City Life

I am now back in Las Cruces, the first biological station we visited soon after our arrival in Costa Rica. We arrived here on Monday after completing our 2.5 week stay in San Jose. We will be here for a while (see calendar below for detailed information on when and where I am staying).

Our stay in San Jose was really great. For 10 days, everyone in the OTS program attended intensive Spanish classes at the Costa Rica Language Academy, a small language school within the San Jose metropolis not too far from where we stayed and near the University of Costa Rica, San Pedro Mall, and various restaurants and commercial areas. We had five hours of class each day, and the group was split into a few different classes in which we were placed after taking a placement exam during the first few days of the program in August. My class focused on some common grammatical errors as well as language and culture necessary to conduct basic medical history interviews and to discuss issues in the field. Some activities included mock interviews in person and on the phone, interviewing random students on the UCR campus, and doctor-patient role playing. In addition to a fifteen minute coffee break and one hour lunch each day, the program came with other perks; it included a one day excursion of our choice as well. I went along with a group who chose the “Adventure Combo” which included ziplining the rainforest canopy and whitewater rafting. Both were very awesome experiences and a lot of fun – see pictures for visuals.

While in San Jose, we were assigned to home stays through the Spanish program, which is accustomed to hiring families to host students that they enroll from around the world. I had the pleasure of staying in the home of Sra. Nidia, who is a very sweet, creative, and artistic 74 year old woman living with her husband, adult daughter, and her daughter, who is around my age. I didn’t really get a chance to spend a lot of time other than meals with the family, but Sra. Nidia was a great host and I really appreciated her home. I was definitely able to get a sense of how family dynamics and just routine Costa Rican life works for a home in the suburbs of San Jose. Additionally, her cooking was absolutely delicious, much like all the Costa Rican food I have experience thus far. She has been hosting students for seven years and really enjoys it.

Other than the Spanish classes, the program met up at the Organization for Tropical Studies offices for lectures to continue our studies in other subjects, although our stay in San Jose was mostly about focusing and polishing our Spanish skills. We also had a chance to take advantage of the urban setting to explore another face of the health care system as well as other points of interest. Outside of class, we had a good amount of time on weekdays and plenty of time on weekend nights to explore the town periphery as well as downtown. In groups as well as on our own, we explored a variety of venues from restaurants to clubs to malls. I really enjoyed the freedom and quickly became familiar with the bus system and general layout of interesting hubs around where I stayed – I would definitely say that out of all the places outside of my home countries, Peru and the USA, that I have visited, it was by far the easiest place to feel like I could, with time, call it home. In general, the city is modernized and the presence of globalization is very obvious from the American fast food chains scattered across food courts around the city’s malls to the various international companies in many different markets that have made their way to Costa Rica. There is plenty to do for entertainment, and there are many food options as well. From what I understand, it is the nicest/most modern city in Central America, and it reminded me a lot of Lima, Peru, although it is much smaller. I personally liked it a lot. It had a nice modern-yet-uniquely-Latin-American vibe to it.

Field Trips:

Mercado Central. The central market – a hub of commerce and storefronts. Depending on which part you are in, you can find everything from fresh meat to hardware. We made some attempts at exploring stands specializing in natural medicine and local remedies.

Museo Nacional. The national museum, where we learned about the history of Costa Rica from the first human settlers all the way to modern times. Highlights included ancient pottery, stonewear, giant stone spheres made by precolombian communities, colonial furniture.

Hospital Mexico. One of the largest hospitals in the country, and connected to a center for educating hospital interns and graduate level students.

EBAIS in Vargas Araya. Like the EBAIS units discussed in my previous entry, but in an urban setting. This particular EBAIS is managed by the UCR, which was approved by the national security system to manage the money that would otherwise be managed by their employees to provide services in that area.

INCIENSA. National lab network that focuses on epidemiological surveillance and confirms and characterizes parasites.

Children’s Hospital. While we were not able to tour the hospital given that we might transmit H1N1 to hospitalized children, we received a lecture on the history of smallpox eradication by a major doctor in the hospital.

INBIO. Awesome nature park with exhibitions, trails, and animals run by an organization seeking to document and preserve the biodiversity of Costa Rica.

Lecture topics:

Introduction to Statistics

Introduction to Research

H1N1 and Preparing for the Upcoming Flu Season

Conducting Small Scale Surveys in Spanish

Insect Taxonomy

Diarrheas

Vaccine Development

Epidemiological Surveillance

Health Care in Nepal and Niger

Fun stuff outside of class:

Canopy Zipline

Whitewater Rafting

La Esquina, Bar Rafas, Bahamas, Bar Rio, Bar Cirus, Bar Acapulco, Calle de la Amargura, Nova. After classes and on weekend nights, the group enjoyed visiting a variety of bars and nightclubs like the ones named, and a couple of them were also the sites used for the celebration of Gabe’s 21st birthday. We also watched the much anticipated Costa Rica vs Mexico soccer game in a bar, which CR unfortunately lost.

Castro’s Bar. The best Latin dancing in San Jose, provided by this bar and nightclub, was a favorite haunt for a few of us. I had forgotten how much I love dancing salsa, merengue, bachata, and cumbia (except I don’t really know how to dance cumbia, or dance any other dance nearly as well as Ticos…)

San Pedro Mall. The mall closest to our home stays. Great place for fast food (including American favorites including but not limited to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Burger King, TCBY, Subway, Quiznos), great place for shopping (including a bargain clothing store, Pague Menos, which was a favorite amongst the girls), and also the location for the movie theater – I was able to see The Hangover and The Proposal in English with Spanish subtitles while in San Jose.

Museos del Banco Central de Costa Rica: Museo del Oro Precolombino, Museo de Numismática. One of the best museums we visited, the Museums of the Central Bank of Costa Rica include the Museum of Precolombian Gold and the Museum of Currency. The first section of the museum contained samples of currency in Costa Rica through history with nice interactive displays and my favorite feature, lights inside the displays that you can turn on and off depending on how long you are looking at the display to save energy and preserve the samples. There was also a special exhibit on animals and plants featured on currency. The second section was a wonderful museum containing a large amount of gold figurines, jewelry, and other items made by Precolombian people in Costa Rica before the arrival of Spanish colonists. The items were beautiful, masterfully crafted, and many were representative of the animals the people encountered in their natural environment, many of which were from the rainforest. See my pictures, they do not do them justice, but will give you an idea of how amazing the work is.

Craft Market. Stopped by and picked up some Costa Rican souvenirs and jewelry.

INKA Grill. Peruvian restaurant that a group of us visited and thoroughly enjoyed. I was very happy to get the opportunity to get some home country favorites in my belly.

Iwaa Sushi. Really cool sushi place with screens at each table to order from, and an amazing all-you-can-eat special on Friday nights.

Terramall. Mall we stopped to have lunch at on our way back to town from a field trip. The main highlight of this stop was the discovery of a new favorite Barcelona-based fashion line, MNG.

First visit to Las Cruces

I have now been in Costa Rica, the happiest country on Earth, for two weeks now. Beginning in San Jose, where the group first met, the 19 students and our two resident professors have progressed through introductions, orientations, and our first lectures. Now, we already find ourselves relatively deeply entrenched in our program here, ready to conquer the semester.

 

After spending a couple of days in the capital, San Jose, meeting and getting to know each other and the Organization for Tropical Studies headquarters in la Universidad de Costa Rica (University of Costa Rica), the group shifted to our first stay in Las Cruces Biological Station (near the rural town of San Vito). Las Cruces is one of three main OTS stations in Costa Rica and home of the Wilson Botanical Garden. It was a mere 6 hour ride to the station, and quite scenic. For more details on that, see my previous entry.

 

We spent about a week in Las Cruces becoming acquainted with the station, surrounding areas, our schedule for the semester, and the new material as well as learning styles we will encounter this semester (oh, and living together all the time J). For example, our four courses, which everyone takes together, are called Preparation for Culture and Language in Costa Rica, Preparation for Tropical Medicine and Public Health, Preparation for Research Practicum and Preparation for Field Ethnobiology. They do not occur on any type of regular schedule. Additionally, it is not always explicitly defined which specific class the material we are covering during an activity is for. We have lectures, presentations, and discussions (both from professors and student-led) in classrooms, but just as often we have planned excursions, field trips, and hands-on activities like laboratories and projects. On any given day, we may have two excursions and a lecture, or perhaps three lectures. Something that is regular, however, is our meal times. While in Las Cruces, we eat breakfast and dinner in the dining hall on the premises run by the station, and on most days, we make an effort to be at the station, or we can order a packed lunch the night before. At this station, breakfast is at 6:30am, lunch at 12pm, and dinner at 6:30pm. Needless to say, these early hours are against my nature, but arguably more productive and healthy in an environment where it rains daily in the afternoon.

 

During our first stay in Las Cruces, we were able to do the following outside of the classroom:

 

• Visits to two local EBAIS. EBAIS stands for Equipo Basico de Atencion Intergral de Salud, roughly translated as "basic team for integral care" . These are the basic units for primary care that are run by the national social security system, which makes it mandatory for all citizens to be part of a public health insurance plan. The goal of these visits was to observe their infrastructure, how people utilize them, and their employees.
  
• Visit to the Ngobe Territory community and EBAIS. Continuing our exploration of the national health care system, we visited this territory, home to the indigenous group Ngobe, to get a glimpse of their lives, the impact of history on their race, and their access to healthcare. In addition to having a chance to walk around their homes and explore their culture on the slopes of some of the many mountains in Costa Rica covered in rainforest, we were asked to take note of a variety of health risks and hazards in the area. A few of us spent about an hour and a half talking to a blind elderly leader who founded one of the major clans living in the territory many years ago. He even played us some of his instruments and sang traditional songs.
  
• Visit to the Caja regional offices and learning from Dr. Ortiz. "Caja" is the social security system. The offices we visited like Dr. Ortiz's conduct research and development projects in many communities, particularly the underserved indigenous territories.
  
• Visit to the border with Panama and housing for immigrant coffee plantation workers. Stopped by, stood on the marker, and saw the meager conditions which many workers are willing to live in for the sake of making a little money picking coffee. We also learned a little bit about how so much of the business exploits the workers and belittles their rights.
  
• Tour of the Wilson Botanical Garden with Resident Biologist Rodolfo. Very cool, thousands of plant species – will have its own entry soon.
  
• Hike to the Rio Java through the rainforest at Las Cruces. After the tour of the garden, a group of us hiked one of the trails at the station which led us to part of a small river nestled in the rainforest.
  
• Laboratory activity, introduction to microbiology. As our first lab, we sampled surfaces of our choosing (mine were the inside of my mouth and my hands after being coughed on), grew them on blood agar plates, and then made slides of the colonies which grew. Everyone saw some bacteria, and some even fungi. I found what I am pretty sure was streptococcus in my mouth and staphylococcus on my hands, both of which are normal flora on those surfaces.
  

 

Topics covered in lectures:

 

• History of Costa Rica
  
• Social security system of Costa Rica
  
• Introduction to Global Health
  
• Costa Rican Health System
  
• Primary Care in Costa Rica
  
• Introduction to Tropical Medicine
  
• Introduction to Microbiology
  
• Costa Rican Lab Network
  
• Introduction to Epidemiology
  
• Research in Health Services
  
• Introduction to Biostatistics
  
• US Healthcare Reform
  

 

Free time activities:

• Card games. Just around the Wilson house, a way to socialize.
  
• Shopping in town. Buying essential school supplies, rubber snake boots, and foodstuffs.
  
• Word games. Another way to socialize/kill time.
  
• Frog hunt. I did not personally participate, but the evening is a great time to search for frogs at the station.
  
• Running. Plenty of inclined paths for keeping active!
  
• S'Lugar. A nice bar with a few cocktails in the town of San Vito for the purpose of starting a good night.
  
• D'Locos. A club in a town about 15 minutes away from San Vito, full of youngsters. Will play a 20 minute segment of American music if you stroll in with 10 Americans.
  
• Pizza. I did not go, but the pizza in this town is supposed to be great because the town was settled by Italian coffee entrepreneurs.
  
• Reading. Plenty of paperbackage seshs.
  
• Computer and wireless internet. The greatest gift of all – although living in the jungle, we have the benefits of a station conducting scientific research.
  
• Music. An absolute necessity no matter where you are.
  

 

As for now, we have left Las Cruces and begun our home stays in San Jose, where we are currently engaged in a 2.5 week intensive Spanish program at the Costa Rican Language Academy. My next entry will cover our experiences in this city.