Week 4: Reflecting on The First Half

I know I said the same thing at 1/4 done but I truly can't believe I am halfway through my time living here at EARTH University. This internship has been something that even my 16 year old self would never believe. From arriving in Costa Rica on June 13th knowing no one at all to having a found a family of sorts with the students here, I have grown and learned so much.

So many things that were foreign or different from my day to day life those first few days are now the norm. Everything from the ants, cockroaches, other large bugs, armadillos scurrying around at night to the the slightly creepy howler monkey calls (though I still haven't seen any monkeys) and birds that cover the grass searching for worms after the daily rain. Some things like the very cold and short showers, blasting music from neighbors late at night, and lots of hugs, hellos, and provechos were somewhat uncomfortable for me at first and now comfort me during my daily routines. I've come to look forward to little things like the Friday dessert at lunch, a good shower after being out in a field, and even a bag of plantain chips from the student business Oro Verde (shoutout Mateo if you read this blog).

This week definitely helped solidify feeling like I had a community here at EARTH. If you've been keeping up with my blog you will have noticed I mentioned some dance practices, well this week we performed that dance for the first night of Juegos EARTH. I was on the team Cedro and during the games I got so many hugs and cheers from so many different people, making me feel like I had a little community of teammates. In addition to the Dance, on that first night I did penalty kicks, something that only one girl and one guy from each team does... in front of everyone. So that was a bit stressful but I ended up making it all the way to the final round and in the end got 2nd place. Then the next day I had a pretty busy line up, starting with a soccer game, which luckily we won. Then onto foosball and was going to play basketball but luckily we had Agnes on our team and she dominated the court, so that combined with my games overlapping meant I was off the hook for basketball. After two more soccer games and two more foosball games we ended up in 4th for soccer and 2nd for foosball. As you can imagine I was ready for a good shower and bed that night. Following the games I went to shower and rest for a bit while we waited for dinner and team results. Sadly as a team we ended up placing 4th, not exactly what we had hoped for, but it was still a super fun two days.

In addition to the Juegos EARTH, I went on a field trip with the Genetics class on Monday to a company that focuses on the biological improvement of ornamental plant seeds. Sadly I was not able to take any pictured while there. But luckily afterwards we went to a pretty overlook and park for lunch and I sat with a really fun group of girls who then had us do a photoshoot after.

Group pic after photoshoot

Overlook for lunch

The morning after the Juegos I would've loved to sleep in but I had arranged to join a class for a field lab at 6:30am. This meant I had to be up around 5:30am which was gross when I had played 3 soccer games in the sun the day before. Beside being a bit early, it was an interesting lab and I met some more people. The lab was going to two different field, the academic farm and the organic farm, to collect macro-organisms to analyze the soil health. Basically this means we dug up dirt and searched for insects, a bit dirty but pretty fun if you weren't on an ants nest. We also collected soil samples from those same areas to put into Berlese funnels, a method where an overhead warm light forces organisms to go lower and eventually fall into the alcohol below. These samples will be analyzed next week and though I'd love to hear the results I wont be joining since I will be at the other campus.

The area of soil we were collecting from

Berlese funnels

To wrap up my busy week I spent Friday deep cleaning and doing laundry. Then Saturday brought more data collection, packing, and in the evening, a night in the nearby town. I had sushi for dinner at a restaurant and it was so good to change up my meal for once, even more so that sushi is one of my favorite foods. Then I slept in Sunday (this morning) and finished packing and getting ready for La Flor campus!

This post is a bit late so, as I mentioned, it is now Sunday and I am in bed across the country from where the main EARTH campus is. I'm with a group of third year students at the university's other campus in Guanacaste. Although more than 6 hours of my day were spent on the bus today I still had a great day and just ended the night at the pool with a group of students, followed by a warm shower and sleeping in an air conditioned room, both things I haven'd had since arriving in Costa Rica. I will be spending the week doing classes and trips with the group and can't wait to see what all I learn!