In Hindsight

We are enjoying our last day in Costa Rica today, and feel that our last blog entry should back-track a bit….

For years, Vern and I mulled over the idea of traveling during his sabbatical year—a once-in-seven-years opportunity.  We had a number of ideals we wanted met:  to live in a biodiverse location that would inspire us as biologists; to immerse ourselves in a different culture; and to feel connected to a new community, to prevent the feeling of dangling independently in a new place for several months.  That wasn’t a list we could present to a travel agent, so it would take much planning, patience and prayer.  We wanted our sabbatical trip to be more than just an extra-long vacation!

When we travelled in Costa Rica in 2007 with the extended Peters family, Vern and I made a side trip to visit a biological field station.  We wanted to see if that was conceptually a good fit for our family for a sabbatical trip.  Costa Rica felt like a place that was safe enough to live with our kids, yet adventurous and filled with biological treasures.  The journey of planning our sabbatical trip began.   

We ultimately chose to come to San Gerardo de Dota so Vern could work with the Quetzal Education Research Centre (QERC) and the university students that come here.  As an added bonus, Vern was also given the time and space at QERC to do his writing.  In the end, he was able to write and submit a major research paper and small magazine article for publication, and start writing a 2^nd research paper.

The Quetzal Education Research Centre

 

I signed on to be Vern’s “support crew” for our adventurous semester, keeping the kids alive, fed, schooled and socialized, and managing the more-demanding daily routines of our family in a cabin with no dishwasher and a community with no grocery store and no vehicle to take us to one. I would have enjoyed doing some hands-on biology, but there wasn’t exactly a line up of people who could babysit the kids. 

Since starting at King’s University 7 years ago, Vern’s developed a heart for university students who are developing skills for their careers, and maturing and developing in character and faith. Our family had the opportunity to walk along beside a group of bright (and brave!) young, university students spending a semester at QERC, as they developed research projects, learned a new language, and were stretched culturally.  We experienced many of the same things as well.  And Vern had the privilege of teaching an ecology course to the students.      

Some of the QERC students and one of the other visiting professors.

Dr. Peters on a field trip with the students

We were surprised, almost daily, with the generosity of the community of people around us in San Gerardo.  Whether that was friends inviting us for supper, Mario letting a very excited boy fish in his trout pond, offers for rides into town, a shared cup of coffee and conversation, an impromptu painting lesson for the kids, an offer for a luxurious night away in the nearby city of San Isidro, and the list goes on. 

The kids giving Mario (who owned our cabin) his birthday present.  He loved having the kids around.

We could never have put all of these good things in place before coming.  But with a generous measure of faith and patience, we found our family immersed in a new community to whom we could provide encouragement, and who was a blessing to us.  Our time in Costa Rica was definitely more than just an extra-long vacation.

Thank-you for faithfully reading our family’s blog.  It’s been fun to share our 4-month journey with you.  We’ll be home late tomorrow evening.  Hasta mañana! 

Goodbye San Gerardo

We said goodbye to San Gerardo de Dota early this morning and drove with the manager of the field station to San Jose.  Our lives are once again packed into suitcases.  Lots of them!  Space that was previously occupied by some well-worn items was swapped for things like Costa Rican coffee and souvenirs.  More than once while we were packing, Claire asked us if we could stay “just one more month” in San Gerardo.  If only life were so carefree that we could just decide on a whim to stay an extra month!  That’s a sure sign of a child who’s been on the road for awhile, for whom an extra month doesn’t seem very long. 

We are staying for two nights in an apartment at the Sendas Nazarene Seminary in San Jose. It’s bright and spacious, and very affordable.  And much to Claire and Caleb’s delight, there are bunk-beds, an outdoor pool and new friends their age here.  The university students from the field station in San Gerardo come to the seminary on their ecosystems of Costa Rica tour, so Vern spent a night here with the students earlier in the semester.  At that point, the missionary families here had invited our family to stay sometime.  That is our connection with this place, and we are happy for it. 

Right now, it is pouring rain (it as, after all, the afternoon).  The kids were undaunted by it, and put on their swimsuits and ran out to the pool with their new friends in the rain.  Heavy rain has now obliterated my enjoyable view of San Jose out our 2^nd story window, beyond the patchwork of metal rooftops and treetops that are closeby.  But the rain likely won’t last long; at least I hope it doesn’t last long, because I don’t remember where my rain jacket is packed!

We are here until after Vern has met with the director of the Latin American Studies program (as I described in my last post) on Monday morning.  Afterwards, we have a 4-hour bus ride to the coast. 

Uptown and Up-rooting

It’s funny how it’s taken us 3½ months to explore some parts of San Gerardo.  And now that we are counting down the days until we leave, we are trying to pack in as many experiences as we can before we go.  So this past weekend our family and the local English teacher (an adventurous American gal who is volunteering here for the year) hopped in our vehicle and explored “uptown” San Gerardo.  Before we had our car, we couldn’t physically make it up to the start of the town—the kids would have likely complained that their legs were falling off, if we were to hike up that far.  And they have a point, since the road climbs ~3000 ft from the far end of San Gerardo to where the gravel road meets the highway about 9km later. I often feel my ears popping when I hike. 

We had a lot of fun exploring! And it didn’t rain!   



First we checked out Dantica Lodge, which has a very nice restaurant and over-priced gift shop. 



Then Claire, Caleb and Melissa (english teacher) made very good use of the trampoline at Dantica Lodge. It was fun to discover a little playground tucked away amongst the cabins and trees.



We made a tasty lunch stop for some Costa Rican food....rice, beans, fish, salad, stir-fried squash and blackberry juice. Caleb now eats copious quantities of rice and black beans by choice!  Claire still won't touch it, but has learned to like other new foods. 

We found these cabins tucked in amongst the clouds, and stopped there to use the trails.

On the way to the waterfalls....

Why build a bridge when you can just use a log?

God's handiwork

The kids enjoyed the jungle playground on the hike back.

This weekend we are uprooting ourselves from San Gerardo de Dota.  Soon we will be packing, organizing, and re-packing, similar to what we did 4 months ago.  We’ve started giving back things (books, games, DVDs) that we borrowed from generous friends here, and donating things we can’t take back with us (like a large bottle of chocolate sauce) to happy recipients. 

Claire hangs her little heart on things, so during this last week in San Gerardo we're trying to fulfill Claire’s “things I want to do before we go” list, which includes extra playtime with special friends.   

Playtime with a friend (Nathan) who's been special to Claire and Caleb.  I've enjoyed visiting with Nathan's Mom, Scarlet, who runs a restaurant here in town with her husband.

The kids will be happy to finish up Spanish school this Thursday. I managed to gather the whole school (Gr. 1-6) for a photo yesterday, so the kids can remember their schoolfriends. 

Escuela la Lidia, Grades 1-6. The teacher is on the right, in blue. 

Claire with her teacher.

The Kindergartners were more difficult to corral for a photo....

Caleb with some of his fellow Kindergartners and his teacher.

We leave for San Jose on Saturday morning.  We will be in San Jose for a couple of days, where Vern has arranged to meet with the director of the Latin American Studies Program to learn more about their environmental concentration.  This is another fascinating study-abroad program (similar to that offered by the Quetzal Education Research Centre here) offered by the Council for Christian colleges and Universities. Who knows, maybe one day he’ll be sending King’s University students to Costa Rica!  

Next Monday (April 23) our family will take the bus to the Pacific coast again to de-brief as a family before travelling back to Edmonton on April 28^th and jumping back into "new" schedules again.  We appreciate your prayers as we uproot from our Costa Rican home.

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P.S. We had 2 successful entries to last week’s contest!  The correct answer was…..coffee and sugar! Stephen & Kirsten Epp and Josh & Vicki Noble have won bottles of Costa Rican Lizano sauce.  Delicious!  (Josh and Vicki are living in our house and keeping our dog alive, so we’re happily allowing a 2^nd place winner this time….)

Chilly and sunny with a chance of showers

Confused?  We are too!  The weather here lately is confusing.  We wake up to sunny, but chilly mornings; our space heater is much appreciated in the early mornings.  By mid-morning the sun is very pleasant and warm, even though the temperature is usually no more than 22 °C or so.  By early afternoon, the clouds have moved in and then it pours rain!  We’ve had a few days without rain, but it often rains for a couple of hours in the afternoon—we could use some umbrellas!  Has the rainy season started early this year, or has it just been a wet couple of weeks?  I'll let you know by next week.  In the meantime, we’ve learned to plan our days accordingly: outdoor activities in the morning and early evening; indoor activities during the afternoon.    

When it’s sunny…..

Caleb enjoying his breakfast outside on a Saturday morning.

Caleb and a little friend playing with the hose in front of our cabin (we got wet!).



Claire and Brianne playing school together.



Teeter-tottering in our yard with school friends.

When it’s rainy….

During hours of afternoon rain, the kids have played a lot of Lego and Playmobil in their bedroom; boxes from our recycle bin often go missing.

Caleb designed a dog house so their stuffies would have a place to sleep and stay out of the rain. The duct tape we brought along has come in very handy!

We are also having conflicted feelings lately:  we are happy being here, but we are excited to be going home soon, as Claire aptly stated it recently.  Personally, I feel we’ve seen and experienced all that we possibly could have expected on this trip, and therefore feel ready to go home to Canada on April 28^th.  I think Vern feels the same way, especially now that his teaching commitments at the research station are completed.  Frequent afternoon rain reinforces these feelings for us.

The other day, after a heavy rain, our vehicle’s leaky sunroof released a downpour of trapped water right on Caleb’s head!  All wet and in tears, he emphatically told us how terrible “Squeakers” really is, and reminded us of how much he wants to go home.  Poor little guy.  

The kids have spent countless hours happily playing in and around our cabin over the past few months.  They’ve enjoyed the plentiful free time to play, but are also talking more about “when we get home…..”.  They are looking forward to playing with Tundra.  And they are missing their friends and school—Claire just received a package of hand-written letters from each of her grade 3 classmates!

So it’s confusing.  There are things we won’t miss when we’re gone….a questionable toilet, a leaky sink, a squeaky vehicle, bumpy roads, the tiny card table we’ve been eating our meals on, the rain.  But no doubt, there are many more things we will really miss when we’re gone…our community of San Gerardo friends, cloud forest right outside our cabin door, beautiful tropical birds in our yard, amazing hikes, trout fishing (and eating), funny Spanish blunders….the list goes on. 

A blue-gray tanager.  Claire’s favourite bird because she loves blue. 

......Indulge me, as I send out another food quiz. We have been living in a country that grows a lot of food for export, and it's been interesting for us to see the food we eat at its source and often in a more “raw” format.  I hope you find it interesting too.
If you can tell me what the two “edibles” are in these photos, you will win a bottle of Costa Rican Lizano sauce! Trust me, your plain, white rice is begging for this sauce.  Here’s your hint: many of you happily consume both of these every day, sometimes even together.   

What is this factory processing?



Our Costa Rican version of Easter weekend

Easter in Costa Rica (known as “Semana Santa”) is a time when families get together.  Thursday and Friday of last week were holidays, and we saw a lot of families arrive in our little village of San Gerardo de Dota.  I fielded many requests for the other cabins here on the property where we are living.  Restaurants here were filled with families, and it was nice to see many families out walking and sightseeing here in San Gerardo.  I’m curious if the tiny local Catholic church held a service this weekend.    

I could play the card that everyone should feel sorry for us, having missed out on Easter baking and family get-togethers back home in Canada.  And don’t get us wrong, we did miss those things.  But we had a very special Easter weekend as a family here in Costa Rica.  We have very generous neighbours here in San Gerardo who own a 2^nd home in San Isidro.  This city is about 60 km away, and takes about 1½ hours to drive to.  Our friends usually rent out their home in San Isidro, but offered it to our family for the Easter weekend.  It’s a very unique, 4-story home that they designed and built on the side of a mountain, with amazing views. We prayed hard that “Squeakers” (our beloved and squeaky vehicle) would get us there without a hiccup.  And she did!     

Our friends, Ryan and Tammy, in front of their home in San Isidro

The view of San Isidro and surroundings from the 4th floor bedroom windows.

The view from the 3rd floor balcony.

Heading out of town on Friday afternoon was also a nice way to celebrate the completion of Vern’s teaching commitments at the research station here.

We did miss out on attending an Easter church service this weekend.  But it was very nice to read the Easter story from the Bible together at a relaxed pace, and have some great discussion with the kids.

P.S. The answer to last week’s contest is yucca or manioc.  Glen and Cherie Fehrmoore got the answer correct, and will receive a bag of Costa Rican coffee!

The homeschooling (and Spanish school) journey

I have a much greater appreciation for Claire and Caleb’s school and teachers after homeschooling the kids here in Costa Rica.  I have only a small sample of little learners, but they are at opposite ends of the learning-style spectrum:  one likes to impress with what she knows (yes, my first-born), while the other is not at all concerned about convincing me that he’s learned anything (even though I know he has) and often suffers from what I call the “floppy fish syndrome” during school.  It must take an unimaginable amount of patience and creativity to deal with a whole classroom of learning styles and temperaments!

The month of January and early February was a homeschooling marathon for me, since it was Costa Rican summer holidays and the local school was closed.  Since the kids started attending the local escuela in February, my homeschooling efforts have been sporadic to fill in the gaps when we’ve been travelling or the school has been closed—and there have been many of those days!  This week I’m homeschooling during Costa Rican spring break.   

I’ve found playing the role of teacher to my kids both enjoyable and challenging, and have been surprised how my feelings toward this role could change minute by minute during a school morning.  Some enjoyable moments have included Caleb independently reading his “popcorn words” (the 40 most commonly used English words), unanimous laughing at Caleb’s drawings in his journal (how does one draw a yak?!), and Claire’s pride after completing one of her PowerPoint presentations or another home-reading sheet.  

I love how homeschooling is so portable.  You can teach a Kindergartner to read and print pretty much anywhere as long as you have paper and pencil, and you can load enough chapter books for a grade 3’er onto an eReader to last a lifetime.  Here are some photos showing the different places we’ve homeschooled in the last few months:  

Our hotel room in San Jose, where we stayed for several days upon arriving in Costa Rica.

Homeschooling at our cabin. One of the best things I brought was a little chalkboard for Caleb to practice printing, although in this photo he's not using it for printing.

Homeschooling on our deck in Panama.

Trying to do school on our hotel's deck, while travelling with the students from the research station.

We homeschooled in a classroom at our of our stops while travelling with the students.  That worked much better!

I also really appreciate that we could take any one of our travelling experiences and turn it into a learning opportunity.  What’s more applicable than researching Olive Ridley turtles on the internet after having the incredible experience of watching one lay her eggs in the sand and return to the Pacific ocean?!  A perfect chance to take a stoked sense of wonder and turn it into knowledge.

One of my primary challenges has been to maintain Caleb’s focus and motivate him.  Homeschooling him has taken extra creativity and energy, since there are only so many learning games I can conjure up, or special activities and treats I can promise him as rewards.  It’s not like Tim Horton’s is around the corner.  Besides the occasional pop or extra cookie for good effort during homeschooling, he’s learned to read words by playing hopping/elastic-shooting/throwing/word-stomping games.  He’s also been motivated with tickle fests and extra wrestling time with Daddy.  When these fun games and motivators are dangled in front of Caleb, he can do it.  Sure, I’ll jump through these hoops, but I’m sure happy I can hand over the reigns to his teacher in May!

Having the kids attend the local Spanish school has been an interesting experience for our family.  The challenge of getting them out the door to walk to school by 6:45am aside, the kids have taken the experience in stride.  We are proud of them.  And it’s been interesting to watch them adjust, in their own ways, to not really knowing what’s going on a lot of the time at school.  Caleb is physical; there’s no awkward moment or misunderstanding that can’t be solved with a playful punch, leading to chasing and laughter between boys.  He likes Spanish school because they “just play all the time”.  (We switched him to the Kindergarten class early on—a much better fit). For Claire, who’s naturally linguistic, it’s been more of a challenge because of her innate desire to understand what’s expected of her and be able to communicate clearly.  She obediently writes copious lines of Spanish text from the chalkboard into her notebook, but says that there are long time gaps between tasks.  So she’s been producing imaginative and detailed drawings of her doll’s bedroom and new wardrobe, with many items labeled in Spanish.  She’s also been keeping a record, on her own accord, of new Spanish words she’s learned so that she can quiz Vern and I to see how much we know.  Humbling. 

Escuela la Lidia

Claire, hamming it up before english class.  The other kids look rather perplexed by her behaviour.

I have no doubt the kids have learned a lot while living here in Costa Rica, even if not much of it has come in the form of traditional learning in a school classroom.  But if you ask Caleb if he likes homeschooling, he’ll say “mas o menos” (“more or less” in Spanish). 

P.S. In the spirit of school, I have a quiz for you.  Can you name the food that I am peeling in this photo for our supper?  Email me the correct answer and you can win a bag of Costa Rican coffee!  (John and Heidi, you are exempt from this contest, since you saw this food on my counter when you were visiting).

Caleb took this photo of me preparing supper one afternoon.

Back to normal

Our ecosystems tour of Costa Rica with the university students from the field station is over, and John and Heidi have left San Gerardo to return to Canada.  It was so much fun to share our Costa Rican home with family!  But now we are starting to settle back into normal life here again. 

With some coaching, the kids are getting back into the routine of early school mornings.  Transitioning from the adventures of travelling and then the excitement of playing with their cousins has been tough for them.  They will be happy when spring break arrives next week.  In contrast, Vern will be busy next week teaching an ecology course to the students at the field station.  So he would appreciate your prayers as he teaches each morning, April 2-6.      

On our travels, we saw an amazing array of places, habitats, and wildlife.  And ate more plates of rice and beans than we could have imagined!  At one point, after three days of gallo pinto (Costa Rican rice and black beans dish) for breakfast, lunch and supper each day, I thought I might scream if another plate was placed in front of me…but I digress. 

I will share some of our trip highlights in the photos below.

Our first stop--Pacific rainforest on the coast. This place typified what you'd most likely expect Costa Rica to be like--hot and humid rainforest.  We enjoyed a guided hike in the rainforest to learn about the vegetation and wildlife, a day at the beach, and learning about how our lodge is implementing sustainable tourism practices.

Our family's cabin at La Cusinga Lodge.  We had a beautiful deck with an ocean view out back, which was nice for homeschooling. Claire was thrilled to have a sleepover one night on a bunkbed in the room that the students shared.   

Our 2nd stop--dry deciduous forest of the Nicoya peninsula.  This was our hotel's sign--note the howler monkeys in the tree in the background!  They were everywhere, and were quite happy to wake us up each morning.  As you might guess from the lodge's name, there are turtles (Olive Ridley) in the area.  We had the priviledge of watching a turtle dig her nest, lay her eggs, cover them up and return to the ocean!  They do this at night, so it was too dark for photos.  The kids were fascinated by the whole experience.



Howler monkey with baby.



Like mangoes?!  This mango tree beside our hotel was laiden with mangoes! 

Breakfast of rice and beans with the students. We walked down the hot and dusty gravel road to this little family restuarant for most of our meals during the days at Playa Ostional.  We filled the space and used every dish that family had!  Micheal, the QERC field station manager, is on the left in the black shirt. 

There were amazing birds to find close to our hotel.  This is a turquise-browed motmot.  Notice the ornate tail?!  Seeing toucans (chestnut-mandibled) was really neat. 

An orange-bellied trogon. 

This view of the dry decidous forest landscape of Costa Rica's Nicoya peninsula shows just how different it is from wet rainforest.  This photo was taken as we were leaving for our next location.

Our 3rd location -- Palo Verde National Park.  The Organization for Tropical Studies has a field station here that we visited. This is a wetland sanctuary with an amazing abundance and diversity of birds within a very dry landscape. 

Vern leaving on a hike with the students at Palo Verde NP.  The kids and I joined them on several shorter hikes.  Again, it was very hot here, so the kids faded pretty quickly. 

Ready to go on a hike!  The kids really enjoyed spending time with the university students. 

The black-flying heron....hah, just kidding.  I don't know what this bird is called, so I'll have to check with Vern.  Beautiful though!
If anybody wants to see more of the birds we saw, just ask. We saw so many great birds (herons, storks, spoonbills, egrets, ducks, curassow, parrots....)!

Grandmas, avert your eyes.  We saw a bunch of crocodiles!  The guide stood by the water's edge so we did too, and got lots of great photos. 

Plants and trees in the tropics go to great lengths to protect themselves.  Just ask Caleb.

The field station at Palo Verde NP had a classroom, which was wonderful for homeschooling. 

The 4th and final location we visited was Arenal volcano.  We met up with John and Heidi in the nearby town of La Fortuna. This photo was taken out the window, so it's not a great shot.  Unfortunately, we never got a very clear view of the volcano, and didn't get to see lava (like when we were here in 2007).  But one afternoon we took a guided hike up to a nice view of the volcano right at sunset.  Perfect timing!

We did an all-day tour of the Cano Negro wildlife refuge in northern Costa Rica (near the border with Nicaragua).  The kids loved the boat ride, and we were able to see lots of interesting wildlife.



The boat ride took us up the Rio Frio for several hours. 



A very large iguana!



The kids enjoyed seeing the caiman along the shoreline. 

We had a great guide and boat driver who found an incredible diversity of birds and other wildlife for us. 

We enjoyed several days back home in San Gerardo de Dota with John and Heidi and the girls!

And this was my view, sitting on the bench outside our cabin organizing photos to put on our blog. The afternoon clouds have moved in.