Fiesta Fun

     I had fun last night at my first party here.  What a pleasure to be able to see my friends out in town, invite them over, ask them to call other friends who don't understand English or my provincial Spanish and have everybody show up!
     I wanted to thank all my new, local, friends from the farm neighborhood.
The pool area at my new place has a cabana with a gas grill.  I told everyone to bring their suits and to come at 4:00.  Seems early until you realize it's dark every night, and I mean every night, at 5:00 p.m.  Pitch dark by 6:00.  How hard could it be?
     Make some shrimp and rice. Slow cook some chicken thighs. Set out apples and mam chinos and chips with salsa. Buy pickled mango from the baker at market.
Found bags of ice so drinks would be easy. (This group is all alcohol and smoke free) Easy.  Settle down with coffee and the PHS cookbook and find some good recipes for side dishes.  Look. Sip. Look. Sip.  Oh. Wait! I can't make anything from that book. I haven't found any spices except meat and chicken seasoning, salt, pepper, curry, teriyaki sauce, and fresh cilantro. Oh I made coconut chicken a few weeks ago but in spite of the canned coconut milk and the fresh coconut, there weren't any fresh flakes to be found. 
     Last night,  I settled for marinading the chicken in teriyaki and pineapple juice.  Luckily I didn't put any bar b que sauce on them because not one of the 15 locals liked it. It was Hunt's so I can't blame them. Still.  
     My meal was nothing to write home about.  I chopped a tomato and marinated it with steamed green beans in Italian salad dressing. (also Hunts!) Served those cold. The gringos loved them as did one other gal. Borrowed a Crock Pot and got lucky with a recipe (thanks!) for making rice in one.  That tasted terrible until the local ladies came to the rescue and doctored it up so that by the end, everyone was taking thirds.
     I started the grill to heat it up like my Dad taught me. I found a foil tray at the dime store in town and lined it with flat foil.  Set the thighs on it and ran it out to the grill. Along comes the 20 something woman that works here. She marched right over to the grill and starting explaining why the thighs won't cook unless I break their bones, right, here. Right here.  She said as she was taking my chicken off the grill, breaking their bones and putting them back. Told me she worked at a fried chicken place last year.  Pura Vida! I said to myself and moved on.  Only took me 3 minutes to walk inside for the turning fork and back to the grill. By then, there were three men hovering over the grill. WHAT IS THAT?
     I tried to regain the fork, but these were Tico's. Used to doing the hunter/gathering thing. It worked out fine with me. Gave me extra time with my guests. I needed the time since they weren't understanding my cryptic Spanish.
Still, we managed.  

     Here are a few of my favorite party-pics.....
These two have their newborn with them. She's the one huddled close to her mom. She's 25 days old. They are so proud and so protective. It's adorable. Carlos, holding the umbrella, is one of my first friends. Every day he helped me with my Spanish.  I've never seen a more proud
papa in my entire life.  Every day in the car he would show me the pictures from the day before. He even had a video of her crying!  So Cute!  When he arrived at the party with his two ladies he was holding an umbrella over Momma and baby.  It was dusk, no rain in sight though, and with the sun long buried it the clouds.  They sat together this way until it was totally black of night.  I tried to ask about the umbrella and I got a strange look and an explanation about what if it rains and what if the sun came back out and what if a bird......Once inside I had to turn off the light and the fan and the air conditioning.
    The house remained like this until all the power went off. What would a party be without a little local excitement? It took a minute for me to get the candles going and find flashlights.  Once I did, well of course the lights went back on. 

     This little cutie is the cousin of the baby.  Her dad drove me for six weeks and never mentioned being married or having a daughter.  So different from his brother!  Alex and his daughter look the same and have the same impish personality. She was a joy to watch in the water.  This was her first time in a pool. She taught herself to swim in the river.
What a terrific gift she is to her parents!
     There were five other children who swam here last night. Even the 15 year old high school lad couldn't wait to jump in.  I was so glad I thought to ask them while it was daylight, but they had more fun in the dark, when the lights were shining in the water.  It's a blessing to see the simple pleasures in life again. 
     The women have asked me out to see them. They decided I could go to one house at a time. I can't wait. 

Working Farms

     This is the view I had one day leaving the Finca.  For a month I had seen men working in and out of the Palm Tree Farm. I lived inside this farm in one of the three villages. 
 The palms grow on for miles.  I would notice the gigantic machetes cutting off enormous groups of strange looking seeds.  The bunches would fall and sit at the base of the tree for a few days.  Then another guy would sack them up and walk them down the long row to the road.  At that point, the nuts were ready for pick up day.  The oxen are the best part of all this. Who expected oxen?  I mean, it totally makes sense but this is the kind of picture one expects their grandparents to have.  I think it's great.  I left the hustle and bustle of a big city for the slow and steady pace of some oxen.

I stopped my taxi on the way to school one morning to watch this.  With a gentle hand and a calming voice, these two guys loaded the pine nuts into the basket and moved the oxen down the road.  This nut becomes an oil, Palm Oil, that is used in many hair and beauty products. Apparently, it isn't much for cooking or food products.  But it sure is great for relaxing into a new country.
      Hats off to the people of the world who still do things the classic, original way.
Isn't it refreshing?

Creatures

Where the Wild Things Are

Right in Your Front Yard

This is the stairwell that Kitty loved to sit on.  From here he had a view out three windows and was out of the way of those pesky dogs.  Kitty took six weeks to adjust to this house by the river. The collection of dogs out here barked forever, keeping him on edge.  The one next door  barked exactly at 6:30 a.m. only stopping for breakfast.  My favorite activity was watching the horses. There were several farms with horses of their own but there was also a herd that roamed freely, in and out of everybody's property, stopping here, in front of 
my house on a regular basis. They seemed comfortable around humans but they never let me get close. Could have something to do with Lucy barking her own head off every time a caballo (horse) came around. 
     Nevertheless, I was captivated and loved coming home in the taxi, looking for them in all  their usual spots, trying to determine where they were eating today. Whose pasture were they calling home?   There were two fouls, always within reach of their Mommas'.  One was a funny looking mottled grey and white and brown.  He was so ugly he was cute. 
      If you look closely to this picture, you'll notice that the tail of the white horse has been cut short.  They were all like that and when I finally learned enough Spanish to ask someone about it, he shook his head and said the people like it better that way.  He was, by the way, a fine looking man who rode three horses of his own. He practiced daily in the deserted soccer field, next to the St. Antonio school with only 7 students. I was able to watch him occasionally and it appeared that he was doing dressage. But that was impossible.  Whatever he was doing, I could picture him high in the saddle, dressed to the nines, out for a ride.  If only.
     If you ride, you'll notice he doesn't use a bit.  Doesn't need them, he says.

This side of my life in Costa Rica is over now. So, I am having my Tico friends from the Finca over Saturday at 4:00 for a cook out and swim in the pool.  Who knew how complicated this would be? Been to three stores for paper plates (I only have 4 plates. I have 14 coming over), 4 stores for chicken (waiting until Saturday's outdoor market to buy those) I've gone through several recipes that I can't prepare because they don't have the ingredients.  Found my kind of salsa and Heinz ketchup.  That's progress. Except I ate most of the salsa "tasting" it. These are the simple things in life. The real fun is in the exploring, the meeting and greeting of such very different people.


     Yesterday I took Lucy and went to the beach. We went at 10:00 in the morning due to the heat, the rain and the high tide. By 1:30 the tide had crept up the wide beach to just under the shade trees.
Lucy was worn out from chasing balls and sticks and running against the waves.  I had walked with her clear to the bend, where it's rumored to be the hunting grounds of some rather nasty crocodiles or alligators. Never could tell the difference.  Lucky for us we didn't see any. They apparently sleep until dusk.  Well, good thing we weren't staying until dusk.  We took our favorite taxi home, rinsed off practiced our spanish.  
     Now that was fun.






p.s. thanks to all of you who have supported me with your comments.  They inspire me!

On the Road to Parrita

   
                                          Farm of the Secret Garden or Secret Garden Farm


  Well, I've moved. It took my cabbie brothers one cab and a small pick up truck to get me from the cabinas to my new digs in town.  Carlos, the new papa, took the animals with me and a
packed trunk and we led the procession. Taxi Al followed behind with my 5 bags, the dog crates and assorted items that had been procured in my short time on the river. It had been raining 
crocodiles and alligators for days and days so Taxi Al (so called because his name is Alex )  stretched out a long, wide, heavy black plastic tarp over the truck bed.  The ride over the bumpy section was slow and painful. Once on the main road, we were able to pick up some speed.
That was until Carlos looked back and couldn't see Taxi Al.  He wasn't anywhere.  So Carlos did the brotherly thing and pulled over to wait. When we saw the pickup 10 minutes later it was without it's tarp. These boys down here just thought the tarp would stay on by osmosis!
I never said a word except to praise Carlos for waiting for his brother.  Pura Vida!
     I've traded two roaring rivers for a small, quiet stream.  In place of the cows and horses
I have a local school (and you all know how often our children could be called animals) in the front yard and frogs by the pool.  Yes, I have gone suburban. This area, called 
"Hacienda Pacifica" is a circle of five, two story buildings, surrounding a lovely Picasso shaped pool. It sure felt good today after my walk into town and back.  Very relaxing!  I've planned a small Bar-B-Q for Saturday with my amigos from the country.  I can't think of a finer way to thank them then to celebrate with food.  There is a small cabana with a good gas grill that's out next to the pool. If I have the fiesta in the late afternoon the little boys can go swimming. 
     I won't be putting Efrion in charge of the grill. I went to use my oven last week when I was cooking for Rita and her family only to open the gas oven door to a fireball explosion.  Lucy flew out of the house and Efrion flew in. Apparently when he went to hook it up he did it wrong.
Mon Dieu!  We ended up in a cabin up the hill, cooking the coconut chicken in the electric oven. It was sweet. And we managed to have a conversation in Spanish as he has learned to slow down his speech for me and I have gotten more proficient. 
     I hope it all works out.  The Ticos are notorious for being "no shows".  
I'm sad to be leaving the neighborhood and the most giving and caring people I've run across in a long time. Efrion was waiting every night on my porch with the lights on and the dogs at his side when I came home from school.  Rita spent my last week of school bringing home cooked empanadas and pico gallo over so I wouldn't have to cook.  She has reminded me that the things that matter in life are gathering around the table for a meal together and helping friends out in a time of need.  How lovely!

Rita's house

Please excuse

I JUST POSTED A LINK CALLED MAN'S BEST FRIEND AND IT WENT TO 
THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BLOG WHEN I POSTED A PICTURE.


PLEASE DON'T MISS THE STORY.  GRACIOUS.

Man's Best Friend

A real love. A true friend.

Man's Best Friend

        I couldn't sleep yesterday. This is no surprise to most of you.  This was ridiculous however to me!  I awoke at 4:00 a.m., tossed and turned until 6:00 a.m. and got out of bed with the sound of the  birds.  The animals couldn't believe they lucked into breakfast this early and by 6:30 I was outside, coffee in hand, talking to Efrion about his day.  His family lived in the next village over and he needed to repair a water leak in his house.  I don't understand everything about the situation but I know he built 6 wooden structures (mostly houses) on this farm and that he lives in a humble house behind me.  He is the property manager on this vast property and I assume that he has agreed to live there to keep watch.  In any event, whenever his wife and children come to visit, they are happy and proud of him.  He's a wonder!
     But this story is not about Efrion. It's about me and what happens to me whenever I am stressed. I forget things. Well, not exactly forget. Let's just say I get absent minded and can't find things.  This early morning I decided to take my coffee and sit in the rocker on the porch. What better way to hear the day wake up and watch my dogs putter around the garden?
Gizmo and Peachy were sticking near by but Lucy and ventured over to the river.  I began to pay some attention.  Naturally, being that this was now a back water dog, she was sniffing and snorting more than ever more.  I watched her very carefully now. She seemed to be fine, just sniffing around when, "What!. Oh nooooooooo Lucy!"  She's now happily rolling around in horse poop. Yes, my darling adorable golden retriever was covering herself with this offensive stench.
What now? Oh, hurry! Get to the door before she does. Protect the house at all costs! Wait!
Her she comes! What to do? What to do?  Oh, I know.  Close the door. Wam! SUCCESS!
     Ok. Lucy's here on the porch with me, let's see, oh, ok, let me get her over to Efrion's hose and clean her off.  HMMMMMM! Wait! I'll need a towel to dry her off. Push. No luck. Push again.
Definitely trouble here. I had locked myself out. Keys, right there on the kitchen table. No hope of breaking into this house with the steel trap windows and impenetrable doors.  What now?
This was both maddening and frustrating. Well I just sat right down in that chair, got my coffee and called my sister. She pointed out that I could either sit on my porch for the four hours it would be until Efrion got home, or I could just start walking.
     And that's what I did. I drank the coffee, grabbed the phone, called Lucy and began to walk.
Now I was really pissed off at first. How could I be so stupid and all that. And then I began to look around. The free range horses were there with their babies. Lucy chased the hens and roosters and loved it. The deep black birds with the brillant red bodies flew around trying to intimidate me.  Dogs at every house we passed strutted their stuff and barked like gorillas. 
Everywhere I looked I saw green. And then I realized it was raining. Raining. Not unusual
at this time of year in this country. But it was 7:30 in the morning and everyone I knew was
sleeping and I was getting rained on. On I walked. Funny how things work. Three days ago Fran, the taxi driver, took me to his neighborhood which was were Efrion and my keys were. It was 25 minutes by car.  I had been walking 10 minutes. Lucy was leading the way.
      Well for some reason I was thinking of my mother. She didn't take walks and she certainly wouldn't be walking in the rain. Where would her hair net be? But there it was. Mom on my mind.  The drizzle began to pick up and I hunkered down to come to terms with the fact that both Lucy and I would be very wet when we got to Efrion's. Whenever that was. Along we walked, staying close to the left side of the road where the pathway was smooth. 
     There it was. An odd site in the middle of the road. An umbrella. All tattered and torn.
There, in the road. Just waiting.  Now I never see trash on this road. The area is well maintained by it's villagers. But it was waiting for me. I praised God, thanked Mom and marched on. I walked one hour and thirty minutes that day. Lucy kept looking back wondering how far we had come. I walked on. With the love of my mother shining over me and the faithfulness of a dog at my side.
  

Fishing at High Tide

                                                  Market Day

Dinner with the neighbors

     On Wednesday this week, my neighbor Rita walked through the gate and spoke to 
me in rapid Spanish.  I got every other word.  She can't slow down so she just kept telling me over and over, "I want you to come for dinner. Can you come for dinner."  I know the words for you and dinner and want.  I just kept repeating, "You want me to go to your house?  Cuando?
When?"  We went round and round about when and suddenly I realized she wanted me that evening.  Perfect! The only night this week that I was coming home early.  I could come!
I asked her what time and we said goodbye. 
     This was a true honor and a real breakthrough.  The Costa Ricans are very lovely and friendly people. They don't usually ask you in for a cup of coffee let alone for dinner. I live in an area
called Pueblos de Campo.  This is country living in the middle of a palm farm, or finca.
These people have lived back here for generations. They marry each other's sister.  The school with 40 children is just across the street from the tiny supermarket. There is a church smaller than most living rooms back home. There is a soccer field of grass with nothing besides the grass.  The houses are small but well kept, and are painted pink and salmon and blue.
Not like in the Caribbean, but similar.  There are 6o or so families and they all know each other and they all like each other and they all help each other out.  If I were on Jeopardy I would say that the average salary for the area is no more than $10,000.00. per year.  The women are happy homemakers and many of the men are working in the fields. More about that later.
     I got home from school with enough time to feed the animals and panic over what to take her.  My choices were tuna fish, opened rice(surely she had enough of this), some half eaten papaya and some tea. Mint tea. Well, that would have to do because whatever you do, you can't show up empty handed for dinner.  She said seven o'clock. Did that mean seven o'clock the way my parents show up?  Straight at seven?  Or was there some Costa Rican code that said,
"I invited you for seven but don't you dare come before eight."  How was I to know?  I decided to ask Efrion, he would know the customs for crying out loud! 
     So I said, "Efrion, a que hora vamos Rita's?  Rita dijo  vamos a las siete a su casa!"
"A que hora? Yo no sey a que hora!", Efrion was perplexed.  He didn't understand what I was asking and I didn't know how to get my message across. What did I do?  I walked up the hill, in the dark, through the puddles, and showed up at ten minutes past seven.  Thank goodness she
was expecting me.  I'm telling you now, if you ever feel like complaining  about your living conditions, take a look down here. Or in Africa or Nicaragua or in the projects of your home town.  We have it pretty damn good as Americans and I'm ashamed of myself and who I was and what I thought was important.
     Rita lives with her husband, two sons, one nephew and 5 dogs.  The floor is concrete and they all sleep in the same room.  I don't know about you but that would put an end to baby making in a hurry for me. Maybe they send the kids to the river to play for some nookie nookie.  Actually,
I never see anyone in the river.  I believe they have a tremendous amount of respect for all this water and they would never tell the kiddies to go play in the water.  But you get the point.
Rita made rice with vegetables and chicken.  She had also made empanadas which were out of this world and were simply corn meal, water and vegetable fat. Basically a corn meal pie crust. 
I was served first as the honored guest.  She showed me where to sit and once served, she prepared a plate for her husband who wasn't home yet. The boys were fed next and everybody seemed happy. To drink there was some sort of thing like Tang. But not.  I loved it and she kept pouring, so I kept drinking. She even sent me home with a 3 liter container of the magic juice.
I drank that for two days. She sent me home with leftovers. That was after she gave me some cute black earrings from Avon.
     Rita speaks quickly with a sparkle in her eye. She is clearly happy. She has no stove, no bathroom, no privacy. But she is happy. It shows.









     

Rain, rain go away. Come again some other day.

     Well, it's raining. It's such a pleasant little rain that it's hard to believe that it won't stop raining until November. Last night the raindrops were singing me a lullaby as the animals moved in closer on the bed.  Rain is lovely to listen to but darn hard to sleep by.
     Yesterday when class was over, my normal night time taxi guy, Fran, couldn't pick me up.
And my day time guy has just had a baby and couldn't pick me up either, so I started walking into town. 15 minutes. Pouring down rain. No umbrellaForget the clothes and the hair, just cover my lap-top!!  By the time I got home I was drenched, my homework and  project were ruined  and the streets had become little rivers of their own.
     That was yesterday. Today it was sunny. Until I had to go to my little cabin in the palm 
nut farm.  There, it is was raining and my little road had become a white water raft trip of it's own.  My expensive Finn's were a muddy mess and the dogs didn't know if it was safe
to go outside!  The school children don't seem to mind.  They walk along as if all was well.
And for them it is.  It's only this wimpy American that huffed and puffed into she got inside
to dry off that seems to mind.  Where was my umbrella? My common sense?  Why didn't I just wait inside one of the many restaurants until the rain stopped or I found a cab?
     It's funny how quickly the inconveniences of life can get in the way.  But the rain isn't an inconvenience for the Tico's.  It's their way of life.  Which is why a little rain never takes the smile off their face.
     Rain, stay. You're needed to bring out the best of Costa Rica.

If I Could...

   If I could, I would teach all the people in my life about sensitivities and
why people might seem tough on the outside but are really very sensitive on the inside,
where it counts.  I would show everybody how easy it is to go without the perks of living
a good life in America. How quickly one can adjust to poverty and heat. 
How easy it is to forget your iPhones and Nintendo's and BMW's. Why hot water 
isn't important when there isn't any air conditioning to begin with and jumping
into a cold shower is the best part of the day.
     I would show you how quickly you can make new friends and why it's better
not to care what your job is.  I would take you around this small town with only 6 
blocks and introduce you to the the taxi guys in my life who are on call and are
always checking in with me.  I would take you to the libreria where they'll call you by 
name and help you print your documents or sell you a pen.  If you've brought your child
into the store you can pick up a back pack or stickers or even toys.  We could check in 
with one of the many small grocers or go to the fruit stands for bananas so sweet 
I eat them for dessert or we could eat more and more mamons than I thought possible.
  

   The mamon is round, red, hairy on the outside. It cuts easily to open up a large
white, grape type thing that is both tart and sweet. You pop it into your mouth like a 
grape with seeds and spit out the large nut inside.  Lucy and I can't get enough!
     Spend a day in Quepos and realize that everybody is happy and nobody yells at
anyone and there isn't any strife or torment of the soul. In spite of all the missing
creature comforts, people still help one another and smile with their eyes when they
see you and want to see your needs be met first. The pace is slower and while that might
seem like an irritant, it is actually the best thing for high blood pressure, white hair
and bad moods.
     If I could, I would invent an air freshener that emits soothing lavender and 
eucalyptus and lemon and lime and prozac so that the world would be a mellower
place complete with people who really really know how to live.

Greetings from Class

     I am writing to you now from my second story classroom. There are 14 table-type desks, all with wooden tops and iron legs. The wooden chairs must be left over from WWII as they are bloody uncomfortable. Each minute my butt grows more and more numb and my back 
has begun to hurt.  I have been popping Advil like crazy. Today the instructor asked me if I was ok.  She's young and adorable with a cute accent from South Carolina.  She is the current director and isn't any older than my son Jack, and he's 28!
     My head is spinning from all the information that has been stuffed inside my brain.
First, there's the dynamics of having only 7 students and 2 instructors.  Matt is a tall, 6'3, fellow who loves to wear jeans. He was in Iran last year and wants a teaching certificate so that he can go to back.  He's 33.  Tony has incredibly long lashes and a laid back attitude that comes from being well loved in a wealthy Italian family.  He is 23 and wants to go to learn Russian after this.  Audrey is a prim and proper art teacher who jogs in this heat and wants to stay within a Spanish speaking country.  She is 25.  Natalie is from an island off the coast of England and is a natural beauty but seems a bit overwhelmed from it all. She leaves class to drop essential oils on her tongue.  At 37 she seems a bit fuzzy about all this.
Lastly is Stephen from Australia.  He worked in IT for most of his life and made it well known that he doesn't want to answer any more questions about how to make charts and graphs!
(This was directed at me, naturally.)  I have spent the most time with him and enjoy his company and his stories. He's 50.
     What does that make me? The oldest in the group and certainly the one with the most complications. Living 35 minutes from town is quite a challenge.  My day starts around three in the morning when all my animals are shifting around on my bed, jockeying to get a better place to sleep. By 5:30 a.m. it's not the rooster making noises but the dog next door who appears to be the neighborhood alarm call.  Sometime around 6:30, Efrion, that hero of mine,
begins to hammer or use the electric saw or start his four wheeler to venture into the jungle.
I don't get upset with him however.  He saved me.   Sometime last week I was in bed reading when I noticed that Lucy had gone completely still. Not even a breath.  She was focused on the wall behind me so naturally I turned around to see what was so fascinating.
                                   WOAH!!!!!WOW!!!!WHATWASIT!!!!!   
   Just a scorpion is all.  I jumped higher than an Olympic pole vaulter and screamed
quite loud, which is quite loud. 
    "Efrion, Efrion" !!!!!!!!!!!!
     "Ayude me! Ayude me" 
     He came clamering down the stairs and rapidly asked what was wrong.  Both of us were in our jammies and I told him to come inside.  We ran upstairs, don't ask how but I had presence of mind to grab a tupperwere containter.  He calming saw the nasty thing, Lucy was still standing guard, and quickly and quietly scooped it into the tupperwere and set it outside, far from the house.  He came back to see if I was ok and informed me, "Solamente es un pequeno".     Well thanks. I don't want to see one any bigger.