only when the last tree is dead,

when the last river is poisoned,

and when the last fish is trapped,

then we will understand that we can't eat money

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 6

De pie C.R. NO AL TLC

On your feet, CR, no to the TLC

On a statue near La Sabana park in San Jose

Slow.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 5

i really like the colors in this picture:
"el gobierno hace a los ricos mas ricos y a los pobres mas pobres."
english: the government makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
(also all of the 'a's are anarchy symbols)

here's another one. i like the placement, someone rising up and shouting.
in the buffalo winter, i miss all the tropical plants, too.

mentira lo que dice | what's said is a lie
mentira lo que da | what's given is a lie
mentira lo que hace | what's done is a lie
mentira lo que va | what happens is a lie
. . .
todo es mentira en este mundo | everything is this world is a lie

just now i'm listing to manu chao's mentira (song). here are the lyrics. this doesn't include the news-like clips at the end that speak of the US emitting a quarter of the world's greenhouse gasses and not taking any action (like kyoto) to stop it. i don't understand the world we live in, nor the country i was born into.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 4

i know all 0 of you dedicated readers have been anxiously awaiting my next post, so here it is:

che has become a ubiquitous symbol on this continent. no wonder someone decided to graffiti on a soccer stadium. region brunca is the san isidro de general valley i think, the southern quarter of costa rica.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 3

n o   a l   T L C
perez zeledon/san isidro de general
estadio futbol stadium

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 2

a lot of them refer to the TLC, which translates to tratado de libre comercio, or CAFTA in english. within the past few years, there had been a very close (nearly 50% split) vote on whether costa rica should pass the TLC. a common reason people we talked to said they voted for it was that they were scared of possible loss of trade resulting from not signing.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 1

i took a bunch of pictures of graffiti when i was in costa rica this past summer, and i'll be posting them to my blog in the coming few days.

not god or love

The Story of Stuff

I just received an email from a friend with this link in it: http://www.storyofstuff.com/ ...I watched it and I love the movie. If you want to bypass it and go directly to their action steps, click here. What follows is an excerpt from a 20 minute video, jam-packed with facts in a really easy to digest way. There's a lot we could talk about regarding this video, so if it gets you inspired, comment or email me!

I do have one suggestion for the website and movie makers, which I outline in an email I just sent:

Hi -

I just watched The Story of Stuff. I think it does an amazing job at explaining complex problems in an engaging and simple way. I've already sent the links to many of my friends and family and I'll probably end up blogging about it a little later.

But I have one question, why not mention the other 3 "R"s? Sure, recycling is great, but it's on the bottom of the hierarchy of the other R's. I was recently working on a project to network sustainability efforts in Costa Rica and learned about the 4th R, "rechazar" in Spanish, or "reject" in English. In this hierarchy, rejecting products comes first - never buying those which are toxic, disposable, or otherwise harmful. Next would come "reduce," then "reuse," and, finally, "recycle."

We seem to have become obsessed with only the last R, the lowest on the hierarchy, the one with the least potential to change the linear system Annie Leonard spoke of -- to the neglect of the other 3, more helpful Rs. These 4 "R"s can be guiding principles, in addition to the 10 steps you have already outlined on the website. I think your website, and the organization of people behind it, could surely use it in a productive and educational way.

So, though I was disappointed to hear Annie only speak of recycling, and forget about its counterparts, I really enjoyed the video. I appreciate the work you're doing to bring these kinds of facts, statistics, and big picture problems to the computer screens of so many people in such a well-done effort.

Thanks, and keep up the great work,
Ari Sahagun

This particular issue, the over-focus on recycling to the neglect of the counterparts, has been on my mind lately. Writing this email-letter makes me want to write to some of the local papers around here and tell them about it. I think I just might.

Design Feedback

I guess I haven't thought very critically about web design within the context of American society. I'm in Costa Rica working to co-create (i.e. hopefully with the influence of others) a social network for non-gov'tal organizations. Recently I've been seeking feedback about the site in face to face meetings, because I haven't been getting any though digital means (email, chat, feedback forms). I'm realizing that I have culture googles on. So I'm learning that looking at the forefront Web 2.0 standard-creating designers in the States (or other Northern countries) is perhaps not the only inspiration I should seek to design here, in Costa Rica. A lot of NGOs that do have websites have sites that look pretty old, I'm talking Geocities-era. If these are my peers, and the audience I work with is used to navigating these kinds of sites, I better pay more attention to them, and see how I can emulate Geocities within a Web 2.0 framework.

It's an interesting issue. Here's an example, the default tabs created by Drupal and the Zen theme are pretty standard, at least from my perspective. (Take a look)However, recently a professor at a national university told me that if he sees these tabs, he thinks that the "Editar" section is grayed out because it's unavailable -- so he wouldn't bother to click it. I had never thought of it that way.

Another prominent example I've heard a few times is genearl unfamiliarity with the Google Maps. Being pretty tech saavy, I take this fluency for granted, and I know what happens if you scroll with your mouse placed over the map. I haven't seen anyone here use Google Maps as the American designers intended them to be used.

Not to mention that the idea of a "social network" is much different than navagating the web more like a book, with a linear lay out and table of contents you can reference. My advisor calls being able to navagate something like a social network "branching literacy". Apparently, this skill isn't very developed in Costa Rica.

Just some food for thought. If you have any tips to suggest, please do!

Hey Latina!

So, I ride a lot of buses in Costa Rica. Of course there are vendors who sell things to people on buses. From your seat, someone outside the bus will try and sell you anything from coke, to chips (potato, yucca, and banana), to sliced fresh fruit. People get on the bus and yell whatever products they're selling, and usually it's a good deal for we weary bus riders. One particularly alluring product on the hot days is something called 'gelatina,' basically frozen juice in a bag like a popsicle. I didn't think anything of it until Justin asked me, "Why are they yelling 'Hey Latina'?"...So now every time I see gelatina that's what I think of.

The little things

--We were walking down the street passing some speakers blaring salsa from the supermarket. I looked inside and saw two of the employees dancing.
--We're on a bus from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere, and after about 2 hours, someone sitting next to me whips out an ASUS netbook.
--When waitresses, vendors, or cashiers call me 'amor'.
--That there can be a normal-looking town that macaws or capuchin monkeys visit.
--That there can be 90 people on a bus at one time. Some of the buses get real crowded. But you can get anywhere on them.
--Reliably good, really cheap coffee. I can't stress this enough.

Homesick?

What I miss:
--Claussen pickles. A big fat jar of them. The juicy crunchy tangyness of them.
--Oh, and friends and family, too. I miss being able to sit down and talk to someone without having to start from scratch. Relationships with history.
--Good dark chocolate. The smooth bitter kind.
--Not being afraid of tropical bugs/illnesses.
--Social deviance. I miss talking to people who are critical of normal social activities. Probably I'm spoiled after living in Urbana for 4 years.
--Shelves to put my shit on. I'm getting a little tired of living out of a backpack. We've been traveling since the lease ran out on June 15, and we will be until August. In the moist climate everything smells like Ben's dreadlocks and cramming it all into a backpack next to my laptop is less than desirable.
--Recycling. There's so much garbage here.
--Sidewalks.

What's better:
--Canned alcoholic drinks. Rock Ice is pretty good. Cuba libres in a can is pretty cool too.
--The pace of life. People are so nice here...and generally patient. I visited the states back in May (we talked) and I was struck at how impatient Americans are - especially with other people. I'm not looking forward to going back to that.
--Huge variety of tropical fruits. ...Every time I go to a market or store I find new fruits. There are these things called mamon chino (rambutan? in english, or is that a country somewhere...?) which are kind of like lychees. Today we found a wine made out of them and it's awesome.
--Public transportation! You can get anywhere on a bus, it'll take a while, but you can get there for cheap without owning a car.
--Hearing Latin music all the time. I like the animated beat and the corny romantic lyrics.
--Biodiversity in general. It's great to see so many plants and animals I've never heard of before. Crazy bugs birds plants mammals.

news from the costa rican campo (countryside)

here are some new pictures to accompany this update:
http://picasaweb.google.com/arisahagun/CostaRica2OutsideTheCentralValley

background / what we've been up to:
so our lease ran up in the "city" (metropolis of the central valley, specifically, heredia) and we've been traveling since then, the 15th. on the 14th, we came to san isidro for a permaculture workshop with a few other white people. the fact that so few non-white people practice permaculture is becoming more and more apparent to me, and i've been thinking about it a lot. i'm trying to figure out the backstory on that.

so after we moved out, we spent a few nights in Mastatal, a really rural town west of san jose. the bus had to stop at the top of a hill, and all the passengers got out and walked to the bottom of it because there was a small mudslide that wiped out the road. we eventually got to Marcos' little finca (farm). he made some really delicious food. here's one example: mashed potatoes, a little diced onion and cilantro, mixed with canned tuna, stuffed into cooked noodle tubes (i can't remember the italian name) about 4 inches long, then coated with "criollo" (creole, or, well, spicy ketchup) sauce, then deep fried. it was good. we slept basically out in the jungle. it was a 10 min hike into "la montaña" he called it, and we slept on a lofted structure under mosquito netting. when we woke up in the morning there were like tons of black/green-spotted frogs just chilling all over the ground (which he previously told us were poisonous if you touch them)...and at this point, we had only seen 1 frog in all of CR. ...so we were a little surprised by the amount there were.

we basically had to pack up and leave mastatal because the internet access was limited to 3 old computers in a hot cement-brick room with a slow connection. we couldn't start the beta test under those conditions. this was unfortunate because we both really enjoyed marcos' place.

so we hitched a ride with 2 irish hippies who worked at the chocolate place (la iguana chocolate) next door. they bought a $2,000 1950's land rover in san jose and drove it all the way out there. we rode with them to the coast and got off in quepos.

quepos is a hot destination because of manuel antonio, a huge national park nearby. the setting was beautiful, except for the rampant development going on. we found a hostel in the town of manuel antonio - well, i say 'town' loosely. it was basically a collection of hotels and over priced restaurants which had bottlenecked and corroded the entrance to the park. we've found that where ever there are tourists, there's wi-fi internet...and our hostel was no exception. mind blowing internet speed...best we've had. and in an otherwise rural area. so there are monkeys and parrots and bright blue butterflies and palm trees and epiphites and beach and tourists flying everywhere. and we finally launched the beta test. yay!

we stayed there for a week, and left on the day that the power had died for the entire town...we saw downed trees on the lines on the bus trip out of town.

now i'm sitting in noe's 'yoga dojo' (say it, it's kinda fun). back around the town of san isidro again. we've been here for a few days (since sunday) and i'm still trying to get used to the place. there are a LOT of contradictions and conflicts. crazyness and meditation, work and yoga, white and tico, native and foreign, really disruptive cattle farming in the jungle, permaculture, tourism, respect for the earth and destruction of it, paradise, paradise lost, objectification, sexism, racism, myopic over-focused anthropocentrism...so i'm a little confused here. i think i'll have more coherent thoughts of it after a few more days and some distance from it.

in the meantime, we're working to facilitate the beta test getting off the ground. michelle (our advisor at uiuc) recently made contact with a large costa rican organization which might be interested in funding/sustaining the network, so we're very excited about that prospect.

One impression of rural Costa Rica

The past week we've been traveling to some pretty rural towns. I noticed that men stare "deeper" there, with more penetration, as compared to what I normally experience around here, in the urban areas. In most of Latin America, men stare pretty often, and sometimes do more (whistle/beep/etc), but this was different. Like 90% of the men on the street stared at me and it made me feel physically, viscerally objectified. Made me feel like I was wearing a bikini, when I was wearing way more clothes than the climate allowed for (hardly any skin showing)...wishing I had a cloak to add on top. I can't find the right word for it, 'disgusting' keeps popping up, but that's not quite it. Completely devalued? Naked? I'm not sure. They were definitely not looking at what I felt was me. All of this was walking next to Justin - and a couple of times he said buenas dias/noches or hola to them and they didn't even acknowledge him, just stared right past him to me, through me. God, it was creepy and I hated being there. So unwelcome.

Costa Rica

This and the next few posts are my personal experiences from being in Costa Rica. You can read the more professional blog from the project site: www.nvov.org/blog/. I've been here for about 2.5 months now and I'm still learning a lot!

Here are a few things I've noticed and want to remember:

1. People are happy here. They smile, they take their time, and are usually very friendly and helpful. Like a lot of other places in the world (Latin America and Europe for sure), people kiss on the cheek to say hello and goodbye.
2. Lots more waste. It's definitely harder to recycle here, and as someone living temporarily it's hard to compost, because I can't have a garden!
3. In certain roles, people are more patient. For example, take waiters/waitresses. Here, there's no harassing. They assist you when you feel like, and you are in control of the service (for the most part). Rather than constantly bugging you like in the US, you need to ask to get service here. I like it.
4. Kissing on the cheek! I like when cultures embrace physical contact. I think it's more inline with our psychologies as human beings than trying to deny it, as I sometimes feel we do in the U.S.
5. Cool new Spanish phrases. Pura vida, todo bien, etc. It's been interesting to see how my Spanish skills were geographically-based, and now to be able to incorporate some Costa Rican vocab into the mix.
6. The nickname "reinita." I was walking in the market and some guy was trying to convince me to buy his cheese (or meat or fruit or whatever) and called me "hey little queen." A little endearing?
   

Things I miss about the US:

1. Sidewalks. Flat, usable sidewalks, without lots of dog poo. Yes, I do miss that.
2. Friends and family, loved ones in general. I've made a few friends here, but it's hard to make good friends quickly. I miss knowing people.
   

Other things:
It feels weird to constantly be comparing "us" and "them". I find myself doing that pretty often - we do this, they do that - and I'm not sure that I like it.

This is just a start to what I hope will be an avenue for my reflections.