spring equinox

A big storm hit before dawn this morning. I woke at 4:30 to the Howlers, two troupes, one beside the house in the Fig tree, the other across the river, what a cacophony – they must have been heralding the storm, in the distance out over the ocean I could hear the thunder. After the monkeys came the loudest birdsong and most varied I’ve heard thus far. I was excited as yesterday I bought a field guide to Costa Rican birds and here they all were. Insect noise too, very strong and beautiful mixed with the birdsong. And then the rain came in, soft at first, I could hear it at the other end of the garden and then it hit my roof. It rained heavily for about 5 hours, overflowing the little pond, giving the tadpoles a rare opportunity to explore where they’ll soon be hopping.

We’re on rainwater here, altogether we have 9 tanks of various sizes and moss cover. The storm gave us overflow. It’s so nice to see that overflow – showers all around! I cleaned the gutter that feeds the giant tank yesterday – full of dead flowers and leaves and the odd millipede, it was only cleaned two weeks ago, but we’re in a dry month and the trees are dropping leaves: I moved 14 barrowloads to a new bed last week, this week another 10.

Now it’s early afternoon and I’m bottling some plum jam. I picked the coco plums yesterday at the beach. They are very pretty, round as round can be and a rosy shade of purple, not like the northern hemisphere plums at all. They grow on low scrub bushes with light green shiny leaves on the shade side of coconut palms, hence the name. Their flesh is white and spongy and astringent, it draws the moisture from your mouth, inducing you to eat more in a mistaken attempt to replace lost moisture. When they are really ripe they become sweet and less astringent, it was these I picked. It reminded me of picking blackberries – the same eager search and joy at finding a dense cluster of purple hiding amongst the green. Yet these are more fun to pick – no thorns, no snags, no bloody fingers. They are about the same size as gobstoppers and have one stone, much like a plum pit, the flesh clings to it the same way too. I chopped them and put the whole fruit

in, the nut inside the stone is edible and nicely nutty. The shell is hard, too hard to eat, we’ll just have to deal with spitting it out.

The ginger beer I started yesterday is slower than usual, the storm has kept the temperature in the 70s, now the sun is peeping through and it’s becoming rather humid. It’ll be ready tonight. Such a simple recipe – a cup of sugar, ¼ teaspoon of yeast, juice of one lime and as much ginger as you can handle – all mixed in a 2 liter soda bottle and left somewhere warm for 24 hours or so. Here it sits out on the deck for a full day and then it goes into the fridge to stop the yeast. Really delicious. I put tumeric in sometimes when I want it extra healthy. The ginger, tumeric and limes come from the garden and the sugar is the raw tapa dulce we can get here from minimally processed sugar cane.

revamping

I live in the far southwest corner of Costa Rica, by the Caribbean. I live on an acre of land carved from an abandoned cacao plantation. The rainforest is re-establishing itself, growing out and through the cacao: Almendro, Fig, Naked Indian, Bloodwood, Cannonball Tree, Cecropia and Breadfruit are among the original shade trees and interlopers which are pushing through the low cacao. Bananas and heliconias fill sunny spots where trees have fallen. The garden is bordered on one side by a slow moving river, turtles, otters, Basilisk lizards and fish inhabit its waters, crabs move readily between the forest floor and the river shore. Overhead three types of monkeys, Howlers, Spider and White-faced Capuchins eat leaves and flowers, Three-Toed sloths move slowly through the canopy. On the other side a 12 foot tall hibiscus hedge provides a barrier against the forest. A house sits at either end of the long roughly rectangular garden. This is where we live.

The garden falls into three sections: ornamental, orchard and cottage garden, we have two ponds with lotus and water lilies, and lots of frogs. In this blog I hope to share our garden, its inhabitants and something of the surrounding rainforest and nearby beaches. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

picking plums with Maria

On Thursday Maria returns to Japan for a year. I will miss her and her soft spoken mum who was always anxious to drop her and hurry away to meet her young lover. She would return smiling, late and wearing different clothes. Today was our last class. We went to the beach and picked coco plums, very tart round purple plums which grow on scrubby bushes on the shady side of the coconut palms. They are all around the point which this week is littered with people from the city camping under tarps for Semana Santa, Holy Week. It’s a tent city complete with SUVs, blaring music and babies, paddling pools and beach fires. We were the only ones picking plums. Maria is fearless in her search for new foodstuffs wanting to try as many tings as I let her. Luckily most of the plants by the beach are edible: papaya, coconut, almond, ginger, plums, sea grapes and noni (well one could debate whether the vomit fruit is actually edible). The herbs while not always so tasty won’t harm with a nibble: blue snakeweed, life everlasting, hibiscus, mimosa, zornia. We stopped at George’s for coconut and an extra big kiss, I think there’s a lot of drinking going on this week. His house has been repainted a sunny shade of blue, it looks good. His neighbors did it while he was off for a clandestine weekend in Bocas. I promised I would visit properly sometime this week. I like George. His last name is Hansel – the Hansels were a big family round here, one of the points is named after them. I think they came from Jamaica at the beginning of the last century. George hasn’t got back that far in his stories yet, but he will. I like George and Mister Eddie and ol’ John Brown, old time Jamaicans with strong hands and big smiles who speak a patois English that sings. They still work their gardens and we sit and sip ginger beer and swap gardening tips and I listen. And they tell me what the weather will do tomorrow and what plants are good for the kidneys and I pay attention and feel totally bathed in another life. I brought home some akee. It’s so good, tastes a bit like peas straight off the vine. It was brought from Africa via Jamaica and not many people here eat it. Perhaps something to do with it being poisonous when unripe and toxic when overripe. But at the right time it’s delicious. It’s fairly easy to tell the right time – the fruit opens by itself and when it turns brown it’s no longer edible. The local name is vegetable brain for fairly obvious reasons.

I feel a desire to learn again and to share too. This afternoon on the way home from the store, two girls cycled behind me, a vulture was picking through garbage at the side of the road and they saw it and stopped to take pictures of the big bird. Was it important for them to know what it was? I don’t know, probably not. When one is traveling what is important? That one spends money where it’s needed? That one broadens one’s own horizons? That one shares one’s culture and takes interest in another’s? This is such an incredible place. I would like to guide. Nothing big, just something low-key with some cultural history and natural history and maybe a little responsible, conscious living thrown in. I wonder if anyone would be interested?

ants

I feel a little awkward sitting at my table, in the same way I think I would be if I had a cleaner in: you know that kind of not comfortable in your own home, not really able to relax, wondering if you should go out – I have house cleaner ants swarming everywhere. They are on every surface – ceiling, walls, floor, countertop. I’m glad I cleaned yesterday. They won’t find so much to do. They are walking right over the flour I spilt earlier, skirting the coffee that dripped from my mug, avoiding the teabag that just missed the compost bucket. They’re here for the insects. Flushing everything out before them. The lizards have left, a couple of big ones even that I’ve not seen before. I hope they deal with the scorpion under the sink. They’ve been here about an hour and a half, roughly half way through their visit. Ants are such incredible creatures, constantly moving and never going at a leisurely pace, always galloping about. The leaf cutter ants have a mini road within my path and at night they use it to go deeper into the jungle bringing out sections of leaves like sails. They don’t come this way during the day. There must be two shifts who work around the clock feeding their farms. These house cleaner ants were over at the big house yesterday, last night as I walked along in the dark my trusty wind up torch humming with the crickets I jumped through the mass of them half way here. They arrived this morning at 10am. Where did they sleep? Did they sleep? Where do they live? Will they go home again or are they on an endless journey?

. . .

It’s been a while since I’ve written. Not just the blog, but letters, articles and the big old book I’ve been working on. There was a three month period there when I spent at least 2 hours writing a day, often more like 4. But one day I woke up and that was that, I found I had nothing to say. Why, and does it matter anyway? The second answer is easier, no it doesn’t matter. The why requires a bit of self reflection and that seems hard just now. I have to wrestle myself into a position where I can look and god, I seem to not want that at all and will squirm and twist myself free with a million distractions and thoughts and sudden desires to do something else. There seems to be a cloud between myself and my ability to think clearly for any length of time. My head is full of dross, cloudy, fluffy swelling stuff that does nothing. I have a couch potato living inside my skull. I can’t express myself or describe anything, I’m tongue tied in prose. My sentence structure irritates me.

And life continues.


But I want to write, it’s a way to process, to catch or snag moments in time, I forget so readily that without writing it all slips by like a great thick oily river full of experiences and observations and incidents. In writing I dip my net in and pull moments or thoughts and lay them on the bank spluttering back into life. So please excuse me while I haul myself out of these waters and try to shake off the passing of time long enough to pause and reflect something. It might be ugly, or it might be banal. I feel I have to learn again.

ecosystem

Trees fall over all the time and when they do it’s surprising to see how shallow their root systems are. Big trees have enormous buttress or ariel roots to support the trunk which is usually amazingly thick at the bottom and tapers to a narrow top before widening out to form the canopy. I wonder if the canopy indicates how far the roots are spread. It rains here a lot, trees don’t need deep tap roots to find water.
When a tree falls it rots – quite quickly – and the rotting wood turns into the most beautiful soil full of mycelium and organisms. It gives back everything it took from the earth, air and sun.
When a tree is cut and cleared it gives back nothing – no new soil is made, the forest is robbed of the nutrients and matter it had saved up in the tree.
When a tree is cut and cleared there is nothing to protect the leaf litter below. First it is compacted and damaged by the men and machinery which remove the tree and then it is left at the mercy of hard direct rain and wind: it dissipates quickly.
The leaf litter and mulch is the only source of new soil, only source of ground nutrients in a rainforest. It’s very obvious. When we cut and remove trees we are not only destroying the natural process of growth, decay and regeneration, not only removing necessary habitat for other plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. We are actually destroying the very base on which all life on the rainforest depends – the earth itself.

feeling domestic

I think I’m feeling settled. I hesitate in saying it – I’ve been very wrong before countless times over – but I feel quite at home. Not borrowed, not visiting, not living on the surface, but actually stable. It feels good. Yet I’m still tentative. I was in San Jose at the weekend and I bought stuff ‘for the house’ – a few plates and bowls and chopsticks so I could return the awful plastic ones I borrowed from kindergarten. I suddenly have nice things. I feel like the time I leave this place will be the time I leave Costa Rica. Ooh, that feels strange and nice. This is my home. Perhaps if I keep saying it it will be. I made a vegetable garden yesterday. I cleared a corner of my space – a lovely sunny corner and mulched and composted it. It looks good. The soil here is very poor, all the life is in the leaf litter. This is I guess the same everywhere, but here it is very noticeable – under the 4 or 5 inches of leaf litter there’s heavy thick gray clay. To find garden soil one must look for rotting wood. There’s a huge tree stump behind the house in the jungle, armed with my trusty machete I clambered in there and hauled out 6 barrow loads of the most beautiful compost full of mycelium and earthworms. I have ginger and tumeric ready to plant out and cilantro and yams. I’d like some beans and pumpkin. The ground is too wet I think for root vegetables, even though my garden is all raised, hugelkulture style. I can make a taro and a yucca bed.

city trip

I just got back from a two night jaunt to the city. It’s only a brief 4 hour bus ride – going through a passport checkpoint, but I made it through. I’ve never been to San Jose proper before, just passed through overnight on the edges. I like it, it has the energy of a city while still feeling like a fairly small town. For those of you who know, it’s a bit like a big Paisley, but somehow it’s tattered and broken up appearance is justifiable, given it’s a developing nation. I went to a museum, some asian stores and somewhere to buy some decent crockery. We ate sushi and Indian food, I got mystery meat from street vendors and we rode lots of buses and did a lot of walking. It was fun. San Jose is in the central plateau and is high and dry and cold. There are mountains all around, quite beautiful. I heard church bells and saw familiar plants and went out at night. Though now I’m sitting writing this with my new rug beside me and my new wind chimes tinkling, listening to the sound of the frogs and insects and the ocean and it’s nice to be home. Did I say home, oh my.

making ends meet

I’m beginning to write for an online thingummy. I say that because I’m not quite sure what it is: a place where one can gather information on all sorts of things from cat care to starships to current events. It’s a little like about.com, I guess it’s the Canadian version. I am contracted to supply 10 articles each 3 month period. Fine and dandy. I needed to find a way to put money on my skype account so I can call regular phones and I’m hoping this is it, they’ll pay me through an online account I believe I can then transfer (thanks Jon). I don’t get paid for the articles, rather I will some percentage generated through the advertisers depending on the number of people who a) read my articles and b) visit the sites of the advertisers who appear by my articles. Sounds convoluted, we’ll see. I’m surprised that people visit advertisers this way, but hopefully they do. I’m excited by the idea anyway. Oh it’s called www.suite101.com

monkey to monkey

I’ve been truly blessed in my life with some wonderful wildlife experiences, this morning I had a good one. There’s a troupe of white faced capuchins come through the garden, howler and spider monkeys too. In the treehouse I was neighbours with the howlers who slept in the tree a couple of times a week. But until now I haven’t had any real experience with white faced, the spider I’ve only seen a couple of times. This morning, just after 7, the white faced were in the bamboo that bends over my roof. They are beautiful, furry dark and strong the males about 2 foot high at tops, and they all have a lovely creamy white mantle that begins over the shoulders and chest and thins out around their faces. They don’t have naked faces really, but the hair is short and they look quite pink. They look like us, short quick gnomish us. Big round brown eyes, 4 fingers and a thumb, watching, thinking, nervous but driven by curiosity and interest. Thick tails which are prehensile and work as well as any limb, curling long and gracefully around branches. There were 9 in the troupe, only two young ones, no babies and I’m not sure how many males there were. Every face was different, of course, different expressions. They were quite noisy, barking, cooing, almost hissing and chattering as the dogs sat and watched them from the ground. The one which I think was the oldest and male, at least he looked the oldest came close. He grimaced a lot and they have fairly big fangs – the white faced are omnivorous like us and eat lizards, birds, squirrels – the teeth were quite menacing. They open their mouths as if to bite and curl back their lips and open their eyes wide – how I imagine the Maoris did, except no tongues. And they bounce and shriek. And they throw branches. It’s true, it was fun to watch them throw sticks at the dogs, and at me – a pretty big stick too. They hold a branch with their tail, pushing against it with their feet and use the momentum of their bodies bouncing to break off large termite munched branches and then they eat the insects. I thought they were like arboreal gardeners – even more gnomish. I had 2 ripe bananas so I stood on a stool with my arms up holding the banana. He wanted it very badly. And he came close – within 6 feet, but nope, not yet, though we danced like this for 20 minutes. He lay on a branch and watched me, arms folded beneath his head, feet dangling and we hung out. I peeled the banana, broke it in half and left it on the water tank, climbing down to sit on the stool to watch him. almost as soon as I sat down he came down and got a half in each hand, went to the next branch and slowly ate both pieces. He chewed with his mouth open and slurped. I was surprised no one came to see what he had. When he finished he stayed put. I put the other banana on the house roof and waited. This was trickier – it meant he had to momentarily leave the tree. It took longer, but he did it. In our time together I touched my face 3 times and he copied me. He absolutely copied me. Same hand, same spot. This was amazing for me, it felt like we had communicated somehow, shared something. Earth monkey to white faced capuchin monkey. Beautiful.

happy new year

Happy New Year!

May it be a good one, full of pleasure, laughter, peace and hope.

I’ve had a great start to 2008 though it did give me some angst at the very beginning. I grew up being told that whatever I did on new year’s eve would be what I did for the year – what a lot of pressure and stress that created! The house had to be beyond spotless, clothes new, the body scrubbed fresh and still wet from the shower, pockets full of money and heads full of anticipation mixed with regret and fear. So this new year I deliberately went mellow: came home early from a party and sat outside watching the stars as the time moved forwards. The house was clean but the bin was full of trash, I didn’t have money on me, nor was I busy wishing others well. I have to say it was a struggle to put aside my conditioning, feelings of me doing it wrong returned several times. But what to do. I spent it the way I would like to spend the year – at peace, out under a beautiful sky breathing in fresh night air full of crickets and bats, with my dogs and with a full heart and a sweet home.

The next night was a party night going out to celebrate a birthday, dancing to a great band from San Jose, drinking and eating, swimming at midnight. Best of both worlds I guess. And since then it’s been nice. I’m trying to come down from a very social last two weeks, finding it a little hard to wean myself from the doing nipple, but it’s settling down.

I’m making ginger beer for my friends’ café and just now am sipping on one that kept on fermenting, feeling a little buzzed and cooking. Had a close encounter with one of my huge house spiders earlier – don’t know who was more scared, her or I, but for sure I made the weirder noise – a sort of whinny. It’s a big spider. And now I’m chomping down on my latest craze – curried banana flower. Who would’ve thought it? it’s fantastic and they’ve been eating it in Asia for centuries of course, but for me it’s brand new. It’s bitter but delicious.

Postscript
Tried again with the banana flower this time soaking it in salted lime water for an hour. Bitterness gone, super delicious! Took some over to Ray and Ron’s and they fried up some coconut, just little pieces straight off the shell then tossed with soy sauce and brewers yeast. Incredibly this looks, smells and tastes like pork! Hard to believe but true. What a discovery.

christmas

It’s Christmas morning. It’s pouring down rain, I’m wrapped in a damp shawl sitting at the table on my new deck wondering when the rain will stop. This is the fourth day and I’m wishing to see some sun. As I write this the rain becomes harder and clouds rumble overhead. I have guests and I wish for their sake that the sun makes his glorious appearance. Not least because coming up the road last night we took a detour into the ditch and I’m worried about the level of water around the car. This morning it was above the tailpipe. I don’t think that’s good.

But it is what is. And so worries aside I’m sitting here watching the rain and the lizard who’s enjoying his Christmas breakfast of fruit flies around the cacao. He’s very beautiful: a dark red colour, about 5 inches long and he holds himself just like a tiny komodo dragon – very statuesque. This might be his first experience with plastic as he’s trying to snap the fruit flies through the container. I wonder if he’ll work it out.

Christmas. Last night I was with a family and as we ate dinner we spoke about Father Christmas and listened to carols. It was very nice and reminded me of my childhood where Christmas was all about anticipation and the idea that some complete stranger would just give you what you wanted – and more. Isabella and I had made toffee and as she wrapped it and left it out for santa claus I remembered leaving carrots out for his reindeer and the excitement at reading the note he always left in response to my letter. One year the reindeer didn’t eat the carrots and I was very sad to hear that they were sick. It was a wonderful time with this strange fat old fellow who seemingly knew about everything you did and would reward you. Perhaps he was the closest thing to god growing up in my house – though his realm of influence only lasted through December and was promptly over as soon as the wrapping paper was tidied away. But I think that was enough – just the idea that somewhere there was a benevolent, kindly, magical soul who knew me and gave me gifts was heartening and shaped my understanding of the world: Santa was always there and he was happy. An enlightened being who dealt in consumables and material goods to get his point across. And what was his point? That anticipation, excitement and sharing are gifts. Perhaps.

Christmas as a child is a lesson and encouragement in manifestation – what we ask for we receive. If only we could remember this our whole lives.

So this Christmas what gift would santa give me? What do I ask for and give myself? I want to give myself the gift of love: to see myself as worthy, to value, trust and listen to, to respect and care for and love.

I went for a walk on the beach this morning. It was raining, I was in my pajamas (I’m much closer to the beach now), and the dogs were having such a great time. The ocean gave me a gift: a beautiful heart shaped seed. I sang all the Christmas songs I know belting them out to the wind and the rain and the waves. It was fun. The rain is easing just a little and a hummingbird feeds from the hibiscus.

Peace on earth and goodwill to every living being.

moved

i found somewhere the day after i heard i had to move. it's interesting how life is. . .

My new pad is adorable and I want to be here for a while. it's further into the jungle, by a river closer to a beautiful beach. it's 2 rooms, an outdoor bathroom and has a comfortable deck. it's the caretakers cottage for a larger house owned by a wonderful couple from Humbolt. What are the chances? but then there's no such thing as chance. the garden is full of fruit trees, the river has otters, there are spider monkeys as well as white faced and howler. it's good. it's all good.

sloths

The first time I saw a sloth it frightened me: it was so human and alien like and so utterly different that it sent a momentary pang of fear and distrust through me. The day after I found an arm in the orchard: fur and skin gone just muscles and sinews left and those three long talons. It was as long as my arm, but it took away my feelings of otherness.

They move so slowly, they really do. Watching them is a lesson. A lesson in beauty: they themselves are not ‘beautiful’ creatures, their coats are green with algae and their long limbs, tiny heads and awkwardly smiling mouths and long long talons do not make them pin ups in the animal world. But they are beautiful in their movements: each gesture takes time; the reach for a leaf; the slow process along a branch; the turn of the head, the shift of position. The sloth has eternity and each moment lasts a lifetime, each moment is all there is. I learn from the sloth not only to take my time, but that each moment is worthy of my attention, my consciousness. Closing my eyes to shut out distractions, and moving as a sloth feeling my muscles, the weight of my limbs, the energy around my skin, brings a feeling of deep relaxation and awareness.

no spend days

I’ve been keeping track of days in which I buy nothing, I usually average 3 or 4 per week. I’m thinking this is pointless activity: it would be easier for me to just do all my shopping on one day if I had a way to bring it all home in one go. It’s not how often one spends that’s important, it’s what one spends it on. Maybe that’s not true, maybe it’s the consumerism itself, the daily visit to the shop. Yet the daily visit to the ship is a ritualized social experience, one exchanges pleasantries, one may meet a friend, one participates in one’s community. This is the bigger problem – consumerism is a means to an end, it’s the desire to participate in activity with others that drives people to the stores. How many times have you got home with your purchase and realized you don’t want or need it? It was the act of being in the throng that had the juices flowing.

I was keeping track I think as a way to check my interaction with money. I would like to limit this. Not because I’m against money or think it’s evil, but because I find it becomes consuming. I find myself in a position where I can trade and for me this is liberating and fun. Tutoring for laundry and fresh bread, tutoring for local plant identification and uses, yams for plants, cacao for coconut. I’m still consuming, I’m still getting something. The only difference is that I’m giving something different in exchange, not a promissory note, but something somehow more tangible.

saturday night

What a life I lead. It’s Saturday night, I’ve just finished picking sun dried maggots off my cacao beans, now I’m making soursop jam. Tomorrow I’m excited about picking more cacao and planting out my bean sprouts (yeah, I finally got some to sprout!).

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?