Through a serendipitous turn of events, I found myself a wonderful and caring host family for the last month in Costa Rica. I met the Paniagua family through Kim, the hilarious woman from University of Washington that I mentioned in earlier posts. She had been staying with them for a few weeks and suggested that I move in with them after she left for more adventures.
Let me explain the Paniaguas because they are quite an extraordinary family. The two parents are Cecelia and Francisco, or Kiko as everyone calls him, and they have raised eleven children. Yes, eleven. That is a lot. All of their sons and daughter are grown and all but a handful have kid-lets of their own. The oldest daughter even became a grandmother herself a few months ago.
Along with family members, Cecelia and Francisco have always welcomed people into their home. They have taken in neighbors that lost their homes, children who need a break from their own angry households, visiting relatives who need extra support, and (of course) foreigners, like me, looking for a family and some Spanish practice.
With such a large, busy family, there are always visiting children and in-laws and grandchildren chasing one another through the house. From what I can see, they all treat each other very lovingly and respectfully. Everyone helps out with dishes when they come over for dinner and watches out for all the running children. It is beautiful to see.
And they have welcomed me as a twelfth sibling. “You can come back to Costa Rica anytime you want because you have a large family with eleven other siblings here,” Margarita reminded me during my farewell dinner.
This has been a great decision for me. Although I enjoyed the luxuries of the field station, I missed feeling at home and cared for by a family. There is no internet and no fresh papaya, but the family gives me plenty of hugs, too much coffee, and as many corn tortillas as I can stuff myself with. This is a happy household and I am so happy to be a part of it.
8.17.2009
Berlese Funnels to Sweep-netting
In previous posts, I may have talked excitedly about Berlese funnels, a technique to extract little critters from the leaf litter layer. I had just finished constructing eighteen of these contraptions when I discovered two small obstacles. First, the funnels fish out very, very little critters. From the first sample that I tried, I only first one or two insects that did not look like specks with the naked eye. The rest were around 1 to 2 mm and I needed to look at with a microscope. Second, herbivorous insects don’t scuttle in the leaf litter. They stay in the vegetation where there is more food and fewer frogs and lizards who want to eat them. So I was really surveying the community of itsy-bitsy decomposers rather than large herbivores, even though my question asked about how the herbivore community varied with fragment size and interior vs. edge. Oops.
So I needed to back up and start over. After consulting with a wonderful entomologist visiting Las Cruces, I decided just to sweep and beat-net. Very simple. Take a net. Sweep through all the vegetation, 30 strokes for a 16 meter squared plot then beat the understory vegetation into the net. That should more or less give me an idea about the kind of critters crawling (and hopefully eating) around in the vegetation. Along with katydids and grasshoppers, I collected quite a few spiders. These predaceous critters could give me an even better picture about the arthropod community composition.
Within each plot, I also assessed the herbivory level on and identified to family all the woody seedlings in a 1 m by 2 m area. This data should tell me if herbivory damage varies with fragment size or proximity to edge and if different types of seedlings grow in fragments of different sizes or near vs. far from the edge.
I collected all the samples in one feverish before flying back to the States. Never, never again will I let myself believe that all will go according to plan and that I have plenty of time to do anything my little heart desires. Now it is time for data entry and arthropod identification when I return to Grinnell this fall.
So I needed to back up and start over. After consulting with a wonderful entomologist visiting Las Cruces, I decided just to sweep and beat-net. Very simple. Take a net. Sweep through all the vegetation, 30 strokes for a 16 meter squared plot then beat the understory vegetation into the net. That should more or less give me an idea about the kind of critters crawling (and hopefully eating) around in the vegetation. Along with katydids and grasshoppers, I collected quite a few spiders. These predaceous critters could give me an even better picture about the arthropod community composition.
Within each plot, I also assessed the herbivory level on and identified to family all the woody seedlings in a 1 m by 2 m area. This data should tell me if herbivory damage varies with fragment size or proximity to edge and if different types of seedlings grow in fragments of different sizes or near vs. far from the edge.
I collected all the samples in one feverish before flying back to the States. Never, never again will I let myself believe that all will go according to plan and that I have plenty of time to do anything my little heart desires. Now it is time for data entry and arthropod identification when I return to Grinnell this fall.
8.16.2009
Ultimate Frisbee for July 4th
For the fourth of July, Chris and I took a break and played some ultimate frisbee. The team that Ben and I picked up with in San Jose sponsor the “Volcanic Tournament” every year in La Fortuna and invite players from all over the world. The regular tournament fee is pretty pricey ($350) because it includes accommodations in a swanky resort, all meals, and a guided hike through the rainforest. Well, Chris and I have had plenty of hikes through the rainforest and we don’t mind camping conditions, so we opted to pay $20 to play and stay in a cheap, clean little hostel in town.
The players mostly came from Latin America (lots of Panamanians) and the States, but there was also one German player. And plenty of ex-pats living in Costa Rica. The tourney directors mixed up all the players onto different teams. This is called a hat tourney. It is great because you have a chance to meet people from different teams (and in this case different countries), but it can be challenging to learn to play smoothly with a new group of people in just two days.
My team’s captain was Jenny, a very fast, very aggressive (on the field!) Tica from the San Jose pick up team. She is lots of fun, but I am grateful that I didn’t have to guard her. We had plenty of Ticos, a few Panamanians, and some Texans, including one whose parents had immigrated from Mexico. He served as our Spanish-English translator. Communicating with one another could be a challenge. Although most players were bilingual, a few could speak only English or only Spanish. And the English translations seemed to be slightly different abbreviated versions. It was neat for me to understand both sides. Surprisingly, I kept up really well with all the Spanish conversation. A big improvement from when Ben and I played ultimate in San Jose. Hooray! The months in Costa Rica have been worthwhile!
All in all, our two days of ultimate were a wonderful and welcome break from fieldwork. It felt good to get my sprinting muscles moving again. And I enjoyed comparing notes with players from other countries.
Getting back to fieldwork was a bit of a shock. After running for two days, we had to sit on a bus for seven hours and then go right into the field to hike and check on the seeds. A very, very painful day of fieldwork—but well worth it.
The players mostly came from Latin America (lots of Panamanians) and the States, but there was also one German player. And plenty of ex-pats living in Costa Rica. The tourney directors mixed up all the players onto different teams. This is called a hat tourney. It is great because you have a chance to meet people from different teams (and in this case different countries), but it can be challenging to learn to play smoothly with a new group of people in just two days.
My team’s captain was Jenny, a very fast, very aggressive (on the field!) Tica from the San Jose pick up team. She is lots of fun, but I am grateful that I didn’t have to guard her. We had plenty of Ticos, a few Panamanians, and some Texans, including one whose parents had immigrated from Mexico. He served as our Spanish-English translator. Communicating with one another could be a challenge. Although most players were bilingual, a few could speak only English or only Spanish. And the English translations seemed to be slightly different abbreviated versions. It was neat for me to understand both sides. Surprisingly, I kept up really well with all the Spanish conversation. A big improvement from when Ben and I played ultimate in San Jose. Hooray! The months in Costa Rica have been worthwhile!
All in all, our two days of ultimate were a wonderful and welcome break from fieldwork. It felt good to get my sprinting muscles moving again. And I enjoyed comparing notes with players from other countries.
Getting back to fieldwork was a bit of a shock. After running for two days, we had to sit on a bus for seven hours and then go right into the field to hike and check on the seeds. A very, very painful day of fieldwork—but well worth it.
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