On people and places

My bedroom window is six pieces of glass, each separated by a medium-colored wood. The mini Buddhist prayer flags fall smack in the middle of all of them, their colors illuminated by the light.

But what lies beyond is most important. Every day when I get up, I get to look out at the down-sloped apple orchard of my family’s yard that rolls down the dirt road, eventually leading into town, and meeting mountains and steep rolling hills in the distance. It’s green, it’s lush, it’s temperate, and it’s not the Costa Rica I had imagined. In fact, I imagined palm trees, flat jungle-like terrain, never-ending sun, and unbearable heat. But I’ve got quite the opposite and I couldn’t be happier. This is the Zona de Los Santos.

If you open the back door of my bedroom, you look steeply up the mountain at more apple trees, avocado trees, peach trees, a few citrus trees, and one elusive, pure white horse that roams among them munching on the tropical flora. The climate here is the most desirable in all of Costa Rica, I believe; cool mornings, cool afternoons, cool evenings. I find myself wearing long pants, long-ish sleeves, my many scarves, and an occasional sweater or hat. I eat breakfast every day on the front porch looking out toward town at the mountains as the sun rises over the hills. Usually, you can find crates and crates of apples or peaches or zucchini on the ground ripening in the sun in the front yard.

That brings me to the family that has adopted me for the next 6 months to two years. Who are these wonderful Costa Ricans that have so generously opened their home and their hearts to me (and bought me a brand new porcelain white sink to install in my bedroom, which is in fact a bit more like a mini apartment)?

Here’s who they are (pictures to come soon):

Miguel, my host father: a happy, happy man, curious about American culture; sits at the dinner table repeating random words in English like fork, spoon, sugar, carrots; works hard picking fruit on the land and in nearby communities to sell to vendors who attend farmer’s markets.

Carmen, my host mother: a warm gentle woman with long sable-colored hair with streaks of gray always in a pony tail who makes homemade tortillas every morning; owns the local pulperia (a mini-all-purpose store) so, nearly everybody in town knows her.

Annabelle, my 24-year-old host sister: a smart, well-educated, easy-going young woman who teaches math at a high-school in a nearby town; loves politics and is rooting for the first woman president in Costa Rica in the upcoming elections next February.

Rosybelle, my 22-year-old host sister: doesn’t live here but visits on the weekends; a more-traditional Costa Rican young woman who loves high heels; studying human resources at university and working in another province of Costa Rica.

Raquel, my 18-year-old host sister: a funky, typical high-schooler who loves her friends; is curious about American culture; is studying tourism; heading to college next year, and moved out of her bedroom into a spare one for me to use indefinitely.

And I can’t go on without mentioning my neighbors. They are the owners of El Toucanet Lodge (www.eltoucanet.com), so that means for all you friends and family looking to visit, I could not recommend a more beautiful, relaxing place to stay with a peaceful, romantic ambience. Edna is a warm, spiritual, lovely Costa Rican and her husband Gary is a laid-back American from LA who has barely been back to the States twice in nearly 20 years. Together they run a great business (with excellent food) and have brought a lot of good things to this community through the lodge. They also let me use their wi-fi and come over for the occasional dinner. How lucky I am.

So that’s my life as of late, and the people in it. It feels nice to be done with training and to be finally getting to the point of why I came here. Right now, it’s gray out and pouring down rain on the tin roof above me, it’s this way nearly every afternoon until November. I left my cobalt blue rain boots at home, so I am looking forward to buying a pair of tall black rubber rain boots here. Shortly, I’m walking up the road to the Lodge to dine with a couple from Chicago (music professors) staying at the lodge. They so generously offered for me to join them this evening, and I eagerly obliged. Today is my ninth day at my site; it humbles and excites me to think about all the experiences yet to be had.

Street life in a nearby community (mine is not so hustling and bustling):