The calm and the storm…

So you may have noticed that I haven’t written over the last two weeks. I admit that I have not been extremely busy, relatively… but none the less, a lot has happened. The last two weeks have been “dead week” and “finals week.” Thus, just to put it out there I have been studying quite a bit, for 4 tests total. This is highly unusually for me, first of all because at ISU I rarely have 2 final tests… just design projects. I also am not used to studying so much, but these classes this semester have been extremely challenging, in a good way, to where I actually want to study and do well on the test just to make sure I know what I am talking about. So, now I am done with the semester! Just paradise left! Hallelujah!

But what else have I been up to? We still have had classes throughout these weeks, and for my sustainability class we visited two pig farms and one coffee cooperative farm. The pig farms were somewhat of a dichotomy, with Don Jesus’ farm being small and mostly sustainable, compared to the Cheese factory’s pig farm industrial scale with controversial environmental effects. It was interesting to see that both farms took the byproduct of making cheese, whey, and fed it to the pigs.

Oh and Don Jesus also stores the pig poop in a bio-digester with makes a kind of compost, as well as producing methane, a green house gas. But instead of releasing this methane, he pipes it to his wife’s kitchen where it is used to cook! So cool!

Oh yeah, and there was a dog… no wait that is a calf… running loose in the front yard?

The coffee farm was a pleasant adventure… and it was good to see it planted within a agro-forestry setting. Oh yeah and there was sugar cane too! It was so delicious… I might even say that it was too much sugar even for me. But check out the sweet, short video clip below of us pressing the agua dulce out of the cane.

We also took a field trip for my Tropical Conservation Biology lab to see Ex Situ conservation measures, meaning we went to places were animals are raised to protect the species and hopefully released into the wild at some point. We went to the Ranario (Frog thingy) as well as Las Pumas which is a rescue center for animals… especially big cats!

After taking three tests this last week (Spanish was the week before) we had to come up with some ways to celebrate. Fortunately, our professors are really cool, and our biology professor, Florencia, (Flor) from Argentina, invited us over to make dinner and hang out. Flor introduced me to Argentinean liquor called Bols, Dulce de Canela, which is pretty much the caramel with alcohol. I had a hard time putting the bottle down… not because the liquor was so good (though it was), but because the caramel tasted so good. I did control my drinking though, no worries. On the way to Flor’s house we were admiring the thunderstorm out over the Gulf of Nicoya, way down the mountain side. It was a wondrous spectacle.

Saturday morning we decided to go to the 2^nd anniversary of the farmers market. The short video of a youth cultural dance from the feria is below. The colors and movements are quite beautiful.

Then we played soccer, or at least our gringo version of soccer… it was fun none the less. My toe-ed feet were really enjoying their freedom during this game; I would highly recommend toe-ed shoes for soccer any day.

Then later in the afternoon, Tracy and I decided hike up the mountain to the biological station and see if we could find an infamous strangler fig tree. I have heard that it is a unique climb, and everyone know I am not one to pass up the opportunity to stretch my legs by climbing an tree. Unfortunately after 2 hours of hiking up and down and all around the forest on 4 different trails Tracy and I still hadn’t found the tree. Today, Monday, we are going to go again, with revised directions and a renewed spirit of discovery. Wish us luck!

Sunday I went to my last Mass of the semester at 9am, and then spent some time decorating for our family tea time (banana plantation themed). We invited all our host families to join us for some sweets, which were baked by us students, to thank them for such a wonderful semester.

Here are few more random pictures that I wanted to show…

This is Miel (translated as “honey”) one of three cats that stays at our study center. He is a home body, but has the strangest sleeping habits I have ever seen. Scratch that… he is the strangest cat I have ever seen, but is personality is just the thing to make us students smile on a rainy day.

I just like this picture…

This is a fungi… kinda like me right? Ha terrible joke, sorry.

Have I introduced you to the musician of our class yet… this is the skillful Kevin, diddling on the guitar. He has definitely taught me a thing or two about music. And his burly beard continues to grow… it has yet to be trimmed this semester.

Sunday evening was filled with laughs and tears as we reflected upon our 3.5 months here in Costa Rica by watching an 800+ picture, chronological slideshow with music. Our wonderful TA’s put it together for us, and I will say it was pleasing to look back upon this entire semester and see how we have become a close family. We finished the slideshow off with Queens “You can’t stop me now,” (perfectly orchestrated) as well as Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” (a classic) as we huddled together in a circle, laughing, and crying for joy. I felt as though I was at graduation ceremony with friend that I have grown up with all my life! I know I could not have asked for anything more out of this study abroad program… it has give me 10 times more than I expected.

These next few days are packed full, as I prepare to return back to the states and reality… I’ll let you know how it goes… please pray that my flights on the 20^th go well. San Jose-Dallas-Cedar Rapids! Most likely my next post will after I get back.