MonkeyS

When we left Panama, it felt very reassuring to be back in Costa Rica. It’s strange how they are so close in proximity but you could just feel that these two countries were very different.

Our ultimate destination was La Selva biological station however we were going to stop and make a detour to visit the Bri Bri tribe. We arrived to a small town and were told that we had to change buses because the one that we were on was too heavy for the road that we would be traveling on. We quickly learned why, I spend half the time in the air rather than on the seat and we also had to cross small rivers, where some of the time the water was about to come into the bus. At last, after about an hour, we finally arrived to Finca Educativa. Later in the afternoon we had to cross another river in order to reach the Bri Bri tribe (this river was a little less scary, but we still had to cross in the dug-out canoes). The Bri Bri tribe has been my favorite of all the indigenous tribes we have visited so far. Physically, it appears as though they have maintained their traditional culture. Their structures were made out with thatched leaves and looked extremely intricate; many of them also had dirt floors. We also had the opportunity to meet with the healer of the tribe (or medicine man). It was interesting because we had this discussion in the conical house and it appeared as if it had four separate levels on the walls (divided by support beams). The healer told us that each level signified something specific in their belief system; the top level was where their God was located as well as the people who were very bad as well (their God acted as a guard for these prisoners). Afterwards, some handicrafts were set out and they were all extremely intricate, I was impressed.

The next day we headed to La Selva. This is the station where we were going to have our midterms, which everyone was sort of dreading. I mean who doesn’t dread midterms haha. When we arrived we were given an introduction to the station and given some pointers. Such as always carry a headlight and where close-toed shoes, because snakes were often found on the paths at night. Later that night I was definitely caught wearing sandals and walking without a light, whoops. The next day we went on a hike through the jungle with the guide. It was definitely an interesting experience because the jungle here was so different then where we had been before. It seemed as though it was so much more full of life. We saw an armadillo that was running through the forest, I didn’t get to take a picture because I think we scared it so it just ran away. I was so excited when we came upon a clan of howler monkeys, because they have always interested me. We stood there and watched them for a while and there were probably at least 10 in the trees surrounding us, our guide made sure to point out to us the males and how we could tell, awkward.

Anyways, the next couple of days everyone was scattered, all studying for midterms. Stacks of notecards were seen been carried around in everyone’s hands, haha oh tests. Finally the midterms arrived. We had one at 8:30 and the other was at 1. After the first one was down everyone was contemplating their answers but we were quick to start reviewing for the other test. After our final test was done, we were finally on spring break! That night we stayed over in San Jose and we had such a fun night in San Jose. We went to Area City, which is where all the local University kids go and other people our age, so it was definitely a fun night. Tomorrow we are headed to Guanacaste, where I want a watch-tan.

A few pictures so far

Thatched roof in the conical house at Naso tribe
Tiny frog that our guide pointed out...
Huge golden-orb spider, yikes.
Sunset in Panama
Just some mountains
Toucan right outside our station
Slum-living (up to 2,000 people live here)
More mountains
Hot springs at Arenal Volcano
Bridge to go visit the Ngobe indigenous tribe

Panama

So as soon as we got back to Las Cruces (aka my second home), we were of course packing for another destination, PANAMA. We had a full agenda planned out for us. We left early in the morning for David, Panama where we were going to spend only a night there. A couple hours later we arrived at the Panama/Costa Rican border, let's just say we were all really impatient. It took forever! And it was hot, I was sporting my Costa Rican soccer jersey, aka the most unbreathable, sweaty thing I have ever worn. Once we got back on the bus one of my friends noticed that he iPod got stolen by border patrol and we apparently couldn't do anything about it! When we finally arrived to David we immediately drove to visit some of Panama's health care systems. It was very interesting because they had this entire room that was just filled with freezers that contained vaccines for various diseases such as hepatitis or influenza.

The next day we were on our way to visit another indigenous territory, the Naso. We were going to be staying at this place called Weckso. We were also told that we would have to travel up river for about 45 minutes in order to reach our destination. A little side note: it had been raining steadily for the last four days and while we were on our way to this river expedition it was downpouring. So we arrive and wrap all of our backpacks in plastic trashbags to ensure not all of our clothes would become soaked. All of us eager students peer over the river back and see dug out canoes with motors. The Naso would use fallen over trees in order to make these boats. The river was also the most treacherous thing that I had ever seen, hmm this should be interesting. So we all walk onto the boat as it rocks side to side, I can vouch for myself that I quickly sat down and grasped for the sides of the boat. The rain had not let up so we all became quickly soaked with water. After what seemed like forever, we finally arrived to Weckso. We hastily filed off the boat and ran for shelter. Now the place we were staying used to be where the military used to train and it was called the School for Americas. However it had long since been abandoned. We had to sleep with mosquito nets just in case of Dengue or Malaria, yikes and from past lectures I definitely don't want either. Meron, a girl in my program, said when she entered her room she had to kill a spider the size of her hand with her shoe, however she had to step on it at least five times. The next day it was still raining and it had been raining all night long as well. We had decided to visit the indigenous people that were located across the river, half of us were to go in the morning and the other half of us would go in the afternoon. Me and some others decided to go in the afternoon, so we decided to nap, since sleep was a hard thing to come by the night before. As were all about to doze off, we heard some of the students that had gone in the morning yell for one of our teachers, their voices sounded very alarmed. We all ran out to find out that our classmates had tipped over in one of the boats and fallen over into the very scary river. Everyone was fine except one girl who floated into a rock barge and hurt her knee.

Later that day we met with one of the local medicine man's who brought us on a walk, where we learned about all the medicinal plants and trees. We even saw a plant that when combined with water it makes a foamy hand-soap. In the evening we got to see how the women make cacao, which later turned into chocolate pattys, apparently those things are so concentrated that if you ate a whole one you wouldn't sleep for days and you would hallucinate as well....

A little later on a group from up the river arrived and showed us traditional dances they have done for many generations, we even got to participate as well! It was very cool.

That entire night I didn't sleep as much, because the rain did give up a little bit, but it was still raining. Knowing that the river was still terrifying, I wasn't so sure I wanted to go back down the river. However we had a hike around the forest first. Since it had been raining for what seemed like forever, the trails were so so muddy. However we got to see some very cool frogs, that were so tiny I wasn't sure how the guide was able to point them out so easily. When we finally got in the boats, the trip down the river was very fast and it was so nice to be back in the nice and dry bus. From here we were on our way to Bocas Del Toro, which is a small island off the coast of Panama. To get there we had to take a water taxi, which was another bumpy ride. Once we got to the island, I already knew that I was going to like it. It was everything that you would expect from a small beach town. Lots of surfers and a lot of locals. When we got there it was sort of late so we hurried to dinner, because we had journal club in an hour or so. We went to this place that had the best pizza, I mean for a place that isn't really well know for their pizza. It was also happy hour... Later that night we went to this bar/discoteque that played such good music. However, it was so hot that I was dripping sweat within 5 minutes hahah. The next day we went to check out La Playa Estrella, or starfish beach. It took us about 20 minutes to walk there because there wasn't a road that went right by it. When you walked into the water there, there were so many starfish just hanging out in the water. It was sad too because we just watched as this little girl dragged all of them out of the water and drizzled sand on them and left them in the sun to bake. When she wasn't watching I threw them back into the water. As this day came to a close, so did our time in Panama. It was definitely an interesting experience.

Recent activity

It has been an interesting last couple of weeks. The internet has been in and out, also the electricity. Yes, we have indeed gone some days without electricity. It was actually so much less stressful then have e-mail, facebook, and other various things accessible by the touch of a keypad.

We had been staying at Las Cruces Biological Station for a large portion of time and it has somewhat become like home, however we move around a lot so we didn’t get to used to it. We will be back there for about three weeks to complete our final research projects. While we were there we visited a school called La Casona. Our mission here was to collect stool samples from all of the children, mainly so we could later identify any amoebas or bacteria. Many of the people in this indigenous community do not utilize healthcare and do not have proper sanitization. Therefore there is a large incidence of diarrheal diseases, more specifically amongst children. Initially I thought that this was going to be a very difficult task because I thought that they were going to be pretty reisistant. However, when we arrived they were so intrigued by us. We went into each classroom and gave our presentations, many of which involved skits and songs that talked about animals that lived in your stomach, slightly corny I know (but it worked). Afterwards, the cameras came out and they all went crazy. Some of them even grabbed my camera out of my hands and took pictures of everything. There was also one little kid who sat in my lap, but he also preceded to put his foot in my face (yes, I have a foot phobia) however I couldn’t exactly remember to convey that in Spanish. Anyways I also made a friend too. He was probably THE cutest kid. I told him I had to go present in a classroom and a couple minutes later I turn around and he is following me into the room. He also really liked my bracelet and I was going to let him have it, but I kid you not it could have been a necklace on him.

Later that week we also traveled to this remote place called Las Alturas, which is considered to be a reservation and has over 10.000 hectares of protected rainforest. This town is very remote and has probably 150 people but had over 500 people when it was more established many years ago. Since there is almost no people in this town and it’s pretty hard to access, healthcare is pretty much not existent in these parts. So with the guidance of one of our professors (also a MD) we set up our own clinic in this town. When we arrived we went right to the school because we needed to collect stool samples from the children there as well so we could send them to the hospital for analysis. The next day we had all of the children come to the clinic with us and we recorded their height and weight, eyes and ears, general checkup, and we drew blood. We each had to run our own station. I did height and weight because I really didn’t want to see little kids get their blood drawn. I guess I should preface this last statement: the previous day a little girl had to get her blood drawn and I was there for backup to hold her arm. When that needle hit her arm, I swear I almost bled from my ears. However, these children the next day were never even made a sound, they were more interested in watching then turning away. Over the next couple of days we took patients for general check-ups and other concerns they had. One of these included taking a scraping of a lesion this little boy had right by his nose (we thought he perhaps had leishmania). I had to hold his head just so he wouldn’t move, I was so surprised when he actually didn’t move at all, just because there was a razor blade right below his eye (I need to get his pain tolerance, haha kidding). Every student got a chance to shadow our professor while he was seeing the patients. I was surprised when many of the patients didn’t feel at all nervous when a student was standing in the corner, but they were pretty open. I even got to do some reflexes; one kid almost kicked me, next time I’ll stand to the side. So I forgot to mention our accommodations here in Las Alturas. We stayed in a pretty rustic cabin, lets just say we had some bug visitors during the night. A greater portion of us ended up with chiggers after we let, don’t worry I wont pass them onto you when I get back to the states, they go away in a couple of weeks. However they ITCH so bad.

All the rage

Our equivalent to a certain celeb named Justin Timberlake? Perhaps

I'm scared of Dengue

So I am sitting in the "common room" of the research station we just arrived to yesterday and apparently there are all sorts of bugs that love the light here, including this giant green thing that looks like a grasshopper, but much larger ah. Also tons and tons of moths.

Anyway back in San Jose we did a few notable things before we left, this included a visit to an organization called Children without Borders. It basically provides any child under the age of fifteen with free healthcare. So we went to probably one of the poorest parts of Costa Rica to observe many of the health factors that they encounter. When we arrived there we parked at a bridge and as we crossed over the bridge I looked down into the water and there was a milky hue that was covering the entire top of the river as well as large amounts of trash as well. It wasn't until that we went into the community that I was in complete and utter shock. The women who was leading us through the labyrinth of homes said that about 3000 people lived in an area of less than two acres. The walkway was barely considered to be walkable as most of them were covered in wooden planks and sheets of metal. There were so many ADORABLE children that would stick their curious heads outside the windows as we went by and it was very sad to think that many of them had yet to receive healthcare. We also went to a similar neighborhood that was also located close by and we went here with a purpose. We created a survey which consisted mainly of public health related questions. It was an interesting day, many families were so considerate about answering the questions but many were not, considering they were from Nicaragua and could get into trouble if they were here. We also found one house that was one level and had about 18 people living in it!

On Sunday we went to the Mercado Central and the heart of downtown San Jose and it was SO much fun. This place was bustling like crazy, especially with people screaming out something associated with the lottery in Costa Rica. You would be surprised out how many people there are that sell lottery tickets on the street. Anyways we got into the building that was loaded with shops and got a scavenger hunt list, with some bizarre things on it. I think I went up to like twelve butchers, and btw my shirt still smells like meat, looking for intestines...There was also this fruit called "Noni" and let me just forewarn you, it reeks. I put it up to my nose and immediately threw it to the ground, whoops. I also had ceviche there and it was so so good. Also, while we were waiting for some of the professors we decided to walk down the street a little bit. So, we passed by this store that had the most insane mannequins I have ever seen ( I will post a picture soon) and of course I had to pose with them and I guess the looks from the store manager were perfectly normal. We were also walking down the "main street" that was lined with stores and in the middle there were these different vendors that had all of their goods displayed on sheets, I sorta just took this in stride. We stopped to look at some pirated DVD's, I mean come on you could buy Avatar for 2 dollars. I had a DVD and my hand and no sooner than two seconds after I heard a person scream police was the DVD ripped out of my hand and the guy had gathered up his entire sheet and sprinted off. Good thing I wasn't caught with that...Later that night we decided to have a little night out, mainly because all we had was a soccer game to go to the next day. We decided to go this placed called "Castro's" which is mainly a salsa/merengue place which was RUL awkward because they are all amazing dancers, I was put to shame but like twelve year olds (sarcasm). BUT THEN Lady Gaga/Daddy Yankee/American music came on and I showed them how it was done. Anyways it was a fun night, however apparently one of our friends taxi's got into an accident.

The next day we went to a Cartago versus UCR soccer game, ok so they are the worst two teams in the league but the game was really packed! I guess it just goes to show you how Costa Rican's love their soccer. The game was fun because when one of the teams finally got a goal, it was a great relief. Also there was a man selling mangoes, with limon y sal..haha oh Costa Rica