Back in La Colonia, Back in La Colonia, Back in La Colonia Libertad
(sung to the tune of Back in the U.S.S.R. by The Beatles)
Well it's back to the daily grind, if you consider being lost in the cloud forests of Costa Rica to be a grind. I like to think of it as more of a sauna, given the heat and humidity here. As in, "I'm off to the daily sauna, I'll see you later."
I arrived in Costa Rica on Monday and made my way to the 25 de julio neighborhood by taxi, where I was greeted by my beautiful partner. After some much sought-after gallo pinto (a Costa Rican plate consisting of rice mixed with beans), avocado and natilla, we headed off to a hotel room in Liberia. After putting my bags inside, we met up with our hairstylist friend to have a couple of drinks. I discovered that a blue margarita is very much like a regular margarita, but blue. I enjoyed two of them before changing back to my regular fare.
On Tuesday, I headed to Guayabo, the nearest thing to Colonia Libertad that could be considered a city. Guayabo reminds me a lot of Walla Walla, Washington, except that there's no prison. Instead, the town seems to thrive on various forms of consumerism. There's a furniture store (the kind where they make their own furniture, like the one owned by my friend's family in Ecuador), a domestic electronics outlet of ALFA, several clothing stores (sporting American clothing styles), a clinic, a dentist, a stadium, and a lot of houses and cheap motels known as cabinas. Among these I've selected a favorite, run by the Ledezma family (Cabinas Ledezma, +1 (506) 2673-0608).
I stayed in Guayabo a couple of days while I tied to make sure I had everything that I needed for my stay in the country. We met up with my partner's aunt, who lent us her husband's SUV for a day. We ended up traveling out to Bagaces and buying some Bailey's and Bacardi Añejo, then going back to the aunt's house to party with the aunt and two underage persons, who shall remain nameless. ;~)
So, since about two days ago I have been back in Colonia Libertad. I've been received with smiles and a lot of questions about my journey to Seattle. I have been doing my best to cope with the heat; yesterday, I went through three towels and as many shirts.
First I stopped at my partner's house and said hello to her grandparents. Her grandfather is the town plumber, in the sense that when the water goes out, he's the go-to guy. As a matter of fact, later on today he and I will be headed to the headwaters of the community's water supply. I'll try to take some pictures. His name is Ines, and he worked thirty years as a police officer in these parts. His wife's name is Trinidad, and she has had (as near as I can tell) nine children, most of whom live outside the community. Only one, my neighbor Laura, has stayed behind with her son.
After lunch, I started trying to track down the artifacts I left in La Colonia and began moving back into my room at Changuelo and Magdalena's house. Changuelo is a subsistence farmer who moved here with Magdalena from El Porvenir when she was 15 (I'm not sure how old he was, but it was a runaway wedding). El Porvenir is about a four hour walk to the north, along the Nicaraguan border. The garden that these two have would put most small farms to shame. In case you're wondering, it resembles the huerta familiar of Mayan repute.
I slept late the next day, probably on account of the heat. When I finally got up and around I spent most of the day organizing my things. I was invited to a presentation at Finca La Anita, where high school students from Minneapolis, Minnesota presented their findings on their experiments with leaf-cutter ants. This is of particular interest to the community because leaf-cutter ants have been destroying a lot of the crops around here.
Leaf-cutter ants, atta colombica, are among the more interesting species that I have come across. Like all ants, they have a queen, who lays several different types of eggs. There are basically four sizes of worker ants, all of whom have different roles within the colony. These are called minims, minors, mediae, and majors. The ants themselves are farmers; they eat a special type of fungus, which they feed with the greens that they collect from all around their nest. The ants also produce an anti-fungicidal medicine (for the fungus) from various types of bacteria that they collect from the environment.
All of these activities are obviously of particular interest to biology students, who were quite excited to be studying and experimenting with the colonies in La Colonia. (Yes, the irony is pretty thick.) The students did experiments on how to erase the ants' scent trail with bleach and alcohol, how to get the ants to select different food based on sugar content, and observations to determine what types of bacteria are found on the ants' bodies.
I haven't contacted any of the high school students or faculty yet about the possibility of publishing their results here, but I would like to note that bleach is one of the major contributers to eutrification, and both bleach and alcohol will kill just about anything that doesn't have skin (and, in sufficient quantities, those species that do). Killing microfauna is a bad ecological decision because it furthers the biodiversity-reducing effects of reductionist agriculture. So, while I understand that both alcohol and bleach supposedly break down in sunlight, I would just like to express my objection to using these chemicals as methods of pest control. The Shuar use no such chemicals in their gardens, and they seem to manage to avoid several species of rainforest ants.
Well, that's all for now and my internet toy has run out of battery juice. I will try to post some pictures, really I will, I promise. I'll probably upload a bunch of photos to Picasa for all to see, and I'll post the link in a few days.
Until then, take care of your environment.
From Colonia Libertad,
Chaim
