Costa Rica Day 4

Hola from Tarrazu! I have to warn you this blog is less entertaining and more informative. But enjoyable nonetheless.

Today was our first day of official Earthwatch work but we spent the morning going on a hike through the cloud forest and then late morning/early afternoon learning all the plans for this project. Well, we learned as much as we could between the torrential rains on top of our tin roof. A group of teenagers was at the same nature preserve and came back absolutely soaked and shivering. So we have a preview of what to expect in the next few days out on the coffee fields…

The scope of this project seems immense. Basically they are trying to find the best way for the farmers to have productive coffee farms without disturbing the environment. Sounds easy, but there are about 6500 farms if I remember correctly, and each has different different altitude, soil, landscape, land use history, fertilizer use, pesticide use, and management! A project of this size would need HUGE amounts of data to have a “magic formula” for growing coffee. They are sampling 40 farms and experimenting with different techniques on 12 of them. So I feel like they are just scratching the surface, and no magic formula has been found yet. But that’s the fun. I get to roll up my sleeves and help them collect the data they need. And most of you know how much I love data. And for those of you who don’t, well, it probably wouldn’t make the most interesting dinner conversation so you can just take my word for it.

The cabins we are staying in at night are really nice, though there isn’t a whole lot to do besides sit at the dinner table and talk. Each cabin is named “welcome” in a different language except for cabin 5, with is named Matthew McConaughey. That’s right, my arch-nemesis stayed here last year. Apparently, bringing crap to one country is not enough for him.

I happen to love a lot of things about our country, but the United States could stand to learn a thing or two from Costa Rica. For one, they boast the highest literacy rate, lowest crime rate, and lowest unemployment rate in Latin America. They are the hotspot for tourism and the newest destination for technology corporations (Intel, etc.). Besides Nicaragua (story for a whole other blog) they have a good relationship with most countries. How has all this been accomplished? They have not had an army for about 50 years! Instead, they have invested in public education and healthcare. What a novel idea! In addition, the country believes in free will. Gambling and prostitution are legal while marijuana is tolerated. I’m not promoting all of these, nor do I think they all would work in the US. But, despite what many Americans might predict, the entire country has not devolved into a Latin American sin city. Hard to argue with a country that trusts (and invests in) its citizens.

Our tour guide cited alcoholism (human nature), traffic (due to the country’s fast expansion, and drugs as the three biggest problems in the country. Wait a minute, I thought I just said free will works in Costa Rica? Actually, the drugs are coming THROUGH Costa Rica to the United States! Whoops.

Anyways, thanks to the rain and the wet teens, we called it an early day. Probably not too many of those in the near future, so I’ll take it. I will write more after I have experienced a couple long days in the field. Until then…