Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Video clip

Here's a few minutes of our favorite video from the summer:

Sharon: Final Photos

Well, 10 days after we arrived home, and I'm getting around to uploading pictures. It's probably testimony to the wonderful time we had that we don't have tons and tons to share; we were really busy just living it all. People keep asking, "How was your vacation?" and I never know how to answer. It was awesome, but it wasn't a vacation. It was life in Costa Rica (which was awesome!).

The follow-up question is usually related to whether or not we're happy to be back. I think it tells you everything about our feelings for Austin to know that after spending five weeks in the amazing, beautiful jungle of Costa Rica, with wonderful friends, we're happy to be back. And it's not just that relief-that-we're-home-in-our-own-house kind of happy, either. Austin sure is great.

On that note, here are some of the photo highlights from the last month:

Here's Liam and Fiona eating chicken feet, and really happy about it, too:


The day we went horseback riding, Emilia and Jules bonded:


Liam and I both loved it, and ended up going again later in Puriscal.


Jules finally gave in to Elana's affections:


And Liam and Fiona were so sweet together:


Max, that wild man, with sugar cane for us all to gnaw on:

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Sharon: The Last Hurrah

Today’s the last day of the trip. I should be repeating that over and over to myself in a numbing, therapeutic sort of way, really; this is not a piece of information I readily accept. While I occasionally think with longing about some creature comforts of home (more long-sleeved clothes (which of course I won’t need at home), a relative lack of mud, access to my own kitchen), mostly I just wish we could stay and stay and stay.

We have moved to Puriscal, a small city up in the mountains where I spent a month with a family in orientation before my tour of duty as a volunteer in Montezuma. We are staying at a “luxury hotel” for three nights in order to spend some QT with my host family from here.

When I was stationed in Montezuma, coming back to visit my Puriscal family always felt like coming home. Flor and her daughter Estephanie are incredibly welcoming, grounded people. Puriscal, being near San Jose, has a culture that was a little easier to adapt to than that of my Cobano family; we might talk politics, for example, rather than just gossip about family and friends. Flor is also an amazing cook, and always cooks my favorite foods. They are also astoundingly patient with Spanish-language learners. As an 8-year-old, Estephanie taught me much of my first Spanish 13 years ago, with eagerness and long, patient explanations. Then last night, Max spent a while talking to her (now 21) and also got some quality instruction. One surprising development makes these last few days a little easier to face: Flor and Estephanie are planning to come visit us in the States! They’ve never mentioned a possible trip before, and neither of them has ever left the country, except to cross the border to buy cheap stuff in Panama. I’m so excited to be able to host them, especially because Flor has a specific request for me to make a Thanksgiving meal, to “see how it is celebrated.” Thanksgiving is a meal that I can easily dazzle with, since they have no point of reference! It’s not like I’m going to feel pressured to make my rice correctly or my tortillas from scratch, for example. Anyway, it’s something to look forward to, and means that our good-byes won’t seem quite so threatening.

So, we’re staying at a Gringo hotel. It’s a “yoga retreat,” supposedly, though they’re off the beaten path even by yoga retreat standards, and are just getting the business off the ground, so there’s not much going on. It’s a beautiful setting, and almost worth the price of admission to sit here on the deck at sunrise and watch the sun spill across the sides of the folding hills on the other side of the valley. Plus, there aren’t many hotel options this close to my host family, and we wanted to end the trip on a vacation mindset. But I have two complaints. One is that these guys are the type of Gringos who live in a fenced-in hotel compound, speak almost no Spanish and whose efforts at learning about the culture seem insincere, and speak with great reverence about the need to teach “the locals” English. It pains me to give them money. We also feel like we’re being nickel-and-dimed, which might just be the way these places are usually run, but if I were going to nickel-and-dime my guests, I’d be really clear about it. Or maybe they are clear, but there have just been too many awkward exchanges about our charges, and some overheard conversations (taking place in very public places) about other financial issues. Whatever it is, it's left a bad taste in our mouths. We've learned that we are definitely, absolutely not the fenced-in-hotel-compound kind of folk.

In any case, in 36 hours, we’ll be very close to home. Stay tuned for photos.

Max: The Challenge I’ve Been Looking For

Every other adult in our mini Costa Rican villa has strong attachments to the country. Asan was born here and knows the area intimately, Khalida spent a year teaching here years ago and then married a local (Asan), Sharon spent a year teaching here in the 90’s and feels that the land helped shape her values and beliefs. And the three of them speak the language fluently. Relative to them, I’m just a dumb yokel stumbling through the mud.

And that’s been the root of one my frustrations here. I have no anchor or motivation to feel passionate about this place. It’s nice and scenic, sure, but so is Texas Hill Country. So is Santa Barbara. So is upstate New York. I’ve been lacking a real attachment to the area, a real reason grow intimate with it. Unlike the others in our household, I didn’t have any coming-of-age experiences that really fortified a bond with the locale. And since I can always lean on them for help in sticky situations, or with communicating with the locals, I didn’t think I’d ever forge one.

But then all that changed.

Okay, so it’s not a huge deal, but Jules and I had an adventure this week that provided me with something to overcome, something to confront, something to accomplish. On my own.

I drove down to our favorite beach in Montezuma, Playa Las Manchas. But as soon as we got there it started to rain. Hard. Rain-forest-type rain that just keeps coming down in buckets. So instead of going to the beach, Jules and I went to a nearby hotel (Amor de Mar) to have an exotic drink (mango and pineapple juice blended with milk in a frosty glass). We had the drink on the hotel’s patio and the rain kept coming and coming, no break in the sky. When we were done, we walked 15 feet in the rain, back to the car, and were completely soaked all the way through. I told Jules we’d go home and take a warm shower, then he’d take a nap, and he seemed unusually amenable. But when I turned the key in the ignition the engine wouldn’t start. The battery had died.

I was flummoxed. Not only didn’t I have a cell phone with me, I also didn’t have any idea what the phone number was of Asan and Khalida’s place. I’d written it down once at the beginning of our trip but never had a need for it and left it somewhere. Life was so free-wheeling and lacking in deadlines, I couldn’t imagine I’d ever need a phone again.

The incident wouldn’t have been too big a deal if I’d been by myself. I would have simply walked the 2 miles back to the house (mostly up steep, muddy embankments) and then warmed up at home. But with a sleepy one-year-old with me, the equation changed significantly. Without turning this into a ridiculous epic, here’s basically what I did next:

--let a mild sense of panic course through my blood for a moment
--recovered my sanity
--went back to Amor de Mar and asked to borrow a phone book
--looked up Asan Jimenez but couldn’t find him in the pages (I later found out Asan and Khalida’s number is in the phone book, but listed under the previous property owner's name. Which doesn’t really count since I have no idea who that person is)
--looked up Asan’s mother’s business name but couldn’t find it either (I later found out that she’s listed under the name Gutierrez even though her last name is Jimenez, so that doesn’t really count either)
--asked various staff members for help in locating Asan’s or his mother’s number
--carried Jules across an overflowing bridge in the rain to another hotel where I’d been told they “might have jumper cables but no car but cars pass all the time and you can just flag one down and surely someone will help.” This hotel didn’t have the cables.
--went back to Amor de Mar to collect my thoughts, keep out of the rain and see if by some fluke someone there had a brilliant idea. They had no brilliant ideas but they did have a small garbage bag to give me. I poked out a hole in the bottom and put it over Jules’ drenched body to keep any additional water off him
--checked the sky and confirmed that there was no chance the rain would ease up anytime soon. In fact it seemed to be raining even harder
--trekked a mile with Jules on my back (in garbage bag garb) to the center of Montezuma through gallons of rushing water and tried to find Diana, a local woman who Sharon had befriended. I knew she had a jewelry shop on the second floor of some building and thought she’d at least have a phone number I could use. I found someone who worked near Diana’s shop who told me she wouldn’t be in till later in the day
--stood under an awning for 5 agonizing minutes trying to figure out my next steps
--remembered that Asan and Khalida had posted an ad for their bungelow somewhere in town a few days ago
--hiked around till I found the ad, memorized the phone number, and asked a local business if I could use their phone. With a soggy, frowning kid on my back I probably could have gotten a million favors
--called the number and got Khalida’s voice mail
--called it again and same thing, so I left a message that I was in town and might just start walking home
--took one last shot and asked a bartender at the local bar if he knew Asan. He did. And a way to reach him? Uh, no, amigo.
--finally decided that I had to walk back to the house through the sludge and rain

Of course, through all this, I was mostly concerned about Jules. He could catch pneumonia after all. But I was grateful that it was relatively warm and figured he could make it through. Still, you never know. It was a ridiculous amount of water and he could even drown in it. Who knew.

I walked halfway up the hill to the house and a kind passerby gave us a ride up the rest of the hill in his car. And then Khalida and Sharon showed up to give us a lift after I’d walked halfway down their driveway. Apparently the rain had been so heavy they hadn’t heard the phone. It was only sometime after I’d left the message that they saw that a new voice mail had arrived and checked for the message.

All ended well. Jules was cranky but safe. He ended up taking a nice long nap after we got him dry. And I finally had my big adventure. Staying alive in the most rugged conditions imaginable. Like Survivor but carrying a small child and having access to plenty of food and water.

I formed two alignments that day. One with Jules, who now only gives me a slightly skeptical look when I ask if we wants to go in the backpack again. And another with Costa Rica. My country. My people. My dead battery.

Max: Yep, I Ben Stiller’d my Son

I can’t quite convey the feeling of guilty terror (or terrible guilt) I felt the other day when, in a fit of agitated impatience, I zipped up Liam’s shorts in the bathroom a little too quickly. The zipper only made it about half way up its metal-pronged path when it snagged on something and Liam’s mouth dropped open in silent, agonized shock. You know there’s real discomfort involved when there’s a delay in the scream coming out of a kid’s mouth. It’s not a whiny, tired or frustrated cry. It’s the real thing.

I immediately realized what I’d done and went into full lockdown crisis mode. I couldn’t bear to imagine the damage I might have inflicted so I retreated into an analysis-only zone, telling him calmly that I wanted to check for blood (he was a bleeder).

As he continued his wall-trembling wail I ran across the yard to get some ice (I probably just wanted an excuse to leave the scene before he saw how pale I’d become). When I got to the kitchen, Asan, Khalida and the Bungelow Boys were eating lunch. They all heard Liam’s screams and Asan asked if there was anything he could do to help. I shook my head without speaking, my mouth puckered awkwardly like a butcher who’d accidentally cut off his assistant’s leg and didn’t want his customers to know about it. Then I ran back across the lawn to apply some cold pressure (something, anything!) to the wound. I wrapped the ice in a washcloth and showed Liam what to do with it. Then I glanced at the zipper damage again and didn’t see anything too obvious (nothing was clearly missing, for example), though the truth is I only gave him the once-over with eyes half-closed.

Eventually Liam calmed and went to bed. Within about twenty minutes he was more excited about his washcloth of ice than the state of his groin (ah, the naivety of youth). Then of course Jules wanted his own washcloth of ice and naptime sort of spiraled into a more typical chaos.

About an hour passed before I was ready to admit what I’d done to our housemates.

“Frank or beans?” one of the Bungelow boys asked when I’d confessed to the crime.

“Frank,” I replied somberly.

“Eeyooh,” he winced, his entire body contracting.

Indeed.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Sharon: The Bungalow Boys and Why I Love Montezuma

So our trip has entered a new phase. Not surprisingly, the fact that we go home in five days has been coloring our experience for the past week or so. But what really came out of the blue to shake things up here were the Bungalow Boys.

Khalida and Asan have two small guest houses for rent on their property. [Shameless plug for them: One is a two BR, one a 1 BR, both built in gorgeous wood, some from their property, with windows all around and amazing views of the ocean. The 2BR rents for something like $700/month, and the 1BR for $275 a month! A perfect place for a retreat, and what a steal!] Last week, two 18-year-old guys from the States moved into the small house. In passing conversation, it came up that they have BABYSITTING experience, in fact have even taken Red Cross child care classes. It has also come to our attention that they are staying way out of town without a car, and that they seem to be a little bored. So...

Now we suddenly have energetic, English-speaking, live-in babysitters who are willing to do it for the CR rate of $2/hr. Shame this only came to our attention during our last week here, but we've already taken advantage of it by going out a few evenings, and we're going to leave our kids with them today so that Max and I can have one afternoon alone on the beach. They're great; the kids adore them, and they're super easy-going and flexible with us.

On the going-out note: Seems I have to write about Montezuma and our evening outings. Last Wednesday, Khalida and I went out to dinner with an old friend of mine from here, Ginette. Since I had kids, the latest I have been out in the evening is probably 11:00, and I usually go to bed by about 9:00 (the kids have taken to getting up at 4:45am, or so, with the tropical sun). So we assumed we'd go out for a leisurely dinner and be home by 10, maybe 10:30. After dinner we decided to head over to the bar in town, which also doubles as a discoteca now and plays loud music into the wee hours, for a drink. Who could have anticipated that the three married old ladies would have such a grand old time out on the town? Khalida is drop-dead beautiful, and the boys lined up to woo her, having no idea that they were stepping into a Stephen Colbert-like courting process in which she entertained us at their expense and they actually seemed to enjoy the wit. She came right out with the fact that we were married with kids, and led the conversation into such savory topics as breastfeeding without missing a beat. All this, while the random bar guys whisked us out onto the dance floor for some rapid-fire salsa and merengue that had them all asking, "But you're not from here, are you?" Before we knew it, the bar was closing, and we were sneaking into bed at 2:00am.

Which leads me to Why I Love Montezuma. Max and I were discussing this last night, as I was trying to pinpoint why I am so melancholy about leaving. Montezuma is technically a tiny, tiny remote village. There can't be more than 1000 permanent residents. So every day, just in doing errands or stopping into the bar, for example, you see the same friendly, familiar faces. But it's an international town, with a few fantastic restaurants, some interesting shopping, a really fun bar with great dancing, and a true international flavor: Italians and Argentinians predominating, but also with Germans, Canadians, and Gingos. The people-watching is phenomenal. Factor in the incredible natural beauty, and the slow pace of life, and it's pretty ideal already. But add to that a few solid friendships and strong local connections (since I lived with families who had been here for decades), and you can probably see why I feel like a piece of my soul will always live here.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Sharon: Rain, Rain, Go Away

Rain pounding down on a faux-tin roof in the middle of the jungle…sounds romantic, I know. I harbored romantic illusions about coming to CR in the middle of the rainy season, especially when we scheduled the trip for August. Of course, little did we know we’d be leaving the rainiest year ever (really) in Texas. Actually, it’s been almost the exact same weather here as what we left: unpredictable rain storms—some with dramatic thunder and lightening—almost every day, interspersed with beautiful mornings of sun and warm breezes. Beautiful, plenty of time for being outside.

But today is different. It’s been raining since yesterday afternoon, and in the past few minutes has gone from rain to RAIN, streaming in doors and windows on the wind, flooding the patios, drowning out conversation even from a few feet away. The floors are all tile, and so are precariously slippery, and the communal areas are all completely open to the elements. It’s fine when it’s just raining, but when it’s RAINing (or, more importantly, WINDing) like this, it all blows in and drives us into our own rooms indoors. If you saw a video of the view from our room right now, you’d swear we were those crazy journalists in the middle of a hurricane.

And still, all of this would be fine if Max and I were cuddled up in bed with a good book and a bottle of wine. But with the kids, it’s a whole different story, and, boy, are we missing Ruta Maya or Radijazz right about now. Max got stir-crazy right before this RAIN hit, and headed out for a drive with the boys.

Today was the Mothers’ Day celebration at Liam’s school. What great timing to be able to celebrate MD twice in one year! They had a crazy, complicated production this afternoon: food (provided by the mothers…grr…), followed by games (figure-out-what-drawing-your-kid-did), and songs and skits. Liam's class did the first skit, and to see him get up with them and sing his heart out in Spanish made me weepy. I'm so proud of him and what he's accomplished here!

P.S. It'd be dishonest of me to not include how badly it all ended over at school. Liam had one of his trademark meltdowns, probably inspired by the heat, the crowd, the noise, and his exhaustion by the end of the school day. By "meltdown," I don't mean tantrum, but more like a tantrum on steroids: an out-of-control, complete disconnect from which there is no recovery in public other than to take him away and let him get over it when he is ready. I was willing to offer him ANYTHING in order to make him more comfortable, but he was completely out of it, not able to tell me what he wanted or needed in order to feel better. It was embarrassing, yes, as it always has been when this happens, but people here are so much more forgiving about kids. As I carried him out (with his back arched, his head thrown back, and screaming at the top of his lungs), I heard people saying, "Pobrecito..." poor baby, he's so tired, or he's so little for this, etc. I sure will miss that completely accepting attitude about kids.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Max: High Heels and Pregnant Pigs

A note for future therapy sessions. Here are Jules’ and Liam’s favorite things to do in Costa Rica.

JULES: More than any other toy or activity, Jules loves to wear other people’s shoes. Particularly high-heel dress-up shoes (like silver glittery ones that have Barbie insignias on them) but really anything with a sole. He likes to wear large men’s sandals, small girls’ slippers and everything in between. Watching him parade around in nothing but a diaper and a pair of red rain boots three times his foot size is something the behold. He’s like a go-go dancer for Barney. And once he’s found a pair of shoes he wants on, there’s really nothing stopping him from getting them on his feet. He’ll scream like a banshee if you try to take them off or try to convince him to try on something else, or even if you try and put them on the correct feet.

LIAM: He’s obsessed with pretending. Which is probably normal for his age. But he’s mostly just obsessed with being pregnant. One second he’s a pregnant elephant, then a pregnant giraffe, a pregnant pig, a pregnant mouse, you name it. Is this normal? Perhaps, though I’ve never seen another kid pretend to be pregnant ALL THE TIME. I’m not bothered by the concept of his pretending to be pregnant. It’s really just the all-the-time part. Can’t he shake it up a little now and then? Maybe be a leopard with acne or a pigeon with gout? Or even a salamander with a fabulous smile?

I think what I found particularly odd was the scene he created a few days ago, in which not only was he a pregnant pig, he was a pig who was 108 months pregnant. And here’s the kicker. He was pregnant with me. My 3-year-old was pretending to be almost 9 years pregnant with his own father. Are there any psychologists out there? Should we be concerned?

In Utero in Costa Rica

Max: Crap Bag

Costa Rica, like many other countries, has plumbing which lacks the industrial force we’re blessed with in the United States.

That’s all I have to say. America is great.

Oh wait, that wasn’t what I was going to say. I got carried away by patriotism. So the toilets here can’t handle toilet paper. Instead, you put it in a small garbage can or sack next to the toilet, and throw it away like any other trash. It’s not really so odd once you get used to it.

Only reason I mention it is because of our garbage disposal situation. Because there’s no dump or garbage service around here, we have to leave our garbage in the driveway and remember to take it into town next time we go. Where it is subsequently thrown in a pile and burned (see one of Sharon’s posts below about environmentalism).

Anyway, sometimes this trash—if left out at night—will be ripped apart and eaten by various raccoon-like mongrels. It’s a dumb thing to do (leaving trash out at night) but it continues to happen for some reason. Anyway, how desperate do you have to be ravage a bag which holds nothing but bathroom waste in it? Pretty desperate, I’d think. Anyway, it happened. Maybe those varmints mistook all the balled-up diapers as potatoes. Who knows. But we were left with a disgusting bathroom bag in tatters.

Yum.

Sharon: Vaqueros

Today Marcos and Emilia and their boys took us out to the finca. We piled in their car (sans seatbelts, Liam begging to be buckled in), and drove out to the middle of nowhere. Arnaldo and Edgardo saddled up two horses, and Liam cautiously let Arnaldo take him up into the saddle and ride away.

Liam LOVED it (of course, I guess!), and spent a lot of time on the horses with both boys and me. Riding with Liam at a gallop down the deserted country road thrilled me, because, really, what could be cooler than sharing an important “first” like that?! We also took a spin through the farm, riding along the ridges, and down into the folds between the hills, looking for the newborn foals. What IS it about horses? Why is it such a thrill, especially, to be off the trail, to ride a horse out in the field, cutting your own path to arrive at a place that’s almost impossible to get to any other way (particularly with the foot or so of mud in places)?

True to form, Jules wouldn’t take the bait with the horses. He did, however, really seem to dig the quick spin on the ATV—the horse of the new millennium, apparently—with Max.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Sharon: La Pajarita Se Escapo de la Jaula

That's what my friends here used to say when I'd get a chance to get out of the house and go play in town: the little bird escaped from the cage. So yesterday we escaped again, and how! We went to Amor de Mar in the morning, the hotel where I used to live in 1994, teaching English reading to their little boys. It's an amazing place, absolutely the best place in the world for a vacation, I'm sure. Ori, the German owner, was there, and welcomed us with big smiles and encouragement to come back and spend time on their lawn, hammocks, and tide-pools. Then we spent the afternoon with Emilia, three hours in which Jules ate two bowls of those neon-colored fruit loops things he's fallen so hard for, a few pieces of rum-covered flan, four cookies...hmm...surely there was more, but that's a pretty good summary. Max, for the record, has decided that he's not a fan of chicharones: pork rinds. Couldn't even choke them down to be polite.

Then Khalida and I went to a yoga class with a "special guest teacher" from San Jose. It was so disappointing. His style was Anusara (but such a poor substitute for Christina!), and I was happy for the workout, but he refused to listen to what I was telling him about my back injury. The class flyer had said "all levels," but it was definitely an advanced class, and very athletic, not at all like my usual practice. A few months ago, I would have left that class in agony (and I heard a few people talking about how much they had hurt themselves, which always makes me sad). But I have learned that an effort to follow along with the class in order to be respectful in a class like that ends up in a few days of severe pain for me. Several times during class I had to ask him to please respect my understanding of my injury and not adjust me into poses I wasn't attempting, even though I had approached him before class and described my issue. I couldn't believe his sweeping statements about back alignment, too, some of which were just anatomically wrong. All in all, though, I was glad to practice with a group of people in such an incredible setting, and I learned a few things about some poses I don't practice often. But I miss my teachers from Austin. Ori was there and when she heard that I taught a slower, more internally-focused form of yoga, she seemed disappointed that she hadn't gotten me teaching when I was here. Apparently, most local teachers teach a more athletic style.

FINALLY (still the same day!), Max and I went out for a night on the town. We went first to the one fancy-schmancy restaurant in town. Okay, not exactly fancy, since it's on the beach sand, very dimly lit by candles at a few tables made from driftwood and local hardwoods. But extremely gourmet, even a little outside the reach of our tastes, and pricey even by Austin standards. Didn't much matter, because as we got to the end of the menu we noticed the "NO CC" note, and realized we didn't have enough cash to pay for a full meal. The Italian owner very sweetly told us to go ahead and order a meal, and to come back some other day to pay, but the next day was Sunday and Monday was a bank holiday, and we didn't feel comfortable letting our debt go that long! Still, we had a fantastic evening on the town.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Sharon: Jules, and Keeping House

So, Mom asked how Jules was doing with the nanny, saying she assumed that since I hadn’t mentioned it, everything must be going okay. Well…actually, I’d just been holding out, not wanting to complain amidst our otherwise great fortune, and still hoping things might turn around.

Background: Jules is one of the easiest kids I’ve ever met in almost every regard. Never minds a stranger, never minds a babysitter. Loves to socialize with random folks at the pool or in the store. Sleeps well for naps and nighttime, loves to play with other kids. In all of our planning for this trip, we never considered that he might not be amenable to our plans. Never.

Well, he’s not amenable to them. He just didn’t like Lady. In her defense, I think the Spanish was distressing for a kid who is so verbal, who loves to narrate his world to a rapt audience and depends on being able to easily communicate his needs. On the other hand, she wasn’t exactly perky or engaging, and exuded a lack of confidence. After 8 days of trying desperately to get them used to each other, we officially gave up.

It’s not so bad. Max and I can at least take turns having a morning out to relax. Plus, we had a few lovely mornings alone together, more than we have in months at home, so I’m very grateful. We’re saving some bucks. And I’ve also realized that I’m kind of into housework, that I need to be rooted in the care of the place where I live. So.

Jules actually doesn’t seem to like much of anything about our plans for him this trip, come to think of it. He wasn’t going to be “potty-trained” in three days like Liam was at the same age, so we gave up on that, too, for now. He doesn’t want to sleep well anymore, preferring instead to wake up many, many times each night and be up for good around 5:00 a.m. He has started climbing out of the pack-and-play (and toddling out, quite proud of himself), so we put him in a bed, and now he asks for the crib!

The thing is that I needed a guru for this trip. Max and I have both felt a little aimless, unused to all this free time, but also a little greedy. Jules has reminded us that as much we want a vacation from the kiddos, parenting little children is our life right now, even in a tropical paradise. He’s also helped us remember that they know when we’re trying to ditch them, and they don’t like it; as soon as we stopped having Lady come and started making Jules a big part of our day, he got so much happier overall.

But it takes a lot of housework here to keep nature from taking over, and Lady was supposed to be helping with that, too. There’s gecko poop on the living “room” floor in the morning, scorpions to shoe out, dust and leaves everywhere. Our clothes get covered in mud before noon, and there’s salt water on an outfit a day. Today’s my day off and Max has Jules at the beach, but they’ve been gone for two hours and I’ve only just been able to take a break, having swept and mopped the floors, done the dishes, done a load of laundry. I found myself thinking about how in a Buddhist monastery, the most menial chores are given to the most senior monks, and I mopped with care and contentment.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Khalida: Chicken in a Bag

(Here's a Guest-Post from Khalida):

Ring ring.
"What's up?"
"Stop by my mom's house to pick up the chicken."
"Okay."

Sharon and I have escaped from the little monkeys and are running around Cobano unchaperoned, buying groceries, getting milk from Asan's grandmother (from the cow, but though some might say it tastes like grass, others, who shall remain nameless, say it tastes like a rubber glove), and saying hello to yet more of Asan's family in town. (He is related to half of the town. At least.) I finally mention to Sharon that we have to stop by my mother-in-law's on the way out of town to get a chicken. Finally, they have caught one for us of the 100-some-odd chicken running around their yard. Sharon groans, imagining a long drawn out visit, yet again, with Rosa Leda. I promise we will be quick. I imagine popping in, picking up a plastic bag with chicken pieces in it, and jumping back into the car.

Well.

I find my mother-in-law at the back of the house talking on the phone. She whispers that the chicken is right over there. I look. I see a wooden crate, upside-down in the yard. I look at her suspiciously. I look back at the crate. Ah, there seems to be a live chicken under the crate. I look back at her horrified. She tells me to just put it in a sac and take it home. Huh? Okay, first of all - it is alive? And second of all, sac? Where? She chuckles at me and tells me to have Millo, their gardener/helper show me what to do. He laughs and tells me to put it in a sac. What is the deal with the sac? Should I have brought one? I shrug apologetically, I'm a gringa, c'mon, they know I don't know what to do with a chicken if it isn't wrapped in plastic wrap, denude of skin and bones in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Gimme a break! They do, chuckling to themselves at the poor gringa, innocent as a baby. It occurs to me that they have orchestrated this entire scenario to see me squirm. He shows me how to tie the legs and brings me a sac and puts it inside, all the while repeatedly explaining graphically how to kill it though I keep reassuring him that there is no way that I am going to be the one to kill it. That is what my Tico husband is for.

I walk back to the car, barely able to suppress the smile on my face. Sharon looks confused, then horrified as the bag starts to wiggle around. I say, "A trip to Costa Rica wouldn't be complete without a live chicken in a bag."



NOTE FROM SHARON: A few months ago in Austin, we went with friends to visit a farm, and I had a conversation with Misty (and maybe others?) about processed chicken. I remember telling her that I just didn't want to know where my chicken came from, that I could barely bring myself to eat it as it was, from a package. The conversation stuck with me, because I knew as the words came out of my mouth, that that was one of those positions I'd some day evolve out of. Barbara Kingsolver's book, coinciding with this trip, made me look it square in the eye. I decided that I shouldn't be eating meat if I can't reconcile myself to the reality of where it comes from (not just from an ethical standpoint, but also because of the complicated health and political implications of industrial meat farming).

I didn't watch the whole butchering and cleaning process this time, but--I swear!--I'm going to do it before we leave. And I bet I'll be a little more grateful about my food for having seen it.

Sharon: How to Catch a Tarrantula

According to Asan, you chew up a piece of gum really well, and tie it on the end of a string. Then you drop the gum into a tarrantula hole in the ground (looks like a fire ant hole, apparently, but bigger). The little critter bites down into the gum and gets stuck, at which point you can pull him out. Then you and your five-year-old male Tico friends can set them up to fight each other.

Oh...and many thanks to Doug and Debra for initiating us into the world of tarrantulas and scorpions, because Khalida sure didn't warn me to turn on a light and look around before I reached my hand into the laundry bag!!

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Max: The Compound

With the long, very bumpy, near-mile driveway that leads to our quarters, I can’t help feeling like we’re in some war movie, driving a jeep through jungle terrain to get to the spot where strategies are sorted and bodies are healed. Once we climb the rockiest part of our driveway in first-gear four-wheel-drive, we finally end up on level ground and the roof comes into view. This feeling is reinforced by the screams and yelps you can suddenly hear coming from the house, with four little monkey kids running around like soldiers on shore leave.

Of course with beaches and coffee and monkeys all around it doesn’t exactly feel like war, but I like to think we’re roughing it out here. Even if that just means we get knocked around inside our car and have to descale our own fish from time to time.

Max: Howler Monkeys

I’ve been to Costa Rica once before, several years ago, and I was introduced to howler monkeys then. They’re all over the trees like squirrels are at home, but they’re named for their large deep growl. From a distance one of these growls can sound like a distant earthquake’s rumble, or like a fierce lion attacking an enemy. Still, you get used to the sound and it’s no more surprising than thunder during a cloudy day.

However, the other morning I was taking an early morning run down the extended driveway from our compound. All was quiet and peaceful until suddenly, just beyond my right shoulder, one of these monkeys let loose one of their trademark howls. It’s one thing to hear them from a hundred yards away, but another to hear them from ten feet. While the monkeys are friendly enough looking (imagine Curious George on a serious diet), up close they can sound like King Kong at his absolutely most ferocious.

Anyway, that was a good wakeup call. No matter how much you know in your mind that these monkeys are small and harmless, a noise that powerful will still send your heart into overdrive.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Finally...photos

Since we're getting some errands done in Cobano, I have time to upload photos. This is Khal and Asan's house. Our "wing" is on the left, theirs is on the right, and the living area is in the middle.



Here's the view from my yoga mat (in the living room) at 5:30am:



This is the lightening-fast section of their driveway:



Here are the kids at the dining room table:



Jules surveys the ocean on his first day there. This scene would be impossible to capture now, since he takes off toward the water faster than we can strip the clothes off of him.



Here's my favorite, of Fiona and Liam in their school uniforms on the second day of school:

Monday, August 6, 2007

Sharon: One with the Land

So it’s impossible to ignore here that you are merely another animal on this great, green earth. First of all, the land here is huge and awe-inspiring, and humbling. The lines between inside and out are blurred; our rooms don’t have screens, the living and dining rooms don’t have walls, all manner of insects, geckos, spiders, even bats fly in and out. The noises of nature—cicadas, the waterfall, howler monkeys, the rain--can easily drown out conversation.

So it’s not just a little disconcerting to look out the shower window to see my non-biodegradable, neon-blue shampoo pouring out onto the jungle floor. I know how it happens: there are so few people in such a huge space, that nature will win, at least in the big picture. But for how long? Costa Ricans have never had to care where their waste water goes, but when does the balance tip? I notice that there is a little dead river of mud where our shower drains, and I wish I could run to Whole Foods and buy environmentally respectful bath products. But everything for sale here is as toxic as possible, it seems, because it’s easy to think that you can’t make a mark on a landscape so huge and powerful.

Another fact of life that is completely distressing is the garbage situation. I challenge even the most hardened of you to take your next empty wine bottle and just throw it in the garbage. Imagine throwing every waste product generated by a family of 8 into the garbage: every bottle, can, and plastic tub. And on top of that, every cookie, cracker, anything you buy in a package comes in teeny, single servings wrapped in plastic. There is no recycling, there isn't even a garbage dump. Our garbage gets collected in town, and taken "to the other side of the hill" where it is all burned, every toxic piece of it. Very scary.

Sharon: Montezuma's Revenge

That’s what it’s called, isn’t it? One second you’re happily lounging in a beach-side café, mulling your good fortune while a very nice local woman minds your child back at home, and the next second you’re racing toward the door marked “Womens use mens.”

Jules and I don’t feel so good today. It’s no big deal, more weakness than anything. I know it’ll be over soon, and I’m glad we have almost four weeks left. But I sure am grateful that we had Lady to watch Jules this morning, and that Max took the kids to the beach this afternoon.

This is such an amazing place, and Khalida and Asan are such amazing hosts. They must get so tired of their constant stream of houseguests, but you’d never know it. We feel so at home here, so welcomed and comfortable.

It’s a very large space, and that helps. There are two buildings, sharing a common open-air living area, making a giant U-shape (if I can ever find high-speed wireless, I’ll upload photos for y’all to see). Khal and Asan’s rooms are on one side, and ours are on the other, with the living and dining areas at the middle. For me, it’s an awesome experiment in communal living, the kind of co-housing arrangement that lots of us in Austin fantasize about. And, boy, does it work. Four adults watching four kids is SO much easier that two adults watching two kids, especially when the kids are the same age and play together.

[A little aside: Liam PLAYS with Fiona. It’s insane. You’d never believe it’s the same kid. Fiona is widely regarded as bossy and headstrong, but Liam seems to love her (yes, Freud, go to town). She pesters and pesters until he can’t say no anymore. It’s absolutely delightful to watch, him cornered, Fiona animatedly directing him in some game, or him running around the house in his own world (pretending to be a planet, or singing a song) while Fiona follows behind, playing “with” him without him even knowing.]

Anyway, being here makes me think a lot more seriously about the communal living thing. It’s really as great as you might imagine. We carpool the kids to school. We play with them in pairs, while one person folds laundry or makes dinner. Every meal is so much more festive. The dads can chat over beers while casually watching the kids play. There are kinks to work out, sure but overall, it sure feels good to share family life with such good friends.

Oh yeah…Kristen asked if we have water and electricity, and the answer is yes…and sometimes together! It’s nearly impossible to believe that water pipes come all the way out here, but they do. The electrical cables are just strung through the trees. It’s amazing. As for them being together, it’s the notorious Costa Rican system (and maybe lots of place have it, I don’t know) of heating shower water through electrical boxes. Don’t tell those hair-dryer label people.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Sharon: Food

Here’s a double-post for my pals on Goodreads. I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and there’s no better place to be reading it than here in a rural part of a developing country. If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s her family's account of a year of living off of only local food (they had to know the person who grew or raised it). So far it seems to be about half about their reasons for doing it (the politics, economics, science of it), and half about the methods (how asparagus grows, how they set up their garden). For food fanatics like me, it’s awesome.

It takes on a new significance here. The town and its economies have changed a lot since I first came here, and there are lots of imported items available. But still, people are much more connected to the land and what it offers us. Asan (and now Khalida) are a wealth of information about the plants around us. We take walks down the driveway and scavenge nibbles from the side of the road. There’s a tree (pochote) with large, shiny, dark-green leaves you can eat. It’s got a nice tang to it, and eating it makes me feel better for the complete absence of anything else green in my diet here. Jules loves it. There are a handful of trees on the driveway with berries and seeds we can eat: nances, lenguas de vaca (you should see the leaves), and others. Asan came in yesterday with a fresh coconut, two spoons, and two straws for my kids to drink the milk and scrape out the yummy insides.

I LOVE that the kids are really learning where food comes from. Our eggs come from Asan’s mother’s house, and the kids search for the loot in the garage where the chickens have taken up nesting. Starting today, we’re going to get our milk fresh from Asan’s grandmother’s cows. The honey came from a hive on the property.

On the other hand, I’m learning things that make me see how easy it is for us to lose our food culture, for it to be perverted into the kind of food-comes-from-the-supermarket mentality that we have in the States. A little local geography: The center of Montezuma is at the beach. Khal's house is about a mile inland toward Cobano, the nearest town with facilities like a bank, schools, clinic, etc. Cobano is only 7 km from the ocean, but never, in the entire time I lived here, did I see someone eating fish. I talked to Asan about this yesterday, and he told me that the fish he used to serve in his Cobano restaurant came from Puntarenas, about 4 hours—including a ferry ride!—away! He also bets that it was caught down the road from Montezuma, and shipped to Puntarenas for distribution. There is no fish market in this entire region, despite the fact that we live less than 1 km from the ocean. If we want to eat fish, we have to ask Ana, Khal’s housekeeper who lives among fishermen down the road from Montezuma, to bring us the catch of the day. The other day she brought us a whole red snapper (which Max gallantly descaled, by the way) that had been caught the day before. It easily fed five adults the most delicious fish I have ever tasted, and cost us $4.50 total. But there is no easy way to make it a part of our diet, and the Ticos who don't live or have relatives living specifically ON the beach, have virtually no way to acquire it regularly.

I also learned that the avocados, which are a staple of the diet here, now come from Mexico. Fifteen years ago, Marcos and Emilia used to keep a potato sack full of avocados in the kitchen. They collected them from the tree in Marcos’s mother’s yard. But apparently in the intervening years, an invading, non-local termite snuck in—the local theory is that they came in on the bales of imported telephone wire, but it’s easy to see why locals would blame technology—and ate all of the avocado trees. In fifteen years, they went from having an avocado per person per day for free, to having to import them and pay American prices for them. Such an awesome source of good fats and nutrients…and now the non-wealthy can’t afford them. So sad.

Don't want to end on such a depressing note...Ummm... I am learning to make some Tico foods (gallo pinto, tortillas from scratch) and will be able to take that skill with me back to Texas. Oh, and I'll never be satisfied with HEB-brand dried black beans again. There's got to be a better source in the US of A. The beans they eat here have such full, rich flavor all by themselves, nothing added. It's a good thing, too, since we eat them three times a day, and sometimes for an afternoon snack!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Sharon: Futbol

On Liam’s second day of school (which he LOVES, by the way), they took all the kids in a bus to see a soccer game a few miles away. He came home that afternoon full of enthusiasm:

“Mommy, I want to pretend soccer.”
“Okay,” I said.
He clarified: “But first, we have to make a party.”

How’s that for cultural assimilation?

Sharon: The Bank

So we arrive at the bank in Cobano at 8:30, full of dread, but in desperate need of some cash. We take a number: 16. They’re “Now Serving” number 86. Max watches for an hour, and they’ve only gotten to 97, so we decide to wander around town and stop into the internet café. We check back in at the bank an hour and a half later, and they’re only on 3. That’s seventeen people in two and a half hours, and we have thirteen more people to go before our number is called. We decide to go home for lunch, and come back in an hour, expecting to have to wait about an hour after that.

Of course, you can see where this is headed: we get back to the bank to find them “Now Serving” number 42. And the next ticket? TWENTY-NINE. That would be eighty-seven people in line ahead of us.

I wonder about the lane marked something like “Servicio Rapido.” Max had told me that meant you stood in line for two hours instead of sitting down for four. I ask the security guard for his take, and he says it depends on what number you have for regular service. I roll my eyes, and show him my #29 ticket, and he gives me a sympathetic eye roll.

At this point, I enter into a world that is very familiar. Yes, there’s something about it that I picked up when I lived here, but there’s also something very Texan about it that I’d never thought much about until today. There’s this sense that light-hearted chatting with a perfect stranger over misfortune can bring us together. It’s a kind of small talk that generally annoys Northerners, or makes them pretty uncomfortable…unless it’s about severe weather, right? That’s the only thing I can think of that Northerners just chat with strangers about. Anyway, feeling very southern and certainly very Tica after this brush with bureaucratic inefficiency, I launch into my story about our wait in the morning, and the security guard gives me a “boy-I-can’t-believe-it” shake of the head as I take my chances in the express lane.

I stand there for just a couple of minutes, when my security guard pal sidles up to me, and hands me a ticket that says “47.” Max and I later hypothesize that people got fed up at lunch, or as the afternoon was wearing on, and just threw their tickets on to the floor. I make a mental note to check the litter on the sidewalk outside the bank the next time I go in. Anyway, how he got it, I’ll never know, but dang, he must have saved us hours and hours of waiting.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Sharon: Number 16

That's what we are in line at the bank right now, and they're on 94. In the past hour they've done 8 people, so now we're down the street, waiting in the Internet cafe.

I put all of our money eggs in one basket, knowing that ATM's have spread around the world, figuring that if there are three or four places around Montezuma with Internet access, that an ATM was a sure thing. Well, the ATM apparently is working, but it's not accepting PLUS cards (despite the big PLUS logo on it). So we're cashless, dependent on the bank where we can get cash using our credit cards.

Otherwise, all is well! Leave comments, people, so I know you're out there!

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Sharon: Day 2

We had had a plan for our stay: Liam going to school with Fiona every day from 8-12:30, and Jules with the full-time, $2/hour nanny; Max and I with four glorious hours to write, practice yoga, read, sun ourselves on the beach.

We hadn’t allowed ourselves to think past our arrival. We thought it likely that Jules would take well to having a full-time playmate, if we could get ourselves out of the house and leave them alone, but a plan in Costa Rica isn’t reality until it’s actually happening. Commitments are very flexible. There was no way for us to know whether Lady really intended to come work, and when. Plus, Liam is notoriously fickle, and very, very attached to us. I had thought there was, say, a 50% chance he might agree to go to school here.

We decided on our drive down that we would spend our first day helping the kids adjust, and going to find Lady in the neighboring town; she doesn’t have a phone, so I knew we’d have to drive to her house. I figured it would take a few days for Liam to be ready to go to school, and assumed there’d be lots of details to iron out with the director.

But lo and behold, Liam woke saying he wanted to go to school on his first day, explaining, “I’ve been to school a few times, and I kind of like it.” Not about to miss that boat, we jumped aboard, hussled him off to Cobano with Fiona, spent about 5 minutes there while they introduced him, the kids applauded, they marveled at his ability to speak English, and we were off! The teachers speak only Spanish, so we left Fiona with strict instructions to translate.

We got home to find Lady waiting for us. That Khalida…she’s the bomb! We let cranky, tired ol’ Jules get comfy with her and a couple of balls, and then before we could blink, Max and I were sitting in a café, drinking coffee and tamarindo juice, and marveling at our good fortune.

What an amazing start to our journey, and I’m only at 10:30a.m.

The afternoon was typically Tico. We ate our third plate of the day of rice and beans before 1:00, and then spent the afternoon with Tico friends in Cobano, Asan’s mom and then my host family. Liam got to feed chickens, chase turkeys, pull eggs out of nests in Rosa Leda’s garage, get eye-to-eye with a pig. At Emilia’s, the host mom I lived with in ’94, I was welcomed as the Prodigal daughter…but with GRANDCHILDREN! Mere pixels on a page cannot convey the frenzied enthusiasm with which we were greeted. There were a few admonitions about not having called enough, and very stern and sincere reproaches about not staying with them, but then for the rest of the visit, the kids’ feet practically didn’t touch the floor. If you know Liam, I challenge you to imagine him consenting to have some totally crazed, shouting, Spanish-speaking woman carry him around the house, kissing him until his cheeks glistened. Most of you probably heard from across the ocean her squeals of delight when he responded “Si” to her pleas that he stay with her forever. I mentioned how I was looking forward to learning to make rice pudding from her, and Jeannette, the house-keeper, was sent to make it. We shared how excited Liam was by farm animals, and, bam, we were shoved into the car to go see Marcos’s pregnant cows (I let them drag us away sans carseats, but drew the line when Emilia tried to take Liam seated on her lap in the front seat). At the farm, the kids ran down the serene dirt road with Emilia (in her high heels), giggling as she swooped them up. Back at the house, it was coffee and arroz con leche, and some neon cereal that might have been Fruit Loops. Thankfully, no one could deny that the kids looked exhausted, and we were able to make a graceful exit. We have standing invitations for dinner, horseback riding to round up the cattle, cow-milking lessons, and visiting the newborn calf. I’m starting to wonder how five weeks could possibly be enough.

I keep writing and writing, and haven’t even touched on the beauty and remoteness of Khalida and Asan’s house, or their sweet hospitality. Roads around here are bad, and I’ve crossed many a flowing river in route to a destination. But Khalida’s 1-km driveway makes the main road look like super highway. There is no way we could do it without a four-wheel drive truck, and even in the truck, it’s nerve-rattling. If I were walking, I might feel the need for rope and a harness in places. The house is an amazing blend of natural materials, where the lines between inside and out and blurred. There is no sign of any other human visible in any direction, even though we’re up on a huge hill can see about a mile to the ocean. It’s an amazing place to be a morning person (she writes at 5:15), with the sun rising over the bay, little rabbit-sized mammals scurrying for food in the yard, and the calls of howler monkeys echoing across the peninsula.

Sharon: Sleepy, but Here

It’s 5:51a.m. on our first morning in Montezuma, and I’m up, my mind racing with the excitement of our adventure yesterday and awareness of our surroundings.

To be clear, I’m usually up well before this at home, and it’s an hour earlier here anyway. But still. In terms of hours-of-sleep-that-would-be-normal, I should still be sleeping, like Max and the boys.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t start this out at the beginning, the beginning of our travel day yesterday, when Oliver woke us up at 3:30 a.m., puking all over our suitcase. We didn’t have to leave for our flight until 6:00, but we were goners, victims of pre-travel insomnia. We tried to sleep for a half-hour or so, then gave up. Max had remembered that we still needed to pack our passports, so the pre-travel insomnia was not in vain, but Robert was sleeping in our study. When we got him up, I went to grab the passports, and…que sorpresa! The passports weren’t in the file. I felt my heart leap, and immediately began consoling myself: It’s a five-week vacation, so what if we miss a week or two waiting for new ones? But, dang, were we panicked. I recalled that we had taken them to the post office to get Jules’s passport, and I couldn’t be sure that I had put them back in the file.

To cram a whole lotta agony into a short story, we found them in only about 15 minutes, and still got to the airport with time to spare.

The flights were delayed, but relatively uneventful. The plane was full of loud Gringos wearing gaudy floral T-shirts, headed for the resorts near the airport, and I was reminded that Costa Rica is not the remote place it was when I lived there. I noticed my mental attachments, my grasping for the second home of my memories, a place that doesn’t exist anymore. The kids were generally great. Jules—normally the happiest kid in town—sure is wiggly on a plane. He’s a full-time job for the two of us, so we’re glad that Liam is so happy to just sit there and read or watch a DVDWe were all exhausted by the time we got in our rental car and started out on the 5 hour drive to Montezuma.

Driving away from the airport was completely surreal. I lived here for a whole year in ’94, but haven’t been back now in nine years. Everything—the chickens in the road, the trucks passing on curves at 80 miles an hour, the hours of driving on dirt roads, the cat calls from men lingering on sidewalks—it was all completely comfortable and familiar, and brand new at the same time. I felt memories awakening, felt connected to a time in my life when I was bold and unattached, but at the same time more insecure and much more ignorant. To pass the time, I instinctively scanned the tree tops for monkeys, the mango trees for ripe fruit. The dust piled up on our skin and clothes, and I remembered the feeling, remembered learning to do it the Tico way, to close the bus windows even in the face of the stifling heat, to avoid being covered with dust.

The kids were AWESOME. They barely complained, dozed on and off (mostly off). I was so grateful, because if my aching butt was any indication of how they must have felt being bounced around in the back, they were really being stoic. At about 6:00, after 12 hours of traveling, we stopped at a “soda” near a ferry dock, and watched the sunset. There were no other foreigners there, and it felt good after the party boat that our airplane had been. We spoke lots of Spanish, and the kids ran around with the Tico kids, completely welcomed. When I returned from the ladies’ room after dinner, I found Jules in the arms of the waitress, who giggled and babbled at him, trying to get him to smile. As we left, the woman at the table next to us told us it was nice to meet us, and wished that God be with us on our way. The manager waved from the other side of the restaurant. And I felt vaguely like I had finally come home.

So this morning, we awoke full of questions for Khalida and Asan, everything from the normal kinds of questions you’d want to ask one of your closest friends you hadn’t seen in a year, to Where is the milk kept? to How does it feel to be locals here again? One moment at a time. My excitement is carrying me away.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Sharon: "I'm sure you must be really busy"

Well, actually, no. Everyone who has called in the last 24 hours starts out with some variation on that theme. But what was I doing when I got up at 5:00 this morning? I was finishing Harry Potter, not packing. Thanks to anal list-making that would make Dad positively weep with pride, I am so organized that I'm bored. The day is DRAGGING on, as we wait for the time when we can do last-minute things like empty the fridge or pack the clothes that are in the laundry.

The kids can sense that something is different--and Liam is old enough to kind of get it--but all in all, it's been a pretty ordinary day so far. Jules is showing signs of being sick, which sends shudders down my spine. He's been sick for almost every flight we've taken with him, and even under the best conditions, he's not the kind of personality to be happy sitting still on a plane. Thinking of flights with Jules calls to mind our trip to California in June, when he threw up all over Max about 30 minutes into it, covering Max from chin to waist. Max had to duck into the bathroom, wash his shirt in the tiny little sink, and put it BACK ON.

Anyway, next post from the jungles of Costa Rica. For those of you who haven't been there, here's what Frommer's has to say about the town we're going to:

Frommer's Montezuma Intro

"Booming"?! So hard to imagine, considering that when I lived there in '94, they had only had electricity for about 10 years, and to make a phone call, you still had to go through the town operator. It's also accessible only by about 90 minutes of dirt roads (after taking a ferry to the peninsula). I do wonder, though, how much the town has grown up.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Sharon: Seven Days and Counting

School uniforms. Who would have thought I'd ever send my kid to a school where he had to wear a uniform? Khalida told me to buy the shorts here because all they sell at the school Liam'll be going to are 100% polyester. Poor kids; it's not exactly the fabric of choice for jungle weather (90 degrees with 90% humidity). But do a quick search for boys' uniform shorts online and you'll find a whole lot of khaki and navy, but you know what you won't find? Forest green. And it's not a particularly fashionable color these days, either, so don't bother looking in Target, or Old Navy, or even the mall.

I found one place online that was selling them for a slightly reasonable $9 (+$6 shipping...ugh), so I ordered one pair, figuring if the ones they sell in Cobano are even more expensive, at least he'd have something to start with. But when they I arrived I could see that unless Liam suddenly gains 10 pounds, I have to take them in at the waist. I've thought about my options--a belt, binder clips, staples--and have finally resigned myself to pulling out the ol' sewing machine and trying to do it the semi-legitimate way. I'll add it to the long to-do list I have for the week.

In running through the worst-case scenarios for the trip, one thing that comes up is Liam hating school. We talk about it with him all the time (especially the part about how it'll all be in Spanish), and he says he's game for it. But if he changes his mind when he actually gets there, we'll be in a pickle. He spends his whole day here either playing piano or listening to the CD player, and he won't have either of those things in CR. Someone told us about a roll-up piano, and considering how much time he spends on the ivories here, we were briefly tempted to buy one for the trip. But then the carefree backpacker that still lives in me got wind of that idea, and threw a fit, and we're heading off with prayers that school and the nanny (Lady...yes, that's her given name) will keep him occupied instead.

In packing news (because I know you're on the edge of your seat waiting to see if we're going to be able to fit our luggage in our Honda Civic to get to the airport), I filled our enormous suitcase 3/4 full with the stuff for Khalida. At least we'll have plenty of room for Salsa Lizano and coffee on the way home. I specifically waited until this week to email Emilia with the definitive dates of our trip, so at least I've saved myself toting a suitcase full of Estee Lauder night creams. But there are three, 2+-inch-thick hardcovers I want to take with me, and I've decided I can only take one (and one other on my iPod). So Harry Potter is going to have to stay home. Don't spoil it, people!

- SL

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Max: Estoy un payaso!

Un hombre camina en una barra. El dice "ouch!"

They say the hardest thing to do in a foreign language is to be funny. Well, how's that for exceeding expectations? Then there's this classic:
Un caballo camina en una barra. El hombre detras de la barra dice "Por que usted tiene una cara larga?"

I've been making a decent effort to brush up on my Spanish before the big trip, but I feel like no matter how much I cram, I'm still going to be incredibly illiterate. So it's hard to motivate myself to keep going over verbs and common words. I think I could basically survive if I were lost, provided my arms aren't broken and I can still use my mad charade skills.

Anyway, I'll continue to listen to some tapes and peruse a book every day just to keep the language in my mind, but I'm holding out hope that I'll learn more once I'm there, and that I can make due with the flimsy foundation I've got.

We'll see how it goes. And as a testament to my skill… Have you heard this one?
Por que el pollo camino sobre el calle? El podia decir tan que "Estoy aqui!"

--ML

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Sharon: Sitting here in Austin

Well, here we go. Despite Max's strong protests, the Costa Rica trip blog is now up and running. And I've even coerced a tepid promise from him that he'll guest-post from time to time.

15 days until take-off, and even he is getting excited; while I've been periodically shouting, "I can't believe we're leaving so SOON" for several months, he said it this morning, with feeling. Lots of little details to take care of: gifties for Khalida (Cracklin' Oat Bran, face paint, a mattress pad), lawn care, paying bills in advance. Even though we're trying to be minimalists, we also have to figure out how the heck to carry all this stuff.

We went for a hike on the greenbelt this morning, and the kids eagerly shed their clothes and plunged themselves into the river to spend an hour throwing rocks and splashing around. Their enthusiasm bodes well, since that's pretty much a standard activity in Montezuma.