One of my favorite songs!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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.
http://picasaweb.google.com/
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.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Permaculture
Yesterday I went to a permaculture workshop. Permaculture is something I've been interested in for a while now.
Last week, I told a friend that I was going to this workshop and he asked, "What is permaculture?" My answer was, "Well I don't really know; that's why I'm going!" All I know is that most everything I've heard about it makes me like it, and makes me want to learn more.
The teacher yesterday (Sam) defined it as "ecological design science." Basically, it's a collection of principles for how to do lower-impact agricultural activity. Drawing on local resources, taking a lot of time to observe and plan, considering the entire ecosystem, and working as (our interpretations of) nature would are some of the foundations.
Sam said that for the first few years he was learning about it, he was unable to come up with an intelligible definition. So now I don't feel too bad about not knowing, and I've taken another step to learn more.
More info, of course, at Wikipedia, here and here. The picture is from the cover of the permaculture bible.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Good icebreaker
Just ran across this browsing random design blogs...an icebreaker where everyone answers "I can teach you..."
Here's the flickr set.
Here's the flickr set.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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.
Soccer
I've been at my computer during this game between the US and Costa Rica, the game to determine which team goes to the 2010 World Cup. Unfortunately the US is losing 3-0 with 15 minutes to go, but every goal, the entire town around me screams and dogs bark. Needless to say, Costa Ricans are kind of obsessed with soccer.
I have to admit, I'd like to be at a bar or at the game, but I was a little scared to see what would've happened if the US won.
I have to admit, I'd like to be at a bar or at the game, but I was a little scared to see what would've happened if the US won.
a second for the environment
weird we feel like we're "helping "the environment"" when we buy a car that still uses gas and is made from all kinds of unsustainable materials. yes, it's definitely less bad than most other cars on the market, i think, but it's still a weird thing to say. furthermore, i'm not comfortable, from a psychological standpoint, with our use of the term (and conception of the idea) "the environment". what exactly are we referring to in that sense? and what makes us feel like we're helping it when we buy a car or, say, change a lightbulb? i feel that term and the phrase serves to distance ourselves from nature - from something tangible, from creation/our mother earth. people who say "save/help the environment" aren't usually in touch with that. (in my opinion, which i know is pretty "radical")
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