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The Farming Life in Costa Rica

By MILES H. KIGER
This article was printed in Abroad View fall 2004


One sweltering morning in the lowland tropics of Costa Rica quickly became atypical for gringo me: “Grab her, grab her! Or grab the rope!” shouted our boss Arcelio. I struggled to grasp the slippery length of nylon lying in the mud, as sweat dripped behind my glasses. Tom and Charlie were also sloshing about in the mud, trying to fasten their arms around the squealing pig. Arcelio shouted again, through the yelps, “Wrap the rope around her,” which I swiftly did and then tied it off.

Slowly, we all stepped back, except Arcelio, as Fula stopped squealing. Just moments before Arcelio had given us the nod to help him with the slaughter, Fula, the free-ranging pig of Finca Lomas, had wriggled her way out of her holster and run for the forest. Certainly this wasn’t something we had planned for in preparation for our pig roast.

When I left the hollows of West Virginia for the volcanoes and coastline of Costa Rica, I was fairly certain about the scope of what I was undertaking: I would be managing short-term volunteers at a fruit-tree farm in Costa Rica for the conservation organization, Asociación ANAI, which is committed to numerous sustainable development initiatives throughout the Talamanca region. My duties would be primarily agricultural and labor intensive, but I would also be expected to oversee the volunteers.

After a long, noisy bus ride from San Jose to the south Caribbean border town of Sixaola, I had set out on foot for Finca Lomas. For the following hour I shared a dusty, worn road with banana trucks and banana workers on bikes and on foot. As I got closer to the trailhead of Finca Lomas, the banana plantations disappeared, and I caught my first glimpse of this fruit tree farm woven into a lowland tropical rainforest.

I immediately took to life on the farm. The volunteers and I would wake up early, have bananas and coffee, and then put on our snake boots and mosquito repellent for a hot day’s work. After sharpening the machetes, we’d head off into the hills to cut the undergrowth below the fruit trees.
Since the strategic mission of Finca Lomas is to distribute the seeds of its non-traditional fruit trees to the small family farmers in the region (including areas in Panamá), it was necessary to maintain the plantations so the fruits and seeds would be easy to collect.Thinning the undergrowth also made surveying the plantations—another Finca Lomas project—more manageable.

We sweated hard, machetes clenched in our hands, sometimes exerting so much effort in the morning that we’d be spent for the afternoon. Other days we’d hike the borders of the property, clearing brush while we marvelled at the complexity and diversity of the forest, always scanning the canopy for rare birds and the elusive spider monkey.

By interning with Asociación ANAI as manager of Finca Lomas, I was able to build professionally on the skills I had learned as a student in the areas of natural resources, economics and Latin American geography. My experience at Finca Lomas has reinforced my collegiate ambition to pursue a career in development and conservation, while also pushing me in the new direction of working in international programs focused on sustainable ecotourism.