So I woke up feeling even sicker today, and now I cannot sleep. I´m still not quite there at the ultimate point of illness, although I had a vicious migraine all during the afternoon, and cold spells. The morning began pretty well: I successfully launched a family debate the night before about the citrus in the Garden, which prompted a tour from Flor and William this morning. I had no idea we have so many varieties of citrus! Limón dulce ...Limones criollos ...Limón mandarina ...Mandarina ...Limón persa ...Naranja Washingtón ...Naranja piña ...Naranja valencia ...Naranja malageña ...Naranja agria ...Grapefruit. I have come to an important realization: there are times when scientific and local knowledge do not fit into each others´ boxes, nor should they. For all these different citruses, it would be better to make tags for them simply with the names and appearances comparatively, instead of tracking down the scientific genus-species name. The latter might be impossible, as well as un-useful to my family and to visitors.
I finally got to see the piglets today. There are 12 of them - 7 hembra y 5 macho, William told me. There will be another birthing within the next few days. I want to see it. William let me hold one of the piglets - I nearly melted. S/he had soft white hairs all over her body and was very warm. She struggled a little, like a cat would, and William laughed and put her back in the pen. They have a corner to themselves, the piglets, that is kept exceptionally dry and with a heat lamp. William told me that if the piglets get cold or have to sleep in the rest of the pen (which, even though William cleans it daily, is always sodden with urine) then they will get sick and die. About a week ago the pregnant sow bit one of the smaller pigs - now I know the meaning of ¨bleeding like a stuck pig¨. The poor creature was squealing and walking about and smearing blood all over the pen. The other pig was nuzzling against it and doing a good job of helping the spread. I think my mouth was slightly agog as I watched.
I asked William how old the two smaller pigs are ...I asked years just to be polite. William calculated a bit and judged them to be 3-1/2 months old. He said that they would live to be 5 months old - on Christmas one will be for William´s father and the other will be for us. He also said that the piglets will be sold once they are ...I´m not remembering, but I think it was 10 days old or something like that. Or maybe that´s when we´ll be cutting the tails off. So I have a little more time to enjoy the feeling of their soft, warm skin.
We left them and took the oveja and her baby out to pasture. The ovejito still sounds musical when it bleats. Magical. We took the goat out too, then the ovejo. He made like an escape artist and squeezed through the bars of his own cage, before William even had time to open the gate. He got stuck halfway through, and after a bit of wrestling William got him all the way out. He has the gnarliest bleat! I swear, he sounds like he just woke up and is trying to hack a loogie when he bleats. I couldn´t stop laughing; William looked amused.
Julí and I weeded the boarded beds a bit - a few culantro seedlings are coming up. They have long cotyledons - very distinct from the various species of the monte. Julí was pulling out hers by hand, but I got tired of it; the monte is ini seedling stage too, and it feels roughly like trying to pull out every hair of a man´s stubbly beard. The machete wasn´t around initially, so I used the broken head of a shovel to ¨shave¨ the earth. There was also raking to do - the bed next door had nothing growing in it but monte, so William had me knock back the weeds and smoothe the bed out. Very therapeutic.
William had some chile seeds to start in a tray (bandillo) and we sowed chile dulce, chile campana, and 2 species of chiles ornamentales directly from the fruit of the plants. The soil was very clayey, even though it was mixed with (or made from?) some type of manure. Initially I didn´t put enough in the tray and so went back for more, which made the process take even longer. Afterwards I changed into clean clothes and swept the house.
I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening finishing signs: jengibre, canela, granadilla, and carambola. I am still working on the latter two. I also finished the list of plants from the February inventory, complete with family and scientific names, and gave it to Julieta. I might wind up doing the inventory with William instead, or maybe make it a family outing.
My friends are going to Puerto Jiménez tomorrow, and I wish I could go. I asked Sara to pick up about ten postcards for me, so I can mail them to a few more friends. We´re having a party for bisabuelo (Flor´s father, I think) on Sunday, and so I have to be home this weekend. Maybe I will watch El Señor de los Anillos with Didier.
viernes, 26 de octubre de 2007
jueves, 25 de octubre de 2007
quinta cosecha
Amanda and I arrived in the rain at don William Valverde´s (aka Pollón) cafetal and began picking. The whole family was out there - don William, his daughter (whose name I´m forgetting - Helen?) Justín, the abuelo Evelio, and the younger sister too. Only Jack and Giselle weren´t there. The rain was so intense that I was soaked within the first hour, and the mud became treacherous. Justín fell at one point; I helped him pick up his spilled cherries and then we took parallel calles - he took the high road, I took the low road. Amanda joined us, and before we knew it the harvest was over. I had only picked half a canasto and was sorely disappointed. The harvest was only 2 hours long, and we were very proud of ourselves.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in and out of the cooperative and at home, trying to draw more plants. I decided to rewrite the inventory of the garden on a separate paper, so that when we do the next one we can mark which ones died off and which ones have prospered. I am including the family and scientific names as well as the English and Spanish ones. I have noticed that there are not so many ornamental plants on the list, yet there are tons out in the garden. Also, not all species had numbers of counted individuals - maybe they ran out of time. It was February 27th earlier this year when the inventory was done - the summertime here. I wonder what effects the rains have had on the productivity and reproduction of the species. Neverminding the speculations, I made great guns of headway on recreating the list, enough to know that the trouble will be actually doing the inventory (censo) itself.
While at the cooperative I did some research on some of the names that were cropping up. The citrus is more complication than I thought: I had previously assumed that all the citruses were lemons, because of their colors and shapes. But I learned, for example, that there is an entry on Wikipedia for Sweet Lime (C. limetta), whereas the Limón Dulce we have is a very yellow fruit. I wonder if they´re one and the same? There is also an entry on Mandarin Lime (C. limonia), and we have a fruit called Limón Mandarín... Limón Persa, and an entry for Persian Lime (C. latifolia)... Yellow limes? Or at least, limes that weren´t a complete shade of green, that didn´t have an ovular shape with a little point on the very bottom? This research rasied more questions than answers, and I decided to have a talk with my family when I got home...
My family got into a huge debate about citruses. Flor did something I will never forget; she took me outside and pulled three citruses out of the box in the dark and, while doing so, explained to me each variety. In fact, she started with the limón dulce, knowing that there was only one left in the box. I was impressed. My mind flashed back to the example at the front of Ernesto´s and Chris´s paper on Participatory Action Research (Chris Bacon and Ernesto Méndez? Cris Miranda and Ernesto Pepito? Is there an echo in here?) - the example was about a farmer who meets a researcher, and the researcher attempts to tell her information she already knows using high-tech equipment, and tells her falsely this so-called information. I am wondering where to draw the line in how far I go with what I ¨know¨ about Ethnobotany. I find myself looking up a lot of the plants in the books, which pleases my family. They read what is in the books as well - but I begin to wonder, and I have asked before, what they want of my signs, my project. They seem impressed by the beauty of the signs, but I wonder if there is something more they may want.
Still working on that list of plants from the last inventory...
Til then,
Yvea
I spent the rest of the afternoon in and out of the cooperative and at home, trying to draw more plants. I decided to rewrite the inventory of the garden on a separate paper, so that when we do the next one we can mark which ones died off and which ones have prospered. I am including the family and scientific names as well as the English and Spanish ones. I have noticed that there are not so many ornamental plants on the list, yet there are tons out in the garden. Also, not all species had numbers of counted individuals - maybe they ran out of time. It was February 27th earlier this year when the inventory was done - the summertime here. I wonder what effects the rains have had on the productivity and reproduction of the species. Neverminding the speculations, I made great guns of headway on recreating the list, enough to know that the trouble will be actually doing the inventory (censo) itself.
While at the cooperative I did some research on some of the names that were cropping up. The citrus is more complication than I thought: I had previously assumed that all the citruses were lemons, because of their colors and shapes. But I learned, for example, that there is an entry on Wikipedia for Sweet Lime (C. limetta), whereas the Limón Dulce we have is a very yellow fruit. I wonder if they´re one and the same? There is also an entry on Mandarin Lime (C. limonia), and we have a fruit called Limón Mandarín... Limón Persa, and an entry for Persian Lime (C. latifolia)... Yellow limes? Or at least, limes that weren´t a complete shade of green, that didn´t have an ovular shape with a little point on the very bottom? This research rasied more questions than answers, and I decided to have a talk with my family when I got home...
My family got into a huge debate about citruses. Flor did something I will never forget; she took me outside and pulled three citruses out of the box in the dark and, while doing so, explained to me each variety. In fact, she started with the limón dulce, knowing that there was only one left in the box. I was impressed. My mind flashed back to the example at the front of Ernesto´s and Chris´s paper on Participatory Action Research (Chris Bacon and Ernesto Méndez? Cris Miranda and Ernesto Pepito? Is there an echo in here?) - the example was about a farmer who meets a researcher, and the researcher attempts to tell her information she already knows using high-tech equipment, and tells her falsely this so-called information. I am wondering where to draw the line in how far I go with what I ¨know¨ about Ethnobotany. I find myself looking up a lot of the plants in the books, which pleases my family. They read what is in the books as well - but I begin to wonder, and I have asked before, what they want of my signs, my project. They seem impressed by the beauty of the signs, but I wonder if there is something more they may want.
Still working on that list of plants from the last inventory...
Til then,
Yvea
miércoles, 24 de octubre de 2007
Lauraceae
So yesterday I finished with the sanding. Julí advised me, later in the night, that I could use the whole sheet of sandpaper instead of tearing off bits. I tried it, and it worked much better. More experimenting! :-)
There was more cleaning to do than I so naïvely thought on Sunday. Well, that´s okay. I finished yesterday and started drawing the designs for some new plants today, namely jengibre, canela, and carambola. I hope it won´t take me too long to do them. It´s interesting: I always think it will take a long time when I am beginning a new sign, because it is so hard to get all the intricate details down within a plant. I am reinventing the wheel every single time I draw or paint a new sign. It is the same experience I had in Ethnobotany class when I drew the 25 separate family - each one took hours!
On Monday, after much confused running around, we all got together and went to San Vito to celebrate Karie´s last night in town. We went to Café Liliana´s (all of us minus Jack - Didier, Karie, Amanda, Sara, Julieta, Inés, and I) and randomly met Alexis and Julienne there. We had a great time that night; Alexis treated us (perhaps with Coopepueblos funds?) and afterwards we went to a club to go dancing. ¨Gasolina¨ came on, much to my glee. While we were schmoozing, I wrote a letter to Ruben for Karie to deliver. I started one for Sarah Wheatley as well but did not finish it in time. Ah well ...por correo, supongo.
I spent most of yesterday at home with the family. William and Marvín were working on the understory area of the guayabas. We cleared the leaves out from around some of the smaller plants, broke down fallen branches into smaller sticks, and raked the obono (compost) everywhere. There was a pile of wood, half-buried in mud and leaves, and I set to work sorting and laying the wood down in a neat pile. There were roaches in the pile, beautiful insects with red coats and long orichalcum-red legs... I decided that now would be a good time to combat my longtime avoidance of them. Using the rake, I used my Aikido practice to raise the pieces of wood up and grab them, so I would be able to see the roaches underneath from a distance. The roaches ran about, and I began to admire them. Those, particularly, were lovelier than the darker brown ones. I was thrilled.
¨The most meditative thing you can do is sort out a wood pile ...especially if you´re afraid of cockroaches.¨
Marvín saw me playing with the rake later and began chopping small pieces of wood with his bare hands! I asked him if he knew martial arts, and he laughed. William told me it was out of pure boldness, not any training. I was impressed.
Today, I encountered again the long family debate about whether or not the tree was cinnamon or cloves. I took one of the leaves and tasted it - the taste reminded me of something, but I could not remember what. The Ethnobotany text listed cinnamon as belonging to the family Lauraceae (which I remembered), whereas cloves belongs to Myrtaceae. Unfortunately the tree has no flowers, so it is down to leaves alone that the diagnostic must be made. The book also said that the ´cinnamon´ quills to which most of us are accustomed are usually Cassia quills, another member of the genus Cinnamomum. Both have permission to be sold as Cinnamon - true cinnamon has a more delicate flavor and lighter, thinner bark. I looked at the picture of the cinnamon plant, and at the picture on the next page of the cloves. Here... the leaves of the cinnamon plant have veins that run parallel to the main vein ...whereas the cloves only have perpendicular on the leaf... I´ve got it. I looked up the two families in the Ethnobotany lab manual, only to find the descriptions of the foliage nearly identical: ¨simple entire leaves, usually aromatic...¨ Then I realized: that taste I had experienced earlier, from the leaf ...reminded me of a Bay-Laurel tree. Of course. Lauraceae.
I harvested more leaves to make tea for later and told my family about this exciting discovery.
There was more cleaning to do than I so naïvely thought on Sunday. Well, that´s okay. I finished yesterday and started drawing the designs for some new plants today, namely jengibre, canela, and carambola. I hope it won´t take me too long to do them. It´s interesting: I always think it will take a long time when I am beginning a new sign, because it is so hard to get all the intricate details down within a plant. I am reinventing the wheel every single time I draw or paint a new sign. It is the same experience I had in Ethnobotany class when I drew the 25 separate family - each one took hours!
On Monday, after much confused running around, we all got together and went to San Vito to celebrate Karie´s last night in town. We went to Café Liliana´s (all of us minus Jack - Didier, Karie, Amanda, Sara, Julieta, Inés, and I) and randomly met Alexis and Julienne there. We had a great time that night; Alexis treated us (perhaps with Coopepueblos funds?) and afterwards we went to a club to go dancing. ¨Gasolina¨ came on, much to my glee. While we were schmoozing, I wrote a letter to Ruben for Karie to deliver. I started one for Sarah Wheatley as well but did not finish it in time. Ah well ...por correo, supongo.
I spent most of yesterday at home with the family. William and Marvín were working on the understory area of the guayabas. We cleared the leaves out from around some of the smaller plants, broke down fallen branches into smaller sticks, and raked the obono (compost) everywhere. There was a pile of wood, half-buried in mud and leaves, and I set to work sorting and laying the wood down in a neat pile. There were roaches in the pile, beautiful insects with red coats and long orichalcum-red legs... I decided that now would be a good time to combat my longtime avoidance of them. Using the rake, I used my Aikido practice to raise the pieces of wood up and grab them, so I would be able to see the roaches underneath from a distance. The roaches ran about, and I began to admire them. Those, particularly, were lovelier than the darker brown ones. I was thrilled.
¨The most meditative thing you can do is sort out a wood pile ...especially if you´re afraid of cockroaches.¨
Marvín saw me playing with the rake later and began chopping small pieces of wood with his bare hands! I asked him if he knew martial arts, and he laughed. William told me it was out of pure boldness, not any training. I was impressed.
Today, I encountered again the long family debate about whether or not the tree was cinnamon or cloves. I took one of the leaves and tasted it - the taste reminded me of something, but I could not remember what. The Ethnobotany text listed cinnamon as belonging to the family Lauraceae (which I remembered), whereas cloves belongs to Myrtaceae. Unfortunately the tree has no flowers, so it is down to leaves alone that the diagnostic must be made. The book also said that the ´cinnamon´ quills to which most of us are accustomed are usually Cassia quills, another member of the genus Cinnamomum. Both have permission to be sold as Cinnamon - true cinnamon has a more delicate flavor and lighter, thinner bark. I looked at the picture of the cinnamon plant, and at the picture on the next page of the cloves. Here... the leaves of the cinnamon plant have veins that run parallel to the main vein ...whereas the cloves only have perpendicular on the leaf... I´ve got it. I looked up the two families in the Ethnobotany lab manual, only to find the descriptions of the foliage nearly identical: ¨simple entire leaves, usually aromatic...¨ Then I realized: that taste I had experienced earlier, from the leaf ...reminded me of a Bay-Laurel tree. Of course. Lauraceae.
I harvested more leaves to make tea for later and told my family about this exciting discovery.
jueves, 18 de octubre de 2007
miércoles, 17 de octubre de 2007
amapola
Malvaceae is the bain of my existence. Well, no, not really, but it is the most challenging family of flowers for me to draw. Not because of the stamens. Not because of infintessimally-small chambers in the ovary or carpels. No. It´s because of the petals.
I had really been hoping to get my three artpieces finished today, but it was not to be. I spent my day first sanding the pieces, then drawing them. The mamón chino was easy. The heliconia was easier than I thought - I think the practice paid off. The amapola took a very long time. Luckily, I plucked a beautiful specimen from the tree - originally, I was under the impression that I was drawing a ¨cerezo¨ because that is what my father told me the tree was called (cherries are in Rosaceae, but then again so are blackberries, even though the name for them is ¨mora¨ and Moraceae is a completely separate family) - spread it out over Juli´s copy of El Alquimista and drew it. Such a lovely flower. It looks like the sort a dancing girl would wear in her hair. Or perhaps like a dancing girl itself.
Yup. No mistaking a Malvaceae. I was very surprised when I flipped though my book and learned that amapola means hibiscus. The beautiful specimen I had been holding delicately in my hand was a hibiscus - the most famous of the Malvaceae.
I ran off to the 4PM afternoon meeting, only to discover I was way ahead of time. Karie was still at the beneficio, so we decided to wait for her before beginning the meeting. An hour later, we convened upstairs and dicussed the reading ¨To Hell with Good Intentions¨. We all agreed that Mr. Illich was over-generalizing in a lot of ways and that also he was intending to guilt-trip his audience. We also thought he made a valid point about the motivations for why many people go (guilt or delusions of grandeur), and concluded that for the most part, those were not the reasons any of us had subscribed to when we first decided to come here.
We then each told Karie about out projects. It wound up being a very interesting discussion. I had no idea that Amanda and Jack were collaborating their projects to take light in Amanda´s culminating project - Amanda is making a cupping lab and supplies box so that future interns can do cuppings with the farmers. She will be doing a cupping at the Cooperative at some point in order to give farmers a chance to try and evaluate their own products. Jack is making a guidebook of all the steps, from the shrub to the cup, of the production of coffee. It will be written in English and Spanish, with diagrams and photos, and once laminated it will be given to a group of kids who are learning how to be tour guides. He will set up the procedure so that the kids will learn how to be tour guides and the tours will go to Roberto´s farm. Roberto will be paid for each tour; that might cause more incentive for the other farmers to do the same. Definite money to be made. Sara will most likely be continuing Julian´s project, as well as working with Roberto or Humberto (or both) in their reforestation efforts. She has been communicating a lot with the Peace Corps, who have been helping her to gauge the level of commitment to make to each of the participants´ ideas.
Sara and Amanda are very set on revamping the program: I didn´t realize that they were so far along. I must admit, I was a little resentful that they just grabbed onto my idea about the questionnaire and didn´t include me in their work on it. I´m happy that they thought it was a good idea, but I would have appreciated a little bit more recognition in the process. I am very glad that Amanda has a role for me in helping to write for her bulletin board. She says she likes my handwriting.
Enough about politics. Back to the amapola...
I had really been hoping to get my three artpieces finished today, but it was not to be. I spent my day first sanding the pieces, then drawing them. The mamón chino was easy. The heliconia was easier than I thought - I think the practice paid off. The amapola took a very long time. Luckily, I plucked a beautiful specimen from the tree - originally, I was under the impression that I was drawing a ¨cerezo¨ because that is what my father told me the tree was called (cherries are in Rosaceae, but then again so are blackberries, even though the name for them is ¨mora¨ and Moraceae is a completely separate family) - spread it out over Juli´s copy of El Alquimista and drew it. Such a lovely flower. It looks like the sort a dancing girl would wear in her hair. Or perhaps like a dancing girl itself.
Yup. No mistaking a Malvaceae. I was very surprised when I flipped though my book and learned that amapola means hibiscus. The beautiful specimen I had been holding delicately in my hand was a hibiscus - the most famous of the Malvaceae.
I ran off to the 4PM afternoon meeting, only to discover I was way ahead of time. Karie was still at the beneficio, so we decided to wait for her before beginning the meeting. An hour later, we convened upstairs and dicussed the reading ¨To Hell with Good Intentions¨. We all agreed that Mr. Illich was over-generalizing in a lot of ways and that also he was intending to guilt-trip his audience. We also thought he made a valid point about the motivations for why many people go (guilt or delusions of grandeur), and concluded that for the most part, those were not the reasons any of us had subscribed to when we first decided to come here.
We then each told Karie about out projects. It wound up being a very interesting discussion. I had no idea that Amanda and Jack were collaborating their projects to take light in Amanda´s culminating project - Amanda is making a cupping lab and supplies box so that future interns can do cuppings with the farmers. She will be doing a cupping at the Cooperative at some point in order to give farmers a chance to try and evaluate their own products. Jack is making a guidebook of all the steps, from the shrub to the cup, of the production of coffee. It will be written in English and Spanish, with diagrams and photos, and once laminated it will be given to a group of kids who are learning how to be tour guides. He will set up the procedure so that the kids will learn how to be tour guides and the tours will go to Roberto´s farm. Roberto will be paid for each tour; that might cause more incentive for the other farmers to do the same. Definite money to be made. Sara will most likely be continuing Julian´s project, as well as working with Roberto or Humberto (or both) in their reforestation efforts. She has been communicating a lot with the Peace Corps, who have been helping her to gauge the level of commitment to make to each of the participants´ ideas.
Sara and Amanda are very set on revamping the program: I didn´t realize that they were so far along. I must admit, I was a little resentful that they just grabbed onto my idea about the questionnaire and didn´t include me in their work on it. I´m happy that they thought it was a good idea, but I would have appreciated a little bit more recognition in the process. I am very glad that Amanda has a role for me in helping to write for her bulletin board. She says she likes my handwriting.
Enough about politics. Back to the amapola...
martes, 16 de octubre de 2007
the pains of piña painting
Instead of harvesting coffee at Faynier´s place, I finished painting the piña. I showed it to Juli and Geni, explaining, ¨Muchas horas después, y tan fea.¨ They both laughed and said that it would look great with the lacquer on it, as the lacquer darkens the wood. I spent the rest of the morning working on the lettering for Citronella and Lemon Grass.
At about 12:15, I asked Juli whether there was a bus for San Vito at 1PM. She replied that it would be at 1:30PM instead and might wind up going to Cañas Gordas. After a beat, I asked if there were one earlier, and she replied yes, at 12:30. With that, I threw on my boots and ran off to catch the bus to San Vito.
It was new and nice to be in San Vito by myself. When I got off the bus, which had taken a different route than I was used to and temporarily convinced me that I was lost, I wandered around for a bit looking for a panadería and a restroom. Eventually I made my way up to the Post Office and right there was a nice ledge that offered shelter from the rain. I sat down and wrote three postcards, to John Borrego, Marley, and my mother. I mailed those, along with the ones for Stephanie, Chris, and Mr. Bonilla - the clerk asked me to leave more space for the stamps when one covered some of my words (it was just rambling about the TLC anyway, I suppose). On my way back up the hill, I stopped at a panadería and bought Jack a little soft cake for his birthday. The bus ride back was hilarious: my host father was taking it back too, and this little girl who´s a neighbor of ours was keeping the back row in stitches. To avoid embarrassing myself, I drew flowers instead of talked: first a heliconia, and then a rose at the request of the girl´s older sister.
I went straight to the Cooperative, where Sara and Amanda were plotting what to buy Jack for his birthday. They settled on a panda notebook (knowing full well that he hates pandas) and I bought him an umbrella and nail polish. He was thrilled.
Karie is here! She arrived safely at about 4:30PM and is now well-situated with Humberto. The first thing she did when she walked in was to laugh the joyous laugh of a traveler who has finally reached her definition, and threw back her reddish hair and smiled. I swear, it was one of the best sights of my day.
At about 12:15, I asked Juli whether there was a bus for San Vito at 1PM. She replied that it would be at 1:30PM instead and might wind up going to Cañas Gordas. After a beat, I asked if there were one earlier, and she replied yes, at 12:30. With that, I threw on my boots and ran off to catch the bus to San Vito.
It was new and nice to be in San Vito by myself. When I got off the bus, which had taken a different route than I was used to and temporarily convinced me that I was lost, I wandered around for a bit looking for a panadería and a restroom. Eventually I made my way up to the Post Office and right there was a nice ledge that offered shelter from the rain. I sat down and wrote three postcards, to John Borrego, Marley, and my mother. I mailed those, along with the ones for Stephanie, Chris, and Mr. Bonilla - the clerk asked me to leave more space for the stamps when one covered some of my words (it was just rambling about the TLC anyway, I suppose). On my way back up the hill, I stopped at a panadería and bought Jack a little soft cake for his birthday. The bus ride back was hilarious: my host father was taking it back too, and this little girl who´s a neighbor of ours was keeping the back row in stitches. To avoid embarrassing myself, I drew flowers instead of talked: first a heliconia, and then a rose at the request of the girl´s older sister.
I went straight to the Cooperative, where Sara and Amanda were plotting what to buy Jack for his birthday. They settled on a panda notebook (knowing full well that he hates pandas) and I bought him an umbrella and nail polish. He was thrilled.
Karie is here! She arrived safely at about 4:30PM and is now well-situated with Humberto. The first thing she did when she walked in was to laugh the joyous laugh of a traveler who has finally reached her definition, and threw back her reddish hair and smiled. I swear, it was one of the best sights of my day.
lunes, 15 de octubre de 2007
cuarta cosecha
In recent news: Karie is late. She is moored in San José because the landslides took out the roads, and the busses are not running to San Vito, hence not to here. Jack made it back, though. He seemed totally relaxed after such an awesome weekend with his friends in Cerro del Muerto.
Anyway...
7:00. I woke up with a start, realizing that I had overslept. This is a first.
I made it up to Faynier´s house by 8:30 or thereabouts. Belisa sent her daughter to Aurora´s to retrieve an extra basket for me. Amanda was waiting; Faynier was already down the slope. While we waited for Becky to return, Amanda asked about how the harvest works. Today was her first harvest. I described it to her: ¨You go for the red or red-yellow beans, never for the green.¨ Becky came back, I slung the basket around my waist, and we joined Faynier downhill.
The rhythm was so natural and the branches were so laden with cherries that it was easy to pick and talk at the same time. Amanda and I took parallel stands and occasionally the same trees while we talked and contemplated the social location that the CAN program has here. It seems like the others´ families do not know very much about what CAN is doing. Amanda said that her family does not always buy coffee from the Cooperative; they buy different brand of coffee from BM instead. This discussion raised a lot of doubts for me. Are we being too pretentious? Are we just not hearing the families and the program expectations and the Cooperative and our own participations right? It has been a worry of mine that I am somehow imposing myself on the community. Yesterday I had a conversation with Inez on my way home from the BM. I had just finished reading the article ¨To Hell with Good Intentions¨ and was in a very sad mood. Inez totally dispelled the entire mood of the article just with her good energy and her assurance that everyone here loves making friends with the interns, and that they are always very sad when they leave.
Sara joined us at 11AM or so and we picked for a bit longer. We broke for lunch, and afterwards we made a list of all the things we wanted to ask Karie, to help straighten out and smoothen the process for future interns. It was raining when we went back outside, and Faynier made us stop picking. We measured the amount we had picked: 4.5 cajuelas. Not bad at all.
When I went home, I found the whole family over, visiting. I had forgotten it is a national holiday, Día de la Raza. Flor had made tamales a couple days ago, and there was still some left over. Taking to Faynier earlier, during lunch, had given me the confidence to ask more questions. During lunch I had asked Faynier how old his coffee plants were; I had noticed that they are quite tall, with barely any Ojo de Pollo, and, although they grow on an unshaded slope, they seem healthier than both Roberto´s and Pollón´s trees. I wonder if he uses chemicals? When I asked him, he answered, ¨4 años.¨ I was very surprised that they were so young. He went on to discuss the climate of coffee-growing, and then told me something very important. He said that the coffee-growers in the more arid regions get a higher price for their coffee; the coffee grown in more humid regions are naturally lower quality. This makes sense, I thought, considering that coffee comes from the shade forests of Ethiopia. But the amounts he told me were staggering; in a drier region, a cafetalero could obtain $150 for a fanega, while here in Agua Buena, only $100. The implications were huge. Also (and I think Noemy was telling us about this too), the cost of transportation is much higher for the people here, because they have to take it all the way to San José, whereas the people who grow in the more arid regions are right there. Wow, I thought, no wonder so many cafetaleros cut their coffee. This market is terrible for them - and worse still in a coffee crisis! It gave me a very new perspective on exactly what CAN´s work means or could mean to these famers.
At home, I asked Flor if our family had any coffee to pick. She said no and then told me something very interesting. Nine years ago, the whole garden area and half the area of the house had been coffee. Nine years ago, they cut their coffee. When I asked why, Gení said that it was very unprofitable to keep it. Now the family sells chayote - there is a huge jungle of it in the back area of the garden, near to the cow pen. Their garden is so beautiful, so much more diverse, than it would have been with only coffee in it.
The thoughts of the discussion Amanda, Sara, and I had had were still weighing heavily on my mind. Later in the afternoon, I got into a conversation with Julieta, and I think I might have unwittingly wound up insulting her when I said that the handbook did not have enough input from the host families, even though she didn´t say I had. She answered that in each case, it is an adjustment for both the student and the host family to learn each others´ lifestyle. Each family is different and so will have different expectations. I protested and said that the part that gave me pause was the article about ´white supremacy´ and, motioning to my own arm, said, ¨No soy white supremist.¨ She very patiently explained to me that many students had been through Agua Buena, and that these many students, while they were not all the same, had given them a very good idea of the range of the students and some of the general problems that can arise. It is a very good idea for the students to review the information about social location, because they are in a different space. I answered that I just wanted to know how to respect people, without going around offending everyone. Julí mentioned something that I had read before in Chris´s Shoestring book, but that made all the difference in the world hearing. Luckily, Julí and her family are very straight-forward about such things; most families, and most Ticos in general, will not say anything when they disagree or when something insults them. Most would just like to keep everything nice and non-confrontational. It is the sort of thing that is discussed in the in-country orientation. When she realized that we had not discussed these things, she looked worried. It suddenly occurred to me that the manual itself was not meant to give us our orientation - half of it needed to correspond to our interactions with Didier. And it gave me an idea of where to go next with the program.
That was a very important conversation. I am very thankful to Julí, and I am sorry if I insulted her, even though it was an accident.
Anyway...
7:00. I woke up with a start, realizing that I had overslept. This is a first.
I made it up to Faynier´s house by 8:30 or thereabouts. Belisa sent her daughter to Aurora´s to retrieve an extra basket for me. Amanda was waiting; Faynier was already down the slope. While we waited for Becky to return, Amanda asked about how the harvest works. Today was her first harvest. I described it to her: ¨You go for the red or red-yellow beans, never for the green.¨ Becky came back, I slung the basket around my waist, and we joined Faynier downhill.
The rhythm was so natural and the branches were so laden with cherries that it was easy to pick and talk at the same time. Amanda and I took parallel stands and occasionally the same trees while we talked and contemplated the social location that the CAN program has here. It seems like the others´ families do not know very much about what CAN is doing. Amanda said that her family does not always buy coffee from the Cooperative; they buy different brand of coffee from BM instead. This discussion raised a lot of doubts for me. Are we being too pretentious? Are we just not hearing the families and the program expectations and the Cooperative and our own participations right? It has been a worry of mine that I am somehow imposing myself on the community. Yesterday I had a conversation with Inez on my way home from the BM. I had just finished reading the article ¨To Hell with Good Intentions¨ and was in a very sad mood. Inez totally dispelled the entire mood of the article just with her good energy and her assurance that everyone here loves making friends with the interns, and that they are always very sad when they leave.
Sara joined us at 11AM or so and we picked for a bit longer. We broke for lunch, and afterwards we made a list of all the things we wanted to ask Karie, to help straighten out and smoothen the process for future interns. It was raining when we went back outside, and Faynier made us stop picking. We measured the amount we had picked: 4.5 cajuelas. Not bad at all.
When I went home, I found the whole family over, visiting. I had forgotten it is a national holiday, Día de la Raza. Flor had made tamales a couple days ago, and there was still some left over. Taking to Faynier earlier, during lunch, had given me the confidence to ask more questions. During lunch I had asked Faynier how old his coffee plants were; I had noticed that they are quite tall, with barely any Ojo de Pollo, and, although they grow on an unshaded slope, they seem healthier than both Roberto´s and Pollón´s trees. I wonder if he uses chemicals? When I asked him, he answered, ¨4 años.¨ I was very surprised that they were so young. He went on to discuss the climate of coffee-growing, and then told me something very important. He said that the coffee-growers in the more arid regions get a higher price for their coffee; the coffee grown in more humid regions are naturally lower quality. This makes sense, I thought, considering that coffee comes from the shade forests of Ethiopia. But the amounts he told me were staggering; in a drier region, a cafetalero could obtain $150 for a fanega, while here in Agua Buena, only $100. The implications were huge. Also (and I think Noemy was telling us about this too), the cost of transportation is much higher for the people here, because they have to take it all the way to San José, whereas the people who grow in the more arid regions are right there. Wow, I thought, no wonder so many cafetaleros cut their coffee. This market is terrible for them - and worse still in a coffee crisis! It gave me a very new perspective on exactly what CAN´s work means or could mean to these famers.
At home, I asked Flor if our family had any coffee to pick. She said no and then told me something very interesting. Nine years ago, the whole garden area and half the area of the house had been coffee. Nine years ago, they cut their coffee. When I asked why, Gení said that it was very unprofitable to keep it. Now the family sells chayote - there is a huge jungle of it in the back area of the garden, near to the cow pen. Their garden is so beautiful, so much more diverse, than it would have been with only coffee in it.
The thoughts of the discussion Amanda, Sara, and I had had were still weighing heavily on my mind. Later in the afternoon, I got into a conversation with Julieta, and I think I might have unwittingly wound up insulting her when I said that the handbook did not have enough input from the host families, even though she didn´t say I had. She answered that in each case, it is an adjustment for both the student and the host family to learn each others´ lifestyle. Each family is different and so will have different expectations. I protested and said that the part that gave me pause was the article about ´white supremacy´ and, motioning to my own arm, said, ¨No soy white supremist.¨ She very patiently explained to me that many students had been through Agua Buena, and that these many students, while they were not all the same, had given them a very good idea of the range of the students and some of the general problems that can arise. It is a very good idea for the students to review the information about social location, because they are in a different space. I answered that I just wanted to know how to respect people, without going around offending everyone. Julí mentioned something that I had read before in Chris´s Shoestring book, but that made all the difference in the world hearing. Luckily, Julí and her family are very straight-forward about such things; most families, and most Ticos in general, will not say anything when they disagree or when something insults them. Most would just like to keep everything nice and non-confrontational. It is the sort of thing that is discussed in the in-country orientation. When she realized that we had not discussed these things, she looked worried. It suddenly occurred to me that the manual itself was not meant to give us our orientation - half of it needed to correspond to our interactions with Didier. And it gave me an idea of where to go next with the program.
That was a very important conversation. I am very thankful to Julí, and I am sorry if I insulted her, even though it was an accident.
domingo, 14 de octubre de 2007
deshierbando
This weekend saw a lot of family. Leidy and her family came by everyday and hung out. It was good getting to see them. I want to talk to them more often.
On Saturday morning, Julí caught me early on and asked if I had anywhere I was going today. She said, with a big smile, that there was work to do in the Garden. There is a path bordered on one side by citronella (citronela) and on the other by lemon grass (zacate de limón), that leads to the invernadero (hoop house), and little weeds were beginning to sprout up between the plants. She set me to work deshierbando (weeding) with the small machete and gave me a basket to put the weeds inside.
Well, I weeded around the citronela, zacate de limón, jengibre (ginger), and caña india and was just starting on the aguacates (avocadoes) when William joined me. Once he did, we made my work before look like child´s play. He, armed with a shovel and a larger machete, took out the weeds and moss from beneath the largest avocado tree in mere seconds, then went back to redo my work around the other avocado tree. From there, we took on the other shrubs and the mounds and trenches where yuca and tequisque were planted. We were going great guns, despite having a wheelbarrow with a broken handle (I called it the borracho, much to William´s amusement), when suddenly the handle of our one shovel broke. ´Broke again´, really, but it looked like it wouldn´t be fixed this time. William´s father was there too, and he thought it was pretty funny. Then we went inside for lunch.
I went back to work on the signs. Miles to go. And when I am finished with these, Julí wants me to do some for the zacate de limón, citronela, and piña.
SUNDAY:
I spent the morning working on more signs. I drew and painted the three signs Julieta had asked me to do: citronela, zacate de limón, and piña. To do that, I had to sit in the middle of the path, between the citronella and lemon grass for several minutes, looking from one side of the path to the other and trying to straighten out the minute differences. Both citronella and lemon grass are from the same genus, Cymbopogon, of Poaceae. I finally drew citronella with a longer, more unified stalk and with the blades dipping more downwards after growing up; the lemon grass has more separate stalks, with the blades sticking up a bit more and dipping slightly at the tips. The citronella also has a tinge of purple in the stalks. We´ll see if I´m right, years later when a real ethnobotanist shows up to correct my field mistakes.
The piña, surprisingly, took the greatest amount of time. I couldn´t get the leaves right! We shall see if I can straighten it out tomorrow morning - I had wanted to have all three pieces finished by today. My goal is: 3 pieces a day. With only 15 more blocks of wood, that shouldn´t be a challenge.
The family did not go to Church today. Too bad.
On Saturday morning, Julí caught me early on and asked if I had anywhere I was going today. She said, with a big smile, that there was work to do in the Garden. There is a path bordered on one side by citronella (citronela) and on the other by lemon grass (zacate de limón), that leads to the invernadero (hoop house), and little weeds were beginning to sprout up between the plants. She set me to work deshierbando (weeding) with the small machete and gave me a basket to put the weeds inside.
Well, I weeded around the citronela, zacate de limón, jengibre (ginger), and caña india and was just starting on the aguacates (avocadoes) when William joined me. Once he did, we made my work before look like child´s play. He, armed with a shovel and a larger machete, took out the weeds and moss from beneath the largest avocado tree in mere seconds, then went back to redo my work around the other avocado tree. From there, we took on the other shrubs and the mounds and trenches where yuca and tequisque were planted. We were going great guns, despite having a wheelbarrow with a broken handle (I called it the borracho, much to William´s amusement), when suddenly the handle of our one shovel broke. ´Broke again´, really, but it looked like it wouldn´t be fixed this time. William´s father was there too, and he thought it was pretty funny. Then we went inside for lunch.
I went back to work on the signs. Miles to go. And when I am finished with these, Julí wants me to do some for the zacate de limón, citronela, and piña.
SUNDAY:
I spent the morning working on more signs. I drew and painted the three signs Julieta had asked me to do: citronela, zacate de limón, and piña. To do that, I had to sit in the middle of the path, between the citronella and lemon grass for several minutes, looking from one side of the path to the other and trying to straighten out the minute differences. Both citronella and lemon grass are from the same genus, Cymbopogon, of Poaceae. I finally drew citronella with a longer, more unified stalk and with the blades dipping more downwards after growing up; the lemon grass has more separate stalks, with the blades sticking up a bit more and dipping slightly at the tips. The citronella also has a tinge of purple in the stalks. We´ll see if I´m right, years later when a real ethnobotanist shows up to correct my field mistakes.
The piña, surprisingly, took the greatest amount of time. I couldn´t get the leaves right! We shall see if I can straighten it out tomorrow morning - I had wanted to have all three pieces finished by today. My goal is: 3 pieces a day. With only 15 more blocks of wood, that shouldn´t be a challenge.
The family did not go to Church today. Too bad.
viernes, 12 de octubre de 2007
tercer cosecha de cafe
Hoy yo coseché por tercera vez, esto tiempo con don William Valverde, Jack´s host father. Jack was still around when I came, and he gave me a bungee cord to attach the basket more firmly around my waist. The sling has the tendency to slip a little. I found William and his father, don Evelio, a little ways up the hill, and shortly thereafter Sara joined us. We harvested for about 3 hours today and picked 6 cajuelas´ worth of coffee. Some of the trees were so laden with cherries that I only needed to scrape handfuls off the branches and let them fall directly into the basket. It was so much easier! Plus after yesterday, it is much easier to get into a rhythm.
As we worked our way into a lower part of the farm (all the coffee was on a slope), don William showed me the leaves of one of the plants. ¨Esto es ojo de pollo,¨ he told me, ¨y es una enfermedad de las hojas. También, don Roberto lo tiene en su finca.¨ I remembered yesterday, working on Roberto´s farm, how laden the trees were with both fungus and coffee berries. Some of the coffee, though still green, had a rotten look on some parts of the skin - much as I was seeing now with the berries in my hands. I wondered if perhaps the ojo del pollo was having an effect on the berries as well (though it probably shouldn´t impact the beans themselves, as they have a wet cáscara separating them from the rest of the mesoderm). Roberto´s farm seemed to have more of the fungus; I wonder if altitude has something to do with it. I hope that Roberto´s homemade fungicide works on it.
We finished just a little after 11 and walked back down to the house. Evelio totally impressed me when he bent down and hauled the sack off the ground; I had to help him get it over his shoulder a bit, and then he carried the heavy thing down the muddy embankment. He is 82 years young. He and William paid me a high compliment earlier; at one point they looked in my basket, and William smiled, ¨Solamente falta un poco de llenado.¨ I was pleased. He turned, smiling equally, to Sara and said, ¨y usted tiene solamente la mejor calidad en suyo. Mio es más feo.¨ I leaned close to Sara and whispered, ¨See, Folger´s ain´t got nothing on you!¨
Didier just told me some math that is good to note:
20 cajuelas = 1 fanega. 1 fanega = 80-90 libras (pounds) final product; 110-120 libras seco(pergamino). 1 libra = 16 oz. 1 libra de café = 15-30 cups of coffee (according to Robbie). How much makes it back to the cafetalero? Hmmm...
As we worked our way into a lower part of the farm (all the coffee was on a slope), don William showed me the leaves of one of the plants. ¨Esto es ojo de pollo,¨ he told me, ¨y es una enfermedad de las hojas. También, don Roberto lo tiene en su finca.¨ I remembered yesterday, working on Roberto´s farm, how laden the trees were with both fungus and coffee berries. Some of the coffee, though still green, had a rotten look on some parts of the skin - much as I was seeing now with the berries in my hands. I wondered if perhaps the ojo del pollo was having an effect on the berries as well (though it probably shouldn´t impact the beans themselves, as they have a wet cáscara separating them from the rest of the mesoderm). Roberto´s farm seemed to have more of the fungus; I wonder if altitude has something to do with it. I hope that Roberto´s homemade fungicide works on it.
We finished just a little after 11 and walked back down to the house. Evelio totally impressed me when he bent down and hauled the sack off the ground; I had to help him get it over his shoulder a bit, and then he carried the heavy thing down the muddy embankment. He is 82 years young. He and William paid me a high compliment earlier; at one point they looked in my basket, and William smiled, ¨Solamente falta un poco de llenado.¨ I was pleased. He turned, smiling equally, to Sara and said, ¨y usted tiene solamente la mejor calidad en suyo. Mio es más feo.¨ I leaned close to Sara and whispered, ¨See, Folger´s ain´t got nothing on you!¨
Didier just told me some math that is good to note:
20 cajuelas = 1 fanega. 1 fanega = 80-90 libras (pounds) final product; 110-120 libras seco(pergamino). 1 libra = 16 oz. 1 libra de café = 15-30 cups of coffee (according to Robbie). How much makes it back to the cafetalero? Hmmm...
jueves, 11 de octubre de 2007
segundo cosecho de cafe
Last night I fulfilled my goal and made three more etiquetas: noni, papaya, y mango. Muy satisfecho. I think if I just keep on this track of making at least one more sign each day, I will slowly and steadily progress on my projects.
Today, at 6:20 AM, Sara and I walked over to Roberto and Noemy´s home and joined them in their harvest. We went to the lower part of the farm, to a part I didn´t remember very well. The trees were laden with ripe red berries! After a while, my hands began to fall into a rhythm. Roberto taught me how to pick más fácil y suave, so that I could crisply pick several without needing to drop every individual one into the basket. The basket sling rests perfectly against the lower back, and for that, it doesn´t cause any pain. The basket is held up solely by the strength of the legs.
For five hours, we harvested and talked, taking breaks to drink coffee and eat fruits - Noemy and Roberto taught me two new, wonderful fruits: mamón chino and naranjilla. The mamón reminds me of boba drink, in both texture and taste. The naranjilla is indescribably tasty.
A little after Noon, we walked up the hill and measured the coffee. Roberto has an old cajuela that he uses, before taking the coffee to the beneficio. Today, we harvested 6-1/2 cajuelas! That´s 1-1/2 sacks, a little more.
On the way back to the house, the strong smell of pig met us. Noemy looked at us with a smile: ¨¿Han visto los chanchos?¨ I had never heard that word for ´pig´ before, and I suppose I looked sufficiently confused. She motioned and when I went to look - there was a litter of little piglets! Of course, I was straightaway smitten - half of the little were an off-pink color, and the other half had patches of black skin. I wanted to get closer, but a very large pig in the next pen was standing up against the side and grunting in a menacing way.
The rain had been very gentle during the latter half-hour of the harvest, but it started again, more violently, when we sat down for lunch. After lunch, Roberto left for San Vito, and Noemy told us stories about her niñez and, upon listening to my various enfermedades, all the good medicinal plants for anemia and stomach problems - gineo negro, for anemia and hepatitis; cucurmeca and targua for anemia; madero negro and gavilana for stomach problems; and sávila, la planta milagrosa. Very sagely, she said, ¨Hay buenas saludables aquí en el campo¨, or words to that effect - There are many healthy plants here in the countryside, that will help you.
As Sara and I walked back to Coopa Buena, we had a while to reflect on the day, and on the amazing things Roberto and Noemy had shown us. Everytime I visit them, I can hardly wait to come back and spend more time with them. They are some of the most amazing people I know. We ended by musing a bit on CAN, on ways the organization could grow down here to access even more farmers and their projects.
Today, at 6:20 AM, Sara and I walked over to Roberto and Noemy´s home and joined them in their harvest. We went to the lower part of the farm, to a part I didn´t remember very well. The trees were laden with ripe red berries! After a while, my hands began to fall into a rhythm. Roberto taught me how to pick más fácil y suave, so that I could crisply pick several without needing to drop every individual one into the basket. The basket sling rests perfectly against the lower back, and for that, it doesn´t cause any pain. The basket is held up solely by the strength of the legs.
For five hours, we harvested and talked, taking breaks to drink coffee and eat fruits - Noemy and Roberto taught me two new, wonderful fruits: mamón chino and naranjilla. The mamón reminds me of boba drink, in both texture and taste. The naranjilla is indescribably tasty.
A little after Noon, we walked up the hill and measured the coffee. Roberto has an old cajuela that he uses, before taking the coffee to the beneficio. Today, we harvested 6-1/2 cajuelas! That´s 1-1/2 sacks, a little more.
On the way back to the house, the strong smell of pig met us. Noemy looked at us with a smile: ¨¿Han visto los chanchos?¨ I had never heard that word for ´pig´ before, and I suppose I looked sufficiently confused. She motioned and when I went to look - there was a litter of little piglets! Of course, I was straightaway smitten - half of the little were an off-pink color, and the other half had patches of black skin. I wanted to get closer, but a very large pig in the next pen was standing up against the side and grunting in a menacing way.
The rain had been very gentle during the latter half-hour of the harvest, but it started again, more violently, when we sat down for lunch. After lunch, Roberto left for San Vito, and Noemy told us stories about her niñez and, upon listening to my various enfermedades, all the good medicinal plants for anemia and stomach problems - gineo negro, for anemia and hepatitis; cucurmeca and targua for anemia; madero negro and gavilana for stomach problems; and sávila, la planta milagrosa. Very sagely, she said, ¨Hay buenas saludables aquí en el campo¨, or words to that effect - There are many healthy plants here in the countryside, that will help you.
As Sara and I walked back to Coopa Buena, we had a while to reflect on the day, and on the amazing things Roberto and Noemy had shown us. Everytime I visit them, I can hardly wait to come back and spend more time with them. They are some of the most amazing people I know. We ended by musing a bit on CAN, on ways the organization could grow down here to access even more farmers and their projects.
lunes, 1 de octubre de 2007
bautizo
SATURDAY: The weekend began in the Garden. On Saturday morning, I walked out onto the gravel with my bare feet and picked up the plant tiles that were finished: guayaba, guanábana, heliconia, and reina de la noche. Gení saw them first and a look of approval spread across her face.
Julí and I talked over ideas: we´re thinking of getting lacquer (laca) to cover the tiles and some thin wood (madera) for the hanging signs (etiquetas). We´re reserving the tiles for the low-growing plants, as it is much easier to drill holes for hanging in wood rather than in ceramics. I have some concerns about using the lacquer; lacquer, to my experience, needs an absorptive surface. The tiles are very hard; I think the lacquer might just run and puddle inconsistently. Firing in a kiln would be better. But we´ll try it out.
At around 11AM, more family started coming over, and we had rather a nice lunch with stewed vegetables and otra comida típica. I spent most of the time painting tiles. Just after lunch, Amanda called and invited me to come to the river with the others. I declined and worked at home for a couple more hours; the night before, Noemy had invited me over. So at 2:30PM, more or less, I set out for their home. I had been walking for nearly half an hour before I became worried that I was lost. After all, I had only seen the road twice on Thursday, once coming and once going from their home. Just when I was considering turning back around, I looked up - and there on the slope stood Roberto, smiling.
We spent a very nice (albeit rainy!) afternoon together. Noemy and I looked over the family´s photo albums while Roberto worked outside. At some point, their georgeous young granddaughter Nazarit joined us. Noemy, and later Roberto, showed me photos of their families, of their reunions and childhoods, and of the places they had visited. Earlier, Roberto had told me that Guanacaste gets much drier during the dry season than Agua Buena; it still rains every 15 days or so here. The whole time we visited, we could hear the rain falling outside, driving and violent with relámpago (lightning) and trueno (thunder). They invited me to stay for dinner (which was wonderful!) and then Noemy and I went to visit her mother a little ways down the hill.
I was sitting on the couch, feeling nervous and clumsy with my Spanish, when Noemy smiled at me and said, ¨¿Y cómo va a seguir en casa? ¿Con automovil- con carro, o va a tomar un taxi?¨ Feeling bewildered, I replied, ¨Oh no, voy a caminar.¨ I was surprised to hear both Noemy and her mother chuckle. ¨¡Qué linda!¨ her mother crooned, and I immediately relaxed. She and Noemy began talking about how so many people in Santa Cruz knew Spanish, and when they come it is so much easier. I admitted how intimidated I was by it, that it made it harder to learn or practice spanish when everyone was so much better at it than I. They both assured me to keep practicing, and that it was probably hard learning when so many people talk so fast. ¨Sí, yo hablo muy rápido,¨ the mother chuckled, and before I could protest that I found that she talked very clearly and understandably, they moved on.
A little later, after I had spent some time marveling at all the art of birds in her small, pretty house, Noemy´s mother volunteered some of the kids (her grand-nieces and -nephew, perhaps?) to walk me partway home. ¨Por favor, caminan un poco con la gringa. Gringa va a casa.¨ The giggling teens agreed and walked me a ways. I got home feeling happy, ate some dinner, and promptly conked out shortly thereafter.
SUNDAY: I woke Sunday morning and, feeling a sense of both dread and muted excitement, pulled out my white dress. Today we were going to Church.
It was Dana´s baptism, one of the most important days in a person´s life. With great ceremony, the family rushed to assemble and took two cars to get to Church on time, at 8AM. When we arrived, I was astonished to realize that it set right next to the park, and that half the town was present. So, I thought, this is how everyone sees each other, once per week. This is the central place.
Indeed, there were so many people in the Church: the whole family, of course, was there; Noemy, by sheer chance, sat right in front of me - right next to Humberto; at one point, just after communion, Amanda´s host father Fainier walked past and, upon noticing me, thumped me on the shoulder; later on, his wife Aurora and I exchanged a hug; and from a distance, standing on the steps of the Church, I saw Roberto had rejoined with Noemy. The whole of Mass, Carolina, who had returned the night before, walked up and down the aisles and took pictures of Dana in her snow white dress (y también, en mal humor - la Chiquita Gritona). It turned out that a whole drove of babies were being baptized that same day, so the aisles were filled with family members of them all.
I understood parts of the Mass, and the singing was beautiful. Up at the front a Priest stood with green robes and a microphone pinned to the front. A trio also sat in the front and to one side, playing their musical instruments and singing into stationary microphones. The whole congregation would sing, too, and it gave a greater sense of community to the whole thing. The line for communion was quite long; there is a date in November – the 25th, I believe – where many youth will be taking their First Communion.
The experience of Church was interesting for me; I don´t have a religion, but I practice Aikido in a deeply spiritual sense. I guess I attended the Church as a sign of respect: as an enterer into my family´s culture, I feel it is important to follow their rituals and their lifestyles, in order to be able to resonate more with them. Also, I do not inherently have anything against the spiritual side of Church or any other religious house. That is peoples´faiths; that is their spiritual connection to and resonance for life (and their own business). Therefore, I feel I can respectfully enter a Church, for I come with a respect for that Faith; though not necessarily announcing myself to value any faith above others.
I will go again next week, most certainly.
Amanda told her parents I was an Aikidoist after the Mass, when Sara and I came over to visit. I was the only intern who went to Church, and I think that Amanda´s host parents were surprised to find out that I considered Aikido my spiritual practice. She and Sara came by and picked me up during the afterparty at the house, and when we got home Amanda told her host mother that I wasn´t Catholic (I had given her permission to; I had foreseen that Amanda´s parents would mention that I went to Church and ask why Amanda didn´t follow my example). When Fainier came home, the lot of us went walking outside in the family´s garden, and shortly thereafter I had a very memorable conversation with Fainier. He asked me: ¨¿Usted es Católica?¨ and I answered him, ¨No, tengo otra religión se llama Aikido.¨
¨¿Qué es?¨ he asked me.
¨Es un tipo de arte marcial.¨
¨¡Es un deporte!¨
¨Pues ...sí, es muy físico, pero tiene un elemento muy espiritual, un aspeto meditativo...¨
He seemed to resonate with this: ¨Ah, sí, a mi me gusta sentarme solo a veces y meditar.¨
We nodded with that, and he told Aurora a few minutes later, when she came out to compliment me on the white dress I´d worn to Church that day. I translated for them: ¨´Aikido´ significa ´el sendero de paz y armonía´.¨ Both seemed satisfied with that.
We met up again later in the day, this time to meet with two Peace Corps volunteers who live nearby. The four of us (Jack, Amanda, Sara, and myself) sat for nearly three hours, exchanging ideas and hearing about the histories and observations the two had managed to uncover. They had authored a paper in spanish about the history of the Agua Buena / Coto Brus area that Didier had given us to read; it gave us a very rich background indeed. It turns out that the area of Agua Buena was settled relatively recently, within the last half-century. The biggest influx of people came in the ´70s. This matched, I realized; just the other night, Roberto had been telling me that he and Noemy moved here from Guanacaste just 30 years ago. Both had been raised in Guanacaste (Roberto came from near Nicoya) and had left (they had told us, many months ago) because the lands in Guanacaste were despoiled by cattle-ranching and deforestation. The Peace Corps members´ paper went in-depth about some of the local statistics, and meeting with them in person we spent a lot of time talking about the projects that other groups and individuals had attempted during their time here. It was, to say the least, a very enriching experience to listen to them.
MONDAY: Today, Amanda, Sara, and I went to San Vito. The busride there was quite beautiful and surprisingly short. We went mostly to shop for supplies; I found ceramic paints, small paintbrushes, some good paper, a notebook made out of banana paper ...I could not find lacquer for my tiles or wood, but I plan on searching again in Materiales Agua Buena. At around Noon, we stopped for lunch in a nice pizzeria. It felt nice to relax together for a while. All for now...
Julí and I talked over ideas: we´re thinking of getting lacquer (laca) to cover the tiles and some thin wood (madera) for the hanging signs (etiquetas). We´re reserving the tiles for the low-growing plants, as it is much easier to drill holes for hanging in wood rather than in ceramics. I have some concerns about using the lacquer; lacquer, to my experience, needs an absorptive surface. The tiles are very hard; I think the lacquer might just run and puddle inconsistently. Firing in a kiln would be better. But we´ll try it out.
At around 11AM, more family started coming over, and we had rather a nice lunch with stewed vegetables and otra comida típica. I spent most of the time painting tiles. Just after lunch, Amanda called and invited me to come to the river with the others. I declined and worked at home for a couple more hours; the night before, Noemy had invited me over. So at 2:30PM, more or less, I set out for their home. I had been walking for nearly half an hour before I became worried that I was lost. After all, I had only seen the road twice on Thursday, once coming and once going from their home. Just when I was considering turning back around, I looked up - and there on the slope stood Roberto, smiling.
We spent a very nice (albeit rainy!) afternoon together. Noemy and I looked over the family´s photo albums while Roberto worked outside. At some point, their georgeous young granddaughter Nazarit joined us. Noemy, and later Roberto, showed me photos of their families, of their reunions and childhoods, and of the places they had visited. Earlier, Roberto had told me that Guanacaste gets much drier during the dry season than Agua Buena; it still rains every 15 days or so here. The whole time we visited, we could hear the rain falling outside, driving and violent with relámpago (lightning) and trueno (thunder). They invited me to stay for dinner (which was wonderful!) and then Noemy and I went to visit her mother a little ways down the hill.
I was sitting on the couch, feeling nervous and clumsy with my Spanish, when Noemy smiled at me and said, ¨¿Y cómo va a seguir en casa? ¿Con automovil- con carro, o va a tomar un taxi?¨ Feeling bewildered, I replied, ¨Oh no, voy a caminar.¨ I was surprised to hear both Noemy and her mother chuckle. ¨¡Qué linda!¨ her mother crooned, and I immediately relaxed. She and Noemy began talking about how so many people in Santa Cruz knew Spanish, and when they come it is so much easier. I admitted how intimidated I was by it, that it made it harder to learn or practice spanish when everyone was so much better at it than I. They both assured me to keep practicing, and that it was probably hard learning when so many people talk so fast. ¨Sí, yo hablo muy rápido,¨ the mother chuckled, and before I could protest that I found that she talked very clearly and understandably, they moved on.
A little later, after I had spent some time marveling at all the art of birds in her small, pretty house, Noemy´s mother volunteered some of the kids (her grand-nieces and -nephew, perhaps?) to walk me partway home. ¨Por favor, caminan un poco con la gringa. Gringa va a casa.¨ The giggling teens agreed and walked me a ways. I got home feeling happy, ate some dinner, and promptly conked out shortly thereafter.
SUNDAY: I woke Sunday morning and, feeling a sense of both dread and muted excitement, pulled out my white dress. Today we were going to Church.
It was Dana´s baptism, one of the most important days in a person´s life. With great ceremony, the family rushed to assemble and took two cars to get to Church on time, at 8AM. When we arrived, I was astonished to realize that it set right next to the park, and that half the town was present. So, I thought, this is how everyone sees each other, once per week. This is the central place.
Indeed, there were so many people in the Church: the whole family, of course, was there; Noemy, by sheer chance, sat right in front of me - right next to Humberto; at one point, just after communion, Amanda´s host father Fainier walked past and, upon noticing me, thumped me on the shoulder; later on, his wife Aurora and I exchanged a hug; and from a distance, standing on the steps of the Church, I saw Roberto had rejoined with Noemy. The whole of Mass, Carolina, who had returned the night before, walked up and down the aisles and took pictures of Dana in her snow white dress (y también, en mal humor - la Chiquita Gritona). It turned out that a whole drove of babies were being baptized that same day, so the aisles were filled with family members of them all.
I understood parts of the Mass, and the singing was beautiful. Up at the front a Priest stood with green robes and a microphone pinned to the front. A trio also sat in the front and to one side, playing their musical instruments and singing into stationary microphones. The whole congregation would sing, too, and it gave a greater sense of community to the whole thing. The line for communion was quite long; there is a date in November – the 25th, I believe – where many youth will be taking their First Communion.
The experience of Church was interesting for me; I don´t have a religion, but I practice Aikido in a deeply spiritual sense. I guess I attended the Church as a sign of respect: as an enterer into my family´s culture, I feel it is important to follow their rituals and their lifestyles, in order to be able to resonate more with them. Also, I do not inherently have anything against the spiritual side of Church or any other religious house. That is peoples´faiths; that is their spiritual connection to and resonance for life (and their own business). Therefore, I feel I can respectfully enter a Church, for I come with a respect for that Faith; though not necessarily announcing myself to value any faith above others.
I will go again next week, most certainly.
Amanda told her parents I was an Aikidoist after the Mass, when Sara and I came over to visit. I was the only intern who went to Church, and I think that Amanda´s host parents were surprised to find out that I considered Aikido my spiritual practice. She and Sara came by and picked me up during the afterparty at the house, and when we got home Amanda told her host mother that I wasn´t Catholic (I had given her permission to; I had foreseen that Amanda´s parents would mention that I went to Church and ask why Amanda didn´t follow my example). When Fainier came home, the lot of us went walking outside in the family´s garden, and shortly thereafter I had a very memorable conversation with Fainier. He asked me: ¨¿Usted es Católica?¨ and I answered him, ¨No, tengo otra religión se llama Aikido.¨
¨¿Qué es?¨ he asked me.
¨Es un tipo de arte marcial.¨
¨¡Es un deporte!¨
¨Pues ...sí, es muy físico, pero tiene un elemento muy espiritual, un aspeto meditativo...¨
He seemed to resonate with this: ¨Ah, sí, a mi me gusta sentarme solo a veces y meditar.¨
We nodded with that, and he told Aurora a few minutes later, when she came out to compliment me on the white dress I´d worn to Church that day. I translated for them: ¨´Aikido´ significa ´el sendero de paz y armonía´.¨ Both seemed satisfied with that.
We met up again later in the day, this time to meet with two Peace Corps volunteers who live nearby. The four of us (Jack, Amanda, Sara, and myself) sat for nearly three hours, exchanging ideas and hearing about the histories and observations the two had managed to uncover. They had authored a paper in spanish about the history of the Agua Buena / Coto Brus area that Didier had given us to read; it gave us a very rich background indeed. It turns out that the area of Agua Buena was settled relatively recently, within the last half-century. The biggest influx of people came in the ´70s. This matched, I realized; just the other night, Roberto had been telling me that he and Noemy moved here from Guanacaste just 30 years ago. Both had been raised in Guanacaste (Roberto came from near Nicoya) and had left (they had told us, many months ago) because the lands in Guanacaste were despoiled by cattle-ranching and deforestation. The Peace Corps members´ paper went in-depth about some of the local statistics, and meeting with them in person we spent a lot of time talking about the projects that other groups and individuals had attempted during their time here. It was, to say the least, a very enriching experience to listen to them.
MONDAY: Today, Amanda, Sara, and I went to San Vito. The busride there was quite beautiful and surprisingly short. We went mostly to shop for supplies; I found ceramic paints, small paintbrushes, some good paper, a notebook made out of banana paper ...I could not find lacquer for my tiles or wood, but I plan on searching again in Materiales Agua Buena. At around Noon, we stopped for lunch in a nice pizzeria. It felt nice to relax together for a while. All for now...
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