EARTH University and Costa Rica: An Initial Review
As of Saturday, June 30th, I have completed my first 2 weeks as a Borlaug-Ruan Intern at EARTH University in Costa Rica. The remainder of my blog posts won’t be just detailing my day to day activities, but I thought it would be good to give a little bit of an overview on my experience in the country so far.
I began the trip fairly confused, somewhat unsure of what I was doing and very bad at Spanish. While my Spanish hasn’t improved tremendously (yet!), I feel very lucky have been sent to EARTH for the summer and to have had the very thorough, welcoming introduction to Costa Rica. Even on my first day, as I was still feeling confused and homesick, a student came up to me and introduced himself as Carlos, and asked me if I wanted to play ping-pong. I consider myself confidently-decent at ping-pong so it was certainly humbling to get completely destroyed by pretty much every EARTH student I played, but even still I immediately felt welcomed by the students at EARTH.
Even as someone from the Midwest, where everyone is supposedly nice (not sure about Northern Ohio to be honest), Costa Ricans and EARTH students seem particularly warm. On the third day of being in Costa Rica, the card reader to unlock my dorm door broke, leaving me locked outside of it. The security guard that arrived to help me spoke no English, but very patiently and slowly listened and talked to me in Spanish as we waited for a repairman. Using only my basic Spanish, I learned that he had a wife, a young daughter, loved the diversity at EARTH and worked at a fruit plantation for 11 years prior to working at the university, but switched because he liked working with people better than bananas. This very simple but very positive interaction made me feel like EARTH was a place where I could work and feel comfortable.
On my first Friday on campus Ricardo, our class TA and general lifesaver (literally spent a full day taking me to the doctors office in two cities to make sure I wasn’t dying of malaria, which luckily I am not; I had a minor fever that lasted 2 days) forced me to go to the “Hip-hop” class that was being held. Although I have breakdanced off and on for much of my life, I had no idea what to expect when going to the class, and also very little Spanish to work with. However, the group dancing there were all very friendly and were luckily practicing the same form of dance that I am best at. The two EARTH students who were fluent in English definitely helped make this a less confusing experience as well. I now plan to go back every week while I’m here, and maybe even take part in a performance (TBD).
For the past 2 weeks, I have spent most of my time taking the course “Engaging Rural Communities.” I had no real idea that I would be taking the course essentially until I arrived at EARTH, but I am very glad that I took it. Throughout the course we mainly studied rural development, specifically that of farmers. However, we also got to go see these farmers in rural areas of Costa Rica and see how concepts we had studied applied directly to the real world. In addition, we learned about qualitative research, environmental economics concepts like Payment for Environmental Services (PES) and sustainable practices in general, all subjects that will be directly useful for my research project in the coming weeks, as well as my future career involving environmental science. All in all the course was a perfect mix of formal learning, discussion, and field visits. We also had the chance to go to Puerto Viejo during the weekend to visit the indigenous Bribri community, take a tour at a small chocolate maker and of course swim at the beautiful beaches in the area. As I had been at EARTH for the entire week before, seeing a vastly different (and much more Caribbean) side to Costa Rica was a great experience.
Overall, I have had a great first two weeks in Costa Rica. Taking the course on campus has been a good introduction to EARTH, EARTH students and the educational model of the school overall. In addition, it has given me the chance to travel off campus quite a lot, to see even more of the beautiful sights of Costa Rica. The students, teachers, and administrators at EARTH have all been very kind and supportive, even when I accidentally say things like “no hablas español bien” instead of “no hablo español bien” (“you don’t speak spanish well,” instead of “I don’t speak spanish well”).
I am excited to start my research project in the next few days, which I will be developing in respect to water quality on campus, and how it is impacted by local institutions like the banana plantations. I plan to keep this blog updated with information on my research, but also plan to focus on more specific aspects of Costa Rica and EARTH (like the food in Costa Rica, the many dogs I have encountered, etc. Stay tuned!).
