Weather: Sunny and 80

Today I had class at 9am which is the usual time. We immediately hopped on a bus to head to the landfill that San Cristobal utilizes. We were supposed to tour the water treatment facility as well but apparently there was a water emergency so that is postponed til Thursday. Here in San Cristobal each house has three trash barrels. One is green for compost, one is blue for recycle, and the third is black for all other trash items. It is up to the family to make sure things are separated. If the trash company sees that a house is not making any effort to separate trash items, the house will be fined $8. They have 4 pickup days for compost during the week, 2 pickups for recycle, and I believe Omar (the manager of the dump) said 3 pickups for regular trash.

This visit was actually intriguing to me because everyone assumes the islands are very pristine but there is actually a lot of trash produced here. Each week Omar was saying that 18-20 tons of trash are produced, 12-16 tons of recycling, and 18-20 tons of compost are collected each week from residences on the island. When the trash comes into the landfill the workers go through it and re-sort everything because a lot of the island doesn't sort their trash properly. It was evident they didn't have enough resources because when we got there, one of their machines was broken and one of their trucks they use broke down and they haven't been able to fix it yet. They had an overflow of recyclables and there was one part of the dump we didn't go to because the odor would have been horrendous and I think it's due to the machine that's broken. They are understaffed as well, they certainly don't have enough hands to help sort through everything and keep everything running smoothly. It was a really cool experience seeing the process of how things are done and recycled. It was also nice to see that if you put in the effort to compost and recycle it actually gets recycled whereas, in the states that's not always the case.

When it comes to the trash that cannot be recycled or composted, landfills usually excavate land and then bury the trash. On San Cristobal they put the trash on top of the land and add layer of rocks and soil, they continually do this until a pyramid formed. The pyramid we saw today was the second one they have here and it has lasted only 2 years. This poses another issue for them as they are unsure of where to put the next pyramid. They need to exercise extreme caution in deciding where to put the next pyramid because runoff could cause some extensive damage in some areas. Their goal is to have the next pyramid be able to last them 20 years. This trip was quick but I learned a lot and it was really cool to see. I wish they had more resources so their lives would be a bit easier, and it would make composting and recycling more efficient. I think right now they ship the recycling to the mainland and the compost goes to the farmers on the island for free. They do sell some compost for $12 a bag to anyone that may want it.

We returned to campus after an hour and a half and continued with the rest of class. After class, Adrian, Amber, Olivia, and I headed to Fresco which is my favorite vegetarian place. There's only 2 but it is so delish. I ended up getting a quesadilla today and I was able to save some so I can have it for lunch tomorrow and not have to worry about buying lunch. It was good catching up with all my friends and we were all talking about how hard the adjustment here has been. This conversation normalized everything because Amber goes to school on Oahu. She was expecting this to be similar but even she was saying this is totally different as San Cristobal is not nearly as modern as Hawaii. She was talking about how we need to be okay with sitting for a couple hours and just doing nothing. They have a makeshift crossfit here but other than that, there are no gyms to be seen. That would be a great past time for me. I wanted to do some yoga but it's $10 a class which is a bit steep when you're trying to budget. At home, I get a student discount so I can go to a class a day for 3 months for only $160. We all just have to be innovative and come up with ways to entertain ourselves if we don't have any school work and we want to skip a day of lounging on the beach. I want to get into photography more, I've taken advantage of the dance classes they offer every Wednesday this month, and on Thursday I'm attending a free essential oils class. Any opportunity that comes my way I'll say yes to just to switch up my routine a bit.

For dinner, my host family treated me to Calypso which is the pizza place I went to Saturday night. It is so good and tonight I tried a milkshake for the first time. It was pretty good, but as I write this I'm realizing that was way more dairy than my system can handle. The pizza was really good and it was a great time and good bonding with my host family. I am a lot more comfortable speaking Spanish and they speak pretty slow so I understand them easier than Ines. Along the walk back, I ran into some friends in my program. My host family watched the sea lions a bit and I introduced Ana to my friends. I saw Jintong on the pier and he ended up wanting to get bread for tomorrow morning, so Ana and I walked to a bread store and then we all walked home. It turns out Jintong lives up the street a bit which shouldn't have been such a surprise because of how small this island is. Today was a great day, and tomorrow I have to get my butt in gear and do a project. It has been so hard to focus to do work because I am so tired during the day. The heat gets to me really easily and I feel like I'm on vacation especially since my courses haven't been too rigorous.