Pura Vida
Written Feb 12
The culture in Costa Rica (as well as Panama) is so family-oriented. Random family members and neighbors come in and out of the house at all times of the day. Whether they come to get some dinner or say hi, everyone is always welcome. The past two days at La Chiquita have been amazing. Yesterday we got to sleep in a bit, but we still had to help with chores on the farm. We fed the MANY chickens (around 40 I think), washed the dogs, and fed the pigs. As Caroline and I were feeding a hen and her chicks in a separate enclosure, one of the chicks escaped. It got underneath the work table and jumped to the outside of the barn. I ran around the other side and heard our hostdad say “Cuidado hay un hueco”…let’s just say that I’m never going to forget what the word hueco means. I stepped down onto some tarp to grab the chick and sunk into the ground. It wasn’t until brown water started filling my boots that I realized I was standing in the barn waste water….. [hueco roughly translates to hole]
After I washed my pants and socks in the sink, we all headed to a nearby river. As we continued down the gravel street, people came out of their houses and by the time we got to the river, we had accrued a crowd of about 25 people (including five other SIT students that lived close to us). I don't have any pictures of the river, but it looked straight from a movie. It was along a luscious green cliffside and it was the coolest most refreshing water. The little boys with us climbed up the cliffside and jumped from as high as they could climb. I tried very hard to at least stand up on the rocks, but I couldn’t even lift my waist out of the water haha
After the river, we all went back to our houses, had some lunch (we got to try their homemade duros!!), and took a siesta. Later that night, the other SIT girls and their family came over to learn how to make aprestamos. They tasted very similar to funnel cake especially when we drizzled condensed milk on them. One of the other hostmoms grew “miracle berry” in her garden so we all got to try it. We sucked on a lime then put the berry in our mouth and it made the lime tasted like a super sweet orange!! That was our dessert before dinner because then we made homemade pizzas! Everything was homemade an homegrown except for the cheese which was actually queso fresco and not mozzarella.
We all sat around then table for a while (while getting eaten alive) and talked half in Spanish and half in English. Since our little house has its own power, we can’t have the fan, light, and shower going at the same time or else the power goes out. (The power only had to go out four times for us to find this out) So we all sit still while someone showers so we don’t sweat too much and then when that person is done, we can all have fan time for a bit until the next person showers haha. That night we all were sleeping soundly until around 4:30 when we all woke up to an extremely loud horn honking up and down the street. We asked in the morning and apparently it was the trash??? Vanessa got up to go to the bathroom after the truck stopped and allegedly saw a bat fly into our room and sleep on the roof for a while. Needless to say, we were pretty grumpy in the morning. We waited for the SIT bus to pick us up and the entire drive to EARTH university we all loudly recounted what had happened the day before. EARTH university is the product of a US "donation" given to Costa Rica to make some sort of learning facility. The campus is 7000 acres yet holds only 450 students. We were able to tour two of the many farms on campus, since the school only has one major: agroengineering. The university really focuses on student-led farming and on giving back to the community surrounding campus. After we had eaten lunch (made from food grown on the school farms) we headed to one of the homestays for class.
After another amazing dinner, we sat around Elias and watched him harvest butterfly cocoons which he sells to people nearby for weddings and birthdays as well as to collectors in other countries. Tomorrow we’re visiting a NGO, a PES area, and a waterfall. On Wednesday we’re leaving Costa Rica and on Thursday we’re going to be spending around two days at an indigenous comarca called Comarca Naso Tjër Di. I won’t have any service while in the comarca so I don’t think I’ll be able to post any of this until Friday or Saturday when we’re in Bocas Del Toro.
Ciao y pura vida!
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