learning to be an adventurer

An update!

The last few days have been incredible. On Sunday afternoon, I went up to campus with Bean and we found Lara and got to have a round of Zumba for some exercise: at 6700 feet. It was pretty intense, to say the least. We may be having another round again today. Then I got to stick around campus for a dinner in Lindy and Dinorah’s apartment. The campus family is wonderful J It was a nice rest moment for me since I have been so anxious.

ORMIGAS – they are everywhere (ants).

Internship update: I have no idea how I can write only a little bit out this (I know those who actually read this probably have a short attention span – cough, cough Jeff). I’m interning at the Starbucks Agronomy and C.A.F.E. practices office. My main goal is to learn more about how the company of Starbucks as a while treats their farmers and how the interaction benefits both sides. I LEARNED SO MUCH ON MONDAY. But first, I took the bus that I was supposed to take to get me to the EPA (apparently a giant hardware store that is painted yellow – false. It is grey). The driver said yes, I will drop you off there, and then did not. So I got off, almost at the Parque Central in Belen (20 minutes farther than I needed to go?) and got on a bus going in the other direction. This driver also said that he would drop me off, and I told him that I would appreciate it very much because I didn’t know where it was. Later I discovered that he had also not dropped me off. So I’m passing these buildings with names I recognize from where I was originally going to be picked up by my supervisor, so I called her and she said ‘Perfect! Get off the bus!’ And she picked me up 5 minutes after we had arranged for. Thank you Lord. I was a bit nervous since I was on a bus and I didn’t know where it was going.

So, actually being at the internship was amazing. The women working there are SO NICE. Monday was C.A.F.E. Practices orientation; next Monday is Coffee 101 (which, if you know me well enough, you know I’m incredibly excited about). I worked on helping a Peruvian woman with filing new applications for the Starbucks verification process and spent most of the time researching about the verification process so that I have a good knowledge of how it works. A short note about this process (if you want to know more, PLEASE ask). Starbucks has their own ‘certification’ process that they call verification. It is very similar to fair trade, and honestly, in some areas, surpasses the expectations of fair trade. All farmers have to be socially responsible, environmental leadership, have economic accountability and produce good quality coffee. The sub qualifications under each of these are really interesting, ranging from being financially transparent, the type of canopy cover, preserving local biodiversity, treatment of employees, too much more.

Yesterday was Tuesday, another class day. After class, kind of in honor of community building day on the Whitworth North campus (or more like coincidence), we cleared out a good 100 feet of one of our streams and started planting local shrubbery around it. I got to play with a machete. See pictures for joy J Oh! Last note – My supervisor took me out for lunch to an Israeli restaurant in Escazu (where my internship is) and then took me home to meet her daughter (who had wanted to meet me) after work. So great!