Sunday, November 9, 2008

Aqui Estoy


So I´m here in Costa Rica. I´ve been here for a couple days and have just been studying spanish by reading spanish natinoal geographic and watching spanish-translated Anime. Needless to say it´s been relaxing. I start at the farm up in the Nicoya on Wednesday so it´s all practicing spanish till then. Here are a couple of pics to give you an idea where I am.


Here is a crazy garden spider from our yard here in Escazu. A lot of the insects here are pretty impressive looking like this one. Hopefully when i´m living out on the farm and have more research materials I can tell you more about what I see.




This is what a street in Escazu looks like. I lived here for 4 months last year practicing spanish. Escazu ias about 10 minutes from downtown San Jose.










Sunday, November 2, 2008

Preparation

Preparing for Costa Rica. I've made a list of some 20 items that I have to track down and buy before departing such as a Moleskine full size journal, headlamp, compass etc. I also have to find a couple reliable books to take with me that will keep me company in this land of strangers, busses, foreign village squares, hostels of other white tourists, humid parks with concrete algae covered benches, and those in between moments when you leave the friends you've just made days ago, following your journey to another destination. It's going to be a fantastic trip.
My goals: To visit at least 4 farms and gain some loose understanding of how their systems work. To Take a ton of notes and sketches and to make them clearly and patiently enough to be able to go back and refer to them. To get some rough idea of the productivity of these farms, and to be able to take a guess at the eventual productivity of my farm. To forge good relationships with all of the farm owners and staff so that they can continue to be resources. To be action based. To be doing, all the time, without hesitation or over analyzation.