One of the things we like best about traveling is not traveling

To unpack the backpack (ahh ha, that is where that passion fruit from three weeks ago was hiding… and smelling) and feel settled in somewhere is one of our favorite things. It seems we often go in stints- sometimes on the go a lot, and then we find a great spot to settle down for a bit. That’s where we’ve been the last few weeks, settled in Santa Rita de Florencia, Costa Rica.

Our first impressions of Costa Rica were a bit of a shock- no big fresh food markets, no street food vendors, nice buses, more expensive everything, people looking at me funny when I eat a perfectly good cheeto off the ground! Are we even in Central America still? We still enjoyed our jaunts to the touristy places of Arenal and La Fortuna, swimming in beautiful rivers in the shadow of a towering smoking volcano, but what we’ve really been enjoying is more “life in the campo.” So this has to start with a big thanks to my friend Emily, from back in Semester at Sea days. She lives in an amazing community where the people have all become her close friends, thus making it easier for other gringos such as us to come in and be welcomed with open arms. Plus Emily introduced us to our wonderful host family, who happen to be some of the most warm and caring people we’ve met in our travels. They immediately felt like real family and more than any other place really, we felt we could connect on a deeper level with them (even with our still somewhat broken Spanish).

We’ve had the chance to hold many charlas (special teaching sessions) with the kids from the local school, as well as with the Women’s Group and individual things like going to someone’s house to show them how to make their own fresh yogurt. Being in a place with lots of cows, and living with a family that has a dairy farm, we haven’t been lacking for fresh milk and so made cheese, cream, butter, ice cream… it's been great for keeping in line with our love of creating in the kitchen. When we haven’t been concocting things for our family, we’ve been eating their delicious cooking, though sadly it’s mostly so delicious because it’s all fried, and since our intestinal bugs have finally left us, our clothes are starting to fit again, for better or for worse!

Nights of playing their form of checkers, being challenged to arm wrestling, helping cement in a new sugar cane press in the back, get fish from the tilapia pond, teaching English classes… we have not been lacking things to do. We are thankful to have seen the real side of Costa Rica, the way the people live their day to day lives and to get to be a part of that.

So there’s something to be said for going slow (as you can see we’re only in CR after nearly 11 months of travel) and unpacking the backpack. We’re hitting the road again but are going to check out some more places that sound great, like two other fincas in southern Costa Rica- maybe we’ll fall in love with those too and unpack for a little while there…

Problems Communicating

So I was sitting by the front door at my host family’s house in Lagartillo, Nicaragua, studying the subjunctive past participle of the conditional future tense, when the four year old grandchild of my host mother walked out of the house, pulled out his “little hombre” and started urinating on the front walk and chair that happened to be sitting outside the door. I almost started to yell something but then reconsidered as I thought my jumbled garble I try to pass as Spanish might cause the boy to turn putting me dangerously close to the line of fire. Besides, the thought of coming up with the words to explain why this was wrong was way beyond my kindergarten level of conversing. So I pretended that I didn’t see or hear the action taking place five feet beside me and went back to my studying which to my amusement happened to be a story describing a little boy and a waterfall. And I would have been completely content with my lack of bravery if five minutes later my host mom hadn’t come out and picked up the chair in order to use it in the kitchen. Here my moral consciousness overcame my lack of wanting to speak and I blurted out, “NO, NO! Orinar! Orinar, el nino!” Now orinar is the verb “to urinate” which I know because I looked it up the day before after a very painful conversation where I was asking if it was alright to pee “orinar” in their back yard instead of using their very tricky composting toilet (another story). Now I know my sentence, or nonsentence, was terrible but I didn’t expect the response of a blank faced smile and nod that I use so often when I don’t understand what the hell someone is saying to me, as she continued to take the chair into the kitchen. With this fight too risky to give up on I collected myself and said very calmly, “Un momento, el niño orino (yes, I even used the past prederate form of the verb) in la silla. No esta bueno para usar.” It was perfect. I was so proud of myself and my Spanish; of course until I saw her reaction was the same smile along with a “si” as she continued on past me. Knowing all I could do to get the point across would be to demonstrate the action, I choose again to go back to my reading. To this day I still don’t know what happened in the kitchen after that. I like to think she understood my perfect Spanish and the chair was quarantined until a proper triple bleach treatment could be made available, but to be on the safe side I still have chosen to stand no matter how many times I have been asked to sit down and relax in this nice comfortable blue chair.

A horse is a horse, of course of course

So after 33 years and 10 months I have finally ridden my first horse. Well riding might be too strong of a word, but I was definitely on top of a horse that was moving (sort of). As you probably have gotten from the other stories of Lagartillo there are no cars here; only los caballos (horses). Most families tend to have a least one or two for transportation and work, and my family was not different. Although their brave stallion was 20+ years old, he was a good old worker and a good old pal as I spent a Saturday and Sunday along side him helping to weed red beans, pick fruit, milk the cows and chop and carry wood for the stove. At the end of a tiring day I was commenting on the use of the horse to my host father and mentioned that I had never ridden one. This was the only time I saw one of the sternest faced men I have ever met laugh out loud as he told me what I can only imagine translates into “well gringo, today is your lucky day.” So without any instructions he motioned for me to hop on and then smiled as I tried to figure out how this was to be done. Seeing enough cowboy movies I figured I would pretend I knew what I was doing and I put one foot in the thing-a-magigi and threw my other leg over the side severely hitting what no guy wants to hit. Not a good start.

My host dad then walked away to tend to some cattle that were going astray while I tried to figure out how to take the parking break off this thing. After five minutes (seemed like an hour) I was still sitting in the exact same place. I tried everything! English, Spanish, “open sesame, Heeyah! Heeyaho! (Spanish for Heeyah), kicking (softly), patting, horse whispering, scratching behind the ears and …… Nothing! I was finally looking around for a carrot to dangle when out of no where my host father popped out of the forest, hitting the horse with a branch full of leaves and WE WERE OFF! I guess first, second, and third gear were broken because we went straight into forth, as the horse galloped along the densely forested path. Again my “little guys” were not happy. I felt like a mix between Luke Skywalker in the Ewak village and Indiana Jones as I was trying to hold on for my life while keeping my hat from getting knock off on all the low lying branches. Again, it may have been a problem with my Spanish pronunciation or maybe this horse spoke German, but none of my commands were working. It was at that point that I heard my host father yelling “No! No! Derecha, derecha! (Right, right!)” as my horse distinctly decided to go down the left path. I felt like I was on that kids ride at Six Flags where the friendly singing frog puppet tells you to “stay away from the Marsh, don’t go in the Marsh,” as your boat makes a wrong turn into the not so friendly dragons mouth. But like the ride, everything turned out alright as my horse finally stopped at a stream and gently bent down to take a sip of water, like this is what he was planning the whole time.

Although an Olympic dismount followed by a kissing of the ground could have been in order, I decided to stay on and after a short time and with my own (much smaller) branch in my hand, the horse and I made or way out to the dirt road. The rest of the ride it was still clear who was in charge (hint: not the one that can do calculus), but I think an understanding was reached. The horse would choose when to go, when to stop, faster or slower, and which path to take, while I had the responsibility of yelling out a command after the horse started doing it. It worked perfect, as only Robert Redford knows how we ended up back at the house just in time to see my host father arrive from the apparently “correct” direction with a big smile on his face.

Something To Ponder

Often I question what is “developed.” This past week I lived amongst a community that has no running water, no indoor plumbing (bathrooms), no cars, and no regular electricity which meant of course, no TV, refrigeration, computers or cell phones. Things that if you took any one of them away from us in the States for more than a weekend camping trip we would seriously consider it a test of our survival. However the people in Lagartillo seem to be doing just fine. The aspects of their lives that we consider as undeveloped seem to have helped this community along in a direction that may be far more advanced than our own. True, while we have the convenience of high pressured hot and cold water close at hand in any part of the house and yard (I am counting 15 water valves, including toilets in the modest house I grew up in) our water comes from a treatment plant where it is pumped full of chemicals before traveling miles and miles to our house where we pay a ridicules amount of money for something that literally falls from the sky. In this community the water comes from a spring close to the pueblo and is connected to multiple centrally located stand pipes. Some houses are able to run hoses to these stand pipes, but everyone is close enough to be able to carry enough water to use for the day. Others use their roofs to collect rain water and usually store it in a cistern under the house. The water is clean, chemical free, close, and dependable. Everyone here knows exactly how their system works and so if there is a problem they can quickly fix it. While it is easy to miss an indoor bathroom 10 ft away at 2:00am in the morning, the view of the stars as you look up while fertilizing your favorite fruit tree (yes urine in small quantities is a great fertilizer) makes up for the convenience. When not using the backyard there is a double pitted composting toilet system that every house in the community has adopted. In short, this clean, OK smelling sanitation facility takes what can be a major hazardous waste product in the States and turns it into food for the earth that provides the nutritious fruits and vegetables that make up the diets of most of the people in the community. Horses replace the cars which also means the replacement of traffic jams, road rage, car accidents, car and gas payments, and insurance. Just think, if the next time you wanted to replace your old clunker all you had to do was go to your neighbor and borrow his mustang and some months later you had a free new little car that instead of omitting carbon dioxide as a waste product, omitted fertilizer.

While the community doesn’t have conventional electricity, most of the houses have small solar panels that only provide enough electricity for low voltage lights in the evening. This means that their TV consists of watching the children chase a cow around the streets, cooking with neighbors or just sitting down and having a good conversation. And while some nights I say I would give it all up for a half gallon of ice cream, the truth is, not having a refrigerator means fresh delicious food everyday. It is still under debate which is better. The loss of connectivity without a computer, cell phone or TV means a stronger connection with family and friends. Those that are close to you are always there to lend a helping hand making the onerous tasks we need a thousand machines to do for us, all become manageable.

And last but not least there is food. When it comes to food it is really amazing how efficient we are in America. The amount of meat we are able to produce on our chicken, pig and cattle farms, considering the minimal amount of land use and short time constraints, is absolutely amazing. Then the way that we are able to package it up so that it in no way resembles an animal, transport it insanely long distances and preserve it for unlimited time periods is truly a great example of human ingenuity winning the battle against nature. And I won’t lie; my mouth waters when I think of a boneless Alaskan Salmon cooked perfectly on a gas grill with spices from China, and India, vegetables from Chile, cheese from Europe, and a glass of wine from Australia. Yummm! But then you have Lagartillo. Not nearly as efficient or exciting considering every single meal I have had here has consisted of at least one part beans and another part tortilla. However, to complement the fresh daily made tortillas and beans that come form their own farm, is fresh fruits and vegetables, either from their backyard or their neighbors, fresh daily made cheese from a cow they milked that morning (remember no refrigerator) and coffee they picked and roasted themselves. Only on special occasions do they eat meat, which comes from at least all the way across their back yard where the chickens are running around looking for grubs in the back of the pig pen. There are no chemicals, no preservatives, no use of petroleum in transportation or feed, no use of detrimental packaging or pollutants from animal waste, or energy wasted on preservation. There is only a fresh delicious meal and a close, almost spiritual, relationship with the food that you are consuming. It really is a beautiful thing.

So as I finish hand writing this, blowing out my candle, and heading for bed at a late 8:30 PM, I will lay there and listen to the tranquil sounds of the countryside and ask myself again, “which country is the one that needs developing?”

Beautiful Nicaragua

We are currently sitting on a platform in a tree with a view of Lago de Nicaragua, Volcan Concepcion, and behind us is Volcan Maderas, (the two volcanoes that jointly make up the double sphere island of Ometepe). It is a good time to take stock of our time spent here in Nicaragua. So besides our “Life in the Campo” we’ve had our share of beautiful cities as well, starting with Leon. An old colonial city reminiscent of San Cristobal de las Casas or Xela (though way hotter!), Leon has a magical feel to it with its ancient churches, remnants of a not-so-distant war, museums, markets, and festivals like the one we arrived at the tail end of, eating festival food while bathed in the lights of fireworks.

Our time spent in Leon was made all that much better by the fact that we ran into old friends from our days in Guatemala. Also on Couch Surfing, they became our hosts (along with the rest of the Quetzeltrekker household, the great organization that leads hikes up volcanoes and gives all proceeds to helping street kids). We also got to work with Sonati collaborating on environmental education projects and materials- thanks Noni for everything and best of luck in all your endeavors there!

We found our new “tostada lady” aka a wonderfully kind woman with the most delicious of food for a price so low you feel like someone must be getting ripped off somewhere. In this case it was boiled, mashed yucca with a topping of some kind of saucy meat thing and pickled cabbage with some chili sauce on top, all wrapped up in a banana leaf. Delicious, enough for two people to split for a breakfast and only $.75. If that wasn’t our feast of choice you could probably find us at a street frangetta where you can get a wide array of friend deliciousness.

Esteli, Jinotega and Metagalpa are all beautiful cities in the mountains of northern Nicaragua. Especially nice when you’ve come from the sweaty, hot coast to the cool mountain breezes. We got to check out some great NGOs and help on some projects, plus hike around in Selva Negra which was beautiful, or our trek up to the cross on the slopes of Jinotega. Plus dine on some Salvadoran pupusas since we were starting to miss them :)

After a fly through glimpse of Managua trying to track down my passport (still in transit, thanks immigration) we arrived in Grenada to the hospitality and probably the strangest of our CS experiences with Jonathan. It’s a beautiful city where it was always the little unexpected things that were the best- like stumbling upon a kids’ baseball game, or a rehearsal for a musical, or the kid in the park selling cashews that wanted to arm wrestle me. Life is random.

Now life on the farm has slowed down the pace yet again. It’s hard not to just sit back and appreciate all the beauty nature has to offer when you have the kind of views there are here. That is when you have the time to just sit back, when you’re not planting or digging or mulching or swinging a machete, plus the time working at the community center. So life is busy as always, but great. So we’ll sign off now to appreciate the bugs and the beauty and the sounds and the stillness of it all. Wherever you are, slow down as well and take it all in.