Costa Rica- Nicaraguan Tensions

   Just this past weekend, something big occurred within Central American and Costa Rican relations. On the northern border of Costa Rica with Nicaragua, is the San Juan River, which lies on the Nicaraguan side, but marks the border. Within the last month, The Nicaraguan government had started a dredging project, and this weekend it came to light that the left over sediment was being pumped into Costa Rican territory, damaging goods and property. In a very uncommon show of force, the Costa Rican government sent police to the area in order to investigate these allegations. After they had determined that there had been damage, and had retrieved video evidence of the Nicaraguan pipes being placed in Costa Rican lands, the government was able to file a formal complaint, and most recent news says that the dredging had been called off, and that fisherman had heard over their radios calls for the pipes to be moved back to the Nicaraguan side.

   Besides the fact that the Nicaraguan side intruded and damaged Costa Rican property, the head of this entire project is Eden Pastora, known as Comandante Pastora, a Nicaraguan Revolutionary hero. His violent past makes the motives of these actions questionable, with many Costa Ricans believing there were aggressive intentions. All of this becomes even more frightening when you consider that the small country of Costa Rica has no military, only a diminutive police force that is traditionally not professionally trained. Since being in Costa Rica I have heard a lot about Costa Rican- Nicaraguan relations. It is very common to hear about the problem of illegal immigration into Costa Rica from Nicaragua, a problem that parallels that of the USA and Mexico. However, due to its traditionally non-violent, military-less past, this intrusion has stirred up a lot of resentment. While this is an obvious violation of the border, Costa Rican officials have handled the situation well, sending in many investigators before coming to conclusions. Central America has unfortunately encountered its fair share of violence and tumultuous relations, and it would be ideal to be able to settle this dispute diplomatically in order to avoid any further conflicts. If a military conflict were to erupt, this would be a huge blow to Latin American stability overall, as the International community would be obligated to intervene on behalf of the unarmed Costa Ricans. This could create a problem with countries taking side and sending in various forms of support.

   The good news is that this weekend I was in the province of Guanacaste, lying on the Nicaraguan border and I heard nothing of this news, meaning the problem is not yet serious enough to be affecting every day life. Lets hope it stays that way!

Costa Rican College Life

At EARTH University, learning about sustainable agro-tourism.

    Studying in Costa Rica, one of the biggest obstacles for me has been adjusting to the student life here. Back at GW, life revolves around campus. You live there, walk downstairs to visit friends in their dorms, work on campus, study there, eat there, attend meeting for student groups and clubs. For the last two years I have gotten very used to walking around campus running errands bumping into at least a few friends every time I’m in the streets, and being surrounded by my friends and classmates in our own small little community.  This makes the differences here so surreal. At ULatina, there are no dorms; in fact the campus is just two, three story building with two small food courts. There are no student life centers, study buildings, lounges, or anything that really screams student life. Many of the activities include job and study abroad fairs, but no student organization fairs. There are no sport teams, or performing arts groups. This is a killer for me, being a dancer and a Floridian, where high school and college sports are some of the most important things on campus. This makes for an interesting dynamic, where it seems as though most students attend school as if was a job- totally necessary but not where you want to spend you time. While I’ll admit sitting in a cold lecture hall for and hour and a half is not my favorite place to be, when I’m there I’ll always quickly seek out some friends, laugh a bit, and go grab some coffee afterwards. Another difference is that while I am used to getting classes out of the way early and then going to work or an internship, here the school is jammed packed come 6pm!

Shell searching in Tamarindo.

     I have also heard the private university I am attending is very different from the public university down the street. There, I know they have sports teams, a student government, and other aspects of student life that I am used to. One thing I do miss- good ole school spirit. While GW has been criticized for lacking in this area, I can proudly say I strut around in my GW sweatshirts and other gear all the time, but I have yet to see a single piece of ULatina anything. While these may sound like insignificant differences, seeing as the real purpose of college is to learn, for us in the USA College life is the fun, the comraderie, and living a certain way. But hey, one difference I don’t mind at all is my three-day weekends, which I can use to travel to tropical rain forests and beaches. While there are many dissimilarities, that’s the reason for going abroad. If I had stayed in DC, living my normal life, I would’ve never had the chance to visit all the amazing places I have while being here. I wouldn’t have gotten to go to Nicaragua, or to Tamarindo this weekend where I met some amazing people. And I never would have gotten to experience College life from a Central American standpoint.

Pacific Coast sunset!

Another picture of the beautiful sunsets in Tamarindo.

  A little update on my weekend travels: This weekend we spent an amazing 4 days in Tamarindo in the Pacific coast! It was so lovely we may have even stayed a day longer and missed a day of classes…  Besides the fact that there was a beautiful beach, and the our hostel had an awesome pool and several hammocks, one of the reasons it was so great was that we met an awesome group of people on our first night. Our new friends came literally from all over the USA, and a couple where even from Europe. We had a blast surfing, and watching Pacific coast sunsets. I got into some pretty intense conversations (of the political nature of course), and it was great hearing about countries and politics outside of those just in the US. Good company is always a perk!

Getting a Little Dirty for the Environment

Banana Fields at EARTH University

  Being in Costa Rica studying Human Rights and Development, it has been essential for us to go out in the community and participate to gain first hand accounts of what life is like in Central America. Furthermore, it’s a nice change to contribute to the country that has been hosting us for the last 2 months. Because of this several students have been participating in volunteer work. A big group is working with Costa Rica Multilingual, going to high schools and helping the students (mostly vocational) learn English, which the government has deemed an essential skill for future success. I have started attending English night classes at ULatina to sit down with the students and give them some practice in the English language. They are even throwing a party for us this week! Hopefully, this week I will also begin volunteering with the Center for Women’s Studies and Investigative Research, at the University of Costa Rica, where one of my teachers works. It a part of the UCR that conducts research on the situation of Women, programs events promoting awareness of Women’s Rights, and helps victims of domestic abuse.

Some of the other students getting a "bed" ready for some seeds.

However, this weekend was by far the best experience I’ve had with participating and volunteering within Costa Rica. As a group we visited the EARTH University and La Argentina Farming Cooperative in the North Atlantic region of Costa Rica. All of Friday we spent touring the University, which is focused on Environmental and Agricultural sustainability, a very important field here in CR, and Latin America in general. We toured the Banana field and processing center and even got to work on their organic farm. With our friend Vismar, we planted corn seeds in a field, planted some sweet potatoes, and weeded by hand, since no chemicals are
used. It was great to hear from the students, most of whom plan to study sustainability for 4 years, then head back to their home countries to help implement these methods in local agriculture. Saturday we were dropped of in groups of 3-4 to stay on a local farm for the night. I was lucky enough to get to stay with one of the funders, Doña Maria in her farm, Finca La Argentina. It was beautiful! The 5 of us stayed in a loft with 5 beds and a bathroom. Her daughter and grandson where our entertainment for the night, talking to us and getting to know a little bit about us, as well as explaining to us how they ended up in this farming community. The next day we were up bright and early, and after a breakfast of fresh eggs we were off to view the property. Doña Maria showed us around, explaining every single tree, fruit and vegetable we saw. She explained to us that her farm was only for sustenance; they didn’t sell any of the produce. However, her hope was that one day the farm would be beautiful enough that they could sustain themselves solely from Eco-tourism, having tourists, students, and professor stay over at her farm to learn a bit about rural life and environmental sustainability. After that we got to fish for our own lunch, and we played a game of fútbol with Doña Maria and her grandson before eating a delicious meal of fresh fish and chicken, as well as vegetable straight from the farm. It was an amazing experience, and we were able to learn so much about rural life and the farming communities of Costa Rica. Even better was that we got to actually help out with the farming, planting, weeding, feeding animals, and creating organic fertilizer. It was the first time I had ever truly gotten my hands dirty working on a farm. I know for a fact everyone will have to see the pictures to believe me!

Cocoa Beans

It was enlightening to hear about the hardships of rural life, and the limits of the Cooperative, which we found out were financial limitations as well as lack of collective consensus on what plans to take up. Being at EARTH University was actually very inspirational. Students from all over the world have traveled near and far to learn how to make a living with agriculture, while protecting the environment. We met first year students, only 18 years old, experimenting with different planting techniques and methods, all ready to go home to their families farms to implement what they had learned. Environmental sustainability is one of the most important issues facing the international community today, and seeing how at a local level people are trying to find a solution gave me great hope. These people have all sacrificed the city life and high paying jobs to start farms in an unforgiving environment. It’s not an easy life, but they love what they are doing, and they love teaching others about it just as much. I hope many more communities in Costa Rica and worldwide can take a hint from the La Argentina Cooperation.

A few of the many fruits from Doña Maria's Farm

Cruzando la Frontera: Nicaragua

Writings like this one were very common in the streets. 

As soon as class let out on Wednesday I was off to the bus station with Aubrey, Allison, and Ben (a fellow Colonial!) After a long, traffic filled ride, we arrived in Liberia to spend the night before crossing the border in the morning. I couldn’t sleep at all just thinking about Nicaragua. Was it going to be safe? What would be waiting for me on the other side of the border? I had no idea what to expect.

  We were up by 4am to catch a bus to the border town of Peñas Blancas. Leaving Costa Rica was very easy, and during a short 4-minute walk to the Nicaraguan side the anxiety built up. It was chaotic, as expected. Immediately men were on top of us, offering taxis and buses, and I’m really not sure what else because I was so overwhelmed my brain went into shut down mode. We started walking along this fenced path, and realized it was a dead end. It was a moment of deathly panic. Why did we get sent down this dead end path? To make matters worse about 5 men were following us. As we get to the end and I’m contemplating how fast I can drop my backpacks and jump the fence, we look to the left and realize we are expected to walk through a hole in the fence. I got into Nicaragua by walking through a hole in a fence. After that things didn’t get better fast. We were overwhelmed by people and uncertain of what we needed to do. When we finally found the bus to Rivas it was a huge relief. I told myself if the whole trip were like the last hour I would be back in Costa Rica by nightfall. I was happily surprised when the bus started off and we got our first glimpse of the Concepcion and Maderas volcanoes.

Volcan Concepción

  The ride was beautiful, with large windmills lining the road, horse drawn carts everywhere, and spectacular rolling scenery. The next hour was an exhilarating ride on a ferry to Isla Ometepe, our first destination. I had my camera in hand taking pictures of the two volcanoes that sat in the middle of a giant lake, forming a small island. There a totally new adventure began. An American tour guide told us about this great hostel in the middle of everything. It ended up being a bee-infested place, about a 40-minute walk down a dirt road. Once we arrived we were basically stuck for the night because everything else was so far away and the sun was setting. We had our hearts set on the horseback riding they had advertised- except the horses were preoccupied farming! The kayaks they told us about? There were only two, and they needed an intense sterilization. Ben opted for a bike (that had no brakes.) The girls decided to walk to the petro glyphs. As we walked along the dirt road, we saw houses with no walls, and people literally living on dirt floors with animals.

  That night things didn’t get much better. We shared a cold shower with several large spiders, and as we sat in the room laughing about our adventures and saying everything was going to be ok, the power went out. Needless to say we were up at 5 am to catch the first ferry off the island. Once we got to San Juan del Sur everything was much better! We had a great private room with bathroom, lovely beach town with great places to eat and awesome people. Although things were rocky at first, it was overall my favorite part of study abroad thus far!

A parade of school students down the San Juan streets.

Sunsetting off the Nicaraguan Pacific coast

 When I first heard students were going I had said no way. All we hear about is crime, poverty, corruption, and overall insecurity. Was I willing to risk my safety just to say I had been to Nicaragua? Looking back, my decision to go was the right one. Not only did I see a country filled with natural beauty, but I got to know kind people, and besides my first few moments at the border I never felt unsafe. Yes, things were very different. All over the streets were signs saying “Long Live the Sandinistas!” and hearing from a local taxi driver we understood the deep impact years of war and struggle have made on the Nicaraguan people. It is not something easily forgotten. That combined with a corrupt government of the FSLN party that blatantly only aids its own supporters are why poverty and inequality exists.  The poverty was also upsetting, especially for someone like myself that has not traveled very far from Miami. Yet Nicaragua is beautiful and rich with natural resources. It is beginning to develop with International projects such as the windmills we saw, and like all countries it must continue working out the problems with governance. Not an east task after a civil war that led to many deaths and human rights violations. I advise anyone thinking of going to first do their research, avoid certain areas such as Managua, which the locals told us was more dangerous, and pack A LOT of bug repellent.  I wrote Nicaragua off at first, but after having visited my opinion has been drastically altered. As cliché as it sounds, this weekend was really a life changing experience. I was forced to push myself physically and emotionally, and I traveled light years outside of my comfort zone. But in the end I walked away in one piece, with beautiful pictures, and some hilarious stories. 

Drug Violence in the Region

  I have officially been in Costa Rica for 4 weeks, and the thing I have heard consistently on the news has been about the rise of crime and violence related to drug cartels. Costa Rica is a traditionally peaceful country, with no military, and low crime rates especially when related to narcotics. However, there has been a recent surge not only in Costa Rica, but within all of Central America concerning drug trafficking.  People here are blaming Mexican organized crime, saying it has taken over Mexico and is now overflowing into the rest of the region.  Many fear Costa Rica’s peaceful reputation will be lost, and President Laura Chinchilla has pledged $360 million towards confronting drug related crime. In a society where police are needed more to direct traffic and close down roads after landslides, this is a serious change.  This year, Costa Rica was named for the first time one of the top 20 illicit drug transit or producing nations in the world. This is something Costa Ricans are all furious about. They are not prepared to let there country be taken over be drug cartels. Security has increased everywhere after some recent drug related events. First, a helicopter filled with cocaine crashed into a mountain, revealing an elaborate drug ring within the country. Then, just last week, three bodies were found burned in what police are saying was drug related violence. It is so upsetting to see that a society that revolves around the environment, stability, and tourism, is being taken over by organized crime.

The street where I saw 2 young men being search by police.

    Here in San Jose, I can see the heightened security. In the neighborhood in which I live, police on bicycles are constantly riding around looking for suspicious behavior. I was told the gym in front of the house I’m living in closed down just before I arrived because it was a cover for a drug ring. On my walk to school I pass by an empty lot where construction has just started. I always got a weird feeling every time I walked by and saw groups of young men definitely not dressed for construction hanging about. Walking home from school 2 weeks ago, 4 of these men were lying flat on the floor being searched by 6 policemen and women. Another drug ring was discovered here on my block. While it makes me feel safe knowing the police are on top of the situation at least here in San Pedro, other areas aren’t doing as well.  In a country that has achieved so much progress in recent history, this is a situation that could halt much development. Instead of continuing to spend on education and development, the government must now focus on fighting crime. In my opinion, the relationship between police and citizens here is ideal, but if police participation continues to increase as does surveillance and drug checks, that relationships can be thrown off and undermined. Even more problematic is ensuring that local police with low wages are not enticed into joining up with this organized crime that could certainly generate more money than the government is able to provide for them.  All of these fears have been increasing among locals, and have therefore been in the news almost every night since I have arrived. The international community needs to be aware of what is occurring and band together to halt the expansion of drug related crime in the region. It can be a detriment to everything Central America has achieved as of late. (9/25/10)

Las Artes de los Costarricenses

     

A traditional Mola.

In Costa Rica you don’t have to go far to find artwork. The thing is most of this artwork is replicated and made in mass amounts to sell to the large waves of tourists that come through the country. I however, am lucky enough to be living with an amateur artist that should, without a doubt, be selling his work to galleries. The first thing I noticed when I arrived at my host family’s home was the beautiful artwork that adorned the walls. Oils and watercolors depicted houses with terracotta roofs, barefoot children playing, and beautiful Costa Rican scenery. It wasn’t until a week later that I came home early from class that I saw Carlos, my host father at the table intent and focused over one of these paintings. His water colors were spread all throughout the table, and next to him was the wrapper depicting Florida oranges from one of the chocolate bars I had brought as a thank you gift to them. As soon as he saw me he hid the painting of the oranges, but he showed me the rest of his work. When he is not busy coaching girls volleyball at an American country day school, Carlos spends his time creating these masterpieces. Hilda told me that Carlos always makes a small painting for each student, and I am hoping that he will gift me the one of those beautiful oranges, so that I can forever remember the humble yet passionate old man that took me into his home, and treated me as he did his own daughters and granddaughter.

    I encountered another piece of artwork in the Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo. Near the Panamanian border, this town also has many tourist trap type art booths, with sarongs, postcards, and necklaces made from shells. But what really caught my eye was a table littered with what I found out to be Panamanian Molas. Molas are pieces of fabric, sewn together in an intricate manner so that eventually you are left with a picture like image. Many depict animals, but most depict native symbols and patterns. What truly interested me about these is that it can take up to three months to produce just one. Months of work so that a tourist can buy one for $5, slap it in a frame and show it off. Now, whether these were authentic or not, I do not know, but I do know that they were beautiful, and I was heart broken when the man selling them did not show up before my bus departed the next day. Before I leave this country, my goal is to find somewhere that sells Molas, so that I can talk to someone that makes them, and find out the history of them, and the process of making this art.

    As I said before, there is an abundance of artwork in Costa Rica, even high up in the mountains of Monteverde, only accessible by dirt road. After 3 hours in a bus (a third of that spent a hole riddled dirt road over looking a sheer drop) we arrived in the town of Santa Elena, near the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Our first day there was spent walking in the rain, exploring the quiet dirt road. Along the way we found a cheese factory, an Argentinean chocolate shop, and a rural women’s art cooperative. This cooperative consists of a shop, an art studio and a day care type center. It began when a group of rural women decided to pool together their money and talents and created this cooperative. Here I found oil paintings, handmade jewelry, pots, woodcarvings, bound journals, and clothing. My favorite part was the glass case displaying hand drawn bookmarks, made by the children of the area, who prided in selling them for 50 cents to help out their mothers. I couldn’t help but buy two. In a society that does not traditionally make it easy for these types of businesses run by women to pop up, I was pleasantly surprised to see how these women were prospering. I was visiting during the off-season, but I could tell that the place would probably be full of people as soon as December rolled around. I have encountered so many different art forms in the 5 weeks that I have been here, and with 11 weeks left, I’m sure I’ll be running into quite a few more. (week of 10/1/10)

Even the restaurant signs in Santa Elena looked artsy and rustic.