canine chaos

       I know I keep complaining about the dog packs that roam all night, but sleep deprivation makes you  a little crazy and a little obsessed with that which deprives you.  Once again, I am awakened by shrill barking.  Lots and lots of never ending barking. This time, thrown onto the mix are roosters before dawn.  If I were in New York City and taxis were honking, sirens were blaring, and neighbors partying all night, I would be sleeping like a baby.  I'm a city girl.  But the dogs and roosters...  I'm not the only one to notice.  Everyone who lives with a host family has dark circles under their eyes, and have decided that Quepos dogs are not man's best friend.
       At school we have new students that have arrived. Justin, a skater, surfer dude from New Mexico who is going into his senior year of high school.  He's super smart and knows more spanish than anyone could imagine, but he's here because he needs to practice his fluency, and look for hot tica girls on the beach. Wesley, another brilliant student who in his 15 short years on this planet has already traveled most of it himself. Then there's Brianne.  She introduced herself and Charlie asked her what she does back in the states.  She said she was a "Dog and Cat Food Scientist" for Iams, and her husband with her, Joe, was a surgeon.  I immediately spoke up, "Really. Do you have a food that will make dogs silent at night? Or anytime during the day would be fine too, for naps."  She looked at me with a bewildered deer-in-the-headlights look.  "Um, noooo." A student chimed in, "Do you think it's possible to create one quickly?"  "Um, no."  Another added, "What about your husband?  Is there a possible surgery?"  She looked towards Charlie wide eyed.  "Am I in the wrong class?" Charlie said, "Children, children back down.  Brianne is here to learn spanish, not solve your REM problems." "Oh sorry Brianne, welcome to class."  We laughed that nervous distant laugh that said we were still pondering a solution.
       Next around the table was Nicole.  She is from Switzerland.  In broken english, she said she had been on a jungle survival trip in Venezuela for the last 8 weeks to learn spanish.  A silence fell cross the room as our sleep deprived brains processed what she had just said. We all turned at once and stared until finally I spoke up, "Then what are you doing here?"  She started to laugh and said, "Oh I guess that no make sense.  I go Venezuela to learn spanish but my guide only spek english, so I learn english in front of. Now I'm learn spanish."  We asked her numerous questions about survival in the jungle.  She talked about sleeping in a hammock for 8 weeks, about being in rain for days on end, and about having to catch and kill what you eat, or you don't eat.  Suddenly our silly problem with barking dogs seemed trivial.  We voted her class "badass", and vowed to quit whining.
       That afternoon we had Salsa and Merengue dance lessons at school.  Gabrielle blasted the boombox and taught us step by step how to move around the dance floor. We managed the steps, but we gringos have a problem with the hip action. We can't seem to let go and let the hips roll around freely the way the latino's can. Is it genetic?  We became determined to master it, but all the lessons in the world couldn't prevent the eye rolling we got from Gabrielle.  Finally we couldn't take the pressure any longer and began to break dance and do the sprinkler.  It got ugly and Gabrielle shooed us out of class until the next day.
       In the evening I was looking forward to getting to bed early to beat the canines at their own game, but I had promised another student I would go out with her for latin music to practice our dancing.  Catie, is an aspiring spanish teacher trying to get her final certification before the fall semester begins.  She and her husband Jason are staying with Bileida's parents, a block away.  Our plans were to go to a local club, but when Bileida heard we were going out dancing that night she said. "I thought you would want to go with us.  The place we are going is outside of town, and has the most beautiful music. The music is so much better than the other club, it's fantastic."   I asked Bileida if she would call her parents' house and see if Catie and Jason  wanted to go with them.  Again Bileida went on and on with Catie about how much more beautiful the music was at the place they were going to. When we arrived, I found out why.  It was karaoke night and the beautiful music was my tico parents! They sang their hearts out.  Evidently the ticos love karaoke. Even Catie got up and joined in.  She courageously sang Shakira's, "She Wolf"  in spanish. Then, we thought the Ticos would be tired of it,  but she brought the house down when she belted out, "La Bamba".
       The next morning at school, a friend of mine showed up during our break.  She introduced me to her sister who had just flown in from the states for a visit.  "I came by this morning because I had my sister bring you the magic cure." she said.  I wondered what she meant.  She grinned as she pulled out a small bag, turned it over and dropped the contents.  Little white things rained down all over the desk like manna from heaven...  earplugs!!!!

Quepos marauders

trying to get a table at a restaurant

legitimate Quepos dog

spanish class

dance lessons

that's my toe...

this music IS so much more beautiful

Anibal sings a love song to Bileida

Shakira

gachos! bringing down the house

ok now this is just how the problem perpetuates

almuerzo

        The ticos are unbelievably polite and respectful to everyone. As I've mentioned before they stand to let the elderly sit, they say hello to every single person they see, they kiss on the cheek as a greeting, they stop traffic to talk to one another, they play with children, and so on.  In the spanish language, if you are saying the word "you", one has two choices:  "tu" which is informal and one would use it with someone they know or a friend, or "usted" which is formal.  One would use this word with someone they don't know well, or out of respect for that person.  Here in Costa Rica they are so polite they don't even use the "tu" form at all!  It is always "usted" that is used.   They are also so nice that when you go out to a restaurant and have a meal, they will not bring you the check in the end.  You could sit there for hours and they will not bring you the check until you ask for it, because to them, if they came to bring you the check it would be like asking you to leave which would not be polite at all.  Also, in most spanish speaking countries when you say "thank you " you get the response, "de nada" which means, "it's nothing".  To the Costa Ricans it would be a negative to say it was nothing.  It would discount the act that was being thanked.  Instead they say, "Mucho gusto." It is my pleasure.  Or, "Con mucho gusto" It is with much pleasure (that I do this for you).  And if they really want to make their point they will say, "El gusto es mio." The pleasure is mine. To me, these are just added reasons to love the Costa Ricans.
       Ticos are happy for you to learn their language too and they will help you if you ask, but they are far too polite to correct you.  At times, this can be a problem because many words are similar, and we gringos get mixed up.  The ticos will just try to figure out what you said, and respond. Sometimes though, their playful spirit gets the best of them.  I was at a restaurant one evening and at the end of the meal I waved to the waiter and said, "La cuenta por favor."  The check please.  Some gringos at the table next to me overheard, so one of the men waved to his waiter and said, "Lo cuento por favor."  The waiter stopped, turned and said, "Muy bien." Very well. He bowed, put his pencil behind his ear, his check pad in his back pocket and somberly said, "Un dia  un hombre comino en una barra..." One day a man walked into a bar...  My table burst into laughter.  The gringo, instead of asking for the check, had asked for a story. We grinned with the men from Texas as we explained the difference between la cuenta, and lo cuento. Sometimes though, the faux pas can be a little more intrepid...
        At the Academia we were going to learn about cooking terms and all types foods in spanish.  Our professor decided we should each bring ingredients with us the next day and we would prepare a meal for the school as we learned the words.  We prepped for an hour as we went over terms for utensils, foods, spices, and recipes.  When all was ready, we called the other students to the dining area to break bread with us. As David, the owner of our school, approached I motioned him to the front of the line.  "No, why should I go first?" he humbly asked. I summoned up all of my spanish speaking courage and practiced a new word I had learned. "Porque disgraciado!" David's eyes went wide and his mouth fell open in disbelief. "What?!  What did you say?! Who is your professor??!!"  The room fell into a stunned silence. I back pedaled, not knowing what went wrong. "What?" I said in english, "because we are grateful!" The other teachers then doubled over in laughter speaking spanish amongst themselves rapidly while pointing at me and trying to catch their breath.  Instead of saying, "agradecido"  which means grateful, I had said, "disgraciado" which means disgrace, and even worse, it is a slang term in Costa Rica.  I had unwittingly told my head master he should go to the front of the line because "he was a son of a bitch."   My face went beet red as I apologized profusely.  David laughed and laughed as I begged him not to fire Charlie, my teacher.

Mauricio, our groundskeeper, shows us how it's done

Helen in the kitchen, doing what a mom does

Charlie's chef friends would be proud

Charlie and David moments before I dropped the SOB bomb

yum yum

Tico love, now that's what I'm talking about

chicle

       One morning Bileida gave me a ride to the bus stop because she was going to an exercise class that started up recently, at the local church.  She had on her white tennis shoes, shorts and a t shirt that fell off one shoulder (think flashdance).  She went into the bathroom and put her long hair up into a ponytail with a silver scrunchie.  Her hair is normally short and very thin, but yesterday Bileida got extensions.  She changes her hair all of the time.  She started selling jewelry for money so she could take many trips to the salon and have long hair.  Anibal told her, "enough", so now she wears it up whenever she is around him thinking he won't notice. In the bathroom she topped off her new do with a silver visor and sunglasses on top of that. She picked up her two-pound weights and we headed to the car. I smiled to myself on the bus, thinking how fortunate I was to step into the middle of their reality as a witness to their life.
       At school, I walked into class to find that a new student had joined us.  Helen. She was already accustomed to the unbelievable heat and humidity because she was from New Orleans. Helen is an amazing woman and the mother of three hilarious children who also take spanish at the school. She admitted right off the bat that she was a little addicted to chewing gum and she placed a container on the table explaining that this was undoubtedly the best gum in the world.  She shared all around and we happily smacked away with our surprising bursts-o-flavor. We got out our notebooks and settled into our lesson. Charlie told us which page to turn to and reached for his reading glasses to instruct us.  When he pulled them out of his pocket he set them on the bridge of his nose upside down and began to read.  We giggled like junior high girls thinking he didn't realize what he'd done.  He laughed too and showed us that the pads on his glasses had gone missing so he couldn't wear them the correct way because they would stab him. He struggled to look down far enough to read but but when he did they slipped off his nose.  In an underdeveloped country it is very difficult to just "run out and get" something you need, so we must improvise and make do all the time.  I searched my brain for a solution, thinking about what I might have in my backpack that would help.  Nothing.  I scanned the room and my eyes landed on the gum.  "Chicle Charlie! Podemos poner el chicle en sus vidrios." We can put gum on your glasses. He took a piece from Helen, divided it in two, and rolled it into little balls. He placed them in the right spot, put the glasses on the bridge of his nose, and easily began to read.  About twenty minutes later though, he yanked off the glasses and began rubbing his eyes in pain.  The heat had melted the gum and the sugar ran down into his eyes causing them to burn and sting.  He ran into the bathroom and washed out his eyes.  When he came back out, we told him that we would be his readers for the day. He grinned, leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the table.  "Gracias, pura vida." He said.
       That night Bileida made a wonderful dinner of costa rican stew. It had meat, potatoes,vegetables and of course was served with a side of black beans and rice. After dinner I went up to look through my bags.  I thought I brought an extra pair of reading glasses with me that I could give to Charlie. I had just located them when Anibal called me downstairs to watch the Costa Rican version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire".  He and Bileida sat on the couch and I went to a chair across the room.  Bileida waved me over to the couch.  She said it was too hot where I was sitting and there was a fan facing them.  She patted the middle cushion and told me to sit. So there I was on the couch in between my parents, just like a kid, watching tv. The contestant kept getting correct answers and made more money as he continued to stay in the game.  Anibal knew the answers and would shout them out.  There was a tricky question about the United States, so of course I thought I knew the answer and chose B.  Anibal shook his head. "A."  I reminded him that I was American and would know.  He just smiled and shrugged, "A" he said.  The host let the suspense build and announced, "The answer is.... A!"  Anibal doubled over laughing with delight as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a mil colones to give to him.
         Bileida took her hair down and discovered she had a huge rat's nest in it from aerobics.  She tried to clear it out with her fingers but it was too big.  She searched for a brush, came back and handed it to me.  I looked over at Anibal and he just rolled his eyes.  I laughed as I combed and pulled and combed and pulled.  I was just putting the final touch on a braid so it wouldn't happen again, when the contestant actually won a million dollars! He may think that he is wealthy now, but I tell you... today I am the one who is truly rich.

Charlie con chicle

Helen's Mardi Gras kids

No, really.  They are serious about their spanish.

Bileida's golden locks

one mil = two dollars hahaha

foodies

          For all of you who watch the food channel every day without fail (Adam), and for those of you who are schooled in cooking (Liza and Tessa), are a master baker (Myriah), actually blow-torch hamburgers (Ford), or cook every night on a propane stove (Katie), I bring you this entry. In honor of all of my foodie children, I give you the scoop on deliciousness in Costa Rica.
       My personal favorite, which I've mentioned over and over, is casado.  Casado is the term for the typical Costa Rican meal.  It consists of black beans, rice, a meat, fried plantain, and a side of either vegetables or a salad.  There are different versions of the sides, but this is the basic meal. It's satisfying, balanced and so healthy.

You can get casasdo in the home of a tico, if you are fortunate enough to be invited, or at a restaurant called a "soda". Yes, you read that correctly. Here, a soda is not something you drink, it is a local cafe owned by a tico.  Soda's serve up delicious local meals, authentically made from fresh ingredients.  They are inexpensive too, with a normal casado costing 2,500 colones, or five dollars. Below is a soda near my school that I like to frequent.  It's named D'Angel and  although it doesn't look like much, the food is fantastic and the family that runs it is wonderful.

Padre spreads new dirt on the parking pad.

Notice that both Coke and Pepsi are offered.
Hmm, they seem to be able to get along here.

One day, I went to Jose's International which is the soda with the fantastic burritos. It was a very hot afternoon and we were done with school for the day, so my friends wanted a cold beer with their lunch. Jose said, "I don't have beer, but what kind would you like?"  We answered, "Um, Imperial, please."  We looked at each other wondering if we had just translated that correctly.  Was he bringing us a beer or not?  A few minutes later, a young man pulled up on a motorcycle and ran into the soda with a bag. A minute after that, Jose brought four cold Imperials to our table with big smile. We learned that soda's don't have an alcohol license, which is incredibly expensive, but you are welcomed to bring your own drink into their establishment. Jose had called in a delivery for us. That delivery came from a market down the street called the Super Joseth.  It has most of the basics a person needs for sustenance if one lives here, and for those vacationing in paradise, it has plenty of alcohol. The amazing thing is that Super Joseth delivers.  Anything.  You can call for an entire weeks worth of groceries, or you can ask for one lime.  No matter, it will cost you a delivery charge of 500 colones, or one dollar, and will be delivered in five minutes.  When I have my own place with a view, I am certain now that I will not leave it for days on end.

Super Joseth

The delivery box translates,
"don't stop the party call us"

Yummy pastries

My friend Tony? Well he just gets around.

There are some things though,
no matter how far you go, you can not get away

Translation????  Please! 

Yes, this truly is rum and coke in the same can.

An exciting place to find amazing produce is the agricultural fair, or farmer's market, on the weekends in Quepos.  I have never seen so many exquisite fruits in one place. There is no place like a rain forest to grow the sweetest mangos, papayas, and pineapples ever tasted.

Two fellow spanish students at the farmers market.

Beautiful, fresh items can be yours for only a few colones.

fun times at the market

yikes, no federal safety regulations here

Another of my favorite treats is a visit from Jose, the empanada man. Again, a vendor named Jose, but this one is a traveling one-man show.  He carries a cooler full of hot empanadas filled with chicken,beef or potatoes. He also has a plastic water bottle full of a hot sauce and he will drench your meat pie it if you wish. He makes his rounds to the language schools during their morning breaks and then he heads down to the beach to continue selling his product.  He remembers everyone's name, what school they attend and their favorite food order.  To me, this is as impressive as the quality of his empanadas.  The coolest thing though, is that he sells juice in a bag.  He squeezes fresh fruit, puts the juice in a baggie, and carries it in a cold cooler.

I'm sure Jose thought up this idea
long before Welches had a clue

I'd heard that a juice bar recently opened in Manuel Antonio and that they had coconut water. I was really excited because the water from a coconut is nature's perfect sports drink with electrolytes and potassium.  The juice bar was also located at the end of my morning runs to the beach.  Perfect.  I stopped into the small shop and ordered a coconut water to go.  I looked around the cafe thinking, "Good, I'll see what the brand is and maybe I can get it at the Super Joseth." Hahaha, silly me.  The woman reached under the counter and pulled out a machete. She grabbed a small coconut from a bowl and hacked off the top.  She popped a straw into the top and charged me one dollar.  My "agua de pipa" was refreshing and I was rejuvenated.  The best part was, it was recycleable.  As I ran up the hill, I put the straw in my pocket and tossed the pipa back into the jungle.

eyes

        Back in Quepos it was business as usual in my neighborhood of Boca Vieja. (which translates into - Old Mouth ??  Ok, I have no idea. Really.) We pulled on to my street, and as I watched the children play and the dog’s roam, I had this strange feeling wash over me. It was a feeling of being “home”.  But then, I was home wasn’t I?  I don’t have another home.   My family, all fifteen of them that were in the house at the moment, welcomed me with hugs, kisses, and a thousand questions all at once about my weekend.  Bileida immediately went into the kitchen and whipped up a huge plate of food for me.  Pinto Gallo, a salad, and the most amazing piece of delicate fish I have ever eaten.  She said she bought it at the market because it had been caught that very day in a fishing village nearby.  Anibal laughed at me because I only drink one inch of Coca-cola every night.  When they offer me something I always accept because I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I have never been one to drink soda at all.  I didn’t realize he was watching so closely. I am learning, though, that everyone is watching.  Watching very closely.  I have always lived in cities, and I am an urban dweller by nature. Part of the attraction, beyond the energy and excitement that a city provides, has been that I can wander around in an anonymous fashion if I so choose.  Here though, I am learning, I’m in a very small town, and although I think I am just going about living my new life, people are noticing.

         One day PamEla asked me to walk with her down to the beach because she had to buy something for her son. He was a surfer and wanted her to bring him a hemp necklace from the local beachside market there.  We trekked down the main road to the beach and stopped at the first booth we found.  It was draped with dresses, jewelry, towels and t shirts for sale.  A beautiful Tico woman greeted us and assisted PamEla with a gift for her son. I asked the woman her name. “Como se llama?”  She answered, “PamEla.”  I laughed with delight and said, “Mi amiga es PamEla, tambien.” My friend is Pamela too!  She kissed my friend on the cheek and they laughed at the odds.   Then I told her that my name was Lucetta.  She looked at me and said, “Se a quien ustedes es." Oh I know who you are.  She wagged her finger at me and said, “Usted es la muchacha mala que hacia su tarea en el autobus la semana pasada." You are the bad girl who was doing her homework on the bus last week. What?!? Oh my gosh, she was right.  “No, you don’t understand!” I explained in breathless English, “It was my birthday the night before.  I don’t do that every time!”  She burst out laughing and responded in perfect English, “Sure, sure, sure. Next time just ask ME for help. Very nice to meet you, mi amiga Lucetta.”

       Several years ago, I took up running.  I was getting older and I wanted to stay healthy for as long as possible.  My feet hadn’t hit the pavement since I’d left the US, but I decided I needed to start back up again because my Tico mother fed me into oblivion. I checked the tide chart for the beach.  If the tide was low, I could run on the beach and jump over the small rivers that ran into the ocean, without getting my running shoes wet. (Nothing ever dries out here) If the tide was high, the rivers were too wide and I would have to remove my shoes to wade through them, making running impossible. I got up several times that week at the crack of dawn, according to the charts, and ran down to the beach.  It was a steep run down a gravel road, but I passed several beautiful homes on the way, waving and exchanging pleasantries in spanish with the caretakers of the houses as they worked in the yards.  On the weekend I slept in and walked down to the beach with a friend.  As we headed down the gravel road we noticed there was a man standing in the middle of the road.  As we neared, we saw that he stood with his hands out as if to stop us.  We walked closer and as we did, he took one hand and tapped it on the top of his other wrist where a watch would be. With a grin on his face he said, in English, “You’re late.” 

home again 

public elementary school right beside my house
hey, is that one of those stray dogs?...

 PamEla's booth

my beach at low tide

       

Matapalo

        My field trip began as Charlie picked us up at PamEla's hotel and we drove through the countryside to Matapalo.  I was happy to see more of Costa Rica.  We passed mile after mile of palm trees and I asked Charlie about them.  He explained that back in the 1940's these were all banana fields owned by the United Fruit Company, or as we know them, Chiquita.  There was a banana blight that came in from Panama and destroyed all of the bananas.  Chiquita decided to try the African Palm to save it's business, and it worked out wonderfully.  The oil from the tree is the basis for lotions, cosmetics, soaps, candles, and is also used as cooking oil.  By the time the banana blight had passed, the palm industry was firmly established and profitable. We passed acres and acres of nothing but palm trees, except every few miles or so there was housing that had been built for the field workers.  Each one of these sets of homes, interestingly enough, perfectly surrounded a soccer field.

       We arrived with enough daylight that we were able to tour the Jungle House property and walk across the dirt road to the beach.  It took my breath away.  It was truly the most beautiful beach I had ever seen in my life. I felt like I had arrived at the end of the earth.  It was long and wide with dark sand created by volcanoes. There was not one single person on the expanse of the entire beach.  I wanted to cry at the beauty and simplicity of it. PamEla and I walked in silence, rendered speechless, both of us being consumed by an immense stirring in our souls.  It was one of those unforgettable, life-altering moments that hopefully we all experience at one point or another in our lives, jolting us out of our numbness, if only for a short while. We left when the very last glow of daylight fell below the horizon and we were afraid we might not find our way back to Jungle House in the dark.

      That evening, Charlie piled as many people as he could from his communal house, into his truck and we drove to the next town. We all wanted pizza and there was a great little restaurant that served it in Dominical, a surfer's beach, located about 16 kilometers south of Matapalo. Over dinner we got to know Charlie's funny friends, through a combination of spanish and english.  They mocked him from time to time about  being our professor.  "Oh no!" I came to Charlie's defense, " He has taught us many useful things in class!"  He taught us how to say, "Echo un pedo." Literal translation: He is letting out farts, and "Echar un pedo." He farted. I cannot, for the life of me, even remember how this came up in class, but they fell out of their chairs laughing hysterically, pointing at "un profesor".  I looked at Charlie and asked, "Como se dice en espanol, how do you say, "Don't flap the sheets?"  He and PamEla laughed and Ignacio, who spoke very good english, asked what I meant by that question.  Evidently he doesn't have any brothers or sisters or he would understand.  I explained that when someone passed gas in the bed and they wanted to pull a prank, they would "flap the sheets" and the smell would go everywhere torturing the poor person next to them.  He immediately relayed this in spanish to everyone else.  They laughed and laughed. They had never heard of such a thing! Is this only an american custom?  What can I say? I am doing what I can to be an ambassador of good will for the U.S.

       Charlie gave us a riding tour of Dominical after dinner and on the way home we were stopped at a police check point. Several officers leaned into the window and asked many questions in spanish that I did not understand.  From the back seat, Ignacio pulled out his ID and handed it to the officer.  The policeman seemed satisfied and handed it back.  He then asked Romero for his.  Romero did not have his papers with him.  In Costa Rica, it is required that everyone carry their ID card on them at all times, gringos included. They asked Romero to step out of the car and took him back to the guard house.  Ignacio whispered to me, "They think he is Nicaraguan and an illegal."  Twenty minutes passed and we grew more anxious as we wondered if they might keep him.  Finally, they returned him to the truck. He said that he had memorized his ID number, and over time he was able to convince them to check it against their records.  After a while, headquarters had responded back that it was indeed Romero, and he was, in fact, a tico. We rode in silence for a few moments understanding that his life could have been changed at that moment.  Several miles down the road we passed what must have been a waste water treatment plant, and Ignacio broke the silence when he yelled out, "Who flapa da sheets?!?!"

areal shot of palm field I took upon
first arriving in Quepos

communities are built around futbol

La Playa de Matapalo

     

 a bungalow at Jungle House
(note the outdoor kitchen which is very common)