Adventures in English and Nature

What's up guys?

So I know things haven't been exciting these past few days and I haven't really done anything but talk about spreadsheets, but today was different!

I had a late night so I was so happy when I woke up to an email from Profe Moro saying that I could either go to the farm or stay in for the day and finish up some spreadsheets. I got to go back to sleep and got up again at 7 for breakfast. It was a little rainy this morning too, so not only did I get to sleep in, but I also didn't have to walk in the rain. Pretty great morning if you ask me.

After breakfast I edited the spreadsheet that has the data from wednesday's milking. I calculated the time it took from the forestripping to the unit connection, unit connection to unit disconnection, and the overall time it took to put the cow through the lecheria.Our average time from forestripping to unit connection is 5 minutes, our average time from connection to disconnection is 7 minutes, and our overall milking time is 12 minutes. We should only be spending 2 minutes on the forestripping to unit connection and we might want to lower the connection to disconnection time to 6 minutes. So with that information added and some other minor tweaks, I have finished my spreadsheets and protocols for now.

When lunch came around, I read some of the animal welfare book and took some notes. While I was eating I met up with one of my friends, Marcela, and she asked for help with English. Marcela's so sweet so I obviously said yes. I mentioned that I wanted to walk around campus since it was a beautiful day and then our adventure began. We got our bikes and spent the rest of the day exploring campus while teaching each other spanish and english.

EARTH's campus is huge and most of it is protected forest or farmland. I've only seen a fraction of its beauty, and even with today's excursion, there's still more to explore. Our first stop was this small gravel path behind the security and bank building. I had never seen this path before and I'm not exactly graceful on a bike, so naturally I was a little nervous. Marcela led us through the forest, over mud puddles, and swerved around potholes. After a minute or so into the woods, we stopped and found ourselves at a riverbank. People have told me about the river, but I had never seen it before. There's a lot of trees blocking the sun and casting nice shadows. There are birds nests all over the place, and there's even a little picnic area on a hill next to the river. It's really shallow, so Marcela and I took off our sneakers and socks and stood calve deep into the clear, cool water. We practiced english and spanish together and it really helped. We would point out an object or say the word in our native language and the other person would say it and try to spell it. We used words like bird (ave), river (rio), bird's nest (nido de ave), right (derecha), left (izquierda), rock (piedra), when (cuando), where (donde), wear (lleva), were (estaba), and other words. It was fun to go back and forth between english and spanish!

The river

A nice picnic area

After 10 minutes or so, we put our shoes back on and rode towards the front of the campus. Along the side of the road there's a farm area filled with a bunch of crops. We pulled over and Marcela gave me a tour. The first thing Marcy showed me was this vineyard composed of this citrus fruit that it a mixture between a lime, lemon, and orange. The flowers of this plant are absolutely gorgeous. They're one of the prettiest flowers I've seen here in Costa Rica. We looked around and pulled a few ripe ones off the branches. Marcela loves this fruit, so by the time we walked out from under the vines there were about 4 or 5 in her bag.

Marcela showing me a citrus fruit 

It's her favorite fruit!

The citrus was vine-line so the set up was similar to that of a vineyard 

The citrus flower

The papaya trees are right next to the citrus so we looked at that next. I didn't think papaya was from a tree! The fruit is so big that I just assumed that it grew from vines on the ground. These trees are really strong and flexible so they can easily hold the weight of the papayas. Papayas are regularly served in the cafeteria and we have an abundance of them.

A papaya tree!

On the other side of the citrus area was this big plot for some malanga. Malanga is a root similar to yucca, only bigger and with a different texture. People here use malanga and yucca the same way we use potatoes in the USA. 

A field of malanga

There's also a big area where pineapples are grown. In case you don't know, pineapples are grown from a bush and not a tree. Marcela and I walked along the rows looking for some ripe pineapples to take home. Most of the pineapples are harvested as soon as they're ripe, so we only found 2 semi-ripe ones. We plucked them out of their bushes, put them on our bikes, and rode off.

Pineapples

Our next stop was this big monument in the front of campus. It was dedicated to the man who created EARTH University, there's a big sign that explains it right next to the monument. Water flows through the monument and back into the river all day, so it's very peaceful and quiet here. Marcela and I sat down and talked for a while about cultural differences and our families. It was really nice to hang out and have a full conversation with her, all in spanish!

The water monument

After visiting the monument we headed back to campus. We rode through the recreational area and watched some of our friends play soccer in the open air gymnasium for a few minutes before we headed back to our residence hall. It was a great adventure and I'm glad that we both learned a lot about our different cultures while observing the beauty surrounding EARTH University.

That's about it for today you guys! I hope today's post made up for the past few that weren't very entertaining. Thanks for reading!

-Allie