Saturday: Work Experience Day, or morning (mañana). Every Saturday and Wednesday morning, at 6:30 AM, most EARTH students bike to different farms and fields to work for experience in their desired areas. Fio goes to work with animals (specifically buffalos), but other students work in the food processing center, on the banana plantation, in the genetics lab, etc. At the moment, I do not participate in this program, so I pretty much had the campus to myself this first Saturday

I peer up at walls lined with shelves of pre-Columbian pottery resembling ducks and llamas and humans. Many vessels feature the cold faces of gods or intricate patterns. Some take the form of corn husks or lumpy potatoes. And with faces of their own, even the foods stare back. I turn a corner to find myself face-to-face with the most unhappy-looking potatoes I’ve ever seen. On a shelf before me, a pot features three potatoes who show their jagged teeth in a haunting frown. Af

I climbed back into the boat, seawater streaming off me in every direction. After taking a quick look around, I flopped over to reclaim...