Jonathon Sikorski – Perceptions Change

“I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Today marked the final day of our trip to Costa Rica. Our day began at 3:45 am with 21 students, 3 staff, a trip coordinator, and one faithful bus driver loading our bags on the bus. The drive to the airport went quickly; the trip home always does seem to go faster. As we drove it was fun to reflect on the events of the previous ten days. I was struck by how different Costa Rica looked and sounded at 4:00 in the morning as opposed to our daily treks through sunny, humid tropics. When I first imagined Costa Rica, I pictured tropical beaches and lush rainforests, but now my perspective is different: My reality has changed.

Now when I think about Costa Rica, I envision the beauty of the coast, the diversity of the rainforest, the balance of eco-friendly farming, the amazing structures of sustainable power, and the challenges that come from implementing sustainable practices. As a group, our realities were challenged with each lesson, poco a poco, dia a dia (little by little, day by day): our collective vision of what it meant to be a farmer; what it means to use sustainable energy; what it means to be a student; and what it means to support free trade. Our framework for understanding the macrosystem that is community living and food production in Central America evolved throughout the week as we made comparisons between the United States profit driven, monoculture, industrial farming systems.

The unique grouping of agricultural students with human sciences allowed us to bridge understanding and gain unique perspectives about each person’s conceptual framework. Through these conversations, we were able to create meaningful relationships with other students outside of our field and powerful relationships with members of the communities we visited. With each group lesson, side conversation, and reflective observation our perceptions of our realities changed. We changed—we grew stronger as individuals, and more globally conscious of the decisions we make as consumers. As some of us arrive home (despite travel delays) or continue our journey through Costa Rica, we have been enriched by the beauty of Costa Rica and impacted by the relationships we made with others.

From here, we can only hope to bring the lessons of Costa Rica home with us. We can incorporate our new realities into conversations with our friends, families, and colleagues. We can advocate for minor changes in our farming practices and purchases. One thing is certain; Costa Rica has impacted the lives of everyone who traveled within its welcoming borders. Our realities have been altered, and we look forward to seeing the ripple effect of our trip in our day to day lives back in Nebraska.

Maureen O’Connor & Brooke Chapla – Reflections and the Work that Lies Ahead

Hola de la playa!

Today was filled with sun and relaxation as we enjoyed time with one another and transitioned from the beach to the pool at the hotel. While discussing some of our most memorable moments from the trip, we were able to reflect upon the depth and breadth of this experience. This course enhanced our knowledge about the Costa Rican economy, education system, culture, and way of life. Among other things, we gained an appreciation for the term “Tico time,” learned what we can do to promote eco-tourism, were inspired by the women who formed CASEM, and gained a better understanding about the difference between free trade and fair trade.

Our group was multifaceted with diverse areas of interests – agriculture, education, psychology, and human sciences – which allowed us to learn from each other’s perspectives and backgrounds. We bonded on an intellectual level and formed friendships that will continue beyond our time here. In addition, this combination of studies created an experience that united, rather than separated, our areas of interest—especially for the school psychologists in the group. This international studies course created a conversion of conceptual understandings that highlighted our ecological framework of practice – the importance of taking the individual, the family, the community, and the environment into account. When we return to Lincoln and continue working with students and families, we will strive to provide culturally sensitive services in order to promote the most optimal outcomes for students, families, and communities. This greater understanding also leads us to further areas of research interest across domains (e.g., school psychology and community planning) and may lead to future research partnerships investigating the needs of Latino and minority immigrant groups in the United States.

While it is difficult to distill the many areas of growth and understanding that come from an international learning experience into a short summary, it is fair to state that we will have left Costa Rica as more competent scientist-practitioners in the field of multicultural school psychology.

In a few moments we will join our group for a farewell dinner. We’ll then enjoy the fruits of their labor while dining on freshly caught mahi mahi, laugh, share stories, take a million pictures, and say over and over again how much we love Guillermo! Costa Rica, pura vida!

Colton Knickman & Logan Reed – Politics and the CAFTA Free Trade Agreement

Today’s blog is coming from two CASNR students on the events that occurred today, Wednesday, May 16, 2012. We started the day off by having a lecture from a political professional who had run for president and lost by merely a few points. He discussed with us CAFTA which is the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

CAFTA contained roughly 7 main points, the main points include agriculture (non-US countries would eliminate agriculture subsidies but allow the US to keep their farm subsidies); investor prioritization; intellectual properties; government owned corporations forced to privatize; environment and labor; negative list of services; and finally no protected trade.

The United States kind of ‘bullied’ the Central Americas into adopting this agreement, basically saying they would sever all connections in trade, which would essentially cripple these countries. Had Costa Rica not listened, it is doubtful that the US would actually have followed through with that.

This agreement addresses all of these things and benefits everyone involved. CAFTA was approved by 3 percentage points.

Colton Knickman & Logan Reed

Julia DeLaRosa – San José, Urban Life, and Comfort Food

Today our schedule went a little differently than was planned. We planned to have breakfast and be packed up and ready to leave for the capital city of San José by 9AM, but the beginning of the rainy season had a different idea.  Our bus had to take a different route due to mudslides, and so we did not end up leaving EARTH University Guácimo until about 1:30 in the afternoon!  By the time we arrived in San José it was already evening, so we checked into our hotel and then went out for dinner, which, funnily enough, turned out to be Pizza Hut. We felt a little funny going to an American chain restaurant while in Costa Rica, but I think several of us were secretly glad for the change–maybe we needed a little break from all the rice and beans!

It was interesting driving through larger towns and cities for the first time; until now we had been in rural areas or small, more tourist-focused towns. San José houses about 1.8 million people, almost half of Costa Rica’s population.  We could definitely tell how starkly different it is than the other areas we have visited thus far, and different from American cities as well.  What I have observed so far is that is very densely populated, a bit crowded and “smushed” as far as buildings go, and in certain places seems very poverty-stricken and rough, with lots of graffiti, barbed wire, and iron bars.

So, while today was not technically as eventful as some of the others, it was good to have some time to “chill” and to process the week’s events, and observing scenery from the bus windows is always informative in itself.

Allison Goodman & Sara Schutte – Agents of Change

Today is our seventh day in Costa Rica and we are continuing to learn so much about the culture, community, and ourselves. We started off the day by meeting with Fernando to learn about the mission and purpose of EARTH University. EARTH University focuses its studies on agriculture, environmental issues and social aspects of the community that surrounds them. The mission of EARTH University is to develop students into “agents of change”. These “agents of change” will take what they learned at EARTH and use the knowledge to make an impact in communities around the world.

The first adventure we embarked on this morning was a trip to the banana plantation on EARTH campus. It was interesting to learn that bananas are actually herbs and not trees or plants, like most people believe. The most innovative part of the banana process is the banana train. The banana train is used to carry banana bundles from the fields to the processing plant. From there bananas are clean, sorted, and prepared for export. It was extremely eye opening to learn that banana plant workers work a 48-hour workweek for only $110. The workers choose to work for little pay because the jobs provide them with benefits and a better life for their family.

The most impactful part of the day was a visit to a local school. The school is located in a lower-income community just outside of EARTH University. We were given the opportunity to observe and interact with a third grade class of diverse Latin American students. There were 20 students in the class and one teacher. We were instructed to teach the students how to play a few games and while the language barrier was obvious we worked together with Dr. Doll and the students teacher to make it a successful experience.

The best activity we did with the students was a small group instruction of teaching the students “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” using the English language. At first some of the students struggled with remembering the words but after repeating the exercise they began to catch onto the song. Some of the students were even able to tell us the words for each body part when being “quizzed”. After our mini lesson and games we were able to go outside during the students recess and interact more with the students in a play environment. We learned about student’s families and what they like to do for fun.  Although we were only there for a short amount of time we made powerful connections with the students and it was bittersweet to leave. Reflecting on the day we realized that we had become our own “agents of change”.

We ended the night with a nice dinner and dance presentation provided by EARTH University. During the dinner we were entertained by students from EARTH who showed their diversity through dance. After the dance presentation UNL students broke out in a dance party. It is evident that a group who started out at strangers has quickly become close friends. It is safe to say the Costa Rica is in all of our souls!

Allison Goodman & Sara Schutte

Kalby Wehrbein & Derick Lux – Hydroelectricity and Sustainability

The students from UNL participating in this study abroad trip to Costa Rica come from a wide range of backgrounds and majors or graduate studies. Our diverse group of students here are interacting together and learning from each other as we sit down daily and reflect on the Costa Rican people we have met, their stories, and lifestyles. A handful of us are from the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources and are led by our adviser Jack Schinstock. The majors represented are Agronomy, Agricultural Business, and Mechanized Systems Management. We find ourselves comparing these small diverse, Agro-ecology based farms to ours of back home in Nebraska. Although not completely feasible on a large scale, we are discussing ways we can incorporate some of these practices to help feed our growing world with our current resource availability.

On the 6th day of the trip we woke up at Tirimbina Rainforest Lodge and immediately set out to explore the Rio Toro basin in the Alajuela province. We wanted to look more in depth into Costa Rico’s energy sustainability, the use of hydroelectric power. A few of us being of students who study mechanization and physics principals, we were really interested in the construction and use of hydroelectric power.  Over 70% of the power that supplies Costa Rica comes from hydroelectric turbines. The Costa Rican power company is taking advantage of the rapid decrease in elevation to capture the speed of the river water and convert that velocity into electricity at 3 separate hydroelectric facilities using the Rio Toro. Water flow is funneled into 3 meter (10 ft) diameter pipes that travel down the mountain side into the facility to spin two turbines that produce a total of 66 megawatts of power at Toro-2. The electricity from this plant alone goes to powering about 100,000 homes. After the water is discharged from the plant, more pipes and tunnels are being constructed to drop the water down another 285 meters (935 ft) into the third hydroelectric plant that will come online in February of 2013.  When the surrounding area demands more or less energy the plants can control flow of water through the pipes. They do this by placing a compression tower along the pipeline in between the hydroelectric plants This tower acts like a giant shock absorber to maintain the water pressure to provide adequate flow and ensuring pipes don’t burst from too high of pressures. When less energy is demanded the plant can restrict flow, which causes backpressure to be created in the pipes and fills the tower full of water to be used when demand increases.

It was a great experience to see this style of hydroelectric power plant in use and how one is being built. It is innovative to be able to capture the power of one river source, three separate times to harness as much electricity as possible. We received an all access tour of the plant being constructed, even to the point of being able to walk through the tunnels that will hold the massive water pipeline. On conclusion of the tour we loaded up and took off towards EARTH University campus in the town of Guacimo in the Limon province. Along the way we stopped for refreshments, and noticed a critter up in the trees. After a few pictures and some help from Guillermo, we established that it was a sloth.  Guillermo told us that the creatures only climb a certain tree.  This tree is used to capture insects in the sloth’s fur.  It then scratches and eats the insects that were previously caught to obtain its food source.  The reason that the sloth climbs trees to the very top is to stay away from predators. When we finished learning about the sloth we continued our journey to the campus of EARTH University.  Upon our arrival we were able to play a game of basketball, reflect on our experiences, and even danced in the sudden rain showers of Costa Rica!

Look forward to hearing more from our adventures at EARTH, Guacimo.

Kalby Wehrbein & Derick Lux

Kadie Dooley & Nate Fuller – Volcanos and Hot Springs!

We woke up and ate a typical Costa Rican breakfast: eggs, gallo pinto, and fresh fruit. Then, we got on the bus and drive to Lake Arenal to see the dam, which was created to redirect the flow of the river. Before the creation of the dam, the river ran to the Caribbean sea and now, with the dam in place, water flows toward the Pacific in order to provide water for farm lands on the west side of the continental divide. We walked across the dam and took pictures of the Arenal Volcano.

From there we headed by bus for two hours until we arrived in La Fortuna. Here we ate lunch and did some shopping. After walking around La Fortuna, we rendezvoused as a group in front of a local Catholic church before moving on to our next destination: Baldi Hot Springs.

The hot springs offered 3 water slides and multiple swimming pools filled with natural mineral water. Most of the pools were over 100 degrees! The springs were man-made pools and we expected a more natural environment. It felt wonderful!

Our anticipated two-hour drive from the hot springs to La Virgen turned out to be much longer because of the heavy traffic on the narrow Costa Rican highway. We arrived at our hotel, Tirimbina Rainforest Lodge, where we ate dinner, met fellow students from Indiana, and discussed how fantastic the day was. We look forward to continuing our trip in Costa Rica!

-Kadie Dooley & Nate Fuller~