buoyant

I feel oddly buoyant. Trying to locate the source of such lightness: I ate a lot of fruit salad today; the week is half way through; it’s a full moon and the datura is ready to open; I had a good conversation with the snake man; someone suggested a new mange cure? Perhaps it’s a combination of all coupled with me getting home in time to feed the chayote and tomatoes. Whichever, it feels good.
It appears the yellowing chayote is a lack of nitrogen, I dismissed this before because I do give a fair amount of nitrogen to the plants – but it’s worth a try so they got more today. We’ll see.
I was telling the snake man about the beautiful salmon coloured snake I saw the day my camera died, he thought it might be a bird eating snake and the picture in his book while not as glorious a colour, was a match – plus the snake was waiting at the foot of a tall skinny tree with two very obvious birds nests. He was telling me snake stories – one of the locals was bitten by a coral snake, he was found on the road still holding the snake. They took him to the clinic and but when the snake started thrashing around they kicked him out and someone took him to the hospital in Limon, by then he was having convulsions. They ended up taking him to San Jose and hospitalizing him. He dismissed himself the next day and came back on the bus. He should be dead, but he isn’t. The locals kill all snakes on sight, dangerous or not. The expats seem naive (myself included) and tend to believe they can just move the snake out of the garden. But they are territorial creatures and tend to come back. I like snakes; I used to carry around garter and gopher snakes when I found them. It is very difficult for me not to touch those I see here, but it’s different: a gorgeous bright yellow snake, not so very big, so easy to pick up, sitting so still on a tree would in all likelihood kill me with its bite. That’s a big part of being in Costa Rica for me: it is possible to die here. Sounds so stupid and so simple, but life becomes different when death is present. I know this is stupid – car crashes and the dangers of urban life exist everywhere I’ve lived to date. But elsewhere death is hidden, here it’s clear, it can be found hanging in the bathroom, lurking below the bed, lying on the dark path. Death is present daily, vultures circle overhead, the smell of decay comes from ditches; today a street dog chased down and tore apart a chicken in the school yard in front of all the kids. After they spoke of all the blood, then returned to their drawings and schoolwork. This afternoon I found the back of something furry, maybe a raccoon, perhaps a peccary? below the carambola (good for the soil). One becomes aware of life here because one is aware of death.
I told the snake man I was always worried about the dogs getting bit: I live surrounded by jungle on 3 sides and the river on the 4th; the dogs are romping about in the undergrowth daily. He told me it takes a lot of energy for a snake to produce venom and they don’t give it up so easily – if the dog accidently stood on one while running through it was highly unlikely the snake would use venom. He thought that even if the dog attacked the snake it might not use venom, or not enough to kill. It’s highly unlikely the dogs will attack a snake, given the sidelong glances and sideways jumps that happen if they see a vine lying on the ground. This is great news. There are no jaguars so close to human habitation and the crocodiles were long since hunted out of the river; the dogs are at the top of the food chain, snakes are the biggest threat.
The mange treatment is something called green oil and is a mixture of sulphur, citronella and camphor. It smells quite good and it’s an oily green fluid. I hope it makes a difference; it’s the first thing I’ve tried that he hasn’t licked off. Right now he’s hiding under my bed. Unfortunately the smell will alert him. He has allergies to dog food and wheat and is prone to skin problems, it’s not unusual for me to slather him with odd things and he hates it. He’s become very good at deciphering my concern – if I look at him in any way suggestive of checking out his skin off he slinks under the house. It’s almost to the stage where he won’t come near me. If I take him to the vet she gives me antihistamines which work great as long as he takes the tablets but I don’t want him taking antihistamines all his life. He eats well; meat, veg, grains, fruit and a daily multi-vitamin, but something is missing. Lady J has no skin problems, she hasn’t even caught mange.

confusing thoughts

Part of the angst and general discomfort this week came from a –largely theoretical – internal debate. Some friends are thinking of buying a farm and are looking for partners. The farm is almost on the border with Panama and has coffee and cacao, pejabaye and platanos and pasture. It’s 17 hectares all in and would probably be split, partner wise, into several hectare pieces. I could probably scrape together enough for a hectare – in California I made that money in 3 months of working. But that’s not really the issue. There are several issues: money, moral, community, lifestyle.
It’s a working farm. Right now the money comes from cacao and coffee, but that’s only enough for the farmer who is on his own. Clearly split between several partners with western conditioning it would not be enough. I need to make a living and while I dream and work towards self sustainability in my foodstuffs, I can’t give up my computer and music and my internet access, plus money for vet bills, grains and flavourings I can’t grow and savings for emergencies. I would have to work my hectare to give me a living which means change of use and this would require initial investment, plus I’d have to be on site which means building some form of living space. While I can probably scrape together the purchase price, I don’t think I can get enough to see me through until – and if – I could make money. It’s too far away from here to continue working at the school, without a car or at least a motorbike I couldn’t get into town.
Then there’s the moral issue. I personally feel conflicted about owning land. I can’t really explain it, it may be a responsibility issue, it may be a commitment issue, it’s probably many things, but it just doesn’t make sense that anyone could own a piece of the globe – how is that possible? I can see owning a house, owning things, but land? I guess it’s a facetious argument: one doesn’t own it in the same sense that one owns one’s car or one’s ipod, but it’s a stumbling block for me. The concept is just an abstraction. I can understand working land, living on it, loving, it but owning it means very little to me. At the same time I am incredibly grateful to those folk who do own land and allow me to be on it. And to live work and play on it. Rather than own I’d prefer to do work trade. My family made their living buying and selling property, they would be horrified to hear me. They would be delighted if I were to buy land, they would see it as an investment, as security. But this requires that I would at some point sell it. While this makes sense if I were to buy an apartment or a house in an already established / developed area, it doesn’t make sense with farm land – unless I were to sell it to developers in which case it would no longer be farmland in which case it would be the wrong thing to do. Then there’s the argument, but if I don’t buy it then maybe it will go to developers. Is it my moral duty to save it? One can go many places from here: it has been farmland for about 50 years, is it my moral duty to return it to forest; is it my moral duty to make a reserve or to give it (return it?) to the indigenous people who live on a reserve which borders this land; is it my moral duty to leave it as is and not further develop / build on it? Do I have a moral duty to do anything or is all this moral duty stuff solely ego and a way for humans to feel good or bad about themselves depending on inclination? You may imagine that the moral issue is the one which has brought the most confusion this week.
The community issue is an interesting one. I have been looking for community for years. I have an image of what constitutes community, but the truth is I generally withdraw from community at the first opportunity. I’m a snob with expectations, am highly critical of myself and others, and woefully dismissive. There are 17 hectares, ostensibly there could be 4 or 5 families living on this land, if it continued to be a working farm. (That’s 4 more houses = more development, more water, more resources.)How would that be? My friends are nice people, they are trying very hard to do the best they can. They also have a very tumultuous and precarious relationship and I would be a fool to rely on them for anything.
The lifestyle issue. This is probably the simplest. I would change from working for someone else to relying on myself, I could see if my ideas worked. It would be a great challenge on every level, it would be exciting and difficult.
None of this could happen for at least a year. I made a commitment to dear friends to be here for at least a year and I love where I am. I have a great place to live, I have space to grow my garden, I have access to town, I have a job I like. Why would I want to change? To prove to myself I could. To maybe save a piece of land. To live a dream. To have more. I said this was largely a theoretical debate. While I find myself puzzling over ways to do it – and there are many puzzles, I wish to simplify my life and this isn’t the way to do that. Yet even as I write the fantasy of possibility remains. Yes, it’s been a disquieting week.

gardening

When I was foraging food, doing the hunting / gathering thing, I was aware, of course, of seasons and availability. I knew I would have a glut of something as it came into season and then when it was done it would be done. Now that I’ve stepped into the farming epoch, I find my expectations to be very different. Firstly I have expectations. As a forager I was happy when I found something and skipped off merrily with an armful or bagful of bounty. As a gardener I do more work and have less produce. But I have control over what I can harvest. I expect to reap what I sow, I find I expect to reap a lot and quickly too. But this is not the case. Gardening is all about the future: I plant this seed and in two months, at the least, I can eat the casing the seed came in. In the meantime I can dream about my coming bounty, think of what I’ll do with the surplus and on and on. My garden was started slowly in January, at this moment I can harvest spinach and pumpkin (the bananas, cherries, ginger, chilis, turmeric and cilantro were here before). It will be another 2 months before I can harvest tomatoes, chayote, peppers, melon and pigeon peas and another 5 months, minimum, before I can harvest yucca, malanga, yampi, vine and sweet, potatoes. But when one is gardening, when one is grubby with sweat and dirt one isn’t thinking about the future, gardening can only happen in the present moment: there is a separation between the reality of gardening and the concept of produce. One gardens for the enjoyment of gardening, not for the harvest. The harvest is an added bonus, perhaps the initial motivation, but not necessarily the compelling force.
Is that true? I garden because I can, I have use of the land and the time. I want to have organic produce. I want to be self sustaining and minimize my consumption of store bought items. (This last is difficult, I still buy staples and these are rarely locally grown – lentils from Canada for example.) I want to recycle my ‘waste’ as much as possible and gardening is a great opportunity for this. I want to eat local and native foods. And I want to involved in the cycles of nature, to be outside, to be busy, to be in the dirt.
It needs more thought, and at the same time it requires no thinking. I’m off to water things.

Momentary beauty
A bug just landed on my keyboard. It looks like a leaf hopper, but so beautiful: a bright orange with iridescent squiggles of neon green and blue, red eyes. And it’s gone.

?

I’m out. I’ve been out too long. I caught the 8:30 bus in this morning thinking to do email, blog and head home again on the 12:30. Trouble was there was no 12:30. So now I’m waiting for the 4:30. Yes I could have walked, but I bought about 10 kilos of groceries – rice, grain, milk, chicken, and it’s pouring down and the idea of walking 9 kilometers just doesn’t appeal. Taxis are too expensive – about $10, so that’s not possible either. But after spending so much time online and being incredibly frustrated by attempts to buy more skype credit, I’m done. You see I don’t have a credit card, or a debit card, or a paypal account that works, or means to get another paypal account. I make a tiny amount of money online through articles and the money for these goes into Jon’s paypal account which –theoretically- he can use to buy me skype credit, which I need to call my mum, Guy and the boys. But for some unfathomable reason it won’t go through. Either via skype or paypal which means I’m stuck. And thoroughly frustrated. I had plans for this afternoon. Okay so just tidying the place and making bread, but still there were plans. Now I’m sitting at EZ times having a coffee and watching the ocean. So not so hard. I like EZ times because they bring a little dish of dark chocolate chunks with your coffee.
There’s a website called I think downsizing.com it gives you hints and tips on simplifying life. I looked at another today which asked for pledges to ‘green your home’. None applied to me, my home falls way below their radar. I’m trying to simplify and it seems I do have a very simple life, but when I try to connect to the mainstream, outside world it all becomes so far from simple, how hard can it be to live without a credit card or a bank account? Very bloody hard. Try buying an airline ticket. When I had to leave the states it was so tricky getting a flight out, in the end I paid extra so I could pay in cash. Maybe I should have just let them deport me. And now even though somewhere out there in cyberspace I have funds, I can’t spend this electronic money. How crazy is that?
I feel outside. I look at green websites, gardening blogs and I feel outside. I think I should just give up on the idea of belonging to one community or another. While I may share the same ideals, the same hopes, I don’t live the same life. What connects people? What is connection? I have nothing really to say and yet I want to say so much, to share all this passion, this incredible beauty and wisdom that is all around me. But how, and why? A bus just went by – but it’s 40 minutes early, or 3 hours late. I hope to god there’s a bus at 4:30. There’s a song blaring from the speakers,
“no, there’s nowhere like Limon, it’s the land of freedom”
Must be a local. And yet there’s truth in it, freedom in all its forms good and bad. What the hell is this life business? I know I just want to be allowed to live quietly – and yet I fight this by wanting to share everything. I get caught in the middle, I feel like some great hull caught on a sandbank – neither on land or in water. Town makes me feel this way, the internet makes me feel this way. There’s no going back. How can I just accept where I am? All around me are tourists, people taking time out of ‘life’, blind – mostly- to the life that surrounds them. Does it matter? Okay, enough, I’m going to drink my coffee and enjoy my chocolate in peace – well, maybe.

little me alone

I’m alone. Everyone has gone, even Frederick and Ida have gone somewhere. There is no one around. I feel conscious of this – I feel relaxed and very tired, also I feel heavy as though time stretches before me without conversation or interaction. I walked through the garden noting that now I have time to work on each space rather than always making sure it looks neat. This being alone is what I want and this is what I fear. I’m nervous about how I’ll do. I’m not really alone – I work of course and school is full of people all demanding attention and interaction. But it’s different: there the interaction is with children, limited with the Spanish speaking adults. No one to shoot the shit with.

musings

I just finished a book called ‘French Dirt’ about a garden in the south of France. The author was full of enthusiasm and really wanted to express his relationship with his land, yet struggled with his prose. I have the same experience, it is difficult to convey what a garden is, what it does. Yes, of course on the surface things grow and one waters and weeds. But below that how does one say what being in the garden is? I find my fingers typing superlative after superlative, yet it’s not enough and my writing becomes so light and fluffy it’s candy and gives me toothache. I think of the gardeners I know, my grandfathers especially: calm men, patient, still.
Gardening is life, it’s experience and I don’t have the words to describe it. I can say what I did, what worked, what didn’t, how rich and abundant and wonderful it is, what a sense of loss and lack of control I endure when it doesn’t do what I think it should. All this experience which cannot be taken personally. The gardener provides – no; the gardener serves the needs – no; the gardener is there while the garden grows. Because, weather permitting, the garden will grow, what it will grow and how it will grow may be what the gardener wishes or not, but it will grow. We are there to help and direct and be present. Be present.
People say that I am a calm, patient sort. But underneath I’m a raging impatient control freak. I take things personally, I worry. With my garden I can’t do these things. Yes I can worry and I have been known to get up in the middle of the night with the rain lashing the roof to put umbrellas over young plants, or get distracted at school if I remember I didn’t shade the transplants when the sun is beating down. But while I can say I am responsible for the garden, it’s not me who makes it grow. You’d think being a teacher for all these years would have taught me this lesson already. My garden is only 4 months old but it’s a wonderful teacher, and it teaches constantly, subtly and thoroughly.
So what is this gardening thing? It’s a big long lesson. Ach, that still isn’t enough to say what it is. Some poet said, ‘you are closer to god in a garden than anywhere else on earth’, maybe that’s what I’m trying to describe, and perhaps that’s why it’s beyond words.

Gardening is still new for me, this is really the first piece of land I’ve worked, have had time to work. There has always been herbs and salvias and small pickings, but this is the largest garden I’ve had, and the most commitment I’ve been able to give. I’m blessed with a year round growing climate, 12 hours of light a day, rain, sun, humidity – I’m living in a greenhouse. There are still issues – too much rain, too hot a sun, too many insects, fungus, lack of rich topsoil . . . and not much knowledge or available resources.
The other foreign gardeners I know struggle to produce familiar fruit and vegetables, cucumbers, hybrid tomatoes, carrots, onions, even lettuce. They bring the seeds from visits home. I don’t want that kind of garden, I’m enough of an interloper without bringing foreign plant species – which are also far more susceptible to fungus and insect damage. The local gardeners I know are Caribbean and have a diet far more exotic and tasty than the normal rice and beans. The plants in their gardens come from Africa via Jamaica: aki, gandul, mantioc, Jamaican rose, cinnamon. My garden is as much a mix of natives and non natives as this region. It’s all trial and error, all up for grabs. What ties it together is that it’s tropical.
In the whole garden, I have counted 56 different edible and medicinal plants and trees, and the list is growing.

morning rounds

Every morning I do my round of the garden, if it’s rained and I don’t have to water, it doesn’t take very long. I pause to wind new chayote growth around trellis, or redirect a pumpkin vine, check on fruit, carefully inspect the newest members of the family – whether they be inch high tomato plants or the transplanted yuca I took from the roadside. I commiserate with chewed leaves, duck below spider webs and generally return to the deck and my brewing coffee much lighter and more peaceful than when I left.