"Put on your ponchos"

With the amount of reading that I still have for tonight, I really should not be writing right now. But I'm very sleepy (it's only 7:30 pm) and feel that, despite how interesting I find the agricultural infrastructure of Costa Rica and its main exports (in case you're questioning me, I'm being very serious), this is a better way to spend my time. At least for a little while.

Tomorrow I have to wake up at 6 am, which seems insane despite the fact that I normally am up and restless by 5 am. I think that's due to a combination of me not having entirely adjusted to the (only..) 2 hour time difference, my anxiety about sleeping through school (I have zero alarm clocks or watches here in Costa Rica, and have not had the chance to go shopping yet for a really sexy digital watch), and the early-onset of crazy bus traffic at 5 in the mornings here in San José that gets me out of bed at 5 am.

Anyhow, I have to be at ICADS at 6:50 am, since we are going to the organic coffee farm/commune, and later some coffee roasters! Maybe I'll buy some organic Costa Rican coffee to bring back home...We'll see how generous I feel (Vamos a ver!), or rather, whether I don't use it all before returning home.. Then, from what I've gathered, we will then be climbing high into the mountains surrounding San José to do some soil analysis, and to experiment directly with this country's laws on agricultural growth. Basically these serve to control large and small scale agricultors and prevent over-development in areas that have limited capacity to sustain farms of various sorts.

As I learned only a moment ago, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) classifies these areas (internationally) by their land-use potential into four separate categories: Intensive Use (can produce high yields with modern technologies of crop production), Extensive Use (can produce moderate yields per hectare), Forest (best used for timber production), and Very Extensive Use (best used for watershed protection or low-intensity animal and timber production). 21% of Costa Rica is type I, 30% is type II, and the remaining land is type III+IV. Which looks a little like....this:

Farming Systems
	3. Coastal plantation & mixed
	7. Extensive mixed (Cerrados & Llanos)

http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/Maps/CRI/01/fs/index.html

Today we were given a lecture by David Norman, resident biologist who, according to the ICADS website, "in the late 1980’s came to Costa Rica to help set up the region’s first wildlife management master’s program". David also spent time in his youth volunteering on Isle Au Haut in Maine, and knows Acadia and Baxter State Park very well. David told us all about, in sweeping terms, why Costa Rica is the way it is, in terms of geology and weather. Taking me right back to my only science classes before high-school, we discussed plate tectonics and how Costa Rica was actually formed when South America moved away from the plate of Africa (80 million years ago), becoming an island that began to develop unique biodiversity and eventually began to subduct underneath the Caribbean plate (65 million years ago), which led to the earliest formations of the isthmus and the Greater Antilles mountains.

Only 15-16 million years ago did the archipelago of mountain tops begin to rise out of the water as more subduction was occurring. For many thousands of years however, they had served as private incubators, giving genetic isolation to species which allowed (as David noted - the Galapagos and many other similar cases teach us that this can be a crucial step in evolution) unique adaptions of species to colonize land without much inhibitors, leading to "greater acceleration of speciation".

Many of the mountains that therefore were created through plate tectonics are in fact volcanoes. Surrounding San José there are many, and most Ticos (the local name for Costa Ricans) will tell you that there are 125 active volcanoes here. Some that overlook the city are still very much active, and David told us that later in the field course we will be ascending into one or two of these active volcanoes. So active, apparently, they make you park your car facing the road - just in case you need to jump in and drive down the mountain dodging magma.

There is a funny story here about the first time in many, many decades that a president of the United States visited Costa Rica. The year was 1963, and the volcano Irazu had been dormant for many centuries. It was John F. Kennedy's choice to plan a special visit to the country, however, on that day the volcano erupted for the first time in living memory - and has not stopped grumbling since.

But for me to grumble on about the trade winds and precipitation does not sound like a fantastic time for anyone except me. BUT FIRST, picture this: in some areas of north-eastern Costa Rica, one cubic foot of land receives roughly the same amount of rain in a year as two large Victorian bathtubs! Nuts.

David moderated some discussion later, which was essentially an open dialogue in smaller groups about our experiences here in Costa Rica. I felt like I was telling a strange dream when trying to describe how different my home and family are here from anything I've ever known. Still such an amazing experience. But while others spoke of how they have been feeling extremely at home here and as though their lives have remained relatively similar despite having switched countries, I couldn't help disagreeing almost entirely about my own experience. It's not that I am unable to relate to the family I am living with, or that their lives are so drastically different from my own or anything I expected, however I am acutely aware of the differences. I found it approx. 175 times harder to relate to my home, family, and friends in France when I first arrived at age 16 than I do here, and it is a million times more unfamiliar. Lots of numbers that aren't really based on anything, but the point is that I am so happy that I am noticing these differences, and that I do not resent those that creep up on me and catch me by surprise. I am ready for all of them, and am glad to meet every single one! I am the ultimate guest-house. A hotel. Since I passively dwell on this Rumi poem casi todo los dias de mi vida, and y'all might not have caught the reference, here it is:


This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.


I'm going to a beautiful beach 4 hours away with amigos for the weekend, and am not sure when I will next write, but am going to begin taking photos tomorrow! I'm such a lucky girl. I don't even know how to deal with it, beyond soaking it up as much as I can. Which is part of the reason I have not been taking photos - it always seems to kill the moment when I put the screen (digital) between me and whatever I am doing and suddenly picture how others will potentially view my photos, and how I should present what I'm experiencing to the rest of the world, and what is impressing me so much so that I had to pick up my camera in the first place. Tomorrow, though, definitely. Now it begins.

I didn't even write about my many delicious meals today! What we ate for lunch benefited a local organization that is raising money for its free daycare for very poor working women who have infants - an organization that has worked closely with ICADS in the past. And it was delish. And tonight Ana made me my first fried plantanos here (I'd had a couple in a restaurant here - but these were the first freshly cooked!). Also, for breakfast she's been giving me thick tortillas made of corn that are like my food dream come true. You eat them with rice and beans (gallo pinto, again), and queso blanco (sour cream!), as well as whatever other fruits Ana tries to make me eat up.

Anyways, good news is that I've figured out which cheap Costa Rican beer is the best - of the two. It is the Imperial - and now I am set for the rest of my stay. It's really wonderful to be able to go out with friends in the late afternoon, get a nice beer for about a buck, and go home without having to think once about the fact that I am still three months away from being twenty-one. Today one of my classmates celebrated her 21st birthday, and it was even funny since it was so unremarkable to celebrate here - twenty-one is just another year, of many, here. A mi me gusta muchos.

Pura vida!! (an expression which is used in Costa Rica in essentially all circumstances to say something which basically means "Hey! You're awesome, and life is awesome!")