Reverse Culture Shock and Reflection

Our Ecology professor told us something like this about the reverse culture shock, "For the first two or so weeks you will be glad to be back, everything will be different. But that feeling of new, will soon go away and you will realize it is not what you have used to. You will be disappointed and frustrated by somethings that now will seem strange or wrong to you." I am sure I added a little extra to that quote. Of course, everyone will feel different after coming back from study abroad but for me and many others the very first thing that hits you is reverse culture shock, and not a week or two later.

I have been back from Costa Rica since Sunday, almost for a week. When driving from the airport, this sadness washed over me when I realized that I am not in Costa Rica anymore. My first longing was to go back. A desert is starkly different from a tropical climate but never is this is this difference felt as acute as when you just come back from a tropical country into a desert one. As more and more days go on however, I come to terms with being back more and more. While in Costa Rica, I absorbed the surroundings - culture, language, nature - here I must work from the inside out and share my new experience with everyone around me.

I feel like this experience have matured me. I learned so many new skills, got rid of fears, and made some achievements.

• The jungle is no longer this scary unknown place where anything can jump out and bite you. I have seen, smelled, touched, and got to know not just the jungle we typically imagine but all types of tropical forests from the rain forest to the dry forest, on an intimate level. 
• I have conducted independent research on my own time and developed from my own idea and idea of other professors. By the way, I haven't really told you about my independent research. In the beginning I wanted to study how the forest edge effect affects herbivory on a particular plant. However I could not find the same species of plant that grew both inside the forest and on the forest edge. I ended up comparing plants that grew not too far from the forest edge, but nevertheless in shade, to plants (of the same species) that grew in more open habitat, completely exposed to the sun. I studied herbivory and epiphyll cover. In the end, herbivory did not differ between the two habitats but epiphyll cover was more abundant in the shaded habitat.  I might have not gotten the results I wanted but the greatest achievement from this study was actually writing a scientific lab report the way it is supposed to be written, the serious way. 
• We also presented our study in a symposium to our teachers and classmates. For me it was an achievement presenting my investigation without stumbling and actually knowing what I am talking about.
• Made Costa Rican friends while learning the local slang. I really want to come back and visit them.
• Met many inspiring peers! Made very good friends. 
• Hiking! I never really hiked a lot in my life before but when I did hike in Costa Rica..wait..this reminds me of that poster with the the guy who drinks dos XX.

• "I don't usually hike, but when I do, I hike mountains for five hours straight with a 100 lb on my back."

Thank you Vera for the pic.

Lol, I exaggerated about the 100 lbs. But it truly sums up how I feel about my study abroad experience. There are so many things I have never done before going to Costa Rica. And in Costa Rica I did so many things for the first time, even things I have never thought of doing, and I did it all to the max. Still, I feel I have not done enough. I have not climbed the fig tree, or ziplined, or visited big cities like Alajuela and Heredia.

If you ever plan to go travel or better yet study abroad in a country unfamiliar to you and in an intensive academic program, it will be a big leap. It is like jumping into a pool of cold water. You could do it it painlessly, step by step but it would be without adrenaline. Or, you could just jump in without imagining how cold it would be. Yes, you will shudder and feel the freeze but in the end you will even start liking it and will want to do it again and again. I am not saying don't prepare, that is a given but nothing can fully prepare you to the point where there will be no surprises. By the way, this philosophy helps with taking cold showers.

So if you want to study abroad, I would recommend CIEE. Go ahead! You will not regret it.

Slang y Comida or Esos Ticos

Pura vida. Before the costa rican in my blood dilutes, and while I still absorb the costa rican way of life, attitude, culture, aura...I would like to share with you some sayings and foods specific to Costa Rica (although some might overlap with other Central American countries).

• Conversational Slang
• al chile? = really? same as saying verdad? de veras?
• al cachete! = literally means to the cheek, which translates into very good!
• esta legal = yeah that works out, or that's legit
• Choquela! = high five
• tome chicha = take a hit. can be said when someone accidentally hit something or when swapping a fly. XD
• mae = dude, they call that each other all the time. It is also common to say when impressed by  something, "Que buena, mae!"
• mop = a recently hip way to say dude, use sparingly
• guila = it means a girl but used in certain cases. Chica is used to refer to a girl all the time. Guila is more special. For example when a girl does something silly, or is having trouble with something you can say, "Ay, guila" and shake your head. Instead of chica linda (pretty girl) sometimes they say guila.
• Bien, gracias a dios = a way to respond to como esta? (it is not como estas, because they use the Ud. form always)
• pura vida = although it can be used as anything, there are certain moments that are just right for it. Most commonly used to answer como esta, thank you, hello, or you are welcome. It is a kind of costa rican philosophy. I feel like it is a way to remind each other how great life is. It adds meaning to the overused thank you. That is why they do not use it all the time, but on certain occasions. 
• tuanis = cool
• rico = an adjective equivalent to delicious, or very good. can be applied to many things including but not limited to: sleep, food, kisses...
• Suave un toque = wait a second, I'll be ready soon.
• tranquilo/a = it's ok, be calm about it
• Que vaya con dios = when saying a goodbye for a long time
• Comida
• mata 'e ....= plant of put in whatever plant. It is a colloquial way to call a useful plant. it could be sugar cane (caña) or it could be canabis
• chancho = pig, also peccary = chancho de monte By the way, this is the name of my professor's band.
• chicharron = pieces of deep fried pork, very good
• chayote = a weird green vegetable with a sweet taste
• guanabana = my favorite fruit! it is big, green, and white inside. Soursop in English.
• patacones = they only types of plantains I love. So, you cut unripe green plantains into thick circles, press them into thin slices with a wooden press, and deep fry them on a pan. They taste like potato chips but better. Also, add lime and salt.
• picadillo = the equivalent of pico de gallo in mexico: thinly chopped tomatoes, onions, and cilantro.
• gallo pinto = rice with black beans sometimes with red bell pepper and cilantro added: the most common meal. I never got sick of it, in fact I would eat it right now.
• arepa - a big cookie, no a sweet pancake like tortilla...basically a thick tortilla with sugar added. 



eating arepas we made with Amber =)

• cahetas = literally means shoe: deep fried corn patties with edges upturned. Then you can put all kind of stuff like chicken, salad, etc on it. Kind of like indian fried bread.
• Making una Caheta
• arroz con pollo, arroz con autun (tuna) = self explanatory and delicious
• mudo - like tamales in corn tortilla with refried black beans, boiled eggs, and garlic. Eaten during Semana Santa
• casada - a meal of meat married to, gallo pinto, and salad (usually of cabbage and carrot)
• casero - homemade food

I will miss the locals here. I have made many friends. And they all invited me to come back. Such warm hearts they have.

Me on one of my tico friend's bike

Weekend Getaway in Tronadora

Monteverde is beautiful when mist veils its hills of pasture and emerald patches of forest. It is an exercise to walk through, every now and then dashing away from motorcycles that come around the corner. It can also get annoying when a crowd of rowdy students pass by, throwing out Pura Vida to any tico that walks by, or when tourists complain in English, French, or some other most likely West European language. Construction work from 7 am 'till night, the local radio truck that circles the neighborhood about 3 times, ripple the calm fabric of Monteverde, making it raw and not as perfect as people imagine it.

Even from this place I fell in love with, it is sometimes relieving to get out of. Monteverde is a working town whether it be writing essays, hiking forest doing fieldwork, serving tourists, or building another bar, while Tronadora is a sleepy farm town, more like a village. It is two hours away on a bumpy, no, extremely bumpy two hour bus ride. The views are panoramic of dairy farms, and fewer and fewer forest patches as we get further. Then we get to Tilaran, a typical Costa Rican city with a central park and a few squares with stores and bars. I must say, Tilaran has a lot of bars.  Around Tilaran and until Tronadora the road is actually paved with asphalt. In half an hour we arrived at Tronadora and took a motorcycle ride until the farm.  The farm is grand. A hundred cows roam the green rolling hills, dotted by some trees. And all of these cows give milk, which, when pasteurized, is sold to Dos Pinos dairy company.

In one patch there were even howler monkeys. We walked all the life stages of pigs or chanchos: from pregnant mother to a pig ready to be slaughtered.

The Saturday we arrived, a pig was slaughtered. And all of us (two families and I, around 20 people) feasted on chicharones, tortillas, yucca, and pico de gallo. One family from Alajuela was very curious about Russian and Uzbek culture, they asked me so much. Most part of that day I spent talking with them, my Spanish put to test. Later that night was karaoke of wailing ranchero songs. Only one person sang them very well, while others slaughtered the songs to everyone's amusement. Horseback riding on Sunday morning concluded my weekend getaway.

Lagun Arenal

Days are slipping away here like sand through fingers...My next blog post might be the last. Right now we are preparing for our finals, finishing independent projects, while also trying to make the best of our time here. You only live once. Nos vemos.

Panama Tales 2 + Host Family!

My memories of Panama are already far back in my mind. I will tell you a little and progress to tell you about my host family without delay.

The three places we snorkeled in were coral reefs.  It is hard to describe, they are of all kinds of colors, with anemones, sea cucumbers, Christmas worms, purple fans growing on top of them. I took pictures with my disposable underwater camera, but I can only take pictures out of it when I get back to the U.S. because they do not have a way to do it here in Monteverde. It was fun to follow schools of fish. There were blue ones, yellow, and grey ones. When the waves were strong the school of fish would also change their direction. It was funny to watch. Parrot fish busied themselves eating algae from the corals, they keep them corals clean. Among other fish we saw a nurse shark, ray, lion fish (invasive), and sea urchins (not a fish). Orange and potato chip-like in shape, we swam right above fire coral, which can sting horribly. I tried hard to avoid it (and did). It was sad to see broken off and bleached corals. Corals on the Caribbean coast of Panama are considered endangered.

The fourth place was the most magical: Mangroves. From the surface of the water you see red roots of the trees with lush green foliage but underwater...All kinds of rainbow colored fungae grow all over the roots so much, you do not see the roots's original colors anymore. Some things are shiny of silver or golden colors. Corals do not grow here, but everything that grows on corals does. The water is shallow and turtle grass grows nearby. Some schools of fish reflect light coming through the roots, glowing silver. Sword fish swam here too.

We also visited the "bird island". It is a tall rocky island overgrown with bushes and trees. Literally only birds live there including the tropical red-billed tropic bird with its long showy tail, brown boobies, and frigate birds. We saw few nests.

The morning of the day I moved to my host family's house, I felt nervous. My host mom's welcome seemed insincerely polite, and the house - too heavily decorated. But with time all these doubts evaporated. Few days ago, I already cooked corn tortillas with my host mom. Everyday we ask each other about each other's days and eat breakfast and dinner together (most of the time). We have talked about many things and shared a lot with each other like close friends. She showed me her crafts, and I showed her pictures of sunsets that I took. She is a stay at home wife. She already has 3 grown up sons and a daughter who sometimes brings her daughter Valeria over before going to work. I played two times with her 3-year old grand daughter Valeria. We did each other's hair and the other time we played barbies. She is surprisingly intelligent for her age and likes to give out orders. I enjoyed conversations with my host dad about Arizona and soccer, who drives tourists all over Costa Rica. He actually studied tourism in Arizona and knows Arizona better than I do! What a coincidence. I met her daughter Sigrid, son Luis, and my host mom's parents among others. My host mom has 9 siblings and so far I've only seen three of her siblings.

All is well also with my independent research project. In fact I am about to put in data for the Clusia leaves I collected.

Hasta luego, friends!

The view on the way to the biological station where I am doing my project.

Inside the forest.

The Plant that I am studying, the one with the big oval leaves: Clusia

sorry I couldn't rotate it here : (

Panama Tales 1

So, tomorrow turned into a week later...Sorry for the delay of my Panama story, friends. A lot has been going on. I moved in with my host family!

A river divides Panama and Costa Rica at the border. Everyone has to cross a rickety bridge  with occasional gaps between the boards, or when a truck crosses - a rusty path on the side. Once across, loud merengue music played on the radio in the "Francophone" store. We stood around yawning, waiting for our coordinator Cathy, and then went back to sleep on the bus. We did not stay long on the mainland. After driving by chiquita banana plantations and the beach with white sand, we loaded the boats with our stuff and took a wet ride. We even had to cover ourselves with a plastic blanket. Our jaws dropped when we arrived at the island. It was picturesque. The crystal clear water had that perfect blue-green tint, coconut palms lined the coast and leaned over the white beach.The island we lived on for 5 days is called Colon, it is surrounded by Boca del Dragon (the water) and is part of the Bocas del Toro. Yes it gets a little complicated. Here we stayed in little cute 2-story houses painted in bright colors: blue, yellow, and orange.

There is not much to say about our first day here. We baked under the sun while writing down information about species, most of which we found right outside of people's backyards. But afterwards, I went for a swim in the Caribbean (so tempted to spell with two r's instead of 2 b's). Swimming in the Caribbean can be so effortless. The water here is saltier than on the Pacific side, so if you relax, you can stay afloat on your back. Long soft turtle grass grows on the bottom (my species Thallasia testidunum), and sways with the waves. It prefers to grow here because it is sheltered by the coral reefs. Also, green sea turtles eat it. The most exicitng part of our Panamanian trip was snorkeling of course. We swam in four different places. The underwater world is so different. It is like seeing another universe from above, even though it is small and right under you, not even meters away. 

To be continued...

Losing Myself (literally) and to the Caribbean

There isn't a feeling like the one I experienced when I realized I got lost in the rain forest. I was probably late to lunch, we were supposed to come back by 12. I wanted to pack light, so I stuffed my notebook into the camera bag (did not fit into my pocket), leaving the camera bag slightly open. It dangled on my back as I tried climbing the rock among the rushing waters of the river but every time I would slide back down, dipping the camera into the river. At one point, I really thought I was going to be carried away by the river and...But the gigantic slimy rock turned me back and I followed the path I took backwards. I was happy I was on steady ground. My sense of direction is awful and when I got to the fork I was about to take the wrong turn again when one of our teacher assistants found me. This is the last picture that I took with my R.I.P. semi professional cannon camera, luckily the picture card survived.

In zoo-like La Selva with concrete paths, we saw the great green macaw, poison dart frog (very common), about 20 peccaries wondering around as if they were at home, currosaws, guans, mama sloth with her baby really up close, hog nosed pit viper, and I am sure I missed an animal. After a day and a half we rode to Tirumbina, which is in Sarapiqui and more isolated. There, we studied forest logging practices and painfully slowly rode in vans among cow pastures. On one of those pastures, the cows almost ran over a couple people, I was really close. That was the funniest life threatening situation that has happened to us so far. We hiked to a tourist center at Tirumbina through a comfortably paved trail. The highlight of that was the hanging bridge over the river, which swung back and forth. 

In Parasmina we got the taste of the Caribbean in our first dish of bony fish. It was a frustrating yet awarding meal. Next day we were served a typically seasoned Caribbean rice. There couldn't be a place with more mosquitoes than here. The ate us all day long. 

Still at Parasmina, we spent a night walking along the beach in the darkness looking for nesting turtles. I remember the moon hanged in the sickle shape, like the horns of a cow and stars were very clear. I saw the Orion's belt, little dipper, mars, and constellations I did not know about. Excitement rose and fell as we ran and laid in the sand until our feet felt numb, awaiting  a signal from other guides about a turtle sighting. In the dark it looked like a mountain rising above the outline of sand. People crouched around it. Light and blocking the way could both scare the sensitive leather-back turtle back into the ocean. Once in the egg-laying trance, we could observe her, for nothing can bother the turtle during this moment. The turtle conservation team measured the dimensions of the turtle, tagged it and collected all the eggs in order to hide them away from poachers in another part of the beach. The sea turtle's head moved up and down, and the salt water excreted from her eyes looked like tears. We were allowed to touch her hard outer covering (leather back turtles do not have a shell). We had to back away far because when she finished laying eggs, the leather-back sea turtle swept the sand with her large fins to cover the nest (even though it is missing eggs now).  Later we saw another turtle. She was 1.6 meters long. MAJESTIC.

On the way to Panama, we randomly stopped by a boy's house. Elephant beetles swarmed the trees. It was hard to believe that this gigantic beetle was not so common anymore due to deforestation.

For the sake of shortness, I will post about Panama tomorrow. 

Civilizationless

I never had to climb hills with a heavy back breaking back pack before, let alone for three to four hours. I never wore the same clothes for so long, or gotten lost in the rainforest two days in the row. And yet all these things happened in the last 5 days.

From the touristy and hilly town of Monteverde, we hiked for 16 km to Eladio's, also the middle of nowhere. It was a lot of mud sliding, jumping from stone to stone, and hanging onto trees and rocks while climbing up. Eladio's is actually a rainforest on what used to be Eladio's farm. Eladio decided to give up this land to be a part of protected land and now he works on it as a tour guide and cook in a little green cabin. We stayed in the building right next to his cabin which functions as kitchen, classroom, library, bedroom, and dining hall. We set up mosquito nets on the shaky wooden bunk beds. Rain poured for all but one day while we were there hiking, catching bats, studying, playing guitar and singing among other things to make up for all the free time.

Although a kilometer less, our next hike felt more difficult because of steeper and more frequent hills. However, we arrived at a heavenly hostel with a view of 20 hectares of hilly forest to die for. Not to mention the food and the presence of civilized bathrooms and showers. Although I must say, nothing can beat Eladio's pancakes.

Currently, I am at La Selva biological station, a rainforest carefully framed with paths and gridlines for easy research access. The reason why I am able to share with you is because there is wifi here! Bellow is the picture of a spider monkey and sunset lighting Monteverde forest, both taken from my ipod. My next update might be in a week or later. In three days, scubidiving in Panama awaits us. Pura vida.