So...from the top,
Tomas Dozier and family moved back to Tomas' hometown of San Rafael de Vara Blanca shortly after the 6.4 low-lying (strong) earthquake that struck along the fault lying between San Rafael and Cinchona. Tomas was in the International Development masters program at Eastern and came down with his class to conduct a census of those living in the town post-disaster. One of the major requests was a high school in the area and so after finishing his masters, moved his family down to the land he had inherited from his father.
We got to visit the town, Cinchona, that used to exist on a slope that was abandoned after the earthquake. Some of the pictures are below but cannot grasp the depth of the destruction as 2.5 years have passed. On the contrary, you can see how much hasn't been done in this community in the past 2.5 years. Its hard to imagine something like this happening in 13 seconds. Everything gone before you can even have time to figure out what is going on.
The volcanoes in the background are beautiful but you can't appreciate them for all the destruction
Checking out the waterfall from up above
Debris left in its place, 2.5 years later
The doors to the church, waiting for someone to come in
Pictures of San Rafael from the earthquake
The hole looked over by the Barva volcano chain
The hole caused by the massive landslide as a result of the earthquake
The road ends here. You can see a kitchen sink down below.
Most of this house fell over the edge
Couldn't quite catch the literal and figurative depth of the hole
Wanting to do something with the community to help develop it (using all of his higher education) they created the non-profit organization called ADE, Association for Development through Education. It is focused on asset-based development and working with the community, not for the community. They moved down here with no money and found themselves living a life much more similar to their neighbors. This model is focused on relying on the Lord through the efforts of the community to provide basic needs.
ADE started a high school and employed some other gringos, looking forward to the day when their staff and board can be made up entirely of ticos. Through connections with Eastern, Dr. Unander brought down the AuSable Course to Costa Rica with plans to involve ADE in the missions part of Tropical Ag and Missions. When Dr. Foster, my adviser sent me the info for the class, I started looking into ADE and applied for an internship to use the knowledge that I have learned from the class the rest of the summer. Really how I got involved with ADE and my summer here was completely orchestrated by God, because after a long standing battle of not knowing whether or not I was even going to be able to get here, he made it very clear he wanted me here..in Vara Blanca, with ADE.
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