Summary

So for anyone interested I’ve decided to start a blog. I’m not sure whether it counts as a blog since I’m starting it two weeks prior to returning home but hopefully it will hold me accountable to record my experiences before I forget many of the details.

People asked me prior to my departure what exactly I would be doing in Costa Rica but I was unable to give much of an answer besides the names of the courses listed in our syllabus (Spanish Intensive, Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Ethnobiology, and Research Practicum), that we would be traveling around the country and visiting clinics. Those parts still hold true, but I can give a little more detail now. The program is through the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) through Duke University so about a third of us (23 in total) are from Duke.

After arriving in San Jose, the capital, we went south (close to the western border of Panama). It seems to be about a six hour drive to reach the border in any direction. There at Las Cruces in San Vito (one of the three field stations that OTS has) was to be our home base. We are currently here for the last time. After Las Cruces we spent the next three at homestays in San Jose while taking Spanish classes at the Costa Rican Language Academy and continuing our regular lectures three times a week. Between San Jose and our weeklong midterm break we traveled to indigenous territories, an organic farm, Nicaragua, and a biological station owned by Texas A&M. After break we returned to San Jose to have lectures and go on field trips, went to La Selva (another OTS field station), more indigenous territories, an ecolodge, and are now finally back at Las Cruces.

Overall it has been a fabulous experience and easily my favorite semester so far. Although it can be exhausting always traveling around, living out of a suitcase and having a schedule that seems to change daily, the stress level is definitely lower than at Bowdoin. I have confirmed that I never want to do anthropological field work or spend my life devoted to any sort of field research for that matter. It has been interesting although sometimes perhaps a bit intense to be living with mostly pre-med students. Perhaps because of this I have thought about medicine in ways I never did before and now am more devoted to pursuing a career in health care.