Turrialba
is treating me very, very kindly. Where to begin? Ive
written down a few headings that I think have been the most important for me.
Here goes…
Turrialba is a wonderful small all around Tico
town. Ive met some foreign tour guides and they like to call Turrialba
their home. Its peaceful, friendly, kind, gentle and is surrounded by
mountains and the view of Turrialba volcano that shows off its white plume of
smoke daily. Its an hours drive to San Jose, and people head down to the
capital over weekends very easily and cheaply. Its 2.5 hours away to the
closest beach on the Pacific coast. Theres an ancient ruin nearby, Guyabo
national park that many tourists don’t know about.
Weather: Perfect
At
first I was wishing I were closer to the shore, but the weather is absolutely
perfect here. Its more rainy and humid closer to the shore. The
weather in Turrialba is mosty sunny and warm around 25C-27C. Its
supposedly monsoon season but there hasn’t been any inconveniences for
me. I would equate it to Canadas normal rainy days. Except here,
during the afternoon you may have some days with heavy rain that lasts 10
minutes and then the clouds soon flutter away. The rains are great, cools
everything off, and are fun to watch. The mist they create between the
mountains are spectacular, worth taking shots of.
Work:
Work
in CATIE is wonderful, I most enjoy seeing the diversity of work that goes on
around me. That’s the advantage of working within a university.
There are students who are doing their phds and conversations with them are
intriguing. Then there are those working in Climate Change, The Bosques
Program, seed banks, research and so many other neat departments. I have
been working with Felicia Granados who is consultant for CATIE who is helping
CATIE receive Blue Flag distinction which is a nationally recognized program.
This internship so far has been largely a
learning experience. I have learned a lot already in my twenty two days about
the local culture, customs, ways of work and lifestyle. Establishing
relationships is very, very key and was something that was mentioned to me by
Felicia early on. To work with others, earning and maintaining trust
first is more important that tackling anything else. This is what I have
been working on. I will be heading out to the farms on my own and meeting
the worker (98% of which only speak in Spanish) and become a familiar and
trusted face by the workers. To receive the Blue Flag distinction, the
workers need to diligently enter in data about daily water use, diesel/gas use,
electricity etc. Because this data is of no use to the workers in their
duties (and is added work), it often gets neglected making it difficult to
prove the environmental initiatives that the farms are in fact taking.
Being a face for the program allows the workers to be conscientious of what
needs to be done, and be done regularly. Though being present on a farm
does not seem like much work, it is very important in maintaining the bridge
and motivating the team to continue with their good work in helping with record
keeping. Slowly it will become standard protocol, but the program is new
and so is the additional record keeping. Beyond that, I manipulate,
extract the data received and take whats needed to input into the final report
to the Blue Flag program. I enjoy that my work
involves being on the farm (which is beautiful), botanical garden (which is
breathtaking) and indoor work, it’s the perfect balance.
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