Today started at 6:30, the same as usual, to get to breakfast by 7 am. For breakfast we had scrambled eggs, rice and beans, toast, and of course: coffee. We then headed to La BioFabrica for work for the last time. My team (the surveying team) works on the other side of the hill. As you walk over you see the amazing view of Providencia. Going to work every day with that view never gets old.
We started the work day with a bucket brigade to bring up more gravel to mix concrete later on in the day. The survey team and I’s project was to measure different points throughout the north and south side terraces to determine the different elevation changes throughout the existing land. These elevations are needed to create a topographic map using AutoCAD for future use, when they decide to level out each terrace and build on top of it. These terraces will play a role in creating a more productive and convenient coffee processing location, using the elevation changes to the farmer’s advantage. Our team finished up our surveying on Friday, but as we finished our circuit and sighted back to our benchmark (a place of known elevation) we were off by a foot and some inches. If everything was done perfectly with no errors this value should have been equivalent to the elevation we started with. So our goal for today was to go through only our turning points (about 8/68 of them) and create a circuit with only those and the benchmark.
As we sighted back to the benchmark this time around, we were only off .25 inches. This is equivalent to the accepted error of a total station (piece of surveying technology), which was surprising because we had only used a 6 ft. measuring stick, a measuring tape, an eye level, a compass, and 3 other levels (there was a lot of room for human error). We also compared those elevations to the elevations we had originally calculated for those points. This gave us a better idea where we may have been less accurate when taking measurements.
Throughout the week the survey team took a lot of breaks sometimes for the whole work day to help mix concrete for the north side of the terraces. Today we finally finished one terrace completely, it took us the whole two weeks. We celebrated as we put our handprints and marked our work on the last part of the wet concrete.
At the end of our work day, we headed back to the front of La BioFabrica and watched the solar team and tank team present their projects to 5 farmers who are transitioning to organic farming and/or already have transitioned with the help of Green Communities. It was so enjoyable and emotional to see the moment of truth when Johnathan plugged in the solar panels to the coffee processor and it ran.
Each farmer shared their story of why it is so important to them to switch to organic farming and expressed how grateful they all were for the work we had done. It made all of the hard work and early mornings worth it. It was so heart warming seeing the actual individual impact we had on these farmers and their farms and lives. We celebrated our accomplishments over the past 2 weeks with the farmers, Green Communities, and the abroad team.
We headed back to Doña Flores’ for lunch and after we had finished, they made us a nice surprise: arroz con leche with a jam made from a Costa Rican fruit called maracuyá (the fruit looks similar to an orange cherry tomato).
We don’t get dessert with lunch so it was definitely something special. We then headed back to our tents to shower and nap while some of the group visited the waterfall we had gone to the week before.
Cafecito started at 3pm on the dot. I have come to really enjoy cafecito time as a time in the middle of the day to slow down and share company with others before we get back to the hustle and bustle. At 5pm the young dreamers arrived while we were finishing up our trip debrief/reflection with Johnathan. We then had dance lessons with our dance teacher (Johnathan of course because he does it all) to typical latin music. We practiced the merengue, salsa, and bachata while in pairs of one “gringo” and one “tico”. We then had a karaoke contest where the young dreamers performed a cultural dance: el torito which signified the famous bull performances in the rodeos in Costa Rica. The dance is meant to signify that in Costa Rica the bull is celebrated and never killed, so they become more famous as they get older and stronger. The night ended in an emotional goodbye with the young dreamers who we had made good connections with.
Our last dinner was fantastic as always since Juan prepared it for us. After dinner, we got to buy hand carved pottery made by Juan’s brother-in-law who lives in Guanacaste. We collected our pre-ordered coffee to take home and were able to convince Juan to sell us the salsa we had been devouring for the past two weeks.
Johnathan then kicked us out to head to our tents to pack since we had to be at the lodge at 5am tomorrow morning. After an emotional and fulfilling day, it’s time to get some good earned rest :).
¡Pura Vida!