This weekend we had a group field trip up towards the Carribean coast of the country. Friday morning we headed to EARTH University, which is an awesome university that focuses on agriculture, the environment, sustainable development, etc. We learned about the programs and the school...the coolest thing that they do is go into rural communities in the area and teach them how to implement all of these things into their farms and their lives, to become more sustainable and advanced and yada yada. It's an international university with students from all over the world, who then take what they have learned and usually implement the new ideas in their home communities. For example, we had dinner with a bunch of the students, who talked with us about what they do and then did traditional dances and songs and demonstrations from their home countries. I met an indigenous woman from El Salvador who is studying at EARTH so that she can go back to her farm and teach her mother how to become more sustainable for the future generations. It was really cool stuff, definately research it if youre at all iterested. It was really awesome. We also went to a banana plantation to see how they are grown, then saw how they are cleaned and packaged. We also saw how they make banana paper, since they dont want to waste anything. Its a huge and very demanding process...appreciate the bananas that you eat! The plantation we went to sends roughly 95% of their bananas to Whole Foods in the USA...so you have probably all eaten one of the bananas that I saw growing!
We stayed in their dorms for the night, then got up at 5am to eat breakfast and head to an organic farm for a few hours. I dug a trench and shoveled and planted and carried heavy bags around and fertilized soil...it was fun and exhausting, I dont know how people do it every day. After lunch we went to a chocolate plantation...i ate cacao right from the tree and sucked the chocolate beans and got eaten alive by mosquitos. The woman who runs it also made us chocolate milk which was incredibly delicious.
We then headed to local farms, to stay with the families who run them. It was such a fun experience!! I got to pet a chicken (who are super dirty and really dont like to be touched at all) and I milked a cow!!!! I also chilled with a pig who is going to be slaughtered on May 1st. I was invited back to watch the fiesta but I declined. I got to chop and whack things up with a machete and I planted a tree and fished for Talapia and then ate some of it for lunch...beforehand, I had said that I don't eat much fish but I would try it. Well, the mom didnt want me to be hungry, so when we came back from fishing, I saw her plucking feathers off of a newly killed chicken. aka my lunch. I know its the cycle of life and all of that jazz, but I secretly now want to be a vegetarian. Oh and we got up at 4:30am to see the sunrise since we were actually on the right coast this time, and walked to a river and ate eggs from the chickens running around us and stepped in tons of cow shit and got really really dirty. It was awesome.
So it was a really interesting weekend. But now i'm super tired and back to work on a paper and a presentation and study for an exam...all of this by Thursday, but then begins spring break! (although it sort of feels like i've been on vacation for 2 months now...)
:)
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