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Thursday, March 9th, 2006
3:30 am	Odds and ends A mishap in the water gave me a chance to sample the local medical facilities. I was pulling my board back around after trying to paddle into a wave when I caught the inside of my heel on the fin of my surfboard. The pain was alarming and it was easy to see blood flooding into the wafer from a 2 inch flap in the skin. I tried to catch another wave but it was too annoying to feel the skin wiggling like a fish lure. Back on the beach the gash was looking disgusting. The blood was flowing pretty well so I figured I better have it looked at. Dominical has a medical clinic wedged between a sub-shop and a pet store. The waiting room had a fan, a bench and a guy with a gash bisecting his right eyebrow. I sat next to him and, well, waited. After a few minutes the doctor stuck his head out for a brusque greeting and to assess the line. Sharing the bench was gash-guy (“I’ll be out in the water for an evening session today”), me, and an older, stout German lady with a foot rapidly morphing into an eggplant. It took the doctor 30 minutes to stitch up the souvenir scar for the surfer and I was in. We settled on English as the language for today’s visit and I hopped up on the table. He poked and prodded, asking questions in a voice and tone that reminded me of Latin bad guys in movies. I was not doing a good job of sticking to the agreed upon language and it was starting to annoy him. We haggled a bit over how to treat the wound and settled on 4 stitches. “This is going to pinch a little” he said with clipped gangster-casualness and stuck what felt like a Lidocane-coated switchblade through my foot. I needed every ounce of machismo I have to keep from squealing. Quickly my foot was cleaned and sewed and ready for my inspection. I checked the other side of my foot for an exit wound and crawled off the table. We sat at the desk while he wrote out a prescription and the bill. Anticipating the typical Costa Rican cheapness I dug around in my pocket for some change. I probably should have known better. He stuck me again for $60 which, of course, I did not have on me. Fortunately there is a new ATM in Dominical just for suckers like me. I hobbled over, leaving a trail of bloody Teva prints, and maxed out my daily allowance ($100). At the pharmacy (on the other side of the sub shop) another member of the doctor’s gang took me for $20. I wonder if it would have been cheaper if I had chosen Spanish as the conversation medium. In the future I will head up to the public clinic in Platanillo where I won’t be given the choice. p.s. It is two weeks later now and the stitches don’t seem to have done anything except keep the wound from filling up with dirt (which I suppose is something). I just had to cut off the flap of dead skin because it was starting to wiggle around in the water again. Playa Dominical is supposed to have the most consistent surf in Costa Rica. Consistent does not always equal good. I’ve paddle out three times in the last week and each day the waves are weirder than the last. The swell is big so I still have to deal with getting pounded when I’m caught inside but I just can’t seem to catch any good ones. The local guys are getting these long rides but I have not been able to figure out how. I guess I’m not a local guy yet. Kaemon and I caught another eatable fish in the river. This time I hope to get an entire snack out of it. We finally caught one of the strange double-light fireflies that Fred and I were freaked out by on our first visit. The two lights come from spots just above the eyes and they stay lit for a long time, not just a few seconds like U.S. fireflies. We let him crawl all over us for an hour until he flew off to make a permanent home in our curtains. One of the local stray dogs had a litter of puppies recently (or so we inferred from her big doggie boobs) so we have been giving her scraps to keep up her strength. A few days ago a tiny black puppy showed up, alone and crying, behind the neighbors house. She was shivering and lonely, and not more than 4 weeks old. It is possible that the mommy was trying to get rid of her. Somehow they all decided that this was now our dog. They were very supportive, telling us that she could live in their dog house while we were here, Marielos volunteered to watch her while we were back in the states, and besides, everyone in CR needs a dog, they said. We were glad that the kids could not understand enough of this discourse to get any wrong ideas. But then they saw the puppy. Now they have ideas of their own. As soon as the puppy moved into the house the kids camped outside. Erowyn (of course) won’t leave the puppy’s side. No matter how hard we try to lock her up (Erowyn, not the puppy) she still manages to get back to ‘her’ puppy. The mommy dog knows a good thing when she sees it so by the next morning all of her puppies were living in the dog house. It is obvious that the little girl is the runt of the litter as her three brothers are almost twice as big as she is. Each of us now has a favorite but there is no way we can take a dog when we are about to go back to the states in a month. I can see a dilemma brewing in our immediate future. For now, the kids have something new to distract them while we have to contend with a family of crying puppies that live three feet from our bedroom window. We have been trying to find places in San Isidro to buy movies and play station games since we arrived here. What we have failed to realize was that the many rental places also sell the disks they have. Just ask them and for $3 they will make you a copy. In fact, every movie and game that we see in CR is an illegal copy. For games it becomes a bit tricky because Sony puts something in their PS2 box that prevents copies from being played. No problem; the guys at the game place also open up your box and put in a chip that defeats that feature (for $40, and they throw in a free game). In CR this is not a backroom activity, it is common, and therefore the only, practice. For DVD movies it works the same way but no chip is needed. An added bonus for movies is that all movies in theaters are also available. These are reasonable quality video recordings of the movie screen. I think they must have a private screening for the movie pirates because they lack the popcorn crunching, coughing, and camera wobbling of the hidden-camera movies I’ve seen in the states. I normally don’t approve of game and movie piracy but it the only game in town here and, lets face it; Ticos would never be able to afford real movie prices. For Christmas the kids got a blow up boat that has been a big hit at the river. Kaemon is developing surprising sophistication with our big Sony digital camera. His favorite subjects to shoot are the TV, computer, and DVD player. I have set aside a folder for his photos and it has over 150 images, a quarter of which look a lot like this: The rest are of random (at least they seem random) inanimate objects, weird close-ups of Erowyn And Em and me He catches a surprising number of gems. Someday I have to post them all and perhaps some child psychologist can give us some insight into his madness, I mean method. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 15th, 2006
3:03 am	The house Week 2 The work started out slowly this week because I am trying to build a house without sharing a common language with the workers or the suppliers. I had to make several trips between the house and the hardware stores before I was able to communicate what Jorge needed. By Wednesday men and materials were all in the same place at the right time. The final columns were placed for the cochera (carport) And the last of the slab was poured The materials for the roof were delivered and during the unloading process one of the guys caught a 6 m metal pipe in the face, cleaving his mustache and most of the lip beneath. We filled out the workman’s comp paperwork in triplicate and Mario took the week off to recuperate from the plastic surgery…not really. We taped toilet paper to his face with duct tape and he went about his work. ICE (the electric company) still have not put in a meter and hooked up my electrical service because their ONE truck is broken down. I told Tacho about my predicament and he whipped out his cell phone. He called an electrician friend who knows people at ICE. Melvin could not get them to come to my place but he was able to go pick up a meter and hook it up himself for $80. The next day we had power and could call the welder in. By the end of the week most of the roof structure was in place. Week 3 There were not very many interesting photos to take this week but the work went smoothly. Inside the house the walls now have a layer of rough cement to secure the wall pieces and cover up the seams. The roof keeps going up. Week 4 We made our journey to Panama to renew our visa this week (will post the interesting story next week…maybe) and the works goes on. The roof was just about finished when we got back. And by the end of the week the roof was finished and the most of the outside was covered in stucco. Week 5 The outside of the house is basically finished so the rest of the pictures will be of the interior. The inside is cool and shady now and it is easy to get a sense of the final space. This is an image of the living room/kitchen taken from the front door. The walls are covered with a rough concrete layer and they are starting to build the cement structure of the kitchen counters. To smooth out the walls the guys use sheet rock compound (which they call ‘pasta’) over the rough cement. They have also started building the ‘cielo raso’ (flat ceiling) which is suspended from the metal roof. Here they have just started to nail wooded strips to the metal tubing. Week 6 Things are really starting to take shape. The ceiling is finished in most of the house and the counters are built. We’ve bought about 1000 m of 1X3 and 200 pieces of fibrolit (WAY beyond my estimates) to create this beautiful flat ceiling and Emily is starting to sweat about the final cost of the house. We have budgeted $25K for the house and we hoped to come in at $23K. Every day I seem to be writing another unexpected check for $150 but at least Erowyn has big piles of ‘pasta’ dust to play in. The week finished of on an exciting note with the tile going on the kitchen counters. We agonized for many weeks about the tile design for the house. There are five different area to try to mix and match: kitchen counters, house floors, bathroom walls, bathroom floor, and patio floor (no one does carpet in CR). We found a tile that we love for the main floor but we waited a week to buy it (my foolish recommendation) and now they don’t have enough. This forced us to incorporate some other tiles in our design and we think it will be even nicer now. We should be already to move in by the end of the eighth week (the first of March) . I just hope the water is ready by then. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 14th, 2006
10:25 am	The House: week one It took us 2 months (I thought it would be one) to start the house but it is finally under way. Here is a quick run-down of the first week. Day 0: The tractor work is complete and the septic tank is in. The full cost of putting the septic in is about $500. They dug a hole, put in three pieces of concrete drainage tube (1 m diameter, 1 m long) standing on end and topped t with a concrete lid. Then the boys went down to the river with the backhoe and dump truck and collected a ton of soccer-ball sized stones for the leach field. Stick in a 4 inch pipe and some plastic sheeting and you’ve got a septic tank. The “house” (as everyone refers to the pre-fab columns and walls) arrives as 5 tons of assorted concrete pieces. Only the driver and myself are present and neither of is interested in work. It takes us 5 hours but with the help of Fili (who stopped by to take the tank home) we rustled up 5 guys to unload the truck (for $2 and hour). While they worked the driver (Felix) and I talked. After an hour or so Felix got the look that I have begun to recognize as preceding ‘the pitch”. A corollary to the fact that all of CR is for sale is that every (male) Tico has piece of it to sell. He told me about 30 acres he had for $600K nearby and 200 acres for $100K down south. Anybody want to go in on the 200 acre piece with us? Day 1: With the walls delivered Jorge and Freddy jump right in. They dig some holes a meter deep and place the columns inside. None of the other supplies have been delivered yet so they can’t do much else. We still don’t have water so I run 500 yards of ½ inch tube from the lake, downhill to our site. It is a quick (5 hours) and cheap ($100) solution to a problem that is starting to piss me off. Day 3: They didn’t work on Sunday but now they have everything they need to move fast. Everything is done by hand. The only tools in evidence are one hammer, tape measure, bucket, shovel, post-hole digger, wheel barrow and clear rubber tube (to be used for long distance leveling). The concrete is made by mixing bags of cement with a pile of sand. Three guys put up the columns while one guy fills in the holes with concrete. Everyday I stop by the property to answer questions and get the list of stuff that needs to be bought for the next day. Day 4: All the columns are up and we can walk around in our ‘house’ to fantasize about living there. Emily samples the view from the ‘window’ above the ‘kitchen sink’ while I take a ‘shower’. Day 6: I forgot to bring the camera on day 5, but work keeps moving along. The walls are up and they are putting in the plumbing today. So far we’ve spent about $6K on materials and paid them half of the $7600 total labor cost. Day 7: Not much obvious difference from the outside but inside they are pouring the floor (all mixed by hand!). Next week: The roof. I hope. ICE still has not come to hook up the electricity because their truck broke down. They need power to weld the roof to the pieces of rebar sticking out of the top of the colums. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 4th, 2006
1:59 pm	The week of Christmas We got our first visitor from the states, and therefore our first re-supply of essentials. Fred came down for a week to deal with his property purchases and brought with him 100 lbs of stuff for us. We got all my necessary tools, hair cutting kit, flannel sheets, 2 lbs of Peet’s Ethiopian Fancy coffee, a now French press, Narnia books, orange juicer, electric mixer, EmergenC, and a boogie board for Kaemon. He also brought with him a girl he has been seeing. We never met her, which seems strange, but is par for the course for Fred’s relationships. We got to surf together a couple of times and, best of all, he watched the kids while Em and I went in the water together. I got to be a practice dummy for Emily’s fears. She had me sit on my board in the places she fears to tread to see what happened when the waves hit me. We didn’t get to hang out with Fred as much as we wanted but K did get lots of English speaking time as he rattled off all his thoughts to Fred. He went with us to see the new mall and we set up power of attorney so that we can conduct business in his name while we are here. Erowyn cried when he left, and te rest of us were very sad. Tacho and Fili finished the tractor work so now we are ready to build the house. We have three spots to choose from and the first house will go in the top most spot; Casa Alta. This spot ended up much larger than the Casa Piedras plantel so we are reserving this smaller spot for friends or family who wish to build a little vacation home (hint, hint: $10K gets you a two bedroom, 500 sq ft house). I got my first experience with ICE and after many trips to the copier they will be hooking up our electrical service next week. I think we come by the office every two months to pick up our bill, which we then pay at the bank. Tacho and I have been making the rounds of the folks he knows that build houses and have settled on Jorge and Freddy. The labor for the 1200 sq.ft. house will be $10K and the materials $10 - $15K. We hope to have it done before the end of February. During our visit to the mall we got the great surprise of a movie theater that shows films in English (with Spanish subtitles). This week we went with our friend Jane (who hooked us up with our rental house) to see the new Harry Potter movie. The place is brand new with comfy seats, big screens, and popcorn. The tickets are $3 for adults ($2 before 4 pm) and $2 for kids (E is free). Erowyn said she had to go to the bathroom every five minutes but never produced. We need some baby sitters to come visit us before the next good movie comes out (that’s you, mom and dad). Christmas in CR has been a new experience. In some ways it is the same: stores put up decorations and people say ‘feliz navidad’. In most ways it is new. The primary gifts given to friends and family are tamales. This means that just before the holidays everyone makes a few hundred of them. Em and I were included in the tamal (don’t say tamale) making festivities next door so now we are part of the tamal-circle. The week between Christmas and new years found two tamales in our hands (see photo) anytime we made eye contact with Lila or Josefina next door. We also spent a fun day (Christmas day) with Marielos where I learned to make choriadas (fresh corn tortilla-like things). Step one of the process required going to the farm of a friend and waiting while they went out to the field to pick the ingredients. Christmas day here does not seem any different than other days. Most stores are still open and people do their normal (in this case Sunday) activities. We did have a couch-full of presents for the kids (from Grandma and Papa) to help the kids maintain some continuity with Christmases past(see photos). (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 31st, 2005
10:22 am	To the rescue Yesterday started off normally enough. Emily went to the local ‘pulperia’ (3 X 5 m convenience store) to pay the electric bill and then drove up the hill a ways to buy milk from the lady with the cow. In the five minutes she was off the main road a semi truck carrying sack of corn jackknifed and closed the only route between Dominical and San Isidro (and between our house and the milk lady). Em left the truck on the side of the road and headed off with her bottle of milk for the 2 km walk home. After getting past the accident she chatted up one of the many cars turning around to head back down the mountain and accepted her first-ever ‘ride from a stranger’. The road remained closed for more than 5 hours effectively canceling all the plans we had for the day. It is very common for unexpected circumstances to alter your course here so we took it in stride and lounged around the house. After the traffic started moving again I set out, thumb out, to retrieve the truck, trusting in the large store of ride-karma I have built up so far to ease my journey. No such luck. During the final steep ascent I had to play goal keeper to a soccer ball that was rocketing down the 2 m wide concrete drainage ditch I was climbing. Once at the car I passed the ball off to the next member of the relay team that was (presumably) elevating the ball back to its rightful owner somewhere up above. The afternoon eased into evening with lots of travel back and forth between our two houses as kids played with our toys and adults watched the backed up traffic head over the hill. All of the ladies of the house next door made at least one trip to inspect our oven and our selection of pans. There was some sort of concoction that needed to be baked and Lila’s oven had stopped working sometime during the previous century. At 8:00 Em and Erowyn were snug in bed and I was reading ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ to Kaemon when Marielos came in with a wok filled with 5 pounds of what she called a ‘tamal’ (singular for tamales). Her instructions were to bake it for 15 – 20 min. I hoped I could stay awake long enough. That turned out to be very easy. A few minutes later, as K was drifting off into ‘Narnia’ on my lap I hear an engine zooming down the hill (very common) followed by loud thump (also common with the potholes out front) then loud engine revving that did not recede into the distance (not common and un-mistakably bad). I rushed outside to see a tail-light in the gutter just past our house and someone running into the street from next door. I yelled in to Emily that there had been an accident and ran back up the driveway. What I found was a motorcycle on its side in the road a few neighbors standing around staring at a young man writhing in the ditch. I sped back into the house to grab a flashlight (upending a Battleship console, scattering the pegs and boats across the living room) and to tell Em to grab our big red Costco first aid kit. Back in the ditch the crowd was growing but no-one was really getting close to the guy. Remembering my first aid training I yelled to someone to call 911 while I put on some rubber gloves. I carefully checked his legs, arms, and torso. He looked about 18 and was wearing only a pair of shorts and a t-shirt; no shoes and no helmet. He was scraped up on the arms and back and was squirming about in obvious pain. On his head I found blood pouring freely from a 3 inch gash in his scalp. This seemed to be the only serious injury so Em opened up some sterile pads and I applied pressure to the wound. Now that I had something specific to do I was calming down and trying to play my red-cross course in my head. I asked him his name and other questions to assess the seriousness of the head trauma. He had no problem with first (Ivan) and last name but could not remember the date or how he ended up in the ditch. I assured him that his wounds were not too bad and that and ambulance was on its way. Someone in the group of spectators must have known someone nearby with medical training because shortly a girl in her twenties, with fashion-ripped jeans and a glittery tank-top knelt beside me and asked (in perfect English) if I had more gloves. I gave her my only other pack and she proceeded to do the same checks (a bit more confidently) that I had just done. She was able (in flawless Spanish) to ask more questions so we learned all about his parents and brothers and sisters, but nothing new about the date or the crash. By now the boy was shivering so she asked someone for a blanket (damn, I forgot about that) to protect against shock. She also reassured him that he would be OK and as quickly as she came she was gone. The only cover to be found was a bed sheet but it didn’t seem to warm him up. Em broke out the crackly Mylar emergency blanket and put it over the sheet. A 16 year old boy appeared at my side that obviously knew Ivan and started asking him a lot of questions. A few minutes later I saw the same boy getting the motorcycle off the scene and another guy working hard to bend the front wheel of a bicycle that was sitting where the motorbike had been. I tried to ask what happened to the person riding the bicycle but no-one understood me. The crowd was breaking into small groups with much social chatter and even some laughter. I remained laying in the ditch, applying pressure to Ivan’s head wound while the fiesta grew around me. Almost every car that passed by came to a complete stop to check out the scene and renew acquaintances with one spectator or another. Once the drivers had confirmed that the victim was not a member of their immediate family they drove on. At some point I remembered the tamal in the oven and yelled out to Josefina to go shut it off. Finally, after 35 minutes, the small ambulance from San Isidro arrived. First out was a young man who seemed to suffer from something like polio or Parkinson’s disease. His Spanish was too slurred for me to understand, but I filled him in on the details as best I could. His partner walked up with what constitutes the Costa Rican Emergency Response Kit: a mini mag-lite and pack of Derby cigarettes. I helped them get a neck collar on Ivan and we slid him onto a board. Then we uno-dos,-tres’d him into the back of the ambulance. One of the paramedics asked me if I had any more gloves and when I said no he went to the van and got me replacements and some new packs of pads. I found a single Teva on the ground near where Ivan was laying (I guess he wasn’t driving barefoot after all) and slid it into the back of the ambulance as they were closing up. A police car showed up about now and this was the signal to the crowd to evaporate. The only ‘witness’ to talk to them was the friend who, had no first hand knowledge, and had been manipulating the scene earlier. When I got back down our driveway I found the banged up motorcycle and various pieces ‘hiding’ behind our truck. After the police had cleared off the friend, and a guy who looked like he could be Ivan’s twin brother, pushed the motorcycle away from our house. The tamal was fine and the next morning we sat with the neighbors and enjoyed it with coffee while they filled us in on the details that we had missed. Ivan, it turns out, did not have a license or papers for the motorcycle. The friends had gotten the bike out of the way and replaced it with the ‘crashed’ bicycle in order to give a plausible story to the cops. Nobody seemed to think that any of this was out of the ordinary. This was a great learning experience for us in the functionality of the police and rescue systems of the area. We now have to be prepared to wait for more than 30 minutes for an ambulance to come, but it is nice to know that the people think of the police as a group to manipulate rather than fear. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 16th, 2005
12:12 pm	Busy, Busy “Why aren’t you all doing this?” This quote from Emily, uttered neck deep in our swimming hole a couple of weeks ago, aimed at everyone we know in the states, has made it into our daily repertoire of catch phrases. Nothing spectacular has happened in the past two weeks but every day there is at least one moment where we marvel at this brilliant decision we made. Here are some of the moments that stand out: We’ve finally broken ground on the property! It took us almost 6 weeks (I had predicted a month) but once it happened it moved fast. I am amazed at what one man and a tank (see photo) can do; especially when the only regulations to follow are the laws of physics. The first home site took only four hours to carve out (see before and after photos). We are planning on putting a 72 sq. m casita (little house) on the spot overlooking the property and the river. The guys wanted to know what we were naming this house (I guess they do that here) and suggested ‘Casa Piedras’ because of the boulders we found there. The scraping here disturbed a meter long coral snake (see photo) called Oxythropus Petolarius. According to our snake encyclopedia it ‘is a venomous form that may also constrict its prey.’ It appears to be dangerous only to lizards, frogs, and small mammals. One of the possible spots for our permanent home is down below Casa Piedras. Many tons of hillside had to be moved to carve out this site and it is still not done yet. Fortunately the tank killed one of our nastiest tenants; a juvenile Terciopelo (see photos). This little guy was only a half meter long but the fangs are still nightmare generators. I think that this snake is the deadliest in the world. The big ones have a head the size of my FIST. This one’s was barely as big as my fingertip but its bite would still send an adult to the hospital. I tossed the dead body into the back of the truck so that I could show Em and the kids and 30 minutes later the ‘corpse’ had moved at least a meter on its own. I don’t think I will be turning my back on it anymore. We also used the tank to smooth out our road and a creek crossing, as well as plowing out a road to our swimming hole. This week the guys are bringing in a backhoe to put in 25 m of drainage pipes. The whole thing will cost us less than $1500. This past week also found me sweating in my boots on the property. Not only did I get lots of machete practice but I put in the electrical service as well. ICE (pronounced ‘eesay’), the local version of PG&E, has only a few rules to follow and beyond that it is anything goes. One of those rules is a 6 m pole buried 1 m deep with concrete. I got to use my growing Spanish skills for these critical hardware purchases and so far it seems to be working out. I am used to just adding water to the bags of concrete that you buy in the states. When I started mixing the ‘cemento’ I realized that it was just powder and would need sand and gravel to become ‘concreto’. This being the land of plenty I scooted down to the river and shoveled what I needed into the back of the truck. I mixed it in until it looked right and slopped it into the hole. The next morning it was hard so I’m sure ICE will be satisfied. All the parts for this operation (pole, 200 amp meter box, mast and weather-head, wires, cement and two grounding rods) only set us back $300. Kaemon started his summer vacation from school at the end of this week. Last week his teacher told me that he could come to school for the last week but that their might only be a few students attending. On Monday only three showed up (see photos) so she told them all to take off the rest of the week until the end-of-the-year party on Friday. Details of some of K’s school experiences can be found in Em’s journal (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sage_tanstaafl/) but I have included some photos here of the little room where the Kinder class meets. We put this extra free time to use this week at the river. Every time we ask him where he want to go he says “fishing at the river!” He has all the casting and reeling skills dialed but still needs help getting a worm on the hook. His practice paid off when he caught the first (and only) eatable-sized fish (see photo). That night I in-expertly filleted the little guy and we all had a few bites. The taste of fresh-caught fish inspired Em to get out there; with not quite so similar results (see photo). While K loves the fishing he usually puts the pole down after 20 minutes to search for additions to his formidable ‘river crayon’ collection. River crayons are rocks made of compressed mud from somewhere upstream. They come in a wide variety of sizes and earth toned colors. When scraped on rocks, cement, paper, or even skin they lay down smooth pigment like a conti-crayon. K can collect these treasures for hours, testing each one to distinguish it from ordinary rocks. Daily trips to the property result in daily driving adventures on ‘our road’. We give the kids great freedom on the kilometer dirt road and they take advantage of it. Kaemon can steer almost the entire stretch, across two creeks, while sitting on my lap. Erowyn usually tries to sit or stand on every available surface during the 5 minute trip. Of course she demand equal driving time as K but she just jerks the steering-wheel from one ditch to the other while screaming “don’t touch it!” every time I try to save our lives. This has also been a great week for afternoons at the beach. Emily is really working hard to learn how to surf. Meter by meter she overcomes her fear of the waves and ventures farther out. The deeper she gets the better her duck-diving improves and the longer she stands up on the board. When she gets tired, and the tide gets high enough, I paddle out for a session of my own while she watches the kids. The waves the past few days have been juicy and I haven’t missed a drop all week. Late yesterday the waves were so big that as I pushed off my board to drop-in the peak of the wave would rise up behind me to blot out the sun; very distracting at a crucial moment. Un-schooling seems to be just as effective here as in the states, but the same old concerns still creep up on us. We brought our PlayStation and all our movies and games with us as insurance against culture shock. The idea was that if it gets to be too much for the kids (and maybe us too) we can retreat into the familiar warmth of the TV set. We have seen very little obvious outward signs that K is having a tough time adjusting but since the first week he has been playing his PS2 games almost every waking moment we are at the house. He even repeats the same game over, from start to finish, even if he won the game the day before. Our un-schooling instincts tell us to let him be and he will find his own equilibrium, but it is still hard. Finally this past week he put the controller down and asked for some paper and scissors to make snowflakes. When he tired of this he asked for some game software for the computer and has been doing Reader Rabbit in between drawing pictures and writing words in Spanish and English. Even when visiting grandkids from next door come over to immerse themselves in the PlayStation he only watches for a while and then comes in the kitchen to help us make ice cream. Always trust un-schooling; your kids know what is best. One final note from the living-off-the-land file: This week one of my milk drinking fantasies has come true. A guy on horse-back stopped in front of our house to sell fresh milk from his farm. We bought a 2 liter soda bottle full for 400 colones ($0.80). I like to think it was still warm from the cow, but it was probably from being strapped to the side of the horse. It has a rich, earthy taste with a hint of the grasses the animals have been grazing on. Is there a category above ‘whole milk’? Best of all I can finally get out from under my pile of empty milk bottles. All we have to do now is find out where he lives so that we can take back the Squirt bottle for a refill. By the time you all get down here we will have a direct line to the source. I promise. Pura Vida (Comment on this)
Monday, December 12th, 2005
1:57 pm	I’m smarter than a rat! (Barely) About one week after we moved in to Casa Alvaro we found a small nibble hole in the paper bag of flour on the top of the refrigerator. I hate it when a rat gets in my food! After cleaning up the mess I put the flour in one of my precious few Ziploc bags (he’ll never get through that!). The next day, of course, not only the flour was breached, but the granola and a bag of cookies as well. I searched around and found his hole in the corner behind the refrigerator, half way up the wall at the junction between the wood and concrete. Plugging up the hole with a rock from the driveway was a snap. Now I could rest easy. At 3:00 a.m. the next morning my easy rest is interrupted by a loud chew, chew, chewing a foot from my head (which happens to be on the other side of the wall from the kitchen). I tried banging on the wall but that only shut him up for a few minutes. When I turned on the lights the sound stopped but then I could see where he was chewing around the rock. Not only was he going to escape soon, but he was driving us crazy. Reluctantly I took out the rock and put the food into the fridge for the night. We got some sleep and he got into the chips in the cabinet. We spent the next morning at Marielos’ house and noticed that she keeps all her package of cookies and such in the microwave. I don’t know if it keeps her rats away but it seemed like a good idea. At home I gathered up everything we have in plastic or paper bags and put it in the ‘vault’. Now I could focus on catching this pest. I cut a plastic water jug and attached it to the wall over the hole. This way he won’t be chewing all night and when he climbs out of his hole he will be stuck in a plastic bubble. That night he chewed through the bottoms of all of our plastic spice jars. Time for drastic measures. I bought some super sticky ‘Gato de Papel’ (paper cat) at the store because I cold not find any traps. He walked across it several times while eating through the peanut butter jar. Now that he has full run of the kitchen I am awakened by the sound of what ever he is chewing through tonight. I bought some big plastic bins (because the microwave is not big enough for all of our food) and had to listen to him trying to get in them. By now I am getting up at 3:00 (his prowling time) every night but it finally pays off. I catch him climbing up the grate on the back of the refrigerator. His body is about 6 inches long with silky brown fur and huge dark eyes (for reading the nutritional facts on my groceries in the middle of the night). I only catch a glimpse as he leaps through a tiny chink in my bubble defense and into the safety of the wall. I’m starting to feel like the hapless cat in all those cartoons. Every night I am up trying to find him and see weather he can bite through metal or glass yet. One night when I creep into the kitchen I hear him in the garbage can. It has one of those swinging lids so I stopped breathing and slithered up to trap him inside. He must have heard the blood whooshing through a valve in one of my capillaries because he jumped out just as I was closing in. This time, however, he was not fast enough. The swinging door caught him in the tail and left him hanging from the side of the can. Now I am hunched over the can, naked, trying to find some way to secure the little bugger for removal. Just as I stretch out to grab a pot he wiggles furiously and his tail snaps off! Before I can react he is in his hole and gone. We heard him whimpering in the wall for a while and then he scampered through the ceiling and out into the night. I figure that there is no way he is coming back after that. The next night was peaceful and quiet. Two mornings later Emily finds herself covered in vegetable oil because he has chewed tiny holes in the bottle. Now I am desperate. Stuffing his hole with bubble wrap only slowed him down for a night. Covering the floor below his hole with empty water bottles didn’t scare him off but it did give us an early morning heart attack. One morning, after I went into the kitchen to frighten him back into his hole only to find my bins chewed up, I mumbled under my breath, “This rat is smarter than I am”. “They’ve been around a lot longer than we have” Emily called out in her sleep. Last night I went to bed early. When I was awakened at 3:00 to what I’m sure was the sound of my rat chewing his way through metal cans I decided to try to sneak up on him. I managed to get to the kitchen cabinets before he heard me and promptly closed the doors. Now he was trapped! I methodically removed everything from the cabinets while preventing his escape. I searched every inch but there was no sign of him. I stood still for a while and finally heard him dislodging himself from his hiding place. I banged on the cabinet to drive him back into his bolt hole and went to find some sort of trap. While searching around I saw a giant salamander in desert camouflage hovering around the rat hole (see photo). He too was missing his tail. Is he the master or the apprentice? There can be only two. Eventually I found a three foot tall shipping box and the transparent cover to our ice cream maker. I laid the box on its side in front of the doors to prevent his escape (while still allowing him to open them), held my breath, and stood like a statue with one hand hovering over the cabinet door. After 5 minutes of this he starts creeping out the door but I was so anxious that I flinched, allowing him to scurry back in. I had to freeze for another 20 minutes before he came out again. This time I got the door closed behind him to prevent a retreat and eventually he ran into my big box. After that it was easy pickings. I slammed the see-through lid over him (see photo) and slowly worked out the kinks in my aching muscles. “Yes!” I whispered, so as not to wake the others. “I AM smarter than a rat.” Through the walls of the little Plexiglas prison he looked frozen with fear. All of my fantasies about a slow, torturous execution dissolved away as I stared at his wide, black eyes, his hyperventilating chest, and his stub of a tail. I piled everything I could find in the kitchen on top of the plastic cover to prevent his escape and climbed back into bed. My sleep was troubled by thoughts that I was the villain and I had just left the hero unattended for the night. This is always the time that the good guy whips out the laser watch to cut his way out. Maybe the lizard is waiting patiently in the rat-mobile. I got up again to check on his progress (the stupid movie villains NEVER take this simple precaution) and he did not seem to have even moved. The next morning he was still there for Em and the kids to gawk at over their breakfast cereal (see photo). I boxed him up and Kaemon and I tool him with us on the way to school. Following the advice of Verity, out 9 year old rat expert, we found a nice piece of jungle near a creek and set him free. He took one tiny hop and then an effortless five foot leap into the bush. I think, perhaps, that it was luck, not cunning that allowed me to catch him that night. Since then our nights are restful and our food is un-molested. I hope we move out of here before he gets back. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 7th, 2005
2:16 pm	Waste not want not I have a problem. Ever since coming here I can’t seem to throw anything away. When I lived in the U.S. I thought that time was my most valuable asset so I tried to conserve it. Now I realize that I was saving time to the exclusion of many other things. I remember tossing out 2/3 of an onion just so I wouldn’t have to turn around to get a bag. If I happened to make more pasta than sauce the extra pasta would go straight into the trash. Em would always say “Hey! That would have made a snack for me.’ Sometimes I even tossed out leftovers if I couldn’t find the right sized Tupperware. Those days are gone. Here in CR I find myself using a single onion in three different meals. When it comes time to decide what to have for dinner I pull out all the little plastic bags in the fridge (not Ziplocs, but reused bags from the grocery store) and divide up the contents of each onto our plates (corn, plantains, tomato, chicken and rice, hearts of palm, pork chop, yucca, whatever) . The result is a pretty close approximation of the varied ‘typical’ Tico dish ‘Casados’ that is served in every restaurant and Soda. My obsession, however, extends way beyond the fridge. Here are a few examples of my new madness (and my past crimes): I used cardboard cracker boxes to line the wire shelves in the bathroom. I keep partially used paper towels on the counter until there are no clean/dry spot left on them. (I remember once or twice throwing a paper towel away simply because I ripped it tearing it off the roll) I have a stack of used Ziploc bags (I can’t seem to escape them yet) to put dirty paper towels and other stuff in that the ants might like to eat so that the garbage-can stays uninhabited. There is a HUGE stack of plastic milk jugs collecting in front of my house. We generate one a day and I can`t bear to throw them in the trash. I know I will find a use for them. Any ideas? (in the states I had so many milk jugs in my trash bags that they could be tied together to build ships. I never recycled). We rarely by soft drinks or other bottle generating items, but when we do they go into the pile. We have a separate pile for all the caps, but fortunately they all seem to be interchangeable here. I have been using the same 4 water-bottles we bought in our first week. They are looking pretty bad, but if they don`t leak they stay in business. I refill them from the water tand used to supply the properties in our valley. For the first time in my life I have some understanding of the mind of an environmentalist. I can’t pinpoint the cause for the dramatic change in me other than to say that it just seems irrational to throw something away. There are a few things that I’m sure are contributing to my new attitude. First; I don’t have an income. My wallet is no longer a renewable resource. Everything of value that I throw away is one less moment I get to stay away from work. This is very motivating. Second; shopping in CR is difficult and time consuming. Often we go to the store to find that the thing we want won’t be in until Monday. I’d much rather try to get by with what is in the house, but that only works if you have a lot of stuff in the house. Third; I love throwing organic garbage out the kitchen window. It feels like I’m investing in food. I’ve coined the term Eco-littering for the banana peels I toss out the car window. (The closest I used to come to recycling my organic garbage was when the raccoons would get into the can outside) Forth; I hate the thought of harming this beautiful place. I don`t know where they take the garbage, but I can`t think of a place that I would like to see a dump. I can think of many places in the states that would benefit from piles of refuse (Bakersfield comes to mind). I would like to apologize to any of my environmentally-friendly friends for any argument I got into in the past. I should have spent more time trying to understand your position. I might understand myself better now if I had. I will update this post as I acquire more insights. This is an awesome place for growth. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 2nd, 2005
12:08 pm	Living off the land One of the reasons that fresh food is so cheap here is that it is so easy to grow your own fruit and vegetables that most people are using ‘free’ as a price comparison point. Anyone who has any land whatsoever (which is everyone who does not live in an apartment) has some food growing on it. Our house sits on the 2 acre plot that belongs to the neighbor. The only plants that don’t produce food are a few shrubs (that have continuous flowers) and a few weeds (that also have continuous flowers). I’m not even sure that I should discount the weeds (as ou will see later). Just because I have not actually SEEN Lila and Marcos eating them doesn’t mean that they don’t. I think that it will take us a few years to turn our property into a supermarket but I know that our friends here can how u how to do it. Yesterday we were visiting Marielos and I asked her how to cook Yucca (her is very tasty) because I tried to make it and it was gross. “De donde gana su yucca?” she asked. (Where do you get your yucca?) “At Super Platanillo” I answer (in Spanish). She makes a face. “Venga con migo” She says heading out the door. On the way down the stairs she grabs a meter long machete and leads me through the banana and pineapple trees toward the trees that line the river behind her house. When we get to the steep bank above the water she starts inspecting the tiny berries hanging from these skinny, 2.5 meter tall trees. “Blah, blah, blah, seca” she says, so I infer that we are looking for berries that are dried up. She finds the some she wants and promptly hacks through two 5 cm trunks one meter above the ground and chucks the trees over the edge of the bank. She grabs the two stumps and begins to yanks a bit and then steps back. Either this was a tutorial or she realized that there was a beast of burden nearby to do the sweaty work. I got the message and stepped up to imitate her yanking stance. A bit of manly tugging and I was rewarded with muddy kilo of fat yucca roots on a stick. It seemed like quite a haul but Marielos gave me the look that clumsy men the world over are familiar with. “Mas suave (gently)”, she patiently admonishes, and inspects the clump of roots for the missing bits (she could tell just from the sound that I had screwed it up). After momentarily repositioning the roots over the hole she reached straight into the mud to grab the fattest root of them all. We now had in our dirty paws more yucca than I could eat in a month but M continued deforesting the stand of yucca until we had as much as we could carry. She saw that I had big hands so we got yucca for all of her relatives too. After digging the broken roots out of each hole (I never did get ‘suave’ enough) M would slice off a forearm length of tree trunk and stick it back in the hole to generate dinner in February. After cleaning ourselves up and divvying up the roots for delivery (we were taking a bag to Lila) she told me how to get an ‘hijo’ (son) from a banana plant and when to plant it. I asked how to prepare the yucca and she gave me a list of ingredients. I didn’t know what ‘culantro’ was so she glanced down at the road at her feet and picked a few leaves from the nearest weed. It had broad green leaves similar to a dandelion and smelled like cilantro. I told her as much and she said that it is from the same family. She continued picking these ‘weeds’ from the side of the road until she had a bunch big enough for me to take home. When we dropped the yucca off with Lila and Josefina they strong-armed us to sitting down and eating some of their scrumptious chicken soup. I don’t think they chicken came from the yard, but everything else did. They usually serve the soup in the bowl with a piece of chicken (on the bone) in it. On the side they have a plate of ‘goodies’ to put in it; yucca, yampi (similar to poi, I think), and boiled green bananas. A glass of limonada to wash it down always comes out next. Every few days Marcos heads out back with a very long stick-like contraption to pick the hideous green lemons with the beautiful orange flesh (see photo). He always dumps more in my arms than I can carry. We too have gotten in the habit of always having lemonade on hand. After our mid-afternoon snack Marcos takes me out back to hunt for lombrizes (earthworms) with a machete. It seemed a bit severe but it turned out that he was only using the blade as a shovel (very versatile, the machete). After 10 missed attempts we hit the mother load and packed a big wad of worms and mud into a re-used (of course) cream cheese container to take fishing with us. Kaemon has never been fishing before so we are starting out on a small pond near our property. I was a bit concerned that he would suffer the disappointment of not catching anything but I forgot where we are. Casting the hook-and-worm kebab out into the rain spattered water was all the work needed to get a bite. We usually didn’t even have time to lock the bar on the spinner before the red and white bobber disappeared beneath the surface. K was beside himself and caught greater than 10 fish in less than an hour. None was big enough to eat (one feisty monster was no longer than my thumb) but I’m sure we’ll find ‘the big one’ somewhere. I can’t wait to see what other staples the forest can serve up. The ultimate achievement will be when I’m able to get the berries from the coffee plants out back to my cup. Maybe I should ask Marco. The neighbors are a good source of local food lore and really squeeze the land for everything it can dish out; maybe too good. The little dog has not eaten in a couple of days and Lila told me today that if he dies he will make a nice soup for us. I’m sure she was kidding. Pretty sure. Pura Vida (Comment on this)
Monday, November 28th, 2005
8:58 am	Wow! What a great week. This is the life I wanted. We did so many things this week that I will just try to give the highlights. Details will be filled in as time goes on. Kaemon had his first full week of school. He looks so cute in his little blue uniform (see photo). It is amazing how similar he looks to the other kids (except for the blue eyes). He is in the ‘kinder’ class with about 12 boys and girls his age. Everything is in Spanish so Emily has been staying with him the whole time (from 7 to 10:30 am). On Monday she left him alone for an hour and afterwards he said that the time she was gone was even ‘awesomer’. Starting Tuesday we just dropped him off and picked him up. That gave me a chance to head to the beach most mornings for a surf. The surf at Playa Dominical never seems to end. Only the tide-changes alter the conditions. Every wave I catch is done without a person within 50 feet of me. I did get bit on the big toe by a crab one day, though; more shocking than damaging. Those things are really strong! Emily finally got a chance to go to San Isidro alone to do some banking, shopping and internet surfing without having to deal with keeping Erowyn from reducing the town to rubble. Erowyn and I took that time to go on a hike together (where the Parujas got me) on the coffee plantation behind our house. It is nice to have K free from school at 10:30. It leaves us with plenty of time to do other things. We had a great hike in Hacienda Baru (a nearby nature preserve) where K carried a big knife and hacked at vines the whole time. On the trip back from the beach we got dumped on but it was the perfect place for it. Emily even made a rain hat out of a giant leaf. We made 4 trips to the beach this week and each time K gets more adventurous. He is now ‘catching waves’ with a piece of Styrofoam that I found and swimming under the waves as they go by (see photo). He can stay out there for HOURS. Erowyn is content to run to and from the waves screaming at the top of her lungs. We were concerned that being in a room full of kids he can’t talk to was wearing Kaemon down so we went to find him some English speaking kids to play with. We visited Finca Ipe (the organic farm across the main road from our property) and there we found Max, an almost 5 year old who speaks English, German, and Spanish. They got along great and I’m sure they will spend a lot of time together as he will be in K’s class this February. Afterward we stopped at the restaurant next to the Platanillo soccer field to get information about the girls we heard about that play there. The field is closed until ‘summer’ (December) but we discovered that the owner of our favorite restaurant (now closed) in Dominical is now running the (formerly crappy) restaurant closest to our property. At the same time K found one of his classmates (Jesus) living next door and had an impromptu play-date. On Wednesday K’s class took a day-long field trip to the beach with all the moms (and me). He gets along great with the kids and the boys are always trying to teach him how to play soccer. I am amazed at the soccer skills these 5 year olds have. On Thursday Emily went to join her girls-soccer practice to find that it was canceled for Thanksgiving (which we had completely forgotten about). Realization that it was our favorite holiday made us homesick. This is the first Thanksgiving in 6 years that I have not made a big dinner for family and friends. We then tried to find a place that was celebrating but without success. We went, instead, to our favorite fish place for pescado entero frito con ajillo (fried whole fish with garlic). We have been trying to save money so we haven’t treated ourselves to a nice dinner out since we got here. They have one of those stuffed animal ‘crane’ games there that has brought K to tears in the past. He wasted 100 colones ($.20) and walked away sad (as usual). We gave him the usual spiel about how no-one can win and it is designed to steal a kid’s money. As we were consoling him a girl eating next to the machine got up and scooped up three prizes with only 4 coins. She gave all three animals to K and E. They were BEAMING with joy. I fear for the next time we encounter one of those games. After school on Friday we went down the street to Parque Reptilandia (snake-land!) to get a first-hand look at the killers we will be dealing with on our property. We were not disappointed. Friday is feeding day and we got to watch the varied and violent deaths of many mice and rats. K was absolutely fascinated. E, of course, spent most of the time playing with the local dog. The terciopelos (fer-de-lance) in residence is a pit viper with a head as big as a deck of cards. The rat barely had time to squeak in surprise. This is the snake that recently killed the dog of the folks who live on a neighboring property. It was sobering, to say the least. On Saturday we met with the guy who says we will have water to our property in 10 days. I’ll be amazed if it happens in 20. Afterward we hung out at the house of the mother of the guys who we hope will be doing tractor work for us next week. She (Mariellos) is also one of the many daughters of Lila and Marcos. We ate fried plantains, drank coffee, and learned a new way to drink juice directly from an orange. As I said, it was a great week! Pura Vida (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 24th, 2005
8:57 am	Bite Me! Did I mention that there are bugs in Costa Rica? Well, there are. A few are nasty but most of them are simply annoying. They fly around the house and smack you in the head. They flap around the lights, casting large shadows across the room. They lull you to sleep at night and wake you up in the morning. They eat your food. They eat your house. They eat you! The mosquitoes are not much different here than anywhere else. In fact I think they might be slower here than I remember at home. In any event, they are familiar and not as bad as August in California. I’m even happy to have fruit flies around now. I use them as a shopper’s helper: if the fruit flies don’t want a piece of fruit then it is not ready to eat. There are these tiny ants (hormigas) that get you if you stand still. The bite hurt like hell at first and then itches for an hour but generally they are just a nuisance (unless you happen to sit on their home, like Erowyn did, see photo). The bugs that we have not gotten used to yet are the Parujas (no-see-um). First of all, as the English name implies, you can’t see Parujas (sp?) to smack them. Second, they fly through ordinary screens (not that we have even ordinary screens in our house). Third, their bite is unlike any other I have experienced. The Paruja bite has a complicated life of its own. Stage 1: The bite happens but you don’t really feel it. This makes it hard to catch one in the act so that you might have a chance to see-um. It also means that you can get many bites before you know you should be protecting yourself. They are most active at dusk and usually bite on the leg or ankles. Stage 2: A thumbtack sized welt forms with what looks like a small drop of blood in the center. This does not really itch, but it does hurt a bit. After an hour or so I get used to it and start to think “that’s not so bad”. In a few hours the welt (and often the red dot) is gone. Stage 3: Ten hours later I start to doubt my decision to move here. A two inch diameter area around the bite is red, swollen and itching to distraction. If you have multiple bites it is difficult to sit still and nearly impossible to resist scratching. This is the stage where Emily thinks she has ‘elephantitis’. These red blobs can last from 24 to 48 hours. You go to sleep at night and lament “when will this be over”? Stage 4: Eventually comes a morning when stage 3 is over. Now there is a pea-sized hard bump. It still itches, but not as bad. Unfortunately the bump is an easy target for scratching. By now I’ve given up any pretense at self control. The focused scratching feels GREAT but leads to… Stage 5: The scab stage. By the time I’ve torn the skin off the bump the swelling has gone down, the itching is gone, and I now have a small scab at each bite. This is the point at which our neighbors point out that maybe we should be wearing pants and I am slathering on the DEET to prevent another 5 day cycle of swelling, scratching and scabbing. As you might imagine we do not want to live like this so we have been trying everything to stop the Parujas. Here are some tips for anyone who will be traveling to CR so that they won’t have scars for memories. Tip 1. Apply bug repellent as soon as you get off the plane (or maybe in the bathroom as the plane is on final approach). Put it on ankles, leg and arms (almost all bites are on the legs. Maybe they get nosebleeds if they fly too high). Emily got the worst attack (20+ bites) in the first couple days and it made the first week miserable. For most travelers this is half of their vacation. Once you have been here for a few days you start to figure out how to avoid them. Tip 2. Use the good stuff. Repellant that is made for kids won’t do you or them any good. We have had success with Bug Juice from REI (with DEET) and OFF Botanicals (without DEET). Our neighbors suggest Hawaiian Tropic SPF 30 sunscreen but we like the others better. Tip 3. Protect yourself at dusk. 90% of the bites happen between 4 and 6 pm. The best protection is to wear some light, long pants in the evening. The no-see-ums don’t seem to be able to bite through clothes (like mosquitoes) so the more you cover the better. Tip 4. Protect when you are going off the main road any time of day. I only got attacked once in the middle of the day and that was during a walk through some coffee fields. If you are out in the jungle it is better to be safe than sorry. Tip 5. Use a thin sheet or other cover at night. The Parujas are not that bad during the night, but the mosquitoes take over the late shift. Now that we have figured out how to deal with them the scabs are fading and our enthusiasm for CR is waxing again. This is just one more adjustment that needed to be made. Pura Vida. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 19th, 2005
8:55 am	Laughing in the face of death As I have mentioned before, Erowyn’s favorite pastime is to head next door to “go see dogs.” The small dog, Muneco (doll), is very cuddly and affectionate. I have never seen him off his tether but he has a fair amount of room to roam and a ramshackle dog house to escape the rain. He and Erowyn are fast friends. There is much licking (possibly mutual), hugging, snuggling, and tail wagging. The big dog is usually on a short leash in the barn but sometimes they let him run around. Whenever he is free he comes straight over to our house to lick crumbs of food off the floor and to look sad when we kick him out. E always goes over to see him too but they don’t do as much hugging. The big dog has been kind of sickly since we got here and one day I even had to hold him down while the rest of the men in the family forced medicine down his throat. I don’t know why (well maybe now I do), but we have never learned the name of the big dog. This weekend 5 of the 50 grandchildren were visiting. The kids range in age from 7 to 18. All but the oldest girl (who had a 3 year old kid of her own along for the visit) spent most of the time at our house playing the Play-Station and computer games on the laptop. All of the kids were very childlike and innocent in the ways I have come to expect from Costa Rican children. Even the 14 year old boy would listen intently when Em was reading a Jorge el Curioso (Curious George) book to Erowyn. In fact, all were unusually interested in our books, as if they were starving for them. While Kaemon hung out with the bigger kids E spent her time playing next door with the three year old. Today, Erowyn came back down from hanging out with the little one to tell us to “come see the nake” (her version of the word snake). She did not seem too worked up about it, and nobody else was talking about it, so we figured she was talking about plant or debris that just looked like a snake. A bit later she wanted me to come “see the dogs’ so I went with her. We walked over to where the big dog usually hangs out and even from far away I could tell that something was wrong. Usually dogs don’t let flies land on their eyeballs. Once I was sure that it was dead I told Erowyn and she got very quiet. After a few seconds of reflection she moved closer saying “I wanna see”. I let her get a bit closer then picked her up to go tell the family. Josefina came over first (it is her house and, ostensibly, her dog). She said the Spanish equivalent of ‘Hmmm’ as though I had just pointed out an interestingly shaped rock on the driveway. She turned to tell Marcos as her sister Marielos walked up. I didn’t follow the conversation but they were both chuckling as they looked at the dead dog. The oldest grand-daughter came over and openly laughed as soon as she saw the stiff body with the tongue lolling out onto the dirt. Marcos took one cursory glance and started putting on his boots. I guess after 80 years in the jungle and seven lost children the circle-of-life loses its Disneyesque emotional edge. Only Muneco seemed upset by the event as the oldest grandson dragged the corpse past his doghouse. It wasn’t until an hour later that I started wondering about the connection between the dead dog (who was walking around earlier in that morning) and Erowyn’s ‘nake’ sighting. Emily, of course, did not like this AT ALL! Josefina seems very sure that the dog was not killed by a snake but Em is not quite buying it. Now when Erowyn heads up to see the dogs she goes with a security detail. Next time Em wants me to follow Erowyn next door maybe I should wear sunglasses and an earpiece. Or…maybe not. Sarcasm and snakebites don’t mix well. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 16th, 2005
12:31 pm	The simple life sets in It looks like I got what I asked for; nothing to do all day but hang out with my kids. That pretty much describes our day but it does not make for interesting reading. Let me try to put you in the action. We usually start stirring at 5:30 in the morning when the sun comes up through the corrugated plastic skylight in our bedroom. It is possible that there are lots of bird and bug noises in the air but they are drowned out by the semi-trucks jake-braking down the hill in front of the house. The only thing that drowns out the traffic is the jerk across the street that blasts his stereo to frighten the sunrise. We are usually huddled under the thin blanket because it gets cool (70 deg) in those last hours before dawn. As soon as Kaemon wakes up he heads out to the living-room and turns on the play-station. Right now he is going back and replaying Sly Cooper 1, 2, and 3. Em and I lay in bed until we can’t stand the feel of the sheets anymore. All the linens in CR are made of a wool-fiberglass blend. Anyone coming to visit from the US must bring us one flannel, queen size sheet set. Erowyn, impervious to external conditions, sleeps like the dead for an extra hour. After putting on some trunks and brushing my teeth I get working on breakfast. I start by squeezing oranges ($.30/lb.) for juice and then whip up some potatoes and eggs ($1/dozen, un-refrigerated). Sometimes Em makes crepe roll-ups (with cinnamon and sugar). The skim milk here is still too weird to drink but we’ve gotten used to the 2%. We don’t eat much cereal here because most of it comes from the US and is sugary and expensive. I finish up with a big plate of fruit for the morning (see photo): pineapple (white or yellow, $.25/lb), bananas ($.03/each), mangoes ($.75/lb, out of season. The ones with the big black spots are the best), and assorted others. So far we are still in the US habit of going somewhere and doing something every day. Most activities require slathering up with sunscreen so we spend a half hour doing that and brushing kid’s teeth (almost as hard as pulling them). Equally difficult is getting clothes on Erowyn (see photo). It is easy and comfortable to be naked all day so that’s what she wants. Before taking off I always pack the car with goodies we will need; Dictionary, water bottles, a ham and cheese sandwich, extra clothes (for when we get muddy or drenched), hats, and ‘the list’. While I’m getting stuff ready to travel Erowyn goes next door to visit the dogs (see photo) and Em is usually starts working on laundry. We have a washing machine but it is 90% manual (see photo). First you have to fill up the tub with water from the sink, and then you agitate the clothes on ‘normal’ or ‘fuerte’. Next to stick the drain hose out the wall and flip a switch to ‘drain’ and the water goes out behind the house. When the clothes are drained you move half of the wet clothes to the spinner and get rid of the water. Then do the same to the other half. Now you repeat the entire process to rinse the clothes. After all this we hang the clothes on the line and hope they get drier, not wetter. We have three primary destinations: shopping in San Isidro, the property (to play in our river), or the beach. The drive to SI takes about 20 minutes. Often we see this guy who looks just like Juan Valdez heading to the coffee fields with his donkey. Usually we have to wait for a bulldozer that is continually pushing the jungle back from the road. On the way into town I size up the fruit stands to decide which to stop at on the way home. The deciding factor is usually the state of the banana bunches hanging from the rafters. SI is about 8 X 10 blocks of bustling commerce; small enough that we park near the center and walk to whatever we need. If the morning is hot we start off with batidos (milk and fruit blended with ice, $1.50/ea) at our favorite Soda (café). After four attempts we finally got our bank account working, so now we stop in to refill my Ziploc wallet. Mush of our shopping has been to get our house in a functional state. There is no Wal-Mart so we have to find the store that specializes in the thing we need (plastics, pots & pans, hardware, etc). This would be a good place to study the link between aluminum cookware and Alzheimer’s, since that is all they sell. While the kids run around the park in front of the church Em and I take turns at one of the internet cafes (I don’t know what the ‘café’ part is for, they only have computers. $1/hour). All we have found in SI is dial-up; very frustrating after a life of DSL. We finish up the trip with a stop at the grocery store for milk ($1/half gallon, no gallons anywhere), cheese ($1 to $4/package, depending the kind), chicken ($2.50/lb for boneless breasts; the beef here sucks.), canned goods, etc. On the way home we stop at a fruiteria for fruit and veggies to last a day or two. We have yet to buy a tomato ($.75/lb) that was not fabulous. As long as we continue to buy locally it should be very easy to live cheaply. I have not, however, seen whole coffee beans anywhere, except on the backs of donkeys. When my Peet’s runs out I will have to rely on visitors to bring me a fresh supply. On days where we don’t need supplies we might head to our property. The river is still flowing pretty strong, but it is easy to play in. Throwing rocks can occupy K and E for hours. They are both venturing farther out from the bank with every visit. Kaemon is getting good at moving from rock to rock in waist deep rapids. Emily and I take turns exploring up and down the river. The river terrain varies from deep slow pools to fast water pouring between room-sized boulders. Every 50 meters or so you find a waterfall trickling or gushing out of the jungle. The water always seems cold when you first put your foot in but after a few moments you can’t understand why you just thought that. Access to our favorite swimming hole is still limited due to the jungle’s intrusion, but we hope to get a tractor in there soon. I would like to do more jungle exploring but Em is too worried about snakes. It is possible that I should be worried too, but it might take a first-hand sighting for it to sink in. Beach days are always fun (see photo). It takes us 25 minutes from our current house to get there so we don’t go every day. The kids are very comfortable in the water now and it is easy to do things together. We had a great time diverting a river in the sand created by an emptying tide pool. It took over an hour of rock piling, canal digging, and sand scooping to completely change the course of the meter-wide stream. On another visit Kaemon was starving for some playtime with other kids and we found two Tico brothers (8 and 12) throwing sticks to a dog in the surf. The older boy was very friendly and tried hard to get K to play with them. After 10 minutes of hiding under my legs K found a stick of his own to throw and in short order he was wrestling with the kids in the water. They played soccer in and out of the waves and floated back and forth with the whitewater until the sun went down. We try to get back to the house before dark to make the pot-hole slalom easier. Some areas are more hole than road but having the seats ahead of the front wheels makes finding the smoothest line. Our driving habits have changed from previous trips because now we OWN the vehicle and care what happens to it. If the going is particularly slow as we pass in front of a pulperia (tiny store) we will stop for an ice cream bar. When we get home K heads straight for the PS2, E sleeps in the car, Em continues with the laundry and I make us some coffee. Unfortunately Em broke my French Press (one of our few irreplaceables) so I have to use my labor-intensive Vietnamese ‘top-hats’. Fortunately I have all the time in the world. While we savor our coffee we both try to write in our journals or read. Em has a Spanish novella that she is translating her way through. On lucky days (like today) she takes a nap. The jungle starts turning dark at 5:30 and I start getting hungry. This is usually the time I realize that I didn’t eat lunch. We made a big batch of rice and beans to lasts us a week so that is the foundation of dinner. Added to this I try to make some meat and vegetables, maybe some fried plantains or potatoes, and serve it with Lizano and Chilero. K and E are not much for dinner but they always eat the lunch that I forget. While Em and I eat K plays his game and E watches a movie (for the 10th time) on the portable DVD player. After dinner (sometimes before) I make sure that I get one-on-one time with Erowyn and Em does the same with Kaemon. E loves to fight on the bed or chase a ball around the house. K likes to draw, do puzzles (especially mazes), or practice writing in one of his workbooks. By 7:30 K is getting tired and E is getting up a head of steam. K is finally old enough to enjoy a book without pictures so I have been reading him Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. By 8:00 he is usually asleep and Erowyn is crawling all over him saying ‘wake up. Bubby!’. Em and I leave E to tire herself out and drift fitfully to sleep on our fiberglass sheets, the cricket-chirping of our mosquito bitten legs rubbing together almost drowning out the stereo of the jerk across the street. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 14th, 2005
12:28 pm	La Casa de Alvaro Now that the car is working well we have run out of things we HAVE-TO do and can focus on things we want to do. As a result material for the journal has not been as obvious. I haven’t said anything about our house yet so let me fill in some details. We are living in ‘la casa de Alvaro’ (Alvaro’s house). He is a young and seemingly ambitious (for CR, anyway) guy who drives Tico car #3 (there are four flavors of vehicle that the locals drive; 1: taxi, 2: 4X4, 3: mini-sports car, 4: any of the previous three in an unrecognizable state of disrepair). The house is a very typical house around here (see photo). It is 6 m X 8 m (around 500 sq. ft), with two bedrooms (one with access from the outside only), living room, kitchen, and bathroom. Stuffed into this space is an entertainment center with TV, an armoire (about 150 pieces, which Em put together with only a screwdriver and a hammer, see photo), a three piece sectional couch that doesn’t fit in any room if you put it together, two queen beds (foam mattresses on frames and slats of scavenged wood), a glass topped kitchen table just big enough for 4 plates and three glasses (Erowyn slurps her drinks off the floor anyway), and brand new stove, refrigerator, microwave, rice cooker (Em INSISTS that it is a crock-pot) coffee maker, electric skillet, and washing machine. We appear to be the first guests as Casa Alvaro. The only adornment in the house is a large framed poster of ‘Las huelas’ (Footsteps) that should be familiar to Catholics of any language. Building methods here are, for lack of a better word, eclectic. Some rooms have beautiful tile, others are painted cement. All floors maintain some continuous path to the outside in order to facilitate the daily sweep-out of dirt and dead bugs. A note to home-builders; don’t put light fixtures directly above kitchen counters due to the nightly mass-bug-suicide. The walls are concrete on the bottoms with unevenly cut strips of wood above. The doors and ceiling are trimmed in rope. All of the light switches are at forehead level and when you turn on the shower the lights dim (no kidding!). All the drains (except the toilet) pour directly onto the ground behind the house. We don’t know where the toilet goes, but apparently they don’t accept paper because we have to throw the used TP in the trash. This is easily the most annoying ‘cultural adjustment’ I have had to make. On the plus side I am more acutely aware of my wiping habits now. : P The house sits on the main road between the beach and San Isidro near the crest of the mountain range that separates them. The view from the kitchen sink is pre-historic: 1000 ft, jungle covered cliff face that stretches into the cloud-shrouded distance (see photo). Behind the house are coffee plants, banana trees, sugar cane, and little piles of the organic portion of our daily garbage (which we throw out through the bars of the window above the kitchen sink). It is the tail end of winter now so we get only a brief flash of the sun around 9 am before the clouds start to pour over the top of the ridge. This morning there is a strong, cool wind blowing and I am tempted to put on a long sleeve shirt. At this altitude the rain comes every day in the late morning and turns off and on until the middle of the night. So far the rain does not bother us and the kids are happy to go outside in any conditions. The next door neighbors live 3 m away in a house very similar to ours (see photo). The house is about 2 m higher than ours so we do have some privacy. I’m not exactly sure who lives in the house full time because there are so many relatives in and out every day. I’m pretty sure Alvaro’s grandparents, Lila (see phot) and Marcos, live there because they never leave. It is anybody’s guess how old they are. Lila has had 13 children, only 7 of which are still living, and says that she has 50 grandchildren (great-grand children may be included in this count). Josefina is Alvaro’s mother and appears to take care of the household. Everyone is very warn and welcoming. Erowyn goes up to visit their dogs at least 10 times a day and when we go up with her Lila forces us to sit and chat, sometimes using actual force. It really seems to bother her when we stand out in the rain and she can’t rest until we come under the protection of the porch. Of course none of them speak English so we get lots of good practice. Spanish is even more difficult to understand when spoken with no teeth. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 9th, 2005
9:56 am	A good day All we did today was alter the course of a river. The car didn’t even break down today. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 8th, 2005
9:54 am	Oh why did we buy this car?! Today the skies are clear and the temperature is perfect (around 80 degrees). We lather up with sunscreen, pack the car and hop in for a trip to the beach. I turn the key in the ignition and nothing happens. I would like to say that I wasn’t surprised but I still had hope left to be dashed. I walk two houses down to the house of the local mechanic and he trudges over to our house with a battery charger. Of course the battery won’t charge. He tells me that we need a new generator and comes back to the house with a truck battery which we use to jump the car. I drive it straight back to our friendly mechanics (Alvaro has warned me about the neighbor) tell them I need to be back to my house in two hours (to meet Miguel, who is coming with the car papers to sign, yada, yada, yada). They zip me straight in, tell me the generator is fine, and replace my battery, which is not fine. This costs me $80 ($75 for the huge battery). They even noticed that my tail light was out and replaced it. I love these guys! I am even looking forward to seeing them tomorrow, which I’m convinced I will need to do. Back at home we hop in the car and head to see if the girls are playing futbol in the rain. A few of them are so Emily is hopeful. We play on the beach for a short while until sunset (our first touch of the ocean since we got here) and have dinner at Tortilla Flats (the local surfing bros hangout). (Comment on this)
Monday, November 7th, 2005
9:52 am	A trip to the mechanic It’s Monday; the start of a new week. Alvaro (our landlord) takes us to San Isidro to have a trustworthy mechanic fix our flat tire and take a look at the 4-wheel drive. We don’t want them to fix it but we need ammunition to confront the car dealer. While they fix the car we cruise around SI on foot. Emily is lagging due to some cold-like illness and is driven to distraction by the multitude of swollen, itchy bites on her legs. “It looks like I have elephantitis!” Returning to the mechanics we are filled with mixed emotions. Our biggest worry is that the 4X4 is actually working but that it just sucks. If it is broken then we have to go back to San Jose to have it fixed by the dealer. The car guys (very professional, with clean uniforms and friendly service) tell us that the 4X4 was not due to a small plastic piece that was broken (and actually unnecessary). They reconnected some air line and it now works. They also fixed the tire and put it back on the truck. Everything cost $14! Retuning to the house the truck now zips in and out of the driveway with ease. We want to be happy, but we’re afraid to be. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 6th, 2005
9:51 am	A rollercoster day At least we have cereal for breakfast. After eating I trudge up to look at the damage to the truck in the light of day. It not too bad but we certainly can’t return it now (not that I thought we could). I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how to get the truck back out of the gate when Marcos (the next-door-grandfather) tells me that I have a flat tire. DAMMITT!!!!! Ok, I’m calm now. I saw them put the tire iron in the car just before we left so I figure I’m ok. It takes me a couple of hours to get the nuts loose on the tire and when I put the jack under the car I find that IT doesn’t work. I walked down to the local market and go some hydraulic oil and the jack was back in business. After putting on the spare we piled all the relatives into the bed and pried our way back under the gate. We let out a cheer, piled the kids in the car, and headed down to our property. The property is even more overgrown but nothing that liberal use of a tractor can’t remedy. The river is a bit higher than last time but still easy to play in. After a while a couple showed up with a 9 month old baby girl to play in the river. He is a well muscled Tico guy and she is a blonde Spanish professor…from Santa Cruz! They both surf. She has been here for 9 years and they just finished building a house on lot#7 next to our property. We are so excited! One of our biggest worries was that there would be no families near by. To top it off they tell us that they built their 3 bedroom house for $30K, in two months, in the middle of this horrible rainy season. It is a prefabricated cement house. It feels like the sun is breaking though the clouds! Jenny even tells Emily that there is girl’s soccer every Tuesday and Thursday in Dominical and they are always looking for new players. Our excitement is tempered by the fact Jenny and Raymond said that two of their three dogs have been bitten on the property by terciopelos (local venomous snake) and one of them died. On the drive away from the river we got stuck 5 times on the dirt road that boarders our property. Each time only one of the tires was spinning. Now I think that the 4-wheel drive doesn’t even work. We slip and slide our way back to our house with our spirits sinking again. We’re going to need the money we save on a prefabricated house to replace this piece-of-crap truck. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 5th, 2005
4:59 pm	Car buying teaser Well, we are on our way out of the Mango and onto our house in San Cristobol. We are loading up our weird truck with our souls (just barely) intact. The highlight of yesterday´s car buying experience was the wicked witch offering Kaemon and Erowyn a bite of the nice juicy apples. It may be a few days before we can get ourselves on the web again. I should be recovered enough by then to have written the whole story (and others, I´m sure). Pura Vida! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:48 am	Heading home Nobody has come to take the car away, so we figure we actually own it. All of our stuff fit in the back easily. Carlos came to the rescue again and he took me to Centro Plastico to get some plastic to protect everything from the inevitable rain. Along the way we saw some Costa Rican Goths walking down the street. They really stand out because almost everyone in CR is in the mainstream. Carlos tells me that they are called ‘Jovenes Negros’ (Black youth). They seemed way too smiley to me. Maybe the Goth handbook doesn’t translate well. This sighting led Carlos and I into a conversation about our own teen years. From this I found out that he is less than a year older than me and that we were both into disco back then. On our way out of town we had to stop at the bank for round-two of opening a bank account. The previous trip to the bank was by some convoluted route that I was going to try to remember. I took a wrong turn at the beginning and ended up right in front of the bank. We managed to get the bank account set up, but we don’t have any money in it. I am starting to realize that NOTHING in CR can be accomplished with one trip/visit/signature/document/check. As usual the kids were great on the three hour trip to our house. I didn’t have a map this time so I had to get across San Jose by feel. I felt a lot more than was necessary. Finding the house was easy but parking in front of it was not. We got stuck several times trying to get into and out of the driveway. Our 4-wheel drive sucks. The Hummer is turning into a Bummer. Without the neighbors (the family of our landlord) help we would not have made it. They kindly offered to le us park in their driveway until we get our fixed up. After a trip to the store I pulled into their place, nearly ripping the gate off its posts, and bending the racks on the truck (DOH!!). I slink into our house to cook dinner but I don’t have the tools to hook up the new stove. The kids eat cereal and Em and I scramble our breakfast eggs in the electric skillet. I head to bed with a profound feeling of failure. (Comment on this)