Photos!

Exciting news! You can now see all of the best pictures taken by the group at http://tbbwest.shutterfly.com. The Costa Rica pics are already up and available.

Costa Rica Part 2

Dear Everyone,

I know this post is reaaaally long, but I will not have any Internet access with my homestay family, so I’m trying to get it all out now. Perhaps break it into sections, and just read a paragraph or two a week?

Next Stop Ecuador! A few people who will not be named made fun of me for not taking Spanish in high school, telling me how useful my Latin was going to be in Ecuador. However, jokes on them, my homestay family will be speaking Tsafiki (of the Barbocoan language family,) not Spanish. The community we are staying in is one of the eight Tsáchila tribes left in existence. I’m sure that any Tsafiki I pick up will be even more useful than my Latin!

All sarcasm aside, I am extremely excited to be experiencing the culture of such an obscure tribe. I don’t have much information about them yet, except what I’ve gathered from trustworthy sites such as Wikipedia, but I will be posting much more once I’ve actually experienced something. What I do know, is that during the 18th century the Tsáchila population numbered about 20,000, however due to disease and the invasion of foreign settlers there are only about 2,000 remaining today. Los Naranjos (the community in which we will be living) has a population of only a couple hundred people, about half of them being children.

In Ecuador we will be studying Natural Resources and the Environment. Our service project will focus on tree planting with local famers in Puerto Limón. For those of you who are interested (nerds,) I will copy our curriculum for the country at the end of this post.

Here in Costa Rica in between our tiresome activities such as zip lining, surfing, and kayaking through a Mangrove (I’m still pulling twigs out of my hair,) we’ve been participating in bi-daily seminars “examining key concepts, developing the skills necessary to be an effective learning team over the coming months, and identifying core assumptions upon which our understanding of ourselves and the world are built.” Seminars have included: What is development? Who are you? How big is the world? What do we assume about ourselves and about others? Who is responsible to develop whom?

And many other ambiguous titles. We have also been setting goals for ourselves in relation to personal growth, social growth, and growth as a learner. We will be discussing these throughout the year in depth with our leader mentors. Mine is Sara, who by the way was once a backup dancer for Neil Young, what?

For a while I was a little disturbed by the fact that we are going to be focusing more on service learning, than the service projects themselves. But after a tiresome seminar, where I bombarded my leaders with an endless flow of inner dialogue type questions, probably earning the resentment of my sweating and bug bitten peers, I’ve realized why this could be a good thing. Service projects, while they do usually produce a world of good, end when you leave. However service learning, lasts forever. Perhaps we may not get quite as much accomplished with the projects as I would have liked, but we are developing skills that will aid us in more effective, passionate, and well thought out service projects for the years to come.  Thinking Beyond Borders is just the jumping point, for a lifetime of service work. I feel as though it is our duty after completing this program, to put what we’ve learned to use. This program isn’t just about helping now; it’s about training us for a future filled with service projects.  Perhaps I’m jumping to this conclusion too early, we haven’t even really started. But the main purpose of this trip has sort of changed for me, and I just thought I’d let you know.

Anyway, I depart Tuesday for Ecuador! Ten days in and I’m already tiring of rice and beans!

Love,

Katherine

P.S. If anyone has any idea how to stop the plague that’s been killing off our kindles one by one, your help would be greatly appreciated.

Ecuador Curriculum:

Overview: Natural Resources are consumed to meet fundamental human needs like clean water, food, and shelter. However, the effects of human consumption upon global ecology threaten to drastically alter the course of history. Poverty, oppression, and concentration of political and economic power often result in environmentally unsustainable practices. The economic, political, and cultural assumptions about the relationship between humans and the environment around the world and within local communities vary widely. While the modern environmental movement in the US often challenges individuals and communities vary widely. While the modern environmental movement in the US often challenges individuals and communities to rethink how they approach handling their waste, the often fail to challenge the assumptions upon which unsustainable production and consumption systems are built.

This course challenges students to identify the assumptions undergirding natural resource use and environmental degradation, explore possibilities for re-shaping productions and consumption patterns, and examine social change theory to learn how to affect those assumptions. Through tree planting with local farmers in Puerto Limón and homestays in the rural community Los Naranjos, the group becomes intimately aware of the various forces affecting decisions regarding resource management. Readings and seminars push the group beyond common perspectives on resource and environment management priorities and philosophies into current design approaches. Finally, national level policies are examined for lessons on effectiveness in policy development.

Essential question: What does it mean to be “environmentally responsible?”

Method: This unit is comprised of 10 seminar periods. They allow students to examine their environmental impact, simulate the challenge of developing resource management policy, explore movements towards sustainable consumption, and examine the anatomy of social movements.

Guiding Questions:

Seminar One: How do societies impact the environment?

Seminar Two: How do societies become environmentally destructive?

Seminar Three: What is development?

Seminar Four: Where will the resources come from as the global economy continues to grow?

Seminar Five: What does it mean to “manage” resources?

Seminar Six: How inconvenient is the truth?

Seminar Seven: Can humans be proactive actors in the natural environment?

Seminar Eight: What role does gender play in environmental responsibility?

Seminar Nine: What is “environmental justice”?

Seminar Ten: How does society change?

Reading:

·      Confessions of and Economic Hit Man by John Perkins

·      Selections from:

-       Collapse by Jared Diamond

-       Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

-       Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

-       Plan B: 3.0 by Lester Brown

-       Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970 by Doug McAdam

-       Rubbish! By William Rathje and Cullen Murphy

-       The Economics of Deforestation: The Example of Ecuador by Sven Wunder

-       The White House and the World edited by Nancy Birdsall

-       Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit by Vendana Shiva

Costa Rica

Disclaimer: this post has very little substance, and is really just for my parents and people who miss my blabbering

Dear Everyone,

I was really stoked to be flying by myself for the first time, and I was all ready to find the group at the Miami airport. Things did not really go according to plan. For one, we sat on the tarmac in New York for two hours before taking off, and for two (wait that's not an expression is it,) my leaders had all memorized all of our group's pictures, and Andrew grabbed me the second I stepped off the plane.  Because of my delays I was the last of the group to arrive, and while meeting all of them at the same time was slightly daunting, the last entrance was the sort of thing dramatic girls like me enjoy.

Currently we are staying in a hotel in Costa Rica. For the next ten days we're going to be lectured on orientation type things, in between group bonding activities, such as surfing and zip lining. I don't know how I feel about the whole vacation thing right away. I'm pretty anxious to get to Ecuador and really start working. About half the group agrees with me.

On first impressions everyone seems great. The group bonded today while singing Backstreet Boys on the four hour ride to the hotel. As my father put it, most of us are "artsy types trying to escape the real world." My leaders also seem great, which means something coming from me who distrusts authority figures so. Sarah (my female leader) is the kind of leader you'd expect on a bleeding heart trip like this, and has a full leg of hair. Perhaps I should follow suit?

Love,
Katherine

Tiny Girl, Huge Bag

Dear Everyone,

I know that my packing situation has been keeping you all up tossing and turning all night, but I'm finally packed, and the data is in. My backpack weighs 1/3 of me (I'll let you do the math.) Today I'm flying to Miami, where I will meet the rest of the group. From there we are all flying to Costa Rica for a week of orientation. More updates when something of actual substance happens!

Love,
Katherine

Six Days Until Departure

Dear Everyone,

As many of you know, I will be spending the next eight months traveling with a program called Thinking Beyond Borders http://www.thinkingbeyondborders.org/program/index.html#globalgapyear.  Along with ten peers, I will be studying the environment and natural resources in Ecuador, economic growth and education in China, sustainable agriculture in India, and public health, human rights, and the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. 

This isn't really going to be a blog blog, more like a way of keeping everyone informed who wants to be informed, and not bothering those who don't with mass e-mails. So throughout the year (when I have internet access,) I will be sending you all updates via this address: http://katherinekollertbb.blogspot.com. 

If you would like to Skype with me, my name is kdkoller493. I will post here the times when I will have Internet access, and we can schedule a chat! You can also e-mail me at kdkoller493@gmail.com. And if you would like to send me a letter you can write to me at the following addresses: 

Before October 22^nd:

Fundacion Yanapuma

Veintimilla E8-125 y 6 de Diciembre

Quito, Ecuador

Before December 14^th:

Lu Yuan and Sam Mitchell

Center for Cultural Learning and Development

School of International Education

Yunnan Nationalities University

12.1 Street #134

Kunming, Yunnan, 650031 China

Before February 1^st:
Manda Parikh
Indian Society for Community Education
Community Education House off Ashram Road
Navjivan Press Road
Ahmedabad, Gujarat
India

Before March 23^rd:

Mr. Rocky Reeder

Willing Workers in South Africa – WWISA

PO Box 2413

Plettenberg Bay 6600, South Africa

I can't believe I'm leaving in just six days! Don’t forget to stay in touch everybody!

Love,

Katherine