A few photos...

Crossing a bridge to get to the house of one of my guides - always an adventure.

View of La Casona while hiking up a mountain to get to another community, Betania.

View entering Betania, a community deeper in the mountains.

Gorgeous forest in Betania.

My guide and I trek to a house for an interview.

¿Mä kä ñö?

 What's your name?
¿Mä kä ñö?


For the last week it has been my goal to start learning words and phrases in Ngäbere, the native language spoken by most people in the Coto Brus Ngäbe teritory. While I'm at it, I should also address a question I've been getting about the name of the people with whom I work and how to properly spell it. Guaymí is the term most often used here by Costa Ricans and it is derived from the Bugle language that is also spoken by many members of the community. However, the preferred names are Ngäbe or Ngöbe - I tend to use the latter.


My guide for this round of interviews is an amazing young woman who speaks 3 languages fluently (Spanish, Ngäbere, and Bugle) and easily can throw out phrases and words in English due to the fact that she is currently taking a course at the OTS Las Cruces research station to become a nature guide. Her husband is also an English professor at the primary school in La Casona and she has two adorable little boys. She is sharp, patient, and analytical, and I expect she is going to be a great asset to the community in the future as a leader who can help to manage and negotiate development and tourism in the community (these are issues currently being discussed and pondered).


One day, while on our hike from one community to another, we were discussing languages and I started to ask her how to say certain things in her language. She started to teach me phrases and nouns as they came to her, and I'm sure she doubted that I would remember any of this by the next day. But I wrote everything down and then decided to do my best to memorize it all, because apart from it being exciting and useful, I wanted to prove to her that it mattered to me.


The next day when we were hiking again I told her that I had practiced and then recited what I had learned. She laughed and was clearly a little surprised. So I asked her to give me more things to practice. And she again started to name things around us and gave me a phrase to learn. 


I hardly have any delusions that I'll be able to learn the basics of this language anytime soon, but I am already excited to catch words so that I at least know the subjects of conversations!


A quick lesson....


(Ng.)     (Sp.)      (Eng.)
brare = hombre = man
meri = mujer = woman
kwi = gallina = chicken
 nu  =  perro  =  dog
 ti    =   yo     =   I
mo  =    tú  =   you
kwe = el/ella = he/she
kwedres =ellos/-as = they
nundres = nosotros/-as = we
chi = pequeño = small
kri = grande = large
ju (hoo)= casa = house
 ji (hee)= camino = road




I cannot believe I'm running out of time here, but I will be doing everything that I can to return in a year.

To the fincas I go....

http://www.rainforestproperties.com/images/listing_photos/53_coffeestarting.jpg

Tomorrow morning I head to nearby El Roble to visit the finca of the locally famous owner Paco Trejos. This is the finca that produces the brand of coffee called Don Ramon, which can be found in any grocery store in the region. I will interview around 10 migrant Panamanian women who have worked during the coffee harvest and remained on the finca.

While I am excited to begin the interviews that are the crux of this study, I am fearful that maybe I'm going to miss some aspect of the experience of women in these fincas that is important to their health and the health of their infants. Tomorrow is my chance to make sure that I am asking the right questions.

I spent the day preparing questions for the supervisors at El Roble, and stumbled upon newsletters and online videos for the local organization Finca Sana, with whom I have worked to coordinate these finca visits. Associated with the International Organization for Migration and Costa Rica's national health system, Finca Sana ("Healthy Plantation") organizes efforts to improve the working conditions and migrant worker health in the coffee plantations of Coto Brus. They work with community leaders from the Costa Rican Ngobe population as cultural advisors and teachers for health education and other skill-learning workshops given to migrant families working in the fincas.

The organization also works to change the perspective of the coffee plantation owners so that they might no longer view Ngobe migrant workers as primitive peoples who don't require the same living standards as the rest of us.

I am hoping that my results can also help Finca Sana tailor their efforts to improve maternal & infant health on the coffee plantations. Below I've posted links to the YouTube promotional videos for Finca Sana:

Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1YOuccUTyE&feature=related

Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmiQg2Akj_s&feature=related

Frustrations, Surprises

No Panama.

It was decided in some 24 hours when everything seemed to be blowing up in my face.

I started the chain of events with my simple email to the Panamanian contacts about initiating the local ethics review process. I had been informed by my Costa Rican liaisons that I would do the same kind of local approval across the border. They, however, were quite wrong. And I, having been inattentive to this one detail, shouldn't have so easily trusted the Costa Ricans to know the Panamanian protocol. We learn from our mistakes, and I surely won't overlook this kind of thing again.

After a long 24 hours of frantic emails and phonecalls, I was informed that Panama's national ethics committee would not even begin to review my study for another 8-12 weeks - this being after I travel all the way to Panama City to present the documents in person to the committee and pay a big fee. And at that, I decided that it was time to regroup.

This is research at its best. Curveballs just when you think you've gotten in the swing of things.

Within an hour of deciding that I would complete the entire study in Costa Rica, I had formulated a plan based on my initial methodology from several months ago: I would seek out migrant mothers still currently working in Costa Rica and do my best to achieve a good sample size.

However, I was still missing a third cohort for comparison purposes. When I described this dilemma to the doctor with whom I had collaborated to design the project, he proposed that I interview a group of mothers from La Casona who had migrated for work in the past year. Thus my three groups would still cover differences in migrant status and any differences based on nationality - success!

Now, almost a week later, I am preparing to start my interviews in the fincas (coffee plantations) of Coto Brus. I was happy to discover that my desired sample size likely won't be so difficult to achieve, and therefore Panama may not have been a necessary move to find migrant women in the first place.

Ironically, I am currently writing from Panama, as I ventured here a few days ago to renew my Costa Rican visa and do some sightseeing in Panama City while I have the opportunity! I am now in David and will continue heading back to the border to cross tomorrow morning.

Funny thing is, being here just makes me miss my new "home" in San Vito.