Blog #11

 Day #12

Today was sadly our last day working at the Institute. We met Victorino in Calandria this morning. The plan was to plant trees today, but unfortunately, the sight was not quite ready, so we did some organizing in the tree nursery. There was a lot to resort after last week's large tree delivery from Tranadora. We used wheelbarrows to relocate sapling bags with seeds that had been stacked to save space. We also helped load people's cars that were doing pickups although it was not nearly as busy as Monday. After our morning in Calabria, we headed back to the institute, ate a nice lunch, and said go bye to everyone before we headed out. Everyone was super thankful and invited us to come back soon. I know I have said it before in my posts, but it is really crazy how fast the time flew by. It felt like just yesterday that we were getting started! After work, I was finally able to meet up with my host family who I had not seen for two years. It was really great to see them and we had a fun time catching up. Tonight we went to a great restaurant and listened to some live music. We have tomorrow off and then head down to San José on Sunday. I don't want to leave just yet but am excited about graduation!



Daily time: 5 hours 
Total hours: 76 hours


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog #12

Image
 Weekly Reflection #2         We just made it to San Jose today and are flying out tomorrow morning on a flight that leaves at 7:00 am. After so much time spent waiting to do this trip, I cannot believe we are at the end of it. These last two weeks have been such a great time as well as provided me with some very valuable learning experiences.            This project turned out to be very beneficial in preparing me for having success in the future. It helped to reinforce proper time management skills and frequent goal setting. The responsibility of booking travel and hotels, cooking meals, getting assigned tasks at work completed, writing blogs, and writing my Academic Concentration research paper was all put on me a no one else. I would be lying if I didn't say that it was quite a lot, but it was a challenge that I was prepared to tackle.            It is also amazing to see how little h...
Read more

Blog #9

Image
 Day #10 Today was the first day we did work that did not involve getting our hands dirty. Before leaving, Randy gave us two large assignments. One was to laminate an immense stack of flashcards that would be used to teach children in Monteverde about some of the endemic tree species of their home and the important role these plants play in upholding a balance in the ecosystem. Duffy and I, along with Wyatt and Alida, spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon working on this project and were all able to get it finished by mid-morning. This left us with one more task that was a little more daunting. Over the past year, data from hundreds and hundreds of saplings had been taken down for research but was all recorded on paper. Our job was to transfer all of this data to an online spreadsheet that will allow it to be easily analyzed. This proved to be very laborious work that took way more concentration than I was expecting. Through many cups of coffee and a variety of music and podc...
Read more

Blog #7

Image
 Day #8 The first day of week two came up fast! Today we spent the morning working in Calandria, a plant nursery ten minutes away from the institute. Duffy and I spent the time helping load people's trucks with plants they were picking up. By noon, we had distributed well over 1,000 trees. The great thing about what the Institue is doing is that all of the trees that people picked up were completely free and customers were allowed to take them without any conditions on how and where to plant them. This allows for the distribution of tens of thousands of trees every year that are used to restore fields back into forests that can support a greater amount of biodiversity.  The second part of our day was devoted to filling sapling bags with dirt and although it is not as glamorous as handing out trees, it is still an important and necessary part of the process.  At the end of the day, Duffy and I went to go visit his host family he stayed with two years ago. They were very we...
Read more