Al final

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this… as usual, life has gotten in the way of my sitting down and summarizing what’s been going on.  But as our program is winding down (it’s Sunday; the program ends on Thursday!), I’m finding that without homework I have more time than I know what to do with, so updating the blog is something to do!

I’m having very mixed feelings about the program ending.  The good thing is that it ending doesn’t actually mean that I’m leaving Monteverde—Molly and I are staying for another month and a half for an internship.  We get to live up the mountain in Monteverde proper (in our own house!) instead of in Santa Elena, where we’ve been living all semester.  We’ll be working with our teacher Kate disseminating a sociological survey about women’s birth experiences here in the Monteverde region.  And living next door to Kate and her husband and their four month old baby!  We’re very excited.  And moving in next week!

After everything that happened with Pati, it was tough to stay focused and motivated.  I had the incredible and humbling privilege of being able to go home for a long weekend and got the TLC family time that I needed.  After that it was much easier to rally and make it through the rest of the semester.  I just handed in my last final paper, have a final presentation on Monday, and then it’s off to the hot springs for a night with the whole group!!  Then one final night together (at the same cabins where we stayed our first night in Monteverde—which still feels like yesterday) and the first people start leaving!  It’s very weird that we won’t all be together anymore, after having spent so much time together for three months. 

We had our homestay fiesta on Saturday.  We showed a video that we had made of all of our photos, with some of Pati’s songs as the background music (as well as a song that Emily, Molly and I recorded and the Indigo Girls song “Closer to Fine,” which we sang with Pati)—look for it on facebook soon (we hope)!  

I guess that’s the update for now.  I’ll try to write more about how the internship is going—and perhaps post pictures of our house and the cutie baby and the rest of our adventures here!

El grupo (más Mika y Adrienne)!

Love, abrazos, y besos,

Emma

Gozo y tristeza vienen del mismo lugar...

...I’m learning this as I return from a whirlwind fun spring break trip to the northern dry forest of Guanacaste (snorkeling in the coldest water I’ve ever swam in, camping on the beach, bioluminescence in the water, singing under the stars)

and then to Nicaragua (a night in Granada, then on to Matagalpa and Samulalí, where Emily has a host family who we stayed a couple of days with (hiking up to an incredible lookout point, cooking over fire, a Catholic church service to celebrate International Women’s Day).

We were exhausted and exhilarated from this trip, traveling just Emily, Molly and me, and when we got back to Granada we got a message that one of our beloved professors had died very suddenly in an accident.  So now, when people ask me about our trip to Nicaragua, it’s hard for me to remember all of the good parts because that obviously put a damper on the very end of it. 

The three of us got back to Monteverde in time for her Quaker memorial service on Sunday afternoon.  It was a beautiful service, after which the whole community shared a meal and watched videos that Pati had made for her bio music (this should be the right link to her youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/flordekamot) and slideshows of pictures of her.  I got to meet her father who shared lovely stories about Pati—from what he said, it seemed like from childhood Pati lived her life to the absolute fullest, loved exploring, and dove deeply into every project she thought up. 

It’s tough being at the Institute these days because of this.  We all still expect her to walk around the corner and greet us with an “hola amigos!” and a smile.  Her pictures are up all around the Institute.  All the staff members are doing a remarkable job of taking care of themselves and being there to support the students with whatever we need.  As always seems to happen when a community experiences a loss, we’ve all grown closer and there is even more love in the air than I was already feeling here. 

Y por eso, digo que el gozo y la tristeza vienen del mismo lugar.  Alguien compartió eso en un Meeting cuando una muchacha de la comunidad murió hace unos meses.  Y es verdad: sin haber vivido la tristeza, no se puede encontrar gozo, y sin el gozo, no se puede ver que puede sobrevivir alguna tristeza. 

Love, abrazos, y besos,

emma

Hello again from Monteverde! Sorry for not writing for so long. We had a midterm this week and are getting ready for our spring break trip to Guanacaste and Nicaragua!

Our last field trip was to a field station with a lookout over Volcan Arenál. We had an intense hike into the field station, incredible doughnuts for dessert, a night hike (with Mark Wainwright, illustrator of "Mammals of Costa Rica" and a very knowledgable biologist), singing in the sunset, and sunrise birdwatching! We also got to spend some solo time in the Bosque Eterno de los Niños.

Also got to see some incredible wildlife, like this moth!!

President Doña Laura came to speak in San Luis, to inaugurate the new community center there. My host mom's novio played marimba for her!

Molly and I shared our birthdays here, and got to celebrate for weeks! Emily baked her vegan cake for us and we all shared it at the Institute. I felt very loved :)

 We also went out to dinner as a group, went dancing, and I got to go to Quaker Meeting on my birthday and the whole meeting sang to me in English and Spanish :) Also, our friend José gave me chocolates from the café that we frequent. 

What else is new... my next door neighbors (my host sister's dad) dog, Susie, had puppies on the full moon last Monday! I got to watch two be born. So amazing!! Susie just did her thing and let us all watch, take pictures, and help keep the puppies warm and together.

I've been going on more explorations and adventures with classes. Curi-Cancha, a reserve just 300m above the Institute, is my favorite reserve that we've been to so far. We got to see quetzals (I cried) and this incredible tree.

Life's still good. Getting more accustomed to life here gives me more time to miss home, family, and friends, but thanks to a quote that my friend Maeve sent me from her study abroad in Scotland, I'm remembering to still be fascinated by everything, ask questions, explore, enjoy life.

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." -Albert Einstein

besos y abrazos,

emma

the view of Volcan Arenal from the field station where we spent Friday night.

(photo creds to Allison, stories to come!)

Thank you Trez for this GORGEOUS pic of the trogon!!

pajareando

So my Tropical Ecology class starts at 7 am, which is kind of rough, but kind of awesome for when we need 3 hours in the field in the early morning… to go birdwatching, for example!

Last week I got up at 4:30 to go birdwatching at 6 and we saw an orange-bellied trogon.  This is the same bird that I saw for a moment as we drove past it on our way to Monteverde, almost three weeks ago!  The trogon is related to the quetzal; it’s this big, majestic bird that is just an incredible sight. 

(image from google images, but Trez got some good pics! I’ll try to post one once she’s put them online.)

Yesterday morning for class we went birdwatching in the same place I went to a week ago.  I was super excited to see the trogon again, and my professor told me not to get my hopes up, it probably wouldn’t happen… and we were walking only a little bit past the spot where I saw it a week ago and I happened to look up into the trees and noticed this big bird with a fat orange belly…! And it was the trogon!! I was so excited.  Our whole class got to see it, and it sat still for us to look at for a good ten minutes! I was already so happy to be up with the sunrise that morning, going birdwatching with all these people that I love, and to top it all off we started the morning at this lookout point where you can see all of the Nicoya valley.  The sun was rising so it was still shadowy where we were but the valley was bathed in this yellow morning sunlight and the moon was still up AND THERE WAS A RAINBOW! And then it was sprinkling and my friend Allison said “you know, Emma, the rain is just cloud dust… we’re in the clouds” and I cried a little bit because it was just so beautiful!!  

Basically this is a day in the life of a student here.  It’s the best ever.

Love, abrazos, y besos,

emma

poesía

“Instantes”

por Jorge Luís Borges

Si pudiera vivir nuevamente mi vida.

En la próxima, trataría de cometer más errores.

No intentaría ser tan perfecto, me relajaría más.

Sería más tonto de lo que he sido,

de hecho tomaría muy pocas cosas con seriedad.

Sería menos higiénico, correría más riesgos.

Haría más viajes, contemplaría más atardeceres,

subiría más montañas, nadaría más ríos.

Iría a más lugares donde nunca he ido,

comería más helados y menos habas.

Tendría más problemas reales y menos imaginarios.

Yo fui una de esas personas que vivió sensata y prolíficamente cada minuto de su vida.

Claro que tuve momentos de alegría, pero si pudiese volver atrás,

trataría de tener solamente buenos momentos.

Por si no lo saben, de eso está hecha la vida, solo de momentos.

No te pierdas el ahora.

Yo era uno de esos que nunca iba a ninguna parte, sin un termómetro,

una bolsa de agua caliente, un paraguas y un paracaídas.

Si pudiese volver a vivir, viajaría más liviano.

Si pudiera volver a vivir, comenzaría a andar descalzo a principios de la primavera

y seguiría así hasta concluir el otoño.

Daría más vueltas en calesita, contemplaría más amaneceres y jugaría con niños.

Si tuviera otra vez la vida por delante.

Pero ya ven que tengo 85 años y sé que me estoy muriendo.