In the Thick of Things

After San Jose, the group traveled once more to Las Cruces Biological Station, where we stayed for another 2 weeks and completed our project proposals and had all the lectures that we would be tested on in our midterms. Following this stay, we spent 3 days in Nicaragua, where we stayed at the charming Hotel Granada in the most wonderful little colonial town of Granada. In addition to having the opportunity to see some of the history of the town, we were able to visit a variety of places related to the health sector of Nicaragua (even in the capital not too far away, Managua), the crater of an active volcano at Masaya, and a sleuth of nightlife hotspots. We then proceeded to spend 4 days in Palo Verde Biological Station, which is a natural reserve of flood plains and other types of wetlands. The first two days there were spent studying on our own for our midterms, and then on the other two days we had a couple of classes and some exciting activities which I have briefly summarized below. Those are activities I STRONGLY recommend you read.

After Palo Verde, we were let loose to go wherever we wanted because it is now our FALL BREAK. Nine of us are currently vacationing in the most wonderful surfer town, Tamarindo, which is full of tourists, expensive food and activities, and days on the most gorgeous beach I have ever seen, perhaps second to Waikiki in Hawaii. Pictures and details to come. It deserves its own entry, for sure. Maybe the best vacation I have ever taken – definitely the best I have ever taken without my family. Oh, adulthood. Although, our trip so far has not been the most fortunate…yeah, that’s another story you’re going to want to read.

Field Trips and Activities

Las Cruces Biological Station

Boruca, a town of the Brunka indigenous community. We spent half a day visiting this indigenous community who graciously agreed to not only give us an opportunity to speak to them and shop some of their most beautiful handicrafts, which is a large part of their community’s income, but also showed us how some of them are made using traditional methods. For example, they create a lot of textiles from cotton and natural dyes. Although the cotton they now use for convenience is manufactured by a company outside of the community, they still dye it themselves and during our visit we were able to participate in the process. The dyes were essentially made by boiling specially selected and prepared plants. Different plants were mixed for different tones and the length of time the cotton was boiled affected the shade or intensity of the color. It was fascinating to see plants which all looked green prior to undergoing the process produce red, blue, and yellow dye. The best color by far was the purple. The Brunka collect this special color once a year in a special trip to the ocean. There, they send men into rocks next to cliffs to seek out and find special snails. When startled (like when they are picked up and blown on by a human, for example), the snails urinate. The cotton threads are soaked in this urine, which at first looks yellow. After drying in the sun, however, the snail urine dye becomes purple!

Ngobe family visit. One afternoon, a traditional healer, his partner, and their granddaughter visited the station to chat with us about their culture, particularly that of medicinal plants and traditional healing, and their handicraft business. They showed us how they make a cocoa drink from fresh roasted beans which tastes very funny until you add lots of sugar (which they don’t actually do), and then it tastes just like hot cocoa. It is very caffeinated and certainly gives you quite a rush. One of the most fascinating parts of their visit was seeing the traditional healer identify and describe the use and purpose of so many of the indigenous plants we had marked in sections of the botanical garden we had sampled earlier for an ethnobiology course activity. He had an incredible wealth of knowledge which really brought the theoretical parts of our course to life.

Social Security offices in San Vito. Paid a short visit to the administrative offices of the San Vito branch of the social security system and made contact with staff that could potentially helps us in our future research projects.

Bioprospecting scavenger hunt. Fun activity we did in the gardens where groups searched for “active compounds” (small trinkets in jars) with medicinal or marketing potential around the grounds of the station. Some groups used the ethnobiological method (simulated by interviewing people around the station) and others did random sampling (aimlessly looked around for the objects). At the end, it wasn’t just about how many each group found, but how many useful ones (only certain trinkets) they acquired.

Nicaragua

Visiting parts of the health system. In a short trip to the capital city, Managua, we visited a couple of the administrative buildings and laboratories of the ministry of health. While no where near the level of those in Costa Rica, they are definitely set up to make a lot of progress in the next few years.

Masaya Volcano. Prior to this visit, I had never been at the mouth of an active volcano. While it was more of a smoky crater, and there wasn’t any lava or anything to see, we were definitely in close proximity to what colonists/missionaries who encountered this volcano referred to as “the mouth of hell.” We were not allowed to stay in the observatory longer than 20 min because the fumes were not exactly good for humans. Amazingly, there are some parrots that have adapted to these dire conditions and they now live in the walls of the crater. I didn’t see any, but there was a display about them in the Park Museum.

Granada carriage rides and colonial hotels. The town we stayed in, Granada, is really old and full of colonial charm as its basically entirely still in the colonial architecture. The hotels and other locales take advantage of this quaint charm and have remodeled and developed this area to make it a big hit with foreigners. For example, we stayed at Hotel Granada, which was once a convent and is now a huge hotel with a swimming pool and a small art gallery. One main street leading to the main square is dotted with bars, hotels, and restaurants. During the day, you can do what we did and take a horse-drawn carriage ride and tour the city to see highlights like old parks, the abandoned hospital, more awesome old buildings, and such.

Granada nightlife. As mentioned, there is a main street with many bars and the like. It ranged from simple bars to grills to even an Irish bar – which happened to have the best happy hour specials, making the highlight of that trip the 50 cent mojitos. Speaking of rum, Nicaragua is famous for their deliciously good national rum, Flor de Caña. Excellent.

Palo Verde Biological Station

Wading through swampland to find snails and dragonfly larvae. To gather data for some biostatistic practice, and to take advantage of the natural wetlands landscape at Palo Verde, we set off on a very wild adventure. Our task was to sample squares of wetland and count and identify snails and dragonfly larvae that we could find attached to plants and floating in the water. We entered the wetland at a level below our knees. By the end of the activity, we were waist-deep in the water. But it wasn’t just water. There were lots of large plants, floating plants, oh – and floating cow dung, and swimming water cockroaches, leeches, other bugs, and God knows what. And yes, my body was in this water, with water filling my rubber boots and pants. While incredibly uncomfortable at first, the rugged exercise eventually became an accepted state of being and it actually became kind of fun to find the snails in the water, although not so fun to find leeches in the sifter 30 minutes later. Regardless, I think I am now more of a real scientist for going through that.

Getting stung by a scorpion. GETTING STUNG BY A SCORPION. One more time – GETTING STUNG BY A SCORPION. OK, if you find yourself in Costa Rica, and if wading through swamplands infested with water cockroaches, leeches, who knows what and floating cow dung is not enough excitement for you, try and see if you can get a scorpion to sting you. Don’t know how? Try this. Stay at Palo Verde. Leave a duffle bag on the floor next to your bed. Leave at least one pocket of the duffle bag unzipped for at least one night (more if possible). On the last day, when you are packing, reach into said pocket. If you feel an instantaneous rush of seriously sharp pain shooting through your palm like someone is jabbing a needle into your hand and it lasts for 30 minutes – then success, you have been stung by a scorpion. Luckily for me, there aren’t any lethally venomous scorpions in Costa Rica (at least not lethal unless you have a serious allergic reaction), so when I was stung and I rushed to my professor who is also a doctor, he made sure I was OK and we worked on relieving the pain without much worry, although he was equipped and prepared to revive me if something more serious happened. Anyway, that was one of the most intense moments of my life. But it is all good.

Lectures and Films

Introduction to Ethnobiology
Biodiversity in Costa Rica
Costa Rican Cultural Diversity
Types of Ethnobiological Research
Chaga’s Disease
Approaching and Learning from Different Cultures
What Makes Plants Useful
Dengue Virus
Quantitative Methods in Ethnobiology
Non-timber Forest Products
Tropical Forest Ecology Basic Concepts
Analyzing Ethnobiological Data
Bioprospecting
Malaria
Tuberculosis
Leishmaniasis
Tourism and Medical Tourism in Costa Rica
Animals in Ethnobiology
Traditional Healing Methods in Shamanic Traditions
RX for Survival Documentary Series
Healthcare in Rwanda and Cuba
Homeopathic Medicine
Foreign Aid
Genetic Diseases
Debating different types of healthcare systems
Nicaraguan Healthcare System
Venomous snakes and snakebites
Biostatistics medley
Malnutrition

It's been a while

In fact, it has been, and I have not written in my blog for quite a
while. I have been busy though, with learning and projects and now
studying for midterms. Next week is fall break so hopefully by then I
will have a) recovered from my 2 week bronchitis which I only got
antibiotics for yesterday, and b) time to work on another entry. For
now, I should add that after our second stay at the Las Cruces
Biological Station, we spent 3 amazing days in Granada, Nicaragua, a
lovely colonial town. Then we moved on to Palo Verde Biological
Stations, in the northern part of Costa Rica, and we shall be here for
a few days until Saturday, when Fall Break starts - an entire week of
freedom! Should be exciting.