 minutes around dirt mountain roads, dropped off the pole, and then went to a local guy's house who fixes motorcycles. I sat pretty quietly for about an hour and a half while they talked girls and life while fixing a little leak in the motorcycle. After that, we went back to the place where we dropped off the pole and started working; looking for a certain type of tall, skinny tree with spikes on the top that grow a big bunch of white flowers. The ones that we found with flowers were cut with the long pole and usually I tried to catch them- we collected them in sacks. We did this for a while but after lunch we relaxed.

On Wednesday I went with Felipe (my host dad) down the mountain-side part of the farm while he repaired a water pipe that brings water down the mountain to little watering tubs (for the cows). We followed the pipe all the way down the mountain and then, a little anxious because the cows were at the edge of the property, we want even further down until we got to the cows (this took a couple hours at least). He led them towards a source of water to make sure they knew where it was and then we made the trek all the way back. I was beat and my feet were killing me. Felipe told me to rest for the rest of the day.

This is a hummingbird nest that I found in a little plant while Felipe was repairing the waterline (The waterline begins in a foresty area before it gets to the crops/grasses)

On Wednesday night, a forest fire was brewing probably 4 miles away on a near by mountain and it was headed seemingly directly for us. I asked Felipe if he'd seen something like this before and when he said no, I got a little nervous. Not to mention that all the men were getting on horses and stuff to go like secure the animals or something. I was able to get to sleep well but I was thinking it might end up being a huge problem.

On Thursday morning no one woke me up and after Maria Del Carmen (my host mom) made me breakfast, I went down to meet Felipe at the corral (right by Mr. Pig). All of the cows that I'd seen at the bottom the day before were in the pen eating because the night before, Felipe made the trek all the way down the mountain and then lead all of them back up. When I got there, Felipe was cutting down old banana plants (they are basically trees) and then i'd help carry them to the coral. He'd then use a machine to cut them into bits- it also spewed them into the food trough.  We did this for a while and then went to repair the waterline again (closer to the source this time). I chilled the rest of the day.

The bulls eating from the trough! There were 2 younger ones that weren't tied up- so 6 in all.

This is Mr. Pig (they don't actually have a name for him). He completely snarfs down the chubby bananas and they also give up corn meal stuff (seen on the left). His pen smells pretty horrible because there is a gigantic pile of manure/pig poop just a few feet away... not to mention, he's a pig which implies stinkiness. I do find him kind of cute though...

This is from Thursday as the forest fire was making it's way

After finally fixing the water line, a second time, we rested - this is Felipe!

If I can recall, Friday I didn't do anything except help take the cows back down the mountain a little ways. The forest fire was still coming slowly but I guess they had all decided that it wasn't going to be a problem. I also started carrying around a walking stick which gave me a lot more security around the bulls/oxen. Having big old oxen staring at you when you walk through their area is quite frightening to someone unarmed and unaccustomed to farm animals.

On Saturday I didn't get woken up like I had hoped. Felipe had gone down alone to take the cows the rest of the way back to where he got them from on Wednesday night. I felt bad that he wanted me to rest and I ended up just watching Mr. Poppers Penguins with a grandkid and chilling most of the day.

On Sunday we didn't actually do anything to celebrate Easter although the family believes in Jesus, considers themselves (more or less) Catholic, and has been enjoying the 3 hour bible movies on tv this past week. In the morning I went down to the corral with Felipe and a younger relative. First we mixed up all the old dry cow poop with pitchforks/shovels and moved it to the center of the coral. Afterwards, they yoked the 2 bulls and then we began walking with the bulls up and over towards a neighbor who had bought them. One of the bulls had some stool issues and while I was following behind it, it began splurting out really liquidy poop with the most generic poop/fart sounds ever... I almost got hit but luckily moved out of the way when I started hearing the sounds. The farmer we delivered the cows to let us pick oranges on his property (they were great!) and we took a bunch home- orange juice! We rested for most of the day after.

And finally, today. This morning Felipe and I went down near the corral to begin clearing for an area where he is going to be planting sugar cane. The area was covered partly with a local weed I guess- it seemed more like a vine than what we think of with the word weed. Either way, we spent the first part of the time cutting up the plant and trying to get rid of the roots. I was bad/inefficient at this and had a popped blister on my hand within 15 minutes flat. He let me use a shovel instead and after clearing the area (he probably did about 90%), we began clearing the terraced area below us where coffee plants were growing. Felipe began cutting down the coffee plants (because they had already been picked this season) and I would strip them off all their limbs and throw them into a pile (to eventually be burned for cooking). I liked this a lot more than the clearing job before because I had a better idea of what my duty entailed. However, It was really tiring and my knuckles were struggling pretty much the whole time. Looking back, before we left I felt good on our progress- and normally, he would have done it all himself anyways. Although Felipe told me we'd go back in the evening (working during the hours of 12-3 is just too stinking hot), he ended up telling me I should just rest while he goes to fix the water line again... tomorrow we will be going back though!

This is from this morning, after feeding the pig, we were walking up towards the brush we needed to clear. This is also a good example of the type of path that we go down in between the sugar cane crops. The purple plant is in lots of places on the farm and is used specifically to feed the animals- the sugar cane is growing behind it. Both of the plants get taller when they are in prime harvest time.

All in all the family is really great. I've been a little restless with so much chill time but I doubt I'd prefer to be out there following Felipe around while he does 1 man jobs. I think the language barrier is a little more frustrating here for me because people tend to enunciate worse and use vocabulary/phrases that I have never heard of. However, I'm not regretting my time here whatsoever. It's beautiful and peaceful, the food is good, and the people are all really friendly and welcoming... although I do definitely wish I knew more about agriculture in the United States because that's the main thing people are curious about... oh well!

And here are some more pictures

This big white rooster sits across the street outside of my room and cockadoodles every morning before I get up.. and wakes me up (the hour varies a lot). He's the biggest rooster I've ever seen, not that I've seen many! However, I have no hard feelings, I've just had to start putting in my ipod when he starts singing every morning... Thank the Lord for noise canceling headphones!

On Saturday, out of the blue, some relatives or friends, not sure which, showed up for dinner.  In case you were wondering: my host mom is in the yellow and my host grandpa that lives net door is on the far right. The woman and two men closest to me were the guests.. and Felipe took the picture.

This is the view looking left from the farm... this is down past the coral and right about to the part where it becomes grasses, some trees, and little foot paths (the grazing area)


Hope the pictures made this blog more interesting than the last. I hope to keep taking them. I'f you'd like more pictures of a certain area or even a video, let me know and I can try to take some. I think Felipe is happy to have me taking pictures of their way of life.