Lots of Projects

 

Keli and Miloo

We just bought a new saddle (our first, we've been borrowing up to now,) so we will be doing more riding.

A little of this and that just to keep the rhythm of blogging.

The last two days we have been juggling all the projects here and we flow from overwhelm to solidarity many times each day. Yesterday I made feta cheese using the cheese kit for the first time.  It’s a little rubbery but tastes good.  Not sure if it should age in the fridge or out.  We’ll see soon enough. Today we decided to change our routine a little to wake up and get out to work a little sooner to catch the cool part of the day for work, and do our stretching etc. a little later. This means waking up at 5:30 AM.

This morning I made a box out of scraps to plant lettuce. Jim built a ladder of bamboo, wood and wire so he and Sergio can take look at the roof to see what’s going on with the leaks.   Later we go to the little village to see our friend Willie and take a swim in his lovely swimming hole.

Last night the pigs which are roaming around kept us up eating our compost and the little nuts from the palm next to our room.  They are really noisy, snuffling and slurping and gulping. We finally talked to Deanae about what to about them.  They belong to someone else but live on our farm.  Maybe they feel safer here.  I kind of like the fact that they are happy and roaming rather than stuck in a box like many others around here but it’s a bummer when anything you put in the ground resembling food can be eaten by the two parents and the four little piglets who look for food. They are growing visibly each day.

The weather has been beautiful here. Some rain, lots of sun, we haven’t needed to sleep with the mosquito net.  The breeze up at the studio and new house is like natural AC.

Small Things

It seems I’m always writing to keep up with each day’s adventures which, let me say, is only possible to the minutest degree.  In a way it is the same for all people.  The interactions with the world are so personal and so complex, and each persons make- up has what; some billions of connections in the brain and hormonal system different from others, depending on if this or that happened differently in the womb or in childhood.  Each situation has so much richness, so much depth, it seems when I write that I capture only a skeleton outline.

Yesterday was a suuupper long day.  We arose at 4am to meet the Israelis to buy some bread up at the main road on their way to the coastal farmers market. Then we continued to San Isidro to have a meeting.  The day included loseing our brakes, learning about  leaf cutting ants that can devour trees in a day, a first encounter with Palma mekenque trees which reminded me of Avatar the movie.

On to an early dinner at Madras, a little tropical restaurant run by a family.   We were waited on by the father who can’t have been much more than 30 or 35 yrs old.  He is one of the few who have been there or here in Costa Rica for a while; ten years.  He had a cute little cabina that he rented out for 35 dollars a night.  A restaurant, beautiful jungle around that he planted because, like most places  the land had been cut down so that McDonalds could have cheap hamburgers.  Every single feature, and I mean every single feature was made and artistically crafted by him.  Each chair in the restaurant was different and hand crafted.  Some had long sticks of bamboo tied together by wire as the back - others were made of wood, with interesting and different styles. He was really living the art of living.

  He and his wife were the only ones working there and there were two little ones running around demanding attention.  They had been here ten years but only got electricity a year ago.  I had a little conversation with the woman ( whose name I’m not sure I heard) about when the electricity goes out the laundry becomes very time consuming.  Personally I think the clothes washing machine is a gift from god.  And you can’t really know that until you live without one for a while. I may have written this in the blog before and it may not be the last.

On our way home we stopped at a nice beach which seems like only the locals know about, and had a coffee at sunset. On the rocks with our little power camp stove.  And please don’t picture us in shorts with a good tan in a lounge chair. It's always a little rougher than that.  For now, by the time we start giving tours we will have it all plushed out and organized.  Or maybe not. The sand flies come out right as the sun goes down for 10 minutes.  I was covered from head to toe as I have learned to save my ankles.  I felt like I really got one over those little pests this time, they couldn’t penetrate my armor.

Anyway I was going to skip the skeleton and go into something  more detailed to explain how I like to get lost in the nature here.  While Jim was at the café in Uvita doing some internet business, I walked across the road and found the path to the river.  Started walking up river.  There were locals playing in a couple of swimming holes, I kept walking till I settled my bag on some rocks and went to sit in the water where there was some good flow to get a leg massage.    First of all walking on rocks is kind of like a religion for me.  It changes my state of being immediately.  I just get lost in the moment with the rocks.  Of course it has to always include water because rocks are usually too hot without water.   I got to the middle and sat down, keeping a steady pressure to hold me. There is usually a way to arrange my body to get a nice massage.  For five or so minutes I stay there, then another rock catches my eye and I ponder until compelled to move and see what it is like over there, then arrange myself again.  This time I got a really good one like when I use to do hot tubs.  The water made my flesh itch like crazy and then I have to scratch.  I try to stay for as long as possible because it is so cleansing and good for me.

Many of the rocks were very slippery because algae was growing on them.  Being so close, I could notice different organisms living there.  The first one that caught my eye was a little tiny teardrop shaped seaweed-like nodule hanging on a short string about ¼ inches long.  Watching them there, I wondered how strong they must be to endure the massive and continuous pull from the flow of water pulling them down river.   As soon as I had that thought I wanted to pull on one to see how strong it really was. (For this moment I remained oblivous to the destruction of organisms I am causing by building a house and many other things.  I decided just to let them stay there and not to disturb them just because of some silly human curiosity.

That lasted about a minute.  Then, with a little guilt, I plucked one.  At first it didn’t come out, then I pulled a little harder and it popped out just like a hair on my head.  It had a little follicle on the other end of the string.  The little thing was very strong.   Even though I could pull it from the rock I could not break it. I tried one more. But then that was enough disturbance.
After that I noticed a lace-like seaweed…

Now I moved on to some sounding.  I like to harmonize myself with water environments by sounding.  I find the notes that blend into the sound of the river and usually after I do that my day goes very well.

When the House is Finished, the Work begins

Today, Luis the owner of InterDinamica, an alternative energy company, came out to visit us for a consultation.  Our solar power has not been operating very well and today we really got a good critique on the system we installed.  Lots of good ideas to maximize the power coming, and the life of the batteries.  How to incorporate the hydro power in the future, and also that wind energy may be something to look into for the future.  Luis is very good at what he does.  He studied on scholarship in Japan to become the engineer that he is.  He is also environmentally conscientious and sensitive.  I was surprised when he said he notice a good vibration here and commented that it is rare to find places like this where people live like they did fifty years ago.  Fifty years ago is when the people of this area first settled here.

Yesterday we had a meeting with Sergio, the man who built our house and Rolando, the realtor who sold us the house and has been a good friend along the way.  With Rolando translating we communicated several problems we are having.  Due to us not having enough experience with local building practices, how to build to live in this climate and Sergio not having experience doing a design different from what he is used to, we ended up with a house with a few problems.  It is dry season but here it rains a little in summer.  Such as the other day we had a nice downpour for a couple of hours.  We discovered that the house and studio leak from every door, every window, the clearstory windows at the top, the place where the balcony meets the house and through most of the walls when there is wind.  We asked Sergio to share the responsibility and so he will give us a week of his time and then we will pay for two more weeks of work to remedy this together, creatively and in many different ways.  That’s after we decide on how to treat the wood from wood-eating insects that are being well fed at the moment.

Willie, our friend who lives in the town about an hours walk from here called and we joked a little.  He was just figuring out how to get electricity to his place.  It’s like what I say to students who are just getting certified for the first time.  The journey is just starting.  Here, when we finished the house, the work starts.

For some reason I can’t sleep tonight.  Maybe that is because we decided that we have to set the alarm for 5:30 starting tomorrow in order to meet the day when the day is demanding us to meet it.  I thank God for our routine in the morning which includes some Gyro and a little meditation.  We are both fitting in our Music practice almost every day but out here where the vibe is mostly about practial things we have to be very strong in our determination to enjoy some of the non-materialistic aspects of life.  Music really does require a sense of leisure, and that is difficult (but not impossible) to manifest during this time.  (laughing to myself with that little smirk on my face that Jim notices sometimes when I write funny emails) 

Many times we look at each other and ask “why are we doing this?”  I don’t know the answer accept that we are doing this because this is what is happening.  I remember when Juliu asked me one time, “what are you doing,” while I was teaching a course somewhere.  I said “ well, I’m feeling like a feather in the wind being blown about.”  His reply - “ Are you a donkey?  Donkeys get pushed around,” or something like that.  It stuck with me because I wondered if I should be something different or have more ambition.  Many days I feel as if I am directing my life and making decisions for some desired outcome but for now I sure feel like I’m a donkey.  However, at the end of today I  have a smile  for absolutely no good reason.  I haven’t been remembering to take all my supplements and that is because I don’t feel a need for them. (knock on wood)

Trapiche Days - Making Sugar from our own Sugar Cane

 

Dianey and Anna checking on the boiling sugar cane juice

 Keli cooling down the sugar

As planned, the bulls came down the road with the sugar cane in the cart and we spent the morning extracting the juice to be boiled.  It is around 1 pm and I just went to check on how it is going, and there are about three more hours to go till the pouring.

Jorge and his family are here. It is mostly his sugar and we added a little.  I remember when we bought the farm that Nacho told us that it was the only trapiche around, or at least the biggest one and that several of the neighbors would come to use it.  We put $300  into fixing the machine that presses the cane to keep this tradition going.  Drinking fresh sugar cane juice is great and we love to use the sugar for many things including our chocolate.  This sugar came just in time to use for the next batch of chocolate we are going to make.

Last night was the second night in a row that we heard people passing by at night, and we both enjoyed the sound of the horses hooves pounding the ground rather than a motor car sound.  I remember Mt Chirripo
during my first visit to CR. There were a lot of people getting around on horses - now when I go there that is very rare.  This area so far, is a nice balance of horse and car transportation.

This is Jim writing now…

Speaking as a confirmed sugar addict, I would like to say that it is a wonderful thing when a whole community gets together to celebrate making sugar.

The kids love it because at every stage of the process there is something delicious to sample. First, of course, is the sugar cane. Then as it gets squeezed, they get to drink the pure sugar cane juice.

As it heats up in the cauldron, it boils over the edge and the kid’s job is to scrape down the hardened sugar juice, which is crunchy and sweet. After its been boiling for a while, you can pour some of the concentrated juice into a pitcher of water and it will harden into a taffy like substance - so sticky it can almost pull your teeth out.

At the end of the day, all the sugar is divided among the participants according to who contributed the sugar cane, who owns the machinery and who did most of the work. They seem to have the formula down pretty well - everybody left the trapiche looking happy with the results of the days work.