Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Arts, Crafts, and Some Super Fun Facts


On this sunny Sunday (the weather was warm and gorgeous!), our class journeyed down the mountain from Monteverde to a colorful building housing CASEM (la Cooperativa de Artesanas de Santa Elena y Monteverde).

We walked up the stairs inside to a workshop room with bright artwork adorning the walls and met our speaker, Patricia Jimenez. Patricia is a woman with an amazing story, and a great talent for storytelling to go along with it! When she and her husband arrived in Monteverde several decades ago, it was an extremely rural area with just a few families practicing agriculture on the slopes and a small herd of research biologists roaming the forests. Patricia’s husband began working for the Reserve, and Patricia operated her own small business selling crafts out of her kitchen.

However, this was not a totally idyllic pastoral paradise. Women struggled against problems from domestic abuse to illiteracy; they were considered the property of their farms and their husbands, not full people who could manage their own money or participate in decision-making. They would periodically come to Patricia seeking advice and wondering why her life was so different from theirs. In response, Patricia started a project that eventually evolved into the co-op.

After some challenges in its early years, the co-op has grown into a group of over 100 women (and a couple men) who make beautiful souvenirs for visitors to help them remember their time at Monteverde. More importantly, the co-op has caused some really impressive changes. A binder in the back of the store contained the stories of the co-op’s members, who talked about how their work had given them skills, confidence, independence, and a chance to buy things from washing machines to schooling for their children. It was really powerful to hear about what a huge difference one person’s initiative made for so many others.

In the afternoon, we started working on our second round of field research projects, but I’ll leave that stuff to Hannah (who’s blogging tomorrow). Instead, I’ll let you in on a fun fact that I’ve learned about each of the members of our ragtag traveling circus over the last 3 weeks:

Aly has a real passion for sustainable agriculture that always shines through on our farm tours.
Anna gained an admirable expertise in all things plant-related from her work in the St. Olaf greenhouse.
Christina has been completely faithful to her vegetarianism for years – an inspiration for an amateur vegetarian like me!
Dan will probably be the world champion at the game Bejeweled any day now.
Esme is fun to be around even when fighting a several-day-long illness (but even more fun after her recovery!).
Hannah ran way farther and faster than the rest of us when we went for a group jog at CATIE. Apparently she’s immune to heat and humidity!
John has an ambush-style sense of humor; he lies in wait until the perfect moment, then sneak-attacks us all with a fatally funny line.
Knute loves bugs of all shapes and sizes, and is planning to go to graduate school for entomology as a result. As a totally unrelated sidenote, he is extremely ticklish.
Margret has an affection for amphibians – nobody was more excited than her about all of our frog sightings at La Selva.
Paige somehow made counting hundreds of leafcutter ants late at night fun and exciting – she’s a great field research partner!
Rachel K. has a great eye for photography and can often be seen snapping pictures of things that the rest of the group hasn’t even noticed.
Rachel N. can strike up a conversation with anyone, from locals in town to our wonderful bus drivers.
Rachel W. put us all to shame on the dance floor Saturday night with some moves she learned while studying abroad here last semester.
Rick will finish anything that is left on the table at the end of the meal, kind of like a hybrid between a garbage disposal and the family dog.
Ryan can brighten anyone’s day with his positivity (and his spontaneous beatboxing).
Stephen has an appreciation for many kinds of food, but heads straight for the cookie aisle anytime we enter a store.
Susan finds bananas absolutely revolting, but valiantly ate one when it was offered to her at the Bri Bri village.
Our guide Vanessa can’t stand cold weather (we’re not sure how she survived four years of college in Michigan!) and was frequently seen wearing a scarf around her head babuschka-style in Monteverde.
Our professor Kathy had a good enough finishing time in the Twin Cities Marathon to qualify for the prestigious Boston Marathon a few years ago.

What a crew! Our last few days are sure to be just as eventful as the others.

Besos,
Stephanie