chocolate

It's possible and not at all ususual for me to enjoy raw cacao beans straight from the pod. It's certainly not uncommon for me to have one of Dharma's ricolate chocolate balls or a cacao shot after lunch. Raw chocolate is a superfood enjoyed by absolutely everyone in this community, often. So why then were Arya and I desperately looking for chocolate last night? Our diet is about 80% raw here, pretty healthy in all respects, which is probably why the ocassional craving for junk jumps us all.
Last night we finally found solace in a new and delicious concoction which forever after will be known as low-vibe paradise. It's hard to convey how difficult it is to get one's hands on junk food. It means actually leaving pachamama and travelling at least 10 miles to the nearest shop (fairly hard without a vehicle), working with real money and then returning post haste without devouring every additive laden morsel on the way.
Hence the excitement last night. We had a jar, or rather a half jar of Nutella (have you ever read the ingredients list? the stuff is actually toxic), half a packet of broken mantequilla biscuits and the dregs of a bag of organic cashews and almonds. We mixed the whole lot together in the jar and with a couple of forks thoroughly enjoyed it. Soooo good. Soooo good. We are now planning to add raisins and maybe even some condensed milk. Wow . . .
But we'll have to wait perhaps til the end of the month before we get the chance. Ah, the anticipation!

sundays

I love sundays. I'm lying on Arya's floor, full of coffee, sunshine and love for the universe. There's an omlette cooking on the stove, the birds are singing, the music's playing, the monkeys are howling, Hoss is snoozing. Brimming full of smiles and that lovely cafeine infused haziness at the back of one's brain. So today, what to do? Ride for sure, hmm, what else? Write a letter, do laundry, prepare kindergarten for the week, work out what we're doing for the bar on tuesday night.
The bar . . . I love working the bar. It's a raw, open air place sheltered below mango and an ancient orange tree, the monkeys are hanging out in the mangos these days picking the half-size unripe fruits. It can be a little dodgy sitting below them, but they come early in the morning, I don't think they enjoy the music. Other than tuesday nights and friday afternoons when alcohol is also served, the bar is totally raw and hi-energy. So far we've had ecstatic dance nights and world music dance parties, the place has been jumping. Right now we have no dj lined up for this week. I could ask Lino but he's been in silence for the last week and might not be ready for a party. He plays 80s stuff, might be time? Nirav will play next week, I don't know what he does, looking forward to it though. He hasn't dj'd here yet, there are so many other djs, and I think he's nervous, there's fairly stiff competition - everyone has a niche though, I wonder what his style is? Maybe I should check it out. Arya and I run the night and work the bar, we're good back there, giving plenty of chat and we always end up with a guy helping out. It's a good night. There's a woman visiting who does 5 rhythms dance, perhaps? We need to keep off the ecstatic for a couple of weeks because there'll be a big trance party for the solstice with Tyohar. Hmm, lost myself in work for a while there. I love dancing and it's been an odd journey to develop the love. I did the whole ballet/tap/modern thing when I was a kid, a little kid, but music wasn't encouraged in the house and so somehow I missed out on dancing for the sake of it. The whole disco / nightclub scene was too full of emotional drama and experimenting for me to dance very much. When I was with Jon he never danced so we didn't go anywhere one could really let go with music. I danced at home with the cats and the windows shut. After Jon I started middle eastern dance and loved it, danced with two troupes. I was taking salsa and merengue classes in Monteverde and dancing at clubs, but it seems that finally here I can really just dance. It has always felt like a meditation but before I had form to move around within, now it's free without need for external support. Finally I can just get into the music, rhythm, the way my body feels. So glorious. So simple and so true. Just the body, the stillness that comes within when the body is in motion, moved by something greater. Bloody lovely.
That's my mate Dhanyam working the bar yesterday morning, isn't he a love? He's going back to Greece at the end of the month for a while, I'll miss him.

photos

down by the river

It seems like I’m spending a fair amount of time at the river. It’s different down there, flat, more open with teak, cotton, citrus, acacia, guanacaste trees. It’s about a kilometer down the hill, steep in places. The river itself is fairly wide full of rocks, a couple of tiny waterfalls and swimming holes. It’s drying up quickly, in another month or so it’ll all but disappear I think. I walked down there with Hoss yesterday morning. I’m losing weight but not getting much exercise so walking to the river is my latest idea: the walk back up is pretty steep, I can really feel it in my legs. Today I rode down on Donkey and we spent the afternoon, Donkey grazing, Hoss and I swimming. We went along the river and I guess we left Pachamama’s land as on a bend in the river we came across a little tin house with a fire blazing on one side. It looked like a cooking fire, the smell of woodsmoke was lovely. Didn’t see much else as two skinny black dogs came running out barking. Hoss put himself between us and the dogs but thankfully made friends. He was bigger but I didn’t fancy his chances against two. It looked like a house from a fairy tale, like a charcoal burners, I’ll have to find out who lives there.

sweatlodge

It’s been a week since Norah left her body. Life for Hoss and I continues, life continues to be quite beautiful. Orion and his family left for Israel for 3 months, we had a children’s sweatlodge to see him off. I’ve never been in a sweatlodge before, so this was a nice introduction. The lodge is down by the river, we piled in the back of a pick-up and with Hoss running behind made our way down the hill, a couple of kids rode down on the horses. It was morning and the light came through the multicoloured blankets draped over the lodge, it wasn’t dark at all but had a really nice cozy feel to it. We started with a little ceremony introducing the children and parents to the tradition and then we began. Everyone entered and took their place, Qayla spoke and invited the fireman to bring in the first rock. It was hot! Glowing red, the incense smelled wonderful on it and at the steam everyone cheered. We sang a song and then the next rock came in. In all we had four rounds, four songs, four rocks. Everyone was dripping sweat, the children were glistening and slippery. We left and slowly made our way to the river. The water was so so cold. We caught snails and tiny fish and dead leaves, rolling around in the water with Hoss. Then ice-cream cake and after more play a blessing circle for Orion where we all took a turn expressing our hopes and wishes for him while he is away. Piled back in the pick-up and then up the hill, back in time for lunch. A nice way to spend a morning.

loss

Last night I buried my beloved cat. She was as glorious and vivacious as ever she was on Wednesday. Thursday morning I thought she had been bitten by something, she was lethargic and sluggish, Thursday night she could barely move and whimpered all night, Friday morning she died not in my arms, not at home, but at the vets. He thinks she had cancer. She was only 9 months old. I had been in Costa Rica for 10 days when Norah followed me. She was a tiny, tiny kitten, maybe 4 weeks old and was sitting meowling under a dirty bush near the center of Santa Elena. I carried her home balancing on my shoulder. Her stomach was swollen and hard and full of worms some of which she threw up that night. But she was so strong and feisty, she survived them and would go for dogs who came near the house. Then Hoss came along and she loved him, they slept together every night, he helped dig the hole we put her in. She was so friendly and would come to a whistle or her name being called, bounding down the path eager to trip us up or attack our ankles. Hoss and she would hunt together, she always let Hoss make the final move which he would invariably blunder and the prey would scuttle off with Norah again in hot pursuit. She loved to have her belly rubbed, she loved to bite one's nose. She was a kitten, full of all the energy, curiosity and love a kitten has and yet the grace and sophistication of a cat. She moved 4 times in her short life, each time adapting with ease and strength to every new surrounding, new challenge. She was friends with every cat she met, she showed great skill in determining which dogs she could approach and rub against. I love her very much and shall miss her intensely.

We buried her on the hill behind the casita, she liked to sit there just by the tree with the good birds in it with a full view of all the paths, close by the lizards and big spiders, where she can hear the sound of the ocean and the rustling of the grass, with nice soft earth to dig in. She was beautiful, Arohi and Michael who had taken her to the vets - a 2 hour journey - while I worked, brought her little body home last night and made her so beautiful: wrapped in a little blanket covered with red hibiscus flowers and surrounded by candles. She looked as though she was sleeping. She was so soft, so peaceful. She returned to the earth at 9:30 under a dark starry sky with the warm wind off the ocean, she loved the wind. I wanted to take so many pictures of her this week but never had my camera. On Thursday night I dreamed that I saw her jump off the edge of the casita and bound into the cashews, I think her spirit was gone to avoid the pain she was in. I shall miss her.

the internet hut

It's a bit of a hike to where we get reception here, at least for me, after lunch in the jungle, it's a bit of a hike, especially hauling a laptop. But it's worth it. The hut sits on the side of a hill, through one window I can see the pacific, through another hibiscus, through another a howler monkey scartching itself. There are two fans blasting cool air on the 5 of us sitting hunched over our screens. All eager to connect with the world, all happy to be away from it.

Yesterday I finally unpacked a little. I put my hammock chair up in the casita, put down some mats, made my little altar space, found my speakers so my music can really resound through the banana and cashews. I swung in my chair until the sun went down listening to Blackalicious and then swung until Venus set about 7:30. She moved from white to red as she dropped down the sky, by the time she had gone my laptop battery was dead and I sat a little longer with the candles until I could hear the ocean behind the crickets. The armadillo was busy and Hoss, for once, didn't bark. I've been teaching here a month now, it's passed so quickly. I've been here for 2 months: time is different. The day swings in slow arches that disappear quicker than spilled water.
On Saturday we are going 'out': a shopping trip to Nicoya, milk, coffee, dog food, straw, perhaps some junk food. It will be interesting to see how the world looks, especially a tico town that doesn't do tourists.

the beach

home sweet casita

sunday bloody nice sunday

Yesterday was a magical day, spent with horses and friends by the river. I went down after breakfast to bring the horses back up to their paddock. Some friends: Kelly, Sahib, Arohi, Lyor, Kavita and Guy had camped down there and were enjoying a very lazy Sunday morning. Morning became lunch, a lunch of coconuts fresh from the tree, some rice and seaweed, wine, papaya and corn roasted in the fire. Quite delicious. We swam in the river, talked and rode the horses. I had never ridden bareback before and was quite nervous, of course I snuck off to try it by myself first. Donkey has a nice broad back and he’s quite short, he’s also well behaved. It was surprisingly easy to get on and after getting my balance we walked around a bit. Then the little bugger decided to run and I was cantering bareback. I was gripping on for dear life though fully expecting I would jump off any second. I was too nervous and found myself inching up his back almost on his neck. I reigned him in and we walked, I was shaking. But I also knew that if it wasn’t for my nerves I would be fine, my body knew what to do it was just my brain that went into panic. We tried again and this time I concentrated on thinking how easy it was and let my body move with the horse. It was fabulous. I love the total motion of cantering, so much nicer than trotting, the rhythm just allows an easy flow. Cantering bareback is so much fun, you feel completely at one with the horse and the movement. We rode around for most of the afternoon and brought the horses back up as the sun was setting. What a day. Last night I dreamed I was a native American galloping across the plain. Oh what a fantasy I’m living!

bread and butter

I made my way home with a tealight in a tumbler tonight. Once again I forgot my torch, or rather, once again I was sure I’d be home at some point during the day and left my torch on the floor. So tonight I stumbled half blinded by the tiny flame half blind in the darkness down the hill across the stream, up the hill and through the bananas to my little casita. There was a party which I was thinking of going to, but Norah appeared at Aria’s and it gave me a bit of an excuse for coming home. I’m glad actually, I’m tired. All I did today was make a path through the kindergarten yard, but I’m tired. Now there’s a big moth on my screen. There was a large praying mantis just by the light in kindergarten. I took a picture, I’ll see how fuzzy it is in the morning.

Aria and I are getting low on bread. It’s a rare commodity around here. The kitchens are wheat free, rather healthy. Last week a couple of ticos appeared in a truck with ‘German Bakery’ written on the side. For some reason they seem to think that German bakers are the best and always call themselves that, maybe that’s why the bakers in Watsonville were always ‘German’. Anyway they drove to the kitchen, and that was their mistake, after some minutes of waiting they were turned away. Aria and I were waiting in the car park and flung ourselves in front of the truck. They opened up the back and it was like an Aladdin’s cave: cream cakes, cheesecake, sticky buns, doughnuts, croissants, bread. It was daylight robbery, but it was good. The cream cakes were topped with fresh strawberries and pineapple, the doughnuts oozed jam, the croissants dripped chocolate. It all tasted divine, whether through the skills of the bakers or through deprivation, no matter. Sheer loveliness. We have about 6 slices of bread left, it’s getting a little stale now, a little dry around the edges. But it’s still bread, still stodge, still white flour, still processed, still delicious.

beltane

It’s Beltane today and a full moon: quite a special day. I’m sitting in the kindergarten enjoying a supper of bread, butter, banana and coconut. The crickets outside seem extra noisy tonight, Hoss is out scanning the perimeter for those bizarre armadillos that simply ignore him thus encouraging him to bark loudly in a futile attempt to engage them in play. Life is good. I just got back from the river, we took the horses down there: Donkey, Peter, Berta, Honeybun and Vishnu. There’s a sweatlodge down there for the full moon. It looks wonderful, the trees are full of large decorated hoops, feathers and dreamcatchers, there are two big teepees and a large lodge right by the river. Drums and a fire lie outside; dogs swim in the water; children lie in hammocks and the horses graze painted with circles and markings. It’s really beautiful, peaceful, even magical. We had a good ride down there, I rode Donkey who’s my favourite, a square little horse who’s the boss, I led Honeybun and Hoss ran beside. Hoss was needing a good run and he really enjoyed it, plunging into the river afterwards then rolling in dried leaves. It feels so good to ride and even better with a dog running beside.

They put molasses on the roads yesterday. Seems a strange idea, but it works. A big lorry comes and spreads this thick, brown, burnt smelling sugar across the road. It holds the dust down and forms a sort of hard surface that should last until the first rain. It happens all over the country at this time of year, it’s so dusty. People sweat and then get coated with fine red dust, we look rather odd, maybe now we’ll get coated with molasses too. It seems strange to me that the sugar doesn’t attract more insects. The horses were trying to lick up the pools which had formed in the holes, why not a million wasps?

I work with a lovely tica woman, Irene. She turned 27 last week and is 6 months pregnant with her first child. She doesn’t speak English. This is good practise for my Spanish though it means that there is a fair amount of miscommunication: children ending up upside down and inside out – that kind of thing. This is my third week of teaching, though my first week of being without a mother in the room. Monday was a disaster: the kids were all stuck to their mothers and crying hysterically. Tuesday we had a half day and they were told to come as princes and princesses, Wednesday was a half day with a trip to the garden, Thursday was the first full day with just Irene and I though we had yoga with Umina, today I made a circus and we went all the way through. I’m pleased this week is over! The transition from parents speaking Hebrew to a teacher speaking English seems to be hard for the kids and it is taking time, but today was the most normal of all, Klil asked repeatedly where her mum was but she didn’t cry and Orion only cried once and that was when the puppet theatre fell on his head. I’m hoping by the end of next week we will have established some sort of rhythm which will carry us.

We found a snakeskin in here this morning, about 2½ feet, must have been shed last night. Snakeskin is transparent so I have no idea what kind it was, but I’m surprised because I thought it took a while to shed, at least a couple of days. But there it was. Quite a beautiful thing, soft, not hard or brittle at all. The kids touched it very nicely, the babies don’t quite understand gentle so it’s now in several pieces and has been returned to the forest. We had a tarantula in here on Monday, it was on the side of a mattress, Irene got rid of it before I could see it. Shame really, I would have liked to have seen one in semi-captivity at least. Tarantulas here are not dangerous and move very slowly, but they can give you one hell of a scare.

pacha 2

I’ve just chased a scorpion under my bed, perhaps even into my bed. It was under my laundry basket, and in the gathering darkness I decided to take my basket to the laundry whilst looking for my torch. I picked up the basket to see a black shape run below my terrible little bedside table. Groping in the semi-darkness for a torch in the presence of a scorpion is not so much fun. I thought I’d just push the table across the floor and out the window – my table, being terrible, tipped revealing the little black beast. I hopped on the bed and with my trusty broom reckoned on just sending the thing flying. Well I tried, but the only thing that flew was my broomhead and I watched in horror as the little bugger absconded under my bed. Still unable to find my torch I used my laptop for light, nothing under the bed save for Norah who was looking at something above her head, something now on the underside of my bed. It’s a little one, maybe 2 inches. Hopefully it’ll go back to the laundry basket I left.

My casita has water but no electricity. I have the option of moving to one with electricity, but I really like the one I have. There’s a house not so very far away so I’ll see if I can get a long extension cable. I only need a light and music. Casitas are very basic dwellings, about as simple as you can get really. A shed roof with wide eaves over a wooden frame with floor, one full wall and 2 half walls. Mine faces the ocean which I can just about see, but I can hear at night. They all sit on stilts to make the most of the breeze. I am at the top of the cashew plantation and walk past lemon, banana and mango trees to reach my steps. It’s a fairly steep climb home and I’m grateful for my cold outdoor shower. It’s very private, but I have two houses close by, though out of view, and pass two other casitas on my way home.

view from my bed


and at sunset



Hoss is out barking at armadillos. Armadillos don’t care. They just bimble about not being phased by anything or anyone snuffling out insects and hopefully scorpions, incredible creatures with long narrow tails and long narrow noses and this incredible roundness in the middle. They look straight out of a Monty Python animation. Norah is over the stream meowing, I don’t like her following me down to the kindergarten, and while I would love to have her with me at work there are too many dogs roaming about who would hunt her. Hopefully she’ll give up and go home, though with Hoss’ barking she knows we’re here. I’m sitting in the kindergarten charging up my laptop before I return home. I spent the afternoon re-arranging the furniture and cleaning up, I spent the morning with the horses and having coffee with Aria. A good Saturday. Tomorrow I’m on horse duty again and then I’ll map out where I’m putting the cob bench and the garden in the kindergarten yard. Maybe lie in the hammock for a bit. Eat some chocolate. Take some pictures. Life is very slow here, slower even than normal for Costa Rica. Norah made it over the stream, here she comes now.
Hoss and Norah at home



On Friday we planted a tree in the kindergarten, I had asked for a fruit tree and we got a jackfruit. Seemingly an enormous tree with absolutely delicious fruits, it’s from Asia. Now I discover that the jackfruit is also the largest fruit in the world, each fruit weighing up to 20 kilos and, even better, has a hard shell covered in spikes. What better for a school playground????


my classroom

off the mountain

This is Pachamama, earthmother in the local Indian language, she sits in the center of the community I’ve landed in. It’s an eco-village and retreat centre, international with people from Israel, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, England, Scotland (me!), Canada, the US, Costa Rica and Brazil. There are about 70 full time residents with visitors coming for anytime between 2 weeks to 9 months.

It has about 500 acres and sits on hills facing the Pacific, the land slopes down to a wide shallow river and then on to the sea. Many little valleys and hill crests make it feel fairly enclosed and sound carries. It was a dairy farm 7 years ago but after planting 15,000 trees it has a nice jungle feel. Most of the trees are natives (there are some exotic fruits from Asia) and have become home to several troupes of howler monkeys. These howlers are pretty friendly and fairly tame. They never come down to the ground but seem happy to sit above you in branches watching just as we are happy to sit on benches watching them. There are several plantations: teak, cashew, pivoti (a thorny lumber tree), cacao (chocolate), banana, pineapple, mango, coconut and orchards including jackfruit and durian.


bananas by the showers
pineapples growing outside the kindergarten



There are also gardens growing greens and vegetables. Goats supply dairy and horses give manure for compost. People live in either houses or casitas sprinkled throughout the hills and valleys but almost all come ‘downtown’ to eat.



open air café, ‘Wild Treats’

Downtown is small but practical with dining areas, a café, internet café, laundry, shop, hardware store, storage space, the school, showers, healing center, offices, it’s all pedestrian and dotted with lots of shady mango trees.


mango tree in front of the dining area


the welcome center

the shop




There are two restaurants nearby both with pools which make a nice change, and there’s a beach bus twice a day which goes to a very quiet and beautiful beach with a reef, so the swimming is good.

the beach at San Juanquillo

Sabado en Montezuma

Halloweén is not a tico holiday but in gringo pockets it´s celebrated with some enthusiasm. The gringos dress up, the ticos put clothes together differently or wear a hat backwards - somehow the costume part has been translated but not the significance.
There was a Halloweén party on Saturday, Saturday because there are more people here on the weekend. All day the talk in the town was of the party, from about 3pm children trooped down to Chico´s Bar for coloured balloons and candy: the kids were gringo and young.
Chico´s was hosting the party with prizes for the best disfraces. It rained hard on and off all night, we went down but not into the bar, instead joining the throngs of ticos outside watching. Occasionally a gringo in costume would walk through: there weren´t many costumes and I saw only 4 guys en disfraces: mostly it was girls wearing as little as possible to make the point; a blackcat, 2 witches, a mermaid (she won the prize) and 2 fairies. The local school was serving food, the arroz con pollo was good.
Ticos stand and watch. We bought our drinks at the supermarket and we watched too. There´s a lot to see in Montezuma on a Saturday night: people talking, drinking, smoking, the rain pouring, 2 of the local drunks lying wrestling on the street in front of the bar. One had fallen over and Loco, the other, was trying to get help to have him lifted. No-one wanted to help being more interested in watching them. Finally Loco fell over too and both grappled and wrestled for a long time. Cars drove round them, people circled, dogs sniffed. I asked Randal if no-one would pick them up. He said no, why should they, the men like to drink, they fall down, that´s their life. It sums up a lot about tico culture. A country of individualists who exist side by side, love gossip, but prefer to remain hands off.
Later the cops turned up in their postman pat van and manhandled the less cohesive drunk into the back seat. The cops here are old and fat and enjoyed pushing the drunk around. They then had a brief argument over which of the 5 would also get to ride in the car. The youngest lost out and had to walk the 50 metres back to the tiny station. The rest got in the van and sat with the lights flashing for a couple of minutes longer. The smell inside the car must have been bad: 5 grown men in a Tracker but I´m sure the light show made it worthwhile.
The music in Chico´s was awful - that commercial bump bump stuff that fills dead places. The dancers could do very little with it. A group of young men formed a mosh pit but that was squashed by DJ Ocean in his pirate outfit. Of the 4 guys in costumes, 3 were pirates, the other was a sailor.
We sat drinking, smoking, watching, I was waiting for something to happen but everyone else seemed content with sitting in the streets talking and looking. Ticos spend an enormous amount of time sitting and watching. Muy tranquilo. We left about 2 and walked back along the beach.
Now it´s Sunday morning. I´m downtown waiting for the internet cafes to open. The mermaid, who´s Canadian is sitting nearby, she works for a tour company. Loco is lying across the street sleeping and yelling " Estoy Loco, si, si" in turns. I´m a little goma but not bad, Randal is walking the dogs. It´s hot, later I´ll go for a swim. Life is good in Montezuma.

assumptions

Last weekend I saw 2 robberies in Puntarenes. The first I didn´t know I saw: I was sitting across from the two English women who´s bags were taken. I was directly opposite them practising my sitting and watching - but I wasn´t watching with intent so I missed the moment their things were taken. I saw the before and after pictures - calm to frenzied hysteria, weeping and holding of heads. A tico family nearby were laughing - not maliciously but more of embarrasment from the intense emotional display.
The second robbery I did see. I was waiting for the bus at the beach. A cripple walked by, his left side deformed and contorted, a stump in place of his left foot. He was carrying a pair of Keen sandles. At first I felt pity for his condition, then I saw the sandles and thought he must be selling them for drug money. I thought it must be an obvious choice to become an addict in that situation. Just then two men came running by and I thought oh they must have stolen something. They ran to the cripple, took the sandles from him and the younger man put them on his bare feet. They shouted at the cripple then left.
Can´t always believe what your mind tells you your eyes are seeing.

I've been feeling a need to do something creative, school isn't satisfying that part. I found an interesting place online and have set up to visit them:

www.ranchomastatal.com

looks interesting huh? Looks like the kind of place one could disappear into.

expansion

I'm moving into Sabine's sometime within the next month. It'll be better - more room, more light, more life. Thirteen horses, chickens, ducks, quail, a parrot, 3 dogs, 3 cats, 7 rabbits and 2 guinea pigs; banana, mango, coffee and avocado trees and sugar cane; three fields, stables and a pond - long sigh.

www.horseback-riding-tours.com

hallowe'en do

John and Clayton had a dyslexic hallowe'en party on Friday the 13th, these are my mofogos (mother freaking gringos).