Yes. Here we are. It’s just gone 6pm, it’s a Wednesday evening. Dark, warm, there is a little haze covering the new moon. I’m tired and sweaty having just returned from a ride. Hoss, Lady J, Molly, Magellan, Tabitha, Baba and I are enjoying a sprouted coconut picked near the beach this afternoon. I’m surprised the cats like it, but it’s such an amazing piece of superfood I shouldn’t be so surprised at all.

This one is just perfect. The sprout is about 4 inches long, it smells good, I think we can cook it. Inside the coconut is filled with what looks like a ball of polysterene or the pith of a grapefruit. This is what happens to the coconut water as the coconut matures and begins to sprout. It tastes like coconut but sweeter and with a slightly alkaline undertaste. The sprout grows directly from this ball of super powerful, super fresh, super sweet goodness. Inside the shell there’s a good ½ inch of coconut meat. The dogs are gnawing on a good size chink of coconut meat and husk each. They love it. They love papaya and banana too.

I had a good ride. I was out on the arab mix who has not yet revealed his name, for now he’s guappo. We went along the beach but the tide was in and the waves were high and he was nervous. The horses come from Guapiles, which is foothill country: this was the second time he’s seen the ocean. So we did a lot of crashing through scrub avoiding palms and almonds and those trees with the big round leaves that burn and have toxic caterpillars dangling from them ready to fall down shirts. To say it was great fun would actually be true. Anytime I’m out on a horse is great fun (except that one time in the dark in torrential rain, but that was an adventure). It was fun. I had 5 dogs with me and we went happily crashing along, coming repeatedly back onto the beach holding him steady so he could watch the water and relax. It was interesting to see him watch the dogs and where they went through the water he followed. Clever boy. There’s something so special about being with horses and dogs. It really must be multiple past life experiences I think. To ride out of the trees and see the expansion of ocean before you, the waves crashing, picking one’s way through driftwood. It’s perfect. Bending over his neck as he goes below branches, rising again and seeing the forest from another perspective, another viewpoint: it’s being lifted literally out of the ordinary into a different experience of community, communication with not only another being but with nature. Suddenly fruit is within easy reach, suddenly a butterfly appears at face level, suddenly one is free from worrying about treading on ants . . .

I decided to come back along the road, thinking that if he was nervous he might make a run through the woods and take my head off on a branch. He was nervous on the road too but seemed fine with the traffic. In his old life he worked herding horse herds – not too much traffic experience. We turned into the driveway and I let him run. He runs so nicely. I should have held him back. He took wind and raced towards the beach – fine until he saw the waves and then he went crashing into the trees. I just kept turning him. They were worked with bits before and their mouths are free now, we’re riding with halters, so stopping him would have been too hard. Let’s just say it was very exciting for a moment. Turning him worked and he stood. I waited for a few minutes just talking and stroking him and then dismounted and we walked very calmly and slowly back to the house. He’s going to take a lot of work.

It’s a funny thing when a horse takes off like that. Everything becomes instinct. Fear says ‘I’m going to fall’, but then another voice comes in and says nothing, just breathes and looks for a way to fix the situation. My feet were out of the stirrups. I don’t know how this happens but I know I feel better when I’m holding with my legs and not relying on the stirrups. I’m sure it’s past life experiences, I feel better riding bareback. Perhaps it’s as simple as survival: if I don’t keep my balance and stay focused I’m going to get hurt. Perhaps, but I much prefer the idea that it’s some distant memory of how to ride through difficult situations. When we stopped I noticed I didn’t feel a lot of adrenalin, the main sensation was feeling the muscles in my legs relax from holding him. I felt good.

Learning differences II

The indigenous boy from the preliterate family leaves the school tomorrow. His mother is having trouble with her health and they are returning to their community so she can be treated traditionally. I wonder what will happen to him, if he’ll ever receive more schooling. I say schooling rather than education, for he’ll certainly receive education. Just different. I have mixed feelings about his leaving: on one hand I think it will be better for him to stop now while he still has his self belief and his curiosity and his joy, yet I wonder about his life and who he will become, whether leaving now will consign him to a life in the forest, whether as a man he will come back again and work as a laborer. I wonder what this experience was like for him, what it brought him. and I think about what he brought to us, this beautiful boy so far out of even our box.

We were told yesterday afternoon tomorrow would be his last day. The news came in a typed letter, obviously dictated by his father, Erling’s name was misspelled.

For me it brings up the question again: what are we doing with this school business?

At the little celebration we had for Erling today, he wept. He cried really hard. I think this was the schooling he’ll get.

What does school mean for a kid? Friendship, play, attention, recognition, being part of something, becoming part of something larger? That’s what we should be focusing on - community, the individual’s strengths in community.

Fallen fruit

Yes. Here we are. It’s just gone 6pm, it’s a Wednesday evening. Dark, warm, there is a little haze covering the new moon. I’m tired and sweaty having just returned from a ride. Hoss, Lady J, Molly, Magellan, Tabitha, Baba and I are enjoying a sprouted coconut picked near the beach this afternoon. I’m surprised the cats like it, but it’s such an amazing piece of superfood I shouldn’t be so surprised at all.

This one is just perfect. The sprout is about 4 inches long, it smells good, I think we can cook it. Inside the coconut is filled with what looks like a ball of polysterene or the pith of a grapefruit. This is what happens to the coconut water as the coconut matures and begins to sprout. It tastes like coconut but sweeter and with a slightly alkaline undertaste. The sprout grows directly from this ball of super powerful, super fresh, super sweet goodness. Inside the shell there’s a good ½ inch of coconut meat. The dogs are gnawing on a good size chink of coconut meat and husk each. They love it. They love papaya and banana too.

I had a good ride. I was out on the arab mix who has not yet revealed his name, for now he’s guappo. We went along the beach but the tide was in and the waves were high and he was nervous. The horses come from Guapiles, which is foothill country: this was the second time he’s seen the ocean. So we did a lot of crashing through scrub avoiding palms and almonds and those trees with the big round leaves that burn and have toxic caterpillars dangling from them ready to fall down shirts. To say it was great fun would actually be true. Anytime I’m out on a horse is great fun (except that one time in the dark in torrential rain, but that was an adventure). It was fun. I had 5 dogs with me and we went happily crashing along, coming repeatedly back onto the beach holding him steady so he could watch the water and relax. It was interesting to see him watch the dogs and where they went through the water he followed. Clever boy. There’s something so special about being with horses and dogs. It really must be multiple past life experiences I think. To ride out of the trees and see the expansion of ocean before you, the waves crashing, picking one’s way through driftwood. It’s perfect. Bending over his neck as he goes below branches, rising again and seeing the forest from another perspective, another viewpoint: it’s being lifted literally out of the ordinary into a different experience of community, communication with not only another being but with nature. Suddenly fruit is within easy reach, suddenly a butterfly appears at face level, suddenly one is free from worrying about treading on ants . . .

I decided to come back along the road, thinking that if he was nervous he might make a run through the woods and take my head off on a branch. He was nervous on the road too but seemed fine with the traffic. In his old life he worked herding horse herds – not too much traffic experience. We turned into the driveway and I let him run. He runs so nicely. I should have held him back. He took wind and raced towards the beach – fine until he saw the waves and then he went crashing into the trees. I just kept turning him. They were worked with bits before and their mouths are free now, we’re riding with halters, so stopping him would have been too hard. Let’s just say it was very exciting for a moment. Turning him worked and he stood. I waited for a few minutes just talking and stroking him and then dismounted and we walked very calmly and slowly back to the house. He’s going to take a lot of work.

It’s a funny thing when a horse takes off like that. Everything becomes instinct. Fear says ‘I’m going to fall’, but then another voice comes in and says nothing, just breathes and looks for a way to fix the situation. My feet were out of the stirrups. I don’t know how this happens but I know I feel better when I’m holding with my legs and not relying on the stirrups. I’m sure it’s past life experiences, I feel better riding bareback. Perhaps it’s as simple as survival: if I don’t keep my balance and stay focused I’m going to get hurt. Perhaps, but I much prefer the idea that it’s some distant memory of how to ride through difficult situations. When we stopped I noticed I didn’t feel a lot of adrenalin, the main sensation was feeling the muscles in my legs relax from holding him. I felt good. The indigenous boy from the preliterate family leaves the school tomorrow. His mother is having trouble with her health and they are returning to their community so she can be treated traditionally. I wonder what will happen to him, if he’ll ever receive more schooling. I say schooling rather than education, for he’ll certainly receive education. Just different. I have mixed feelings about his leaving: on one hand I think it will be better for him to stop now while he still has his self belief and his curiosity and his joy, yet I wonder about his life and who he will become, whether leaving now will consign him to a life in the forest, whether as a man he will come back again and work as a laborer. I wonder what this experience was like for him, what it brought him. and I think about what he brought to us, this beautiful boy so far out of even our box.

We were told yesterday afternoon tomorrow would be his last day. The news came in a typed letter, obviously dictated by his father, Erling’s name was misspelled.

For me it brings up the question again: what are we doing with this school business?

At the little celebration we had for Erling today, he wept. He cried really hard. I think this was the schooling he’ll get.

What does school mean for a kid? Friendship, play, attention, recognition, being part of something, becoming part of something larger? That’s what we should be focusing on - community, the individual’s strengths in community.

In the rains last week a lot of banana trees came down. At the bottom of the hill there was actually considered chasing him off. But last week I had a dream about shooing away a lion which actually wouldn’t be shooed and attacked me instead. So, given he was a pretty big brahma bull and with his herd, I watched. He seemed to enjoy them, sharing them with a very pretty cow. Later I went out to cut some flowers and found another downed tree with unripe bananas. As it lay about 30 feet from the door I figured it was safe to leave the bunch in place. But imagine my surprise yesterday when the ‘gardeners’ (more slash and burners, there’s nothing left), cleared all the trees and the unripe bananas. My lesson? Think like a squirrel, or maybe just some things aren’t meant to be.

Today I gathered a sprouted coconut, 5 oranges and a breadfruit. The breadfruit is cooking, we ate the coconut and I’ll have orange juice tomorrow. Nice.

Bin raker

My flatmate doesn’t recycle, I’m not sure why. Her English is about as good as my Spanish so our communication is fairly light and limited. I go through the bin every other day and pull out all the recyclables and food scraps and put them in their places, which oddly enough is right beside the ‘normal’ trash. She’s away for the weekend. Imagine my surprise, and delight, when I found a third of a chocolate cake in a recyclable wrapper in the trash. Very nice it is too. I wonder if she put it in there deliberately? She knows I go through the trash. Must be one of those things which seem to puzzle her, like why I cook from scratch and why there’s always plastic bags drying from the line. As I sit here enjoying the cake from the bin (okay it had a tiny bit of ash on it), I wonder what she would think. I ask myself what I think – I feel no qualms. My grandmother swore she was part gypsy – harvest where you can.

What???

So I’ve been trying to sprout garbanzo, lentils, black and white beans since I got here. Without luck. I’ve been thinking that it was my method: balance between wet and dry, too much light, too high humidity . . . I had no problem sprouting in the States. I asked many friends, posted the question online . . . I was doing what everyone recommended. I was speaking to a new friend this morning about gardening here, he hasn’t had any luck sprouting either. And then another question came – what the hell am I eating?

Are these Montsano beans? Am I trying to live as simply and as naturally as I can while feeding myself and my dogs GMO pulses? So I’m still supporting those companies? What the hell is going on???

I’m going to try sprouting my rice, it’s not organic, but it’s from an organic producer.

Never ending quest

In my never ending quest to harvest more of my food I just went out to see if the two patches of bamboo in the garden were sprouting. Nope, but I did find a snake lying flat against a bamboo blade. Thank goodness I didn’t see a sprout under it first. Things happen for a reason huh? I saw an eyelash viper a couple of weeks ago, laying on a termite nest on the side of a tree. Beautiful, thin, short bright yellow snake with raised yellow horned ridges where eyebrows would be. Beautiful to look at but not so nice to meet at close range.

Harvest

It looks like I’m slightly obsessed with harvesting. It certainly seems to be a hobby. Today I opened the soursop that’s been ripening on the table since Monday. It’s a big fruit – about 3 pounds in weight and about 10 inches long and maybe 5 inches wide. I picked it hard and now it’s soft to the touch and the insects are beginning to take an interest, so I guess it’s ripe. It’s white and very juicy with dark pretty seeds. It’s sour and sweet together, definitely more sour. The juice is thick and the flesh is really chewy, the seeds are too hard to eat. Hoss likes the taste but not enough to eat a lot, Lady J isn’t so keen. I took out the seeds and threw the rest in the blender with a little water, makes a very thick smoothie. The taste is too strong to eat much straight, but in a juice with papaya it tastes great. It would make a wonderful sorbet. It gives a great jam.

Dengue

We had to evacuate our classroom today – too many dengue mosquitoes. They are easily identified – big, slow and with white striped legs. What does this mean? Do we have dengue days here like snow days in the north?

I’m feeling somewhat plagued by insects this morning. There are dozens of mosquitoes, some of them dengue; I just pulled a tick out of LJ’s nose; black wasps are buzzing the bunch of bananas; a colony of ants is dismembering a big beetle, and there are hundreds of fruit flies on the cacao.

Shopping is a complicated business. Even though I try to have more non-spending days in a week than spending days, and even though I live simply, shopping takes a long time. There are many things to consider:

• Is it local? I want to support local farmers and the community I live in. The average piece of produce in a US supermarket has traveled 1500 miles from farm to store. That’s a lot of fossil fuels and that’s not taking processing, sorting, cleaning, packaging and distribution into account. I’d rather my food didn’t come with a high carbon bill. Also local equals fresh.
• Is it native? It just feels better eating food that would grow naturally in my area: my gut feeling is that native foods have a stronger connection to the soil, to the animals and insects in this environment and are therefore healthier for me. (I found a tahini made from Nicaraguan sesame!) Also, is it in season?
• Is it organic? Obvious, even better Biodynamic. But read ‘Omnivores Dilemma’ for industrial organic versus local farmers.
• How is it packaged? Can I recycle or reuse the container? While we can recycle plastic bags here, we can’t yet recycle tins. Bioland the only organic producer in Costa Rica uses a lot of packaging that cannot be recycled, and they use a lot of packaging.
• Can I afford it? This question has to bring in all of the above – do I balance price and recyclable packaging against organic?
• Do I actually need it?

I sometimes wonder why I’m living here. Why Costa Rica? I came here on the flimsiest premise: that I might meet some friends a year after moving, of course that didn’t happen, yet I came and I’m still here and I love it. I knew nothing about the country, except it was beautiful and didn’t have an army. I knew no Spanish at all. Today I translated my first meeting. This is an achievement for me, and I give myself a pat on the back. It was an all school parent meeting and I translated the Spanish into English. I’m actually proud of myself. I did a good job, not only did I get across all the points, I used humour to enliven the points. Okay so it wasn’t direct word for word translation, but it was good. I had no idea I could do this, and when asked, at the beginning of the meeting, I was very hesitant. But it worked. And then I gave another parent meeting in English afterwards. I’m tired, that was a lot of concentrating at the end of a school day. Hurrah!

Rain

It’s rained straight for the past 4 days. And by straight I mean straight, with maybe 2 hours rest and that at 5 am this morning. The first two days I couldn’t stand it, the noise of the rain drowns out conversation, makes me groggy as I return to the endless rainy weekends of my childhood, stuck in the house or the cabin nothing to do but watch the puddles grow. I’ve been moving away from the rain (so why am I in a rainforest?). Yesterday I finally began to come to peace with it – a little anyway. As I sat in the Mate Latte coffeehouse giving a math tutorial sipping an extremely wonderful latte flavoured with cardamon, it began to feel like November, I began to think how cosy it was indoors with the rain lashing down outside (even though the only thing separating indoors and outdoors is a wooden lattice). Pictures of Christmas trees and toffees kept drifting into my mind, busy shopping streets filled with umbrellas and bulky bags. The momentary annoyance and quick relief of shaking off wet clothes as one enters the steamy, brightly lit shops full of people intent on consuming.

I’ve been thinking about Christmas a lot recently. I didn’t celebrate it last year, I was in a silent retreat, making this my first Christmas away from winter. Maybe I’m homesick? For where? For a season? But it’s not just the season, it’s all that comes with winter: the retreat inwards, the self reflection, the sharing, the preparation, the bundling up and eating extra fats. Ah-ha! Perhaps this is why I’m craving fats so much just now, perhaps my body is trying to prepare for the winter? How does one celebrate Christmas in the tropics? Why do I celebrate Christmas? What is my relationship to this time of year, solstice, christianty, darkness?

It’s cold, this morning I put on socks. I’m sitting with a steaming mug of milky tea and some biscuits wrapped up in cosy sweats and hoodie watching the rain. It’s coming straight down, has been for the last 5 hours. I went out to feed the horses and pick up a sprouting coconut (delicious). There are many banana trees down, they really have no discernible root system and fall over easily when the ground gets waterlogged. Shame, because three of them had bananas which aren’t quite big enough. I picked some, hopefully they’ll ripen. The horses will eat them I’m sure. I cut some flowers to give the deck colour – big orange, red, pink ones, now that I see them sitting in the corner they look like a fire – winter again? Tonight’s lentil stew is beginning to smell good in the kitchen.

I find myself wanting to nest, to surround myself with homey things. This must be a seasonal thing too. This morning I caught myself looking longingly at some white tin IKEA lanterns on Vanessa’s deck, last night I rearranged my room trying to make it look as though someone lives here and isn’t just passing through. On thurday I dreamt I was pregnant. What’s going on?

learning differences II

The indigenous boy from the preliterate family leaves the school tomorrow. His mother is having trouble with her health and they are returning to their community so she can be treated traditionally. I wonder what will happen to him, if he’ll ever receive more schooling. I say schooling rather than education, for he’ll certainly receive education. Just different. I have mixed feelings about his leaving: on one hand I think it will be better for him to stop now while he still has his self belief and his curiosity and his joy, yet I wonder about his life and who he will become, whether leaving now will consign him to a life in the forest, whether as a man he will come back again and work as a laborer. I wonder what this experience was like for him, what it brought him. and I think about what he brought to us, this beautiful boy so far out of even our box.

We were told yesterday afternoon tomorrow would be his last day. The news came in a typed letter, obviously dictated by his father, Erling’s name was misspelled.

For me it brings up the question again: what are we doing with this school business?

Cacao

The cacao is looking kinda horrific, at least to my westernized sense of food hygiene (and I’m fairly lax about that). For cacao to taste like chocolate it has to ferment and then be roasted. The gooey white coating on the beans is a fermenting agent, all one does is take it out the husk and leave it somewhere, turning it occasionally, for 6 days or so and then dry and roast it. Traditionally they are left in a big pile on some banana leaves. I’m keeping mine in a partially covered Tupperware on the deck (I tried it before in a closed container and it just grew fungus). So I have a pile of fermenting fruit in an open container. Fruit flies, wasps and a big beetle have become part of the fermentation process. When I turn the beans clouds of fruit flies engulf me.

So basically chocolate is a fermented food which partially decomposes in its own compost pile in the first step of its process from bean to bar. News to me. I have another day for the first batch of 5 pods. They look almost ready, the white goop has gone and the beans are darker and smell fermented. The second batch is now 3 days old, today I’ll start another one.

tropical living 3

My clothes are a little moldy today. They’ve been in a clean laundry pile for a week or so and they smell foosty. Not too bad. They don’t have white fungus growing on them like in Monteverde, and they are without the algae-like green covering clothes develop in the rainy season in Guanacaste. Nevertheless they smell of mold. I’ll hang them in the sun again, no problema. Just a reminder I live in the tropics.

big trucks go fast

Of my conversations, two were with angry men. Ostensibly they were angry for different reasons, but the root was the same – bureaucracy / corruption / ineptitude in Costa Rica. It’s a common thing, especially with non tico males, and at some point everyone experiences it. At some point everyone hates Costa Rica. The conversations happened at different times, and in different locations in the café, but strangely enough both decided to pour all their frustration and despair with nameless, faceless others into a spitting fury at truck drivers. There are a lot of truck drivers here, a new road is being made somewhere east, and there are a lot of big mack trucks ploughing up and down. Not juggernauts but sizeable, dust producing monsters. Both men were furious at the speed of “these 19 year old drivers”, who had “no respect for people”. A lot of venting happened, to which I listened quietly with interest. Because for me the experience is different. I’ve never had a truck speed by me, rather the trucks move so slowly behind and past me that I’m sure I must know the drivers. They creep along, can it be the same trucks? Must be. And then it dawned on me. I’m female. In this macho society where it makes sense to speed by the white guy on the bicycle with your huge, powerful engine spitting dust and smoke in his face, it makes equal sense to drive by the white girl slowly enough that you can watch her body move to push on the pedals, slowly enough that when they pass, one can get a good look at the big brave hombre who can handle such an intensely masculine monster. There’s no blurring of gender roles here.

half in love with easeful life

Yeah, I know I’m misquoting, but so what, aren’t life and death just two sides of the same coin? Who was it anyway, Keats or Shelley? Sounds like Shelley, he was ever the melodramatic melancholic (sorry Jon). But I am, actually I’m more than half in love. It’s been a good weekend. I’ve been cloistering myself away, so determined to selfishly hoard my hours, doing my hermit thang, but this weekend I guess I got outed. Friends from Guanacaste turned up, I literally cycled by them in the street and it’s been wonderful to spend time with them. I taught the kids and it was so nice to have Miel riding on my back and tackling my legs with his scrawny 3 year old arms, his sister is as sweet as ever, and the two fight just as much as they did when I last saw them 2 months ago. Other friends from Guanacaste arrived this afternoon, turns out they’re renting a place on the same street as me, what are the chances? I spent a pleasant afternoon sitting in a café owned by other friends, thinking to do some reading, but it seems I actually know a lot of people. Gallons of coffee later I stumbled home having talked politics, permaculture, the pros and cons of living in a developing nation, how to make proper sushi, developmental needs of 6 year olds, how songs travel around the world, how best to get passports stamped and where one could get organic cabbage. I felt full. It’s never really occurred to me that I could spend the whole afternoon in a café doing nothing other than talking and drinking good organic coffee. What a life! And I don’t actually feel one pang of guilt, even more amazing! Sunday passed just as sweetly, breakfast with visiting friends, the afternoon at the bookstore talking nonsense and hanging signs, and to top it all we finally managed to remove the last tick from Hoss’ right nostril. What a glorious way to pass a weekend.