Presentations!! (Dec 19)

It was crucial that I wake up on time today and get straight to business. Today was the day for presentations and I didn't practice at all yesterday. First, I needed to find Kassandra, so we could start practicing our presentation. Practicing was more for my sake than hers. She was more experienced with these kinds of things. 

As nervous as I was this morning, I had to choke down what I could from breakfast. Outside the cafeteria was a group of people saying their good-byes to a few of the Ngabe. 

After that, we practiced the presentation for close to 2 hours before it was actually time to present. 

Presentations went well. Gracias a dios.

After presentations, I immediately grabbed my hiking stuff and set out to see the waterfall again, I needed to clear my head of the presenting. This time, I found a little frog near the waterfall.

Later in the night, it started to rain like crazy. I figured I should enjoy my last stay at Las Cruces, so I went outside, grabbed a chair and set as close to the rain as I could without getting too wet. From that chair, I heard pieces of peoples conversations about their crazy days; I saw the silhouettes of tall tress in the night; I felt a sense of comfort in the dense fog that covered the forest like a steaming sauna. I would miss this.

Crunch time (Dec 18)

I woke up feeling homesick. I cant remember how long I laid awake in bed looking at old pics on my phone. I definitely missed breakfast. When I stopped being a lil' kid👶👶, I made my way over to the lab with a cup of tea in hand. Scott was at the end of giving tips for our poster; Something else I missed because I couldn't get out of bed. Smh

Trying to not make two mistakes out of one, I quickly got my head involved in the project. The whole morning was dedicated to finalizing the poster. My group partner was very smart, and experienced with these types of posters, and so was the leading contributor to the poster. I did what I could with what I knew. 

Good thing a night-hike that day was announced by Scott during Lunch. It left something to look forward to later in the day.

After the night-hike: I chose to go on the Jungle Trail. Expecting to see at least tracks of an animal bigger than a rabbit, I was disappointed because nothing happened. We only seen a big insect on a leaf. It on;y emphasizes the fact that the rain forest is nothing how they portray on T.V. back home; there isn't a crazy animal around every corner of the forest waiting to kill ya. Lesson learned.

Ahead of Schedule (Dec 17)

The healthy breakfasts kept my head clear and my energy going. 

After working on the poster in the morning and putting into perspective just how much work we'd done and how much work we'd yet to do, I would be able to squeeze in a visit to town to get a haircut like I'd planned the day before. First, I wanted to see the waterfall everyone was talking about. So, I set out on the water trail with high spirits. 

The "catarata" was like how people described it. Nothing huge, but it bragged its own unique beauty. I sat on a log watching the water fall like an obsessed person for a good forty minutes. I figured that I would leave at lunchtime, then head to town for a quick haircut. 

Someone told me they wanted to meet at 3 to go hiking on one of the trails when I got back from town. 

I got back on time. After asking around, I found no clue of them. In my head,  I could still see the catarata feeding the water beneath. I chose not to wait a moment longer, grabbed my things, and headed to hike the water trail again. The second time was just as awesome as the first time I visited the waterfall.

Maybe I'd go a third time the next day, so far, the water trail beat all the other trails.

I went to bed happily with tired legs.

San Vito (Dec 16)

The morning was a blur, mostly because I was excited to see the town later. On "Free-Sunday", I decided to go at 1 in the afternoon with a group of students to San Vito. The traffic in the narrow streets moved quick. As soon as I got out of the taxi, I could feel the stares of the surrounding community. I wanted to break away from the group of arriving taxis of arriving taxi's but wanted to stay with the pack a t the same time.

After walking around for a bit, I eased myself into stores looking for souvenirs to buy.

What stood out to me while walking around was the mural near the town square garden. It was unfortunate that many stores were closed during our short visit that day. If things worked out the next day, I would try to head back to town.

Exploring (Dec 15)

Having collected most of our data for the project, I thought it'd be a good day to go further down the trail than we did before.

Skipping to the afternoon: I grabbed my hiking stuff and asked my group partner if she wanted to come with. I emphasized that this time I was hiking until I got tired. She was just as prepared as I was. In fact, she took the lead. It was no longer my hike, but hers.

We were speed-hiking the main trail for several minutes when it came time to take a turn and go on to one of the longer trails. I only heard the rumors of how tough a trail it can be. Those thoughts flooded my head when I felt my legs get really hot and felt sweat collect on my forehead. I felt the burn going up every slope. All of a sudden, she halted and quietly pointed ahead of the sloped trail. I peeked over the top of the sloped trail, doing my best to keep my loud breathing under control. There, I'd seen what looked like black monkeys crossing the trail. A group of these animals came out of the forest and crossed the path even closer than the ones we were looking at.

That experience fueled my imagination and so helped push me through the rest of the trail.

I went to bed nice & tired that day.

Warm Tea and Laptop (Dec 14)

This day was well-needed because my soft feet were aching anytime I was standing. I took my time eating breakfast this morning and went to the lab after. 

Mike, our mentor, was excited to see what we could put together with our collected data. Kassandra was already an expert at these types of things and got straight to work. I tried to make myself useful in any way possible. So I mostly worked on the easier things like making the graphs and making small tweaks to the poster. Warm tea made working on the poster a more relaxing experience. 

We took a long lunch break.

Then, we returned to working on the details of the poster. It was around this time that I read Scott's email about what is expected in a poster. There were a few changes to the poster that had to be made to meet those expectations. In between making edits to the project, I would sit back and take a sip of the warm tea and feel that the laptop charger was warm because it had been plugged to the wall for so long.

The day ended without any surprises, which I was thankful for, but at the same time bummed about. Weird.

Blessings in Disguise :D (Dec 13)

This was the most packed day I'd had in a while.

We started out on the Rio Java Trail early in the morning. In addition to making good progress on our group project, we met with another working group that was looking at a lizard. We got to hold it and take pictures of the lizard's outstretched, colorful dewflap. I definitely made sure I sent some pics back home.

Our group then continued down the Rio Java Trail studying the ginger shampoo. We stopped at 20 different ginger shampoo plants, and with a small shovel, dug up the soil near the plants to measure the depth of the organic matter. There were other parts to our project, but this day had been solely for the digging part of the project.

The lunch was like nothing I'd ever tasted before. It was so good and flavorful.

I had to recharge after lunch and take a nap.

We looked at the huge variety of plants in the garden. There were so many unique plants that it took a couple hours just to go around the garden once, studying each plant.

Already, it was time for dinner again. I was slowly growing used to walking the trail, waking up early, the climate, but the quality of the food always surprised me.

The last event of the day was the cultural exchange with the native people of the area. It was interesting to see how the Ngabe shared their culture through Scott's translations. A powerful moment was shared when one of the students taught the swan dance in front of everyone. There were many stories of rituals and traditions that different tribes followed. In many ways, the native people of the U.S. and the native people of central america weren't all that different.

The world didn't seem so big after all. How blessed was I that day to go to sleep with an accomplished, peaceful feeling. 👏😁🙏

First Day (Dec 12)

Wednesday was my first day actually getting to business. I woke up on schedule and excited to learn the routine at the Las Cruces station. The sound of everyone's rushed footsteps in the cabin reminded me that breakfast was at 6:30 am.

After the (btw very nutritious) breakfast, our group was escorted to the station library to meet with Rodo, the head honcho of the Las Cruces station. Rodo was a short, stout man with a humble manner of speaking that also, somehow, reflected just how educated he was. He showed our group his research on a ginger plant that was similar to what our group would be looking for in the forest. His research, which was in a textbook that he pulled from a large shelf of other books, was my first real exposure to any sort of biological science research. It really was a moment to appreciate being in a library room with educated leaders willing to help us students understand that there is a world around us that we ought to learn about and take care of.

Knowing that our group was lucky to have Rodo lead us on the trail, even if it was just for an hour, to show us the shampoo ginger, I did my best to not let this opportunity slip. When it was my turn to identify the shampoo ginger in the forest on my own under Rodo's supervision, I put forth my full mind and body effort to pass this mini-test. I did well. My chest filled up with a pride that brought a huge smile to my face.

The rest of the day was walking the trail, pointing out shampoo ginger, getting to know my group members, and enjoying the amazing dinner.

Das Tuff (Dec 11)

Here's what a "Das Tuff" day looks like in my book: I slowly got out of the warm bed to a cold room, knowing with great unease what I would have to do. The shower heads had this machine with wires hooked up to it, but I had no idea if it was to make the shower water warm or not. As soon as the stinging, ice-cold water hit my head, I found it hard to breathe and my body began shivering. I realized, after hopping out of the shower, that I couldn't feel my head. I felt very light-headed. This felt like one of those times I was borderline about to hit the ground, unconscious. I chuckled like: "yep you signed up for this Mo, enjoy it!"

The breakfast was delicious tho.

Next, I decided to follow through on my humble offer of sitting in the middle backseat of the small car. I was immediately squished on both sides and off to the loopy, bumpy, narrow roads we went. On top of that, there was a suitcase in my lap that I had to hold down the entire ride because it threatened to knock my face off every time the car hit a bump. One speed bump caused everyone in the car to float in the air momentarily, I didn't. My head bounced off the top of the car to knock me right back into my seat. At least I was prepared for the head knockin' because my seat had no head-rest, and my neck was already growing stiff .

The city life in San Jose kept my eyes busy tho.

On arriving to the Las Cruces station, we were welcomed warmly and showed the basics. During dinner, I overheard a lady say something like: at seven-thirty, there'll be formal introductions... well, not formal formal, but y'know..introduce ourselves and share something about ourselves. I felt a ping of panic inside and carried that with me all the way until introductions were over with. The introductions were interesting because it was made clear that everyone in the room was from a different part of the world. The beginning of the day, you could say, was a good introduction to what I could expect from CRIRE.

The exotic plants at the station were cool to look at tho.

Mission Impossible (Dec 10)

Woke up in Hotel Bed

Room 2037

Red Lion Hotel

Houston, Texas
12.10.2018

Mission Objective: Get to San Jose by end of day, without mistakes.

Mission Summary: Success

   Swearing to myself that I would pull the will out of me to get things done on this trip, I disappointingly looked at laziness in the face, and got up from the hotel bed. My legs moved out the door while my hazy mind still pulled the rest of my body to the bed. I was too busy fighting the battle in my head to realize that I was standing in the middle of the empty hotel weight room. While I waited for my mind to focus, I tried to think about what kind of agony I was going to put my body through. The goal was to push my limit at the beginning of the day so that I'd be prepared for whatever unexpected challenge presented itself later in the day. It was an important day, I had to be forreal ready.

The overwhelming burn and exhaustion of the workout gave me the comfort to know that, most likely, nothing in the day could hurt me as much as the pain I had just went through. Not surprisingly, the day did get better from that point.

The day flew by quickly. I felt that I had a good handle on what was occurring around me as I went through my day, that is, until I met Jessica outside the San Jose airport; that's another mission summary for another time. At the end of the day, I was happy that Id finally made it to San Jose without mistakes.



 




 

   

Smooth Day Gone Rough (Dec 9)

   I woke up Sunday morning with energy and excitement to prepare for the flight departing Bismarck, ND at 1 in the afternoon. I carefully packed all the stuff from the excel list in the email, I got to the airport on time, I was ready to tackle the day! I had my whole day planned out in my head. Going the way I was going, I should be in San Jose by the night around 11ish.

   On arriving to the airport, I handed with confidence all the necessary paperwork to the lady checking in flights. After typing something into the computer she slightly paused, anxiety hit me hard in that moment. She asked her coworker for help and thats when panic came rushing into me like crazy. I thought I'd done something wrong. Thats when the airport lady told me that the first flight was going to be late. She explained, the late flight would cause me to miss all the connecting flights to get to San Jose that night at 11ish. The airport lady apologized and then checked me in for the late flight.

   Long story short: After talking to a whole bunch of airport people about alternatives, I still was nowhere near San Jose at 11ish that night. At least for the night,  I had a hotel room and food vouchers from talking to the airport people. What started out as a smooth planned day, turned into a rough unexpected day.