And we thought it was rural before

After a week of actually "roughing it" being back in the middle of the jungle with a mattress, hot water and the ability to watch the gamecast of the Duke vs. FIU game seems luxurious!
Las Alturas
We started out in Las Alturas--a small community owned by the inventor of an internet security system. It's an odd little place, with 40 families living in what basically amount to company houses. The interesting thing is that there is no industry in Las Alturas--the reason the owner bought the land was to preserve it, but people still live and work there, helping with reforestation and also doing some experimental organic farming. Basically, it's a little world that the owner gets to manipulate...but not necessarily in a bad way. The people living in Las Alturas seem to really like him--he comes in occasionally via helicopter to check up on things.

Our purpose in being there was to be the EBAIS team in the clinic for a few days. They are not a big enough community to have a full-time EBAIS in their town, so they have a "Casa de Salud" that the EBAIS team visits monthly. We worked in three groups of eight. Our group spent Tuesday morning in the clinic triaging patients and doing some hand washing education with school kids.

She was precious!

Hand washing education

Racing to put hand-washing steps in the right order

 Tuesday afternoon, we performed the ATAP's duties--going house to house and collecting information from each family about the last time they had vaccines, their living conditions, other risk factors, etc.

ATAPing

Wednesday morning, we hiked near our little cabin in the woods, working on identifying plant families. (There were no cute children, so no pictures.)

It was definitely close quarters--our living room, class room and dining room were all the same place and we had 12 people to each very small bunk room. There was also no hot water, because of the lack of electricity and it was VERY cold at night. Nevertheless, it felt kind of like a camping trip! There's nothing quite like eating breakfast and dinner with your professors while in your pajamas (this only happened one day...the other days were just breakfast in PJs) or making s'mores over a campfire and having it be the only light for miles and miles.

Little House in the Big Wood

Update: Duke won!

Boruca
After Las Alturas, the indigenous community of Boruca seemed like civilization! At least there was electricity and headlamps were not a necessary part of our tooth-brushing tool kit. This was a whirlwind trip! The Brunka (the people who live in Boruca) have an arts-based economy, meaning that most of their income comes from crafts that they make and sell to vendors in San Jose and other parts of Costa Rica. For this reason, we spent quite a bit of time learning about their artisan techniques--dying our own white clothing and getting to paint a small version of their traditional masks. In addition, we also developed, executed and presented an entire research project within the span of 50 hours! Our group's project was to research the agricultural techniques used by the Brunka as well as their access to land for farming. While the research required a LOT of walking to various farms it was really interesting to spend time with farmers walking around and learning about the things that they grow.

On a transect walk--a participatory research method in which we walked around with a farmer as he showed us different crops and techniques.

Upcoming week
We are now back at Las Cruces until Tuesday when we head back to San Jose. Then at 4:00 a.m. Wednesday morning we leave for Nicaragua! After that is another week of classes, studying and then midterms. Then break and I get to see my mom!