Finca Project Week 3 Update

Greetings!

It is pouring like crazy outside. It’s the rainy season right now, so it is wet ALL the time, and sometimes it gets so bad that the rivers flood over the bridges that cars and buses need to cross. [As I was writing this, my homestay brother, Gilbert, told me to come outside and take a look at the river that I have cross every day to get to and from work. There is so much water, and it is rushing by FAST. I’m so glad that they finished building the new bridge last week!]

Aside from that, it’s been an interesting week and a half here in Copabuena.

We opened up the nursery and had a grand party/cookout, though the rain hindered some people from coming. We have a lot of work to do to beautify it and make it a welcoming educational center for the community, but at the least the sign that Kate and I designed and painted is up and it looks great! My project will focus largely on the nursery, so I’m excited to see what we can make of it.

We also celebrated the Fourth of July with some traditional Latin American fireworks (more like firecrackers), but also had some good ol’ hamburgers and mac and cheese!

Another exciting event of the past week was going to Cotón, a natural reserve about an hour away, which neighbors the largest contingent rainforest in Central America. It rained a lot while we were there, but we were able to have a rain-less trek into the rainforest by leaving at 6:30 in the morning. It was so peaceful, and we were able to collect a few seeds even though it’s not the proper season to do so. Unfortunately, we didn’t see many animals, but we were attacked by some monkeys while we were leaving. Apparently, when these monkeys get mad, they start throwing things, and it sounded like they were some pretty big things. Some of the trees are really amazing though, and some of the vines try to “strangle” these trees, creating some really cool twists and turns. We got the chance to sit alone by ourselves in the forest for a bit, which was such a humbling experience. The forest is so alive!

Also, the grandkids of my home stay parents came over to stay, and it was great getting to hang out with little kids again. It made me think of Charlotte and home, especially as they are celebrating birthdays and anniversaries without me. But, the time is passing by much faster, and I have to remember to enjoy the time that I have here. It’s hard to condense everything I’m experiencing in this short post, but I hope it gives you an idea of what’s going on.

Hasta proxima semana,

Candice

Costa Rica/Finca Project Series: Wk 1-2 Update

We are gearing up to open the new nursery behind the Finca Project/Coope Pueblos offices, and a lot of the past week and a half has been dedicated to building, painting and getting the nursery ready to hold the baby trees we intend to sell.

It has been an interesting past two weeks as far as what I’m learning and the surroundings I am in. My host family has been very kind to me and continues to help me improve my Spanish. My host mom, Rosa, also prepares delicious home-cooked meals—I didn’t realize how much I enjoy eating rice and beans!

I’ve also had some quality conversations with my host dad, Roman, and my host brother, Gilbert, about Costa Rican farm life and culture. I’ve been soaking in the food, the music, the soccer games, the news, and especially the language, and I feel like there is more the grasp each day. I’m also learning a lot of Spanish, and while I understand more and more, I feel like my speaking skills need a major boost.

As for the environment here, it’s unbelievable. Aside from living on a beautiful finca with a river down the hill that I have to cross each day, I got to experience the beauty of a waterfall nearby and as we swam in the river and trekked through the forest growth, I began to really marvel at the natural beauty around me. However, with that amazing scenery comes new insects that are not so amazing, but I think that’s the biggest annoyance I have here thus far (mosquitoes galore and enormous roaches).

Not only am I learning a lot about Costa Rican culture, I am also getting some great ideas for my thesis next year, all revolving around agricultural policy and international economics. The readings we have had for seminar, as well as other books that I have found in the Finca Project library have helped shed light on the way cash crops are being produced and sold in developing countries like Costa Rica. In particular, we are learning a lot about how coffee is produced and sold, whether through coffee cooperatives or huge conglomerate food producers. Most importantly, I realize more and more the impact our consumer choices made in the U.S. have on global economics, especially on small-scale farmers that I have now begun to place faces with. (Next time you have a cup of coffee—think about where it’s from and who you’re buying it from. The way coffee is produced has huge environmental impacts on both wildlife and the land, and if you’re buying from a large chain, such as Starbucks, chances are that their growing practices are not sustainable, as they often sell coffee beans produced from sun-grown plants. The alternative would be to buy organic from smaller specialty retailers that purchase from small-scale farmers, but that has some drawbacks as well…)

Overall, I’m glad that I made it down here, but as with all my other long-term travels, it is difficult to be away from family and friends and familiar conveniences. I feel like a have a large challenge ahead of me, and it is also challenging to think that what I am doing here can actually help make a difference to what has been so ingrained in the way things are currently operating. I think that if I can focus my efforts on something specific, I will have an easier time justifying my stay here (in other words, that my presence here is actually doing something good for the community).

Pura vida,

candice

bounce

tunnel vision

Princeton daffodils

Princeton in the spring =

William Wordsworth's

"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay: 10
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood, 20
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
1804.

tap tap tap ching!

I would like a typewriter.

Duty or Charity?

"...I begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. I think most people will agree about this, although one may reach the same view by different routes. I shall not argue for this view. People can hold all sorts of eccentric positions, and perhaps from some of them it would not follow that death by starvation is in itself bad. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to refute such positions, and so for brevity I will henceforth take this assumption as accepted. Those who disagree need read no further.

My next point is this: if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. By "without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance" I mean without causing anything else comparably bad to happen, or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral good, comparable in significance to the bad thing that we can prevent. This principle seems almost as uncontroversial as the last one. It requires us only to prevent what is bad, and to promote what is good, and it requires this of us only when we can do it without sacrificing anything that is, from the moral point of view, comparably important. I could even, as far as the application of my argument to the Bengal emergency is concerned, qualify the point so as to make it: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.

The uncontroversial appearance of the principle just stated is deceptive. If it were acted upon, even in its qualified form, our lives, our society, and our world would be fundamentally changed. For the principle takes, firstly, no account of proximity or distance. It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away. Secondly, the principle makes no distinction between cases in which I am the only person who could possibly do anything and cases in which I am just one among millions in the same position..."

From an essay, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" by the controversial Peter Singer.
One of the few things I can agree with him about.