Papaya Storm

A few weeks ago, I went to cut down some papayas from a tree out back. You see, if I wait too long, the papayas ripen and the birds come and eat them. The birds are pretty, and I enjoy watching them, but they eat the papayas that are rightfully mine! Mine! Anyway - when I went to lasso a nice, ripe papaya, I managed to knock half the fruit off the tree. This means that I got hit in the head with several unripened, green papayas. Definitely the most refreshing concussion I've ever experienced.

As I recovered from the fruit avalanche, I had just induced - I saw sitting there, alone in a bare section of the tree was the bright yellow, ripened papaya - the one I had been aiming for - unscathed and mocking me.

So, here are some pictures of my fruity assailants. I had to find something to do with all these giant, green papayas - So they wound up in a couple of salads and salsas.

Oh, yes - they ARE that big.

Clearly delirious from impact

Eh, ripe enough... Take THAT birds!

Goats!

So, this summer, I went crazy and purchased some goats. This was not an entirely preposterous endeavor. It will surprise most of the people that I know that there was an actual plan for the goats all along. 

You see… goats will eat darn near anything that they come across. Which means that they are replacing my compost pile for a much faster system of organic reconstitution. 

Goats, as with other ruminants like cows, deer and sheep, have a rumen. This rumen acts as a decomposition center that rapidly breaks down things that are otherwise indigestible to animals without one. 

Using goats this season, we managed to keep from throwing out any of the corn waste that is produced from corn production. That includes the husks and stalks. The pictures below are the goats and all the personality that comes with them. 

The big male and I have a strange relationship - he keeps me on my toes.

This is the mama goat - soon she'll be a mama again!

The baby, he's packed with personality

Soon to be a mama for the first time, she loves banana peels!

I'm excited for this herd to be much larger

In a few weeks, we hope that two of the females will give us some babies so that we can have even more goats and start collecting goat milk for cheese production.

9/11

Instead of focusing on both the lives and opportunities that were lost as a result of the events 10 years ago, let us focus on the future we have the opportunity to build for the next 10 years.

Posts will resume soon. It's been a crazy month.

Summer Camp

Melana explains the rules of a modified "Duck, Duck, Goose."

I teach the kids about colors before a painting session.

Melana managed to make our house look like a classroom.

Our younger students were the most enthusiastic learners.

During the summer, Melana and I worked on two projects that offered structured activities for young people while they were out of school. In the US this is often referred to as “camp.” The theory is, children and young adults without structured activities and loads of free time are far more likely to get into trouble in any country regardless of culture. Trouble can be defined as anything from coloring on the walls to throwing balls through windows to drug use.

Structured activities for young people are a rather new concept in rural Costa Rica. It is expected that older children will take care of younger children rather indefinitely with minimal input from the parents except during mealtimes, bedtimes or other ritualized activities.


Keep in mind that this is a system that worked when young people had work to do in the fields and could do jobs around the house at regular intervals. As most young people no longer spend a significant portion of their day on agricultural work, however, they have the opportunity to fall victim to the mother of all bad ideas: boredom.


(Keep in mind that an agrarian model is also why US students have the summers off. If you’re a US student, do YOU work in the fields during the summer?)


The idea that adults would voluntarily spend any more time with children than was absolutely necessary seems a little crazy to the average Tico. Therefore, the idea of camp and structured activities for young people was greeted with skepticism by the community.


So, Melana and I decided that we were going to start with a two day English camp. The first set of kids would come in the morning at 7:30 and the second set would arrive at 12:30. We invited the younger children (7-9) to come in the morning followed by the older kids (10-12) to come in the afternoon.


Melana set up the house to look much like a classroom. There were colorful books everywhere and plenty of space for sitting on the floor. We had 5 participants show up. The kids learned about English and made their own animal books and sang songs. After juice and a snack we took them outside to play.


In the afternoon, we ran into a problem. The younger kids didn’t want to leave! We wound up having to tailor our activities for the younger kids who couldn’t keep up with their more advanced students. In all, we wound up with an afternoon group of about 12 students.


The next week, we helped some other volunteers in a larger city with a much larger camp of 6-12 year olds. We started with about 15 students. This camp was not focused on English learning, however and we engaged the kids with several “camp” like activities. Over the course of the week, friendship bracelets and team-building exercises were all the rage and long, competitive capture the flag style games dominated the late mornings before the kids went home for lunch.


Though all of this was extremely fun and rewarding, the other volunteers and I were exhausted after chasing after children for a week or so. Unlike US kids and young adults, the youth in Costa Rica are not used to structured activities. As such, they need to be guided through every step of the way. Concepts like “tag” need to be explained in nauseating detail because the concept just hasn’t been presented to many of them before. Children usually play on their own, but never with adults watching, and never with rules.


The whole experience reminded me how important structured activities are to childhood development. We don’t just play SPUD, freeze-tag and tennis-baseball because it’s fun. We do it because “play” prepares us for life as an adult. Interacting with other individuals and operating within a series of agreed upon norms are just two examples of skills we can derive from this.


I’ll end this thought here to give you all some more pictures of Costa Rican kids playing.

Introductions are always a must at camp.

Students paint reused soda bottles for potted plants.

In this team builder, participants must turn over the tarp without using their hands!

"Helium Stick" : one of my favorite team builders.

Students join hands for a human knot.

Two students play "capture the flag"

Spanish Joke!

HAH!

-Thanks to Joan for finding this!

Happy Ramadan!

Today is the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan. Happy holidays to all my friends who celebrate Islam!

To all non-Muslims, the month of Ramadan is a great time to learn about Muslim culture. For example, did you know that an observing Muslim should not eat before sunset for the entire month of Ramadan? To find out more, you can read about it here.

On Norway

I do not have the special connection with Norway that I do with Japan. But, as someone who works with youth camps, I feel very connected to this. My thoughts go out to the Kingdom of Norway.

May we all support Norway through this tragedy with compassion and tolerance.

It's my Birthday!

I'm hanging out with my dogs, cat and chickens and contemplating what it means to be 28. Melana's out of town today, so I'm just relaxing. There are no plans for cake, but it's nice birthday none the less! Thanks for reading!

The cake is a lie!

How to post on this blog

Hey everyone. I have a real update coming soon but I thought I would answer a question that came across my email recently. How do you post on this blog? All you have to do is follow the directions below.

First: Click the comments link. The comments link can be found at the bottom of every post.

Second: Type your comment. Here is where you add a comment. I have enabled comment moderation because this is a family show. That means that I need to give the ok before anything gets posted.

Third: Type the word verification. This word verification ensures that you're not a spam bot. Because spam bots run wild all over the internet, us humans have to put up with these boxes. Simply type the word in the box. In the case above, you would type "junotedl". If you cannot read the word for some reason, reload or click on the stick figure in the wheelchair for assistance.

Fourth: Choose your identity and post! Contrary to popular belief, you do NOT need a google account to post a comment. You may choose any number of identities from your name (Name/URL) to Anonymous. If you have an OpenID, such as AIM, you may post with that identity as well.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Agouti Sighting

I saw one of these the other day! It was pretty cool because I'm currently working on a project to try to bring these to domestication. More on that later. For now, aren't they cool?

Agoutis are hare sized rodents that live in forests and burrow in leaf litter. I want one! Actually, I want several to breed and eat my kitchen scraps.

Ticos consider agouti meat to be tasty, so they have been hunted relentlessly and driven out of many areas in Costa Rica. I would like to have farmers raise them as an alternative to cattle or pigs. They breed like rabbits (literally) and can be raised in forests so that land doesn't need to be clear-cut as it does for cows.

Sadly, this is not my picture. I didn't have my camera with me at the time. A good thing, too because we were caught in a monsoon and got soaked to the bone!

If you'd like to read more about agoutis and their agricultural potential you can do so here!

Chicken coop!

This kind of got buried a bit ago, but I wanted to announce the completion of our new chicken coop! This is significant, not only because it will allow us to raise our very own chickens for eggs and meat, but also because it offers a model of sustainable home agriculture even for those who have very little land.

It is also significant on a personal note because this is the first free-standing structure I have every designed and built. As you can see below, some of the craftsmanship betrays my amateur status, but as long as it continues to be functional I don’t think the chickens will notice how ugly it is.

Below you can see the progression of construction from zero to finished. 

The only tools we used to make this were a hammer, wire cutters and a hand saw...oh, and nails. 

We started with four A-frames, supported by a central "spine".

Normally, I would have wanted to use a lot more wood in this project. But with a limited amount of money, (not to mention having to carry all the materials from the hardware story on foot) stretching a fine screen seemed to do the same thing at lesser cost. Even if it is a little less sturdy.

The rain fly can be raised or lowered to allow the chickens air/shelter depending on the weather

Recently, we have also purchased 4 chickens specifically for egg-laying. Because both groups of chickens tend to fight, we've sanctioned off a section of the yard for them. Here is what it looks like now: 

These are the same little guys from the June 2 post.

 To continue with all things chicken, I killed the first of our chickens today to make room for some of the new ones. Melana had the pleasure of plucking and cleaning it.

Not as happy as she looks about this.

Our first harvested egg!

Melana and I are often stuck wondering why more people don't raise chickens. If you have questions, just ask!

Happy 4th! Plus contest!

On this, the anniversary of our nation's independence, I pose to you this question.

Which founding father's name is a synonym for the word 'signature' and why?

Only students K-8 may answer to win the prize in the form of a Costa Rican post card sent to your home by me! Please email answers to peteman126@gmail.com

Happy Independence Day!

100th post!

Thanks for reading! Let's make it to 200 posts!

On Frogs

So, last night we found something pretty spectacular in our room. I’ll start by saying that there are certain animals Melana normally has me remove from the house. Among them are things that need to be removed by necessity, bats for example, and other creatures that need to be removed because they are harmless but exceptionally creepy. I know, I know, not all animals can be super models, but when it comes to what gets to stay and what needs to leave, I DO discriminate (apologies, Buddhists). There is really only one class of critters that regularly causes disagreements when Melana hands me their eviction notice. The animals in question are frogs. I like frogs! Frogs like to snack on airborne pests, and thrive under the same conditions that mosquitoes do. The more mosquitoes in the house, the more likely there are to be frogs in the house eating mosquitoes. Sadly, they seem to creep Melana out in a special way. For Melana, frogs are guilty of a crime of locomotion. They jump to get around, and this means that they are always only one jump away from her face. I’m not sure why frogs would be attracted to this piece of real estate among all the other surfaces they could jump to, but there you have it. 

So I regularly eject frogs from the house. Humanely. Biologists, don’t freak out. I have a special, non-soap washed cup I use to catch them and I don’t touch them unless they jump on me first. 

Last night, however. I met my equivalent of a celebrity. Check out this beauty.

That is a Caribbean red-eyed tree frog. A beautiful specimen. Tree frogs like this are often centerfolds for the rainforest and it’s not hard to see why. Their big, red eyes and painted underside make them stand out against a white backdrop. When in trees, however, they are shockingly difficult to spot. They are just spectacular. 

Frogs have a special place in my heart due to the class of animals they belong to. Amphibians often get a bad rap. Like, Vanilla Ice bad. Folks think they’re slimy, gross, disease spreading, etc. Little boys smash them with rocks and little girls step on them after little boys put them in said little girls’ hair. 

Amphibians are the most threatened class of animals that exist today. Because of their permeable skin and sensitivity to climate changes, amphibians experience extinction and habitat destruction at alarming rates. The run-off from a single farm can be enough to poison a stream for all amphibians that live there.

Amphibians are not only important because they represent an evolutionary link that ties vertebrates to the ocean, but they also control mosquito populations in some of the most malaria ridden areas of the world. By the way, whereas many animals only eat airborne mosquitoes, frogs newts and salamanders will often inhabit the same areas where mosquitoes lay their eggs and also eat many of the larva before they can leave their nursery pool. Additionally they and provide important links in the food chain wherever they occur.

If you are interested in amphibian conservation and what’s being done in your area, you can get information at any local aquarium or zoo. Also, you can check online at http://amphibiaweb.org/maps/index.html to find out about amphibians that live near you!

Lucy continues to grow.

She's getting big!

Nerd Power!

Above: What work looks like for me some days

Today I will, once again, work to answering the ever nagging question: What exactly do I do everyday?

Normally, every day is different but I thought I would share some projects that I have been working on with you. 

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on developing a computer laboratory in the local high school. 

The room selected had been a storage room for the library and had been cleared out about two months ago. It was small, cement and completely unwired save for a line of florescent lights in the ceiling. I spent a few hours a day for the first couple of weeks installing desks with the shop teacher. He directed me in the fine arts of making cheap materials look nice and he even let me bevel! After we installed the desks (simple plywood beveled down and then stained) we had to wire the room. 

All things electronic tend to get me irrationally excited so I loved this part of the project. I got to sit down with a big spool of electrical wire and ethernet cord and run electrical wiring through PVC piping around the entirety of the room before installing outlets to pop out through the desks at each computer station. 

After electrifying the room, I sat down with the ethernet cord and stripped and put heads on about 30 different pieces. You know that little plastic head that fits into your computer? I went ahead and put those on. Pretty easy to learn, but it was so cool to do!

After that I had to return to the states for about 2 1/2 weeks and, sadly missed much of the work with the computers and final electrical wiring.

The other day, however, I was able to participate in the installation of about 15 disembodied hard disks that were stacked in a corner awaiting installation. When I entered the room and dusted off my first lobotomized computer and attempted to bring it back to life I knew I was in for a treat. As I brushed off the faded “Made for Windows 2000!” advertisements, I wondered just how much fun bringing these computers back from the great beyond would be. I spent a good three hours taking apart these modern antiques. I’ve included some pictures below for your enjoyment. It is my hope, that after this laboratory is finished, the average high school student will have a place where they can feel free to explore the internet and pursue academic or personal interests in the carefree nature that many US students take for granted.  

Below: Everything that used to be in the storage room. 

Below: one of the computers in need of a hard drive

 Below: Various hard drives stacked for my convenience

Above: the wiring we were working with along with the ethernet cabled that I had to "head" - go ahead and take a look at one of these sometime, they're surprisingly intricate

Below: the room as it was when I put everything back. Only a few more steps to go!