San José 2.0

For the past week, we were back in San José at our homestays for the last time, having classes at OTS and field tripping around! It was great to be reunited with my host mama for the week. It wasn't until I started listing all of the places I'd been since I had last bid my mama tica goodbye that I realized the multitude of miles that we've covered!

My room in the host house! 

Field trip wise, we first visited AyA, the water treatment plant for San José that makes all the agua here safe for drinking! It was cool to hear about how the treatment process works, and how the vast majority of it works without any pumps. Basically, the water rages into the mostly outdoor facility through two sources that have consolidated the water from many a location. During rainy season (aka now) where a day without a heavy rain is an anomaly, these stream-like water entrances are like the splash-zones at a water park. After the larger leaves and sand get filtered out, some Aluminum Sulfate is added to precipitate some impurities. The cleaner water at the top of these tubs gets tunneled into tubes that go onto the next treatment round, while the dirtier, sediment-laden water sticks around the bottom. After some more finely-tuned filtration and disinfection with a dash of Chlorine thrown in for good luck, the water makes its merry out of the facility and back to my water bottle so I safely stay hydrated! But in all realness, having safe drinking water is a major deal for public health. The 2.6 billion people world wide that lack it are super susceptible to deadly diseases. 

We also went to INCIENSA...basically the Costa Rican equivalent to the CDC! They have plenty of specialized units to deal with different diseases with in the country. It was cool to hear how INCIENSA does qualitiy assurance on the hosptial labs throughout the country. For different diseases, the national branch sends the local labs unknown samples that the labs have to identify. If they don't do it correctly, the lab members generally have to come to San José for further training. Además, all of the positive samples for those pesky infectious diseases are sent here for confirmation. 

                                      

And on Friday, we went to INBioparque! INBio is a non-profit that does work in bioprospecting. Well, what might that be, you (or me a few days ago) might question? Basically, bioprospecting is looking at different plants for different, new potential uses, some of them medical. It's like going on a scavenger hunt with few clues about the next best thing that could be useful to mankind. But, this organization has a park that like a zoo-meets-botanical-garden-meets-the great-outdoors. Many different Costa Rican ecosystems are representing over there, with the appropriate plants and animals chilling there, mostly freely roaming around! The exceptions to the roaming-wildly are the boa constrictors, tarantulas and frogs...things you might not want to eat the 7-year-olds frolicking around the place. Although, I was a bit frightened that I could have a Harry Potter moment and the glass between me and the serpent would suddenly disappear (jokes, jokes).   

These iguanas were just hanging around all over the park!

Munchers gonna munch.

One of the areas was the Finca (farm)! 

Basking in the sun at the butterfly garden.

Dragon fly!

Now we are in La Selva, another OTS field station. This one is closer to San José and attracts more researchers and tourists as well! The heat and humidity are a constant reminder that is more jungley than Las Cruces. We're here for about two weeks, and will do some field and community work about Dengue and also visit the Bribri, another indigenous group!