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.

Let the farm life begin

Today, after saying goodbye to my host mom Alba, I took a taxi to meet up with some other students in San Jose that were going to the same city. After asking for directions a few times, we found our bus stop and then got on the bus and after about 15 minutes, it left for Acosta (our destination city). It was an awkward bus ride because people kept getting picked up and I had a suitcase and backpack to try to fit somewhere and the overhead compartments were too tiny for anything... but after an hour and some scenic mountain driving (going up for quite a ways and then down again)  we made it to the town. Some guy, whose name was'y even mentioned at the time, asked if we were "the students" and then took us to some little park near by. Our families (or someone from the family) were waiting and after a short little welcoming to Acosta, we split up.

My host dad has a cool offbrand? Jeep with like seats that are up against the sides of the car in the back instead of facing the front.. so that was cool. We made our way up a paved road, stopped for a little grocery store, and then kept on going. The paved road soon became dirt/rock and we continued climbing up. Every now and then we'd slow down and they'd let me marvel at the awesome view from the mountain. And after 15 minutes of climbing, with some downward parts too, I kept thinking with every road that veered off, "This must be it!" I mean it's a one lane road- how far away can the house be after all? well, after probably 30 minutes driving up the mountain, we finally arrived at a quaint well-painted little house, which happened to be theirs.

The house is really nice and I found out later that the neighbors that span for about a quarter of a mile down the road are all relatives. The property, which actually extends (as I was also told) all the way down the mountain, has been through 3 or 4 generations of the Arias family... it's pretty awesome.

After talking with random relatives for a while, a typical tico lunch, and then some more chatting with my host mother and father about politics, materialism and history, Felipe invited me to go feed the pig.

He told me I should put on better shoes for the hike so I don't get my tennis shoes dirty so I put on some rain boots that I am borrowing from LASP. Before leaving he grabbed his machete and tied it to his waist, gave me some really fat species of banana to carry for the pig, and then he grabbed a big old bag of pig food (seemed like corn meal or something). As we made our way down a steep dirt road in between mostly sugar cane crops, we got to a cool clearing with a big Guanacaste tree sitting right in the middle. The Guanacaste is the national tree and it's really awesome- big ol' trunk with super thick branches that extend mostly horizontal. It seemed like he wanted to rest from carrying the pig food so we went towards the tree and he, using the pig food as a pillow, lay his head back while laying down on a really thick/long stump or wood or something. I guess it was probably a tree trunk but it was laying horizontal... Anyways, he gave me a little log to use and I went and sat in the tree while he laid on the log thing. The view from where we are at is cool because we are on the side of the mountain so we pretty much just sat there for an hour, talking every now and then about living simply, nature, life, etc., and enjoying the scenery.

After some rest, we kept walking and got to the little pig pen. The pig started squealing when he heard people and we began dropping in the weird shaped bananas for the pig and he absolutely snarfed them down. When I was talking in the tree, I mentioned to Felipe that I don't like killing animals but that I like to eat them.. I also mentioned that it was a really naive opinion to be for "good treatment of animals" when I am not the one that has to kill them. Anyway, as I was watching this pig snarf down chubby bananas and his powdery yellow stuff, I was struggling with this thought about how I would totally be willing to eat the pig but I don't know if I could intentionally kill it without feeling really bad. At this moment, I decided that if I can hardly kill a pig and keep a clear conscience, if I wanted to eat pig really bad, maybe I will have more respect and honor for the animal whose life I am ending to sustain my own. All I know is that when we are separated from the labor and pain that go into things, we typically are left conscience free. Example: buying things from wal-mart without thinking about the sweat shops full of poorly paid workers that in essence are the reason we can buy things so cheaply in the first place. Yeah, we (myself included) don't like to think about that stuff because it reminds us that we often make ourselves forget certain facts of life if they mean that we are going to be uncomfortable or have to change something that we don't feel like changing.

We left the pig and walked down the path a little more and then went and sat down again off to the side, with another cool view. We chilled for about 15 minutes and he told me about some of the animals while we sat.. evidently there are lots of toucans around these parts which is neat! As we made our way back up, we checked on Mr. Pig and then grabbed some really sweet tasting manadrins (essentially clementines?) from one of the handful of trees along the path. We walked back through the oxen "field" (even though the angle is steep I guess it's technically a field) and Felipe fed the 2 guys some mandarins while I legitimately feared of a death by ox mauling. I told him that they scare me and I stood in between him and the oxen for the whole duration that we were near them.. they are seriously gigantic.

After dinner time, the family watched some Mr. Bean secret agent movie I've never heard of. It had Spanish voice dubs and they laughed hysterically more than a few times. What can I say, it was actually a pretty funny movie.

I'm not sure what's in store for me tomorrow but I think it involves cleaning a manure/compost area near Mr. Pig and also preparing for the rain season to begin (I'm told it hasn't rained once this season).

I'm definitely going to try to get pictures over the next few weeks and probably won't have this big of a blog post to make in quite some time.. but we shall see.

Thanks!

Grammar and Literature

So last week and this week I have been working on 3 different things for "school." Firstly, we have had 5 sessions of Faith & Integration where we have a speaker talk to us about something faith-related and then ask questions and meet a few times to discuss our thoughts in smaller groups. For my language and literature concentration, we have grammar and literature. We meet for grammar every day and our class is split into two groups.. I am in the lower level of the two groups, although I feel like all of us in this concentration are now pretty decent at Spanish. For literature we were given a packet with various poetry and also short book to read during our internship.


Okay so, workload-wise, it's really relaxed. For 4 of the Faith & Integration sessions, we have had readings that take about 15 minutes long to do beforehand. Also for that class, we have had two 2~ page responses due (in Spanish) about the readings and our responses/analyses.

The first lecture we had was over the context in which Jesus lived. I had already learned the majority of the information that was given through my Old/New Testament classes at IWU and a book I never finished called Who is This Man, by John Ortberg. However, I enjoyed the session and gained some new insights about contextual evidence through parables. For example, in one parable Jesus describes a man that goes to the town to get workers and then keeps going back every hour throughout the day- in the end, he pays them all the same wage (the wage of a day's work). However, while the parable has a very strong point, we are able to see interesting contextual information through the fact that the vineyard owner was returning back to town throughout the day and there were laborers still looking for work. Dr. Irene Foulkes, who gave the lecture, explained that during this time, there was a labor crisis in the Roman empire which is why there would be people waiting around all day in hopes of finding some work. Anyway, I thought that was a cool nuance for reading the Bible's parables.

The second lecture was about liberation theology. As I understand it, liberation theology is essentially the theology that believes that poverty and major inequality are not God's will and that it's our job as Christians to fix the vast inequalities. And that we are called to have "incarnational" ministry, getting our hands dirty, just as Jesus did.

The third lecture was given by a white missionary that has been living as a missionary for over 60 years. He is a very well respected theologian (evidently), very well respected missionary, and very well respected professor. His story was awesome and the man is a character for sure. He's participated in some 'big' things and even told us that during a meeting with Fidel Castro, Fidel asked if any of them could explain their opinion on the book of revelation, of which John Stam had studied greatly. Dr. John Stam (or Dr. Juan Stam in Latin America) has acquired a very 'Latin American perspective' after living here for so long and he has seen some incredible things in his life. He has also just finished the fourth part (I believe) of his bible commentary on Revelation... and it is supposedly "incredible." So that's cool..

The fourth lecture was actually today and was given by a homosexual guy from Costa Rica. He told us his story- growing up knowing that he was gay but also wanting to be religious and having a relationship with God. He grew up Catholic and later became Pentecostal. He had some girlfriends but eventually had 'relations' with another guy during this same time and began to plan his suicide. A few months later he took (as he said) about 20 sleeping pills hoping to go to sleep and never wake up. He woke up in the hospital and evidently they put him on more sleeping medicine because he had 'overdosed from something'. After a week of being in a coma-like state, he was better and decided to confess to his pastor about being gay. He had an exorcism performed on him but a few days afterwards, he realized that nothing had changed. He felt he had to leave the church because it still was not accepting and after 8 years of being churchless, he felt that God wanted him to start a place for the LGBT community in Costa Rica. He currently runs a community type thing (I guess it's kind of a church?) that is open to all people and functions like a church. Also, he has been with his current male partner for 13~ years. Definitely an interesting and beneficial time.

Tomorrow we will have our 5th lecture over "An evangelical view on service and missions." The readings for this lecture were very anti-service/missions because of the long-term harm that is often caused. I'm more or less excited for the lecture though.


As for grammar, the class has been great. The profesora is very intelligent- I would say she definitely has more linguistic knowledge of English than any of us have. She's also a very good teacher. It's been a lot of fun and I feel like I've learned a lot just over the past week and a half.

Literature hasn't been bad either. The poetry has been really good although at times a bit hard to initially understand. Also, the work load is spread out really well so that I am not really under much stress. We have one 3-5 page paper due on Friday, another one due sometime during our internship, and then a like 5-6 page paper due at the very end of our internship.

As for my internship.... On Monday I will be taking a bus with one of my suitcases (leaving the other one at the LASP offices until we end the internship to come home) and traveling up to where ever it is I am going. As far as I know, I am going to be working on an organic farm. The family I will be with has a mother, father, daughter (19) and son (25). I'm a little anxious to meet them and settle in again but am obviously excited as well.

Peace!

Montezuma

My Spring break was spent in a place called Montezuma. Of the 7 people that I was with, two or three of them had been figuring out all the details. When it came to the specifics, I just was going with the flow and following their lead- I had no idea where or what Montezuma was until the day we headed there!

We took a few different buses and walked some good distances before reaching the ferry that would save us hours of travel (because Montezuma is on the bottom of a peninsula- in order to drive to it, you have to go far up north, then west, and then way south on a 6 or something hour drive)! The ferry was cool and was a 70 minutes trip... once we got to the peninsula, we had a 2 hour bus ride and then arrived at Montezuma.

This is how wikipedia describes Montezuma, "Montezuma is a town in Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica which began as a remote fishing village and has gained popularity since the 1980s among tourists on a budget." So there you have it. It's a small little area with probably about 12 or so different restaurants, multiple hostiles, a grocery store, souvenir shops, etc. When we got there, we went to the closest hostile we could find and, when their pricing seemed good, we bought rooms for the night. It was $10 a night and the hostile had beds, free lockers that they give a key to, free wifi, and running water... and at night when it was really hot, they did have some fans... but if the power goes out, fans don't help much :p.

For dinner our first night most of us got typical Costa Rican cuisine. It was the cheapest thing we could find and we all were missing it after out 10 days in Nicaragua! On our first morning, we got breakfast from the grocery store (I had cereal with a little milk carton). After breakfast, we prepared PB&J's and then set off down the coast on a journey to a waterfall we heard of that flows directly into the ocean. Some people said it was 45 minutes away and others 2 hours, so we prepared for the worst.

The walk was fun and went for who knows how many miles.. with frequent breaks to explore the rock formations and scenery. At one point I found a large bamboo stick and enjoyed using it as a walking stick and a support as I crossed little ravines in the rocks we explored. 

Up on rocks with my stick!

After 2 or so hours of walking and exploring, we got to our destination.

We couldn't really go under the waterfall because there were huge rocks underneath it. However, we did find a path to climb up and could walk around above the waterfall. We ate lunch up near the trees that can kind of be seen in the second picture and then spent the rest of the afternoon making our way back to Montezuma.

That night we found large mango trees all around our hostile and, with the use of a huge bamboo stick like the one I found walking, we collected 20-30 smaller mangos and had an awesome, free dinner/snack!

On the second day, we went the other way down the beach, which was much more of a popular destination. After walking for only one hour during our first day expedition, there was little to no one in either direction. However, during the second day, we encountered many people as we made the 15~ minute walk to a group of nearby waterfalls. The waterfalls were awesome and we spent a few hours jumping into the water beneath them- some jumped from on top.. not me though (I'm not that hardcore). 

Actually getting to where they were standing (in the 2nd picture) was pretty freaky because you had to hug the wall and kind of rock climb across. I jumped once from where Bailey (in the green) was standing but didn't do anything more with this waterfall.. it kind of freaked me out.

You were not supposed to jump off of the first waterfall (seen in the pictures). However, many people jumped from the waterfall above the one seen here. It was about half this waterfall's size and the jump didn't require any momentum so it was much safer. Above that waterfall (the 2nd one) was an even smaller set of 2 little waterfalls plus a rope swing that went into the body of water.

This was the view from on top of the "Third" waterfall area

and here is a picture of me swinging into the water.

After a good hunk of time at the falls, we went back towards where we explored the first day in hopes of building a shelter and finding a good place to sleep on the beach.

Only 45 minutes from the hostile, we set up on this "long beach." The sand was smooth and the beach was long and wide. Driftwood was everywhere along the tree line and we used it to construct an awesome little camp and sleeping site.

We got a fire started and had a good fortress set up behind the fire area to sleep behind so that if the tide rose more than we expected, it would be stopped. It was beautiful and we were all euphoric. Then out of the blue some random lady showed up and pooped on our party. She explained to us that the beach is protected because of sea turtle hatcheries and that we needed to put out our fire and leave (in nicer terms). 

In the dusk we walked back towards our hostile and eventually found a small little area where there had seemed to have been a campfire set up recently. In the dark we worked to get a fire started to cook our hotdogs we'd had with us. Once the fire got started, things went smooth. Except that hotdogs here have plastic covering them which we didn't know until I discovered really hot plastic on the hotdog I was trying to eat! 

We all spent some time laying down in the sand with our heads on the sheet that Katey brought staring at the stars, sharing whatever pieces of astronomy knowledge we had, and trying to spot as many shooting stars as possible. At one point, we saw headlights coming directly for us and for some stupid reason we all thought we were going to get run over (it was a good distance away) and we ran behind the tree and ducked down in the leaves. We looked super sketchy and quickly realized how idiotic we look... and then went back to stargazing.

Sleeping on the beach was tough. I had brought my really thin and poor quality towel that I purchased just for Nicaragua (because I could fit it in my backpack) and I slept curled up on it. I woke up about every 45 minutes to switch sides because my neck would be cramping up and just about every time I would get up, I could see some of my friends sitting up because they were struggling as well. Also, there were little hermit crabs all over the beaches... they made me a little paranoid at night but during they day, they were awesome.

thats me sleeping on the left!

I forgot to mention that we had a hermit crab race during our first day expedition.. it was hilarious and awesome and my little guy finished in 2nd place behind the winner by seriously a millisecond.

Me and the other Kyle got breakfast with the group that morning and then left for home through pretty much the same route we came. The rest of the group stayed another day, went to a national park a good ways away and then slept on the beach again.

It was an awesome Spring break but I was relieved to get back and stop living out of a backpack.

And as always, there's more I could tell but just not enough time or attention span in the world to do that right now.

Thanks