Life in Arenal vol. 1

Saturday, 8:00 am: The sound of Queen of Hearts (rock on, Juice Newton) drifts up to my bedroom from the appliance store across the street.... "Joker is the only foo-hoo-hool..." wait, what!? Where the hell am I?

I guess it could have been worse. Could have been Britney Spears...

In lieu of recent photos...

In my packing frenzy, eight short hours before my departure for the airport, I managed to remember a few critical pieces of field equipment (two bikinis and a shower poof = CRITICAL!) but I also forgot a few things, one of them being the digital camera connector/download cable thingy (apologies to the supernerds out there…my technical vocabulary is, well, nonexistent). BUT! I know that pictures are the most interesting part of any travel log, so here are a few from last year to tide you over until I get back to the big city in mid-June.

A view down one of the main streets of Nuevo Arenal

One of the houses constructed for resettlers in the late 1970s.

I'm a sucker for a cute dog outside the local disco...looks like it's been a long night.

Welcome!

I'm jumping on the blog bandwagon...but for a very specific purpose. I hope you'll check in frequently as I post about my adventures in Costa Rica this summer and next year during my dissertation fieldwork.

For those of you whom I have not kept up to date (hi! sorry!), I'm in Costa Rica until early August doing some preliminary fieldwork, then will be returning to the States for a few months to take my qualifying exams. I hope to be back in Costa Rica early next year to begin my long-term fieldwork. In a nutshell, my research will focus on the long-term effects of development-induced community displacement. I'll be working and living in Nuevo Arenal, Costa Rica, which was uprooted and relocated during the construction of a large hydroelectric dam in northern Costa Rica in the late 1970s.

I hope to keep the boring research-oriented stuff to a minimum here (unless y'all request more details), and instead regale you with tales of life as a gringa anthropologist in Ticolandia.

I'm a feedback slut, so please leave me a comment, even if just to say hi!