When you arrive into a new country, the first thing you can't help to do is compare it to the one you've just come from and the places you've already been. Even though El Salvador and Costa Rica are only a mere few hours away from one another, they couldn't be more significantly different. Suchitoto, El Salvador, is surrounded delicately by mountains that give it a humid, quiet calm, while where we're staying right now, the Finca Luna Nueva Lodge, is thrust into the middle of the noise-bombarded, hazardous wild jungle. Since we've been here in Costa Rica, I've learned that the jungle doesn't give you any warning before it rains-- it just lets loose large, cold sheets of water. The Finca Luna Nueva Lodge is quite an amazing place-- a farm and lodging based on the ideals of sustainable agriculture laid down by Rudolph Steiner (the man who established Waldorf schools), also called "biodynamics". Biodynamics consist of the process of creating your own compost out of the scraps from the plants you grow, and using that compost to then fertilize more plants, while incorporating the movements of the moon and planets as you go. Seems simple, right? It's a bite more involved than that... Great care is taken with every little thing in biodynamic farming, the compost specifically. To enrich the compost an animal part is taken, such as a deer bladder, cow skull, or cow intestine, and stuffed with some specific beneficial plant to invigorate to composts properties, such as yarrow or dandelion. These plant-stuffed parts are then barried underground for anywhere between 3-6 months before being unearthed and added to the regular compost. Apparently the inclusion of parts from animals is to add a component of living things and motion into the compost's mixture. Another method used in biodynamic gardening, at least here at La Finca Luna Nueva Lodge, is the use of either powdered quartz crystals or eggshells. They grind either of the two up on a sheet of glass until it's extremely fine, and mix it into a specific amount of water that is then sprayed, very minutely, over a large expanse of crops. One thing is for sure: biodynamic gardening is a very thoughtful and intricate way of growing food. I do admit that, after eating it for a few days, the food grown here at the lodge tastes much better that the food we normally eat. This afternoon we meet our host families and begin our 4-day lives with them.  - Brenna Sullivan