Students and faculty will be housed at Posada Enilda Bed and Breakfast (www.hotelposadaenilda.com) located in the south of the Island in an area called Bottom House. Students do not need to reserve their own rooms, this will already be taken care of before they arrive. This posada is a fully modern facility with comfortable outdoor seating areas, shared dining room, and other amenities, such as air-conditioning, in room safes, and personal refrigerators, and is extremely comfortable.

PLEASE NOTE: Rooms are assigned upon your arrival, and you will be randomly assigned one roommate; you may switch roommates, if needed. You will want to be in a room with someone who has similar sleep/wake patterns and downtime activities (do you like to nap or read, or do you like to talk/listen to music/hang out, etc?) Take the first day to get to know your colleagues, and then work out room groupings that will best suit your individual (and thus, the group’s) needs. However, given the circumstances of COVID, these decisions will need to be made the very first day. Thereafter, roommates will form “pods”, or two-person groupings that limit their nondistanced social contact to one another for the duration of the field program. The owners of Posada Enilda will provide breakfast, every day, and lunch, Monday through Saturday, which will be served in the field or in the dining area at Posada Enilda. Dinners (and lunches on Sundays) will not be provided by the Project, but Posada Enilda will offer a $5.00 (USD) dinner option (every evening – meat and meatless choices) that students can order at breakfast. Additionally Posada Enilda serves large, economical dinners on their regular menu, and restaurants and grocery stores are available on the Island where students can purchase meals.

Food borne illness will be minimized by drinking only bottled water, which will be provided at the Posada so students can fill their bottles, multiple times every day. The owners of the Posada can meet most dietary needs (vegetarians, vegans, and lactose intolerant), other than Kosher, although if given enough advance time to order supplies and with specific instructions/ consultation, the Posada may be able to meet Kosher needs as well, so please contact the Director if this is of interest to you. Laundry services are also offered at the Posada; which you can request when you check in after arriving on site. Meals at the Posada will be served in the outside dining room and veranda, which is well ventilated. As an extra precaution, students should eat alone or within their room pod at separate tables. Meals are served by the Posada staff and brought directly to your table. Rooms are cleaned by the Posada staff every other day, but students are required to take steps to ensure proper daily cleaning such as wiping down shared areas (e.g. bathroom, desks, door handles, etc.) multiple times a day and depositing trash in the outside receptacles each time you leave your room. Students should either bring disinfecting products or plan on buying materials needed soon after arriving. There is an outside, laundry facility onsite where you can do your own laundry for free. If you would like laundry services (pick-up and delivery outside your room), you can request and pay for that service at check in; there is a one-time payment of around $40.00, which will cover laundry services for the entirety of the field season.

The IFR primary concern is with education. Traveling and conducting field research involve risk. Students interested in participating in IFR programs must weigh whether the potential risk is worth the value of education provided. While risk in inherent in everything we do, we do not take risk lightly. The IFR engages in intensive review of each field school location prior to approval. Once a program is accepted, the IFR reviews each program annually to make sure it complies with all our standards and policies, including student safety.

Students attending IFR international programs are covered by a comprehensive Health Insurance policy that includes physical illness or injury, mental or chronic conditions. No deductible and 100% of costs are covered up to $250,000. In addition, we provide Political and Natural Disaster Evacuation policy, which allow us to remove students from field school location if local conditions change. Our field school directors are scholars that know field school locations and cultures well and are plugged in into local communities and state institution structures.