On the Tables

Most of the past two days can be summed up in a series of pictures, but since it takes five minutes to upload one, I guess I’ll try to write several thousand words.

All of the breakfasts I’ve had in Costa Rica have been the same, and I’m not complaining about it. The local dish is called gallo pinto, and it’s rice with a little cilantro and onion, then cooked with beans. Both times it has been served with eggs and ham, and the combination is pretty awesome.

Anyway, that’s what was served for breakfast at Francisco’s, and because of my standing around, they made me help cut up papaya and avocados. Francisco speaks very little English but has a huge personality, so it more than makes up for the language gap. It’s also funny since he has a huge sense of humor, so I often understand the words he speaks but not the sentences.

Around 10 a.m. yesterday, Ken, Alan, Manuel, and I piled into Francisco’s funky car. It has this tendency to not function at times for odd reasons. Also, the alarm likes going off.

Once we were in the car, ready to go, Manuel turns the key for the ignition, and the engine turns over and dies. After a dozen attempts, he trades places with Francisco and lets him try. Still no go. We roll down the hill in neutral and try again to no avail. Then, after opening the hood and messing with something, they announced that the alarm, for some reason, was not letting the car start. They fixed it, and we were on our way.

The cities in Costa Rica are janky in a cute way. As we traveled beyond them, the land became greener and the air warmer. We were going to the western side of the country, so before too long, we passed over the continental divide. Pretty much at that point, the temperate weather became more humid and sticky.

After a while of driving through the color green, we arrived at Doña Nelly’s, an older, very enthusiastic lady. She used to own a plantation that produced heart of palm, so her garden was very extensive. She also lived in the US for 5 years, so her English was decent enough to mix well with my Spanish. After our lunch of chicken, assorted vegetables, and the usual salad, the workers went to rest while I explored the garden.

Right outside her door, she has a cacao tree with plenty of ripe fruit. I talked to her about it, and she pulled one down to try. The chocolate comes from the large seeds inside the plant, but they’re coated in a gooey film that’s also pretty nice to eat. It has a slightly sour taste, which I have no problem with.

Among the many other interesting plants were several orchids that grow straight from the ground, a spiky palm tree (porcupalm tree), and a live cinnamon tree.

After the rest, we all headed over to Simeon’s place, which was more shacky than housey, but it was charming nonetheless. The housing situation there consisted of prefabricated houses with additional rooms tacked on as needed. Walls existed solely for privacy and not at all for insulation, which is a similar purpose for bedsheets.

The house itself was on a hill, so I got to walk down and investigate the plants and other assorted life. Before too long, it was time for our study, so 11 of us crammed into a room no bigger than 10′ x 10′ and attempted to sweat it out. Halfway through, Nelly broke out her fan and tried to cool the room down. It was a helpful experience anyway.

After the study, we all sat around like old men waiting for dinner. Apparently, most of the neighbors are relatives, so everyone was stopping by, coming in and out of the house. One little boy came over and showed us these very interesting grasshoppers that are black with red highlights.

Dinner, as many dinners have been, was arroz con pollo with sides of beans and salad. Still, pretty tasty.

After dinner, Alan entertained us with his harmonica, making me feel even more like I should expect Clint Eastwood to ride up on a horse.

Once we were all ready, we piled back in the car, this time including Heladio (Simeon’s son) and Rosme, a younger couple, about my age. Slightly crowded, we made it over to their house. Their house, while very primitive, was incredibly charming. The inside doors were simply curtains, as were some walls. The roof was entirely corrugated metal, and the one bathroom had walls only up to your eyes. A cement island in the kitchen served a dual purpose as a well, and there was a large pump and pipe coming out of it to prove it.

Since we were both fine sleeping without fans, Ken and I shared one room, the room closest to the river. It was a river that during the high season would come up nearly into the house, and year round has howler monkeys who shout their territory around 5 in the morning.

That evening, we all sat around trying to cool off, talking on the porch, sitting in a rocking chair literally made out of rebar. They had two dogs and one young cat, and they were very playful.

It was an interesting experience that I wouldn’t mind having again. With barely enough electricity for lights, there were no computers, internet, or TV. Everyone sat around keeping each other company, and we all went to bed fairly early (around 9, I believe).

One of the main reasons for going to bed early, aside from the fact that the sun sets around 6, was that Heladio has to get up early for work. Really early. Around 3:30 a.m., every day. With that in mind, we all went to bed, and the workers let me sleep in until 6. I woke up a little after 5, and thinking that I had slept in until 8 or 9 because of the light, checked Ken’s clock and went back to sleep. Of course, I also missed the howler monkeys. However, when I did get up, everyone was out on the porch looking in the trees at the toucans. Exciting wildlife sighting!

After showering under a spigot attached to the ceiling, I met Ken down by the river. I explored the area for a little bit and took lots of pictures, then we walked upstream a few hundred feet. There, we found a huge tree trunk that had gotten washed onto the rocks from further upstream. The top part had been cut into pieces and hauled away. Ken told me of a saying in Mexico that went something like, “When a tree falls, everyone chops it up for firewood,” meaning something along the lines of, “When someone makes a mistake, everyone tears them apart.” Thinking of this saying, he requested I take a photo of him with it.

When we returned to the house, we were served a breakfast of gallo pinto, had some nice chats, and then got ready for our journey back into the city.

The journey took much longer the second time around, since Manuel took us on the scenic route. I feel like I need to sit in a red room for a few hours to balance out all the green I’ve experienced.

For lunch, we landed at Isell’s, Francisco’s sister-in-law. We picked up Olga, since they are sisters, and we had a lovely meal. Isell has two young boys, the older of which was in school. Kevin was shy at first, but turned into the expected little boy he is. After our lunch of arroz con pollo, Alan entertained Kevin and the rest of us with silly stories and characters made out of his handkerchief. A talented entertainer, that Alan.

Not too long after that, we went back to Francisco’s for the second study, which will be at 6. I don’t imagine much will happen before then, so I’m going to get off the internet and relax a bit.

There’s a pretty big difference between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. For one, Costa Rica has far more wealth, although it’s still nothing to brag about. As a result, there were some differences in the border crossings between the two countries.

Moving through Honduras and Nicaragua, everyone must pay separate fees to enter and leave the country. There are various attempts at maintaining the appearance of security, but in reality there isn’t much going on. They make sure nobody is getting smuggled over the border, but as far as dangerous items goes, it seems they only check Mexican citizens. Leaving Nicaragua, the only two people I saw get inspected were Yolanda and Rosalba, a sister worker and a matronly friend, both holders of Mexican passports. Fortunately, neither was trying to smuggle drugs into Costa Rica.

At the border, there was a tense moment of uncertainty, since they made many announcements that in order to get into Costa Rica, all visitors needed a ticket out. This wasn’t a problem for most people in our party, but I only had a ticket out of Panama, and not only that, but it was on my phone. Fortunately, Ken pushed me through by explaining the exact truth, and the border patrol man let it slide.

After that,we all had to collect our bags to have them checked by the border security. Again, most people were pretty much ignored. I’m not sure the man even so much as glanced at my bag. I doubt he would have cared much about my dirty clothes, anyway.

Maybe an hour into Costa Rica, the women got off at what I believe was a mechanic. It definitely wasn’t an established bus terminal, but they were met by a friend anyway.

Several hours later, we arrived at San Jose and were met by Darren, a very friendly American, who then took us back to his family’s condo. Once there, we were met by Manuel (Ken’s companion) and his uncle Francisco, who took Ken, Alan, and me back to his house.

Their family is very friendly, and they have three boys around my age. I imagine they feel equally or less comfortable speaking English than I do Spanish, so there hasn’t been much conversation out of any of our mouths.

Conveniently, they do have internet here, so that’s exactly what I’m using to publish this. I even got to talk to Caitlin for a little bit, but her parents decided to lure her away with food.

Speaking of food, Olga prepared a meal of rice, some sort of cheese cream mashed potato dish, a platter of carrots, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, squash, and broccoli, and what I believe to be pork chops with onions. It was tasty, although I’m not certain about its authenticity.

Ken hasn’t been feeling well, so after dinner, Manuel took him to a doctor. They’re still out, and Alan is asleep, so I’m sitting in the living room, listening to the washing machine clean my clothes. Hopefully, they’ll be dry by the morning!

Speaking of the morning, we’re going out to the Caribbean side of the country to visit some friends and have a study there. We’ll be staying the evening, and I’m pretty sure the internet there will be spotty at best. I’ll update once I’m back in the world.

Really, the only thing that’s happened since I last wrote was that we ate dinner, but I suppose I should actually write more than that.

After the last period of rest, Ken and I went to the internet place, since I figured I might as well try to update the world on whereabouts. I put all of my files on his flash drive, and we set out to conquer the internet. A few minutes into our walk, we saw three of the sister workers coming toward us, and we feared we might have to acknowledge them. Fortunately, a kind couple was driving in our direction, and they offered a ride. It was really silly that we accepted, since it was only half a mile or so, but Ken couldn’t resist the opportunity to have a joke about avoiding the sisters.

When we arrived at our usual internet room, there was actually a line of people waiting to use it. intrigued and only slightly frustrated, we walked around the corner and found the other internet shop. It was of similar qualities, and it served our purpose just the same. This room had three computers running, so it was a bit stuffy in there. I’m not sure if any of the people who lived/worked there had any idea, since there was a giant air conditioner mounted on the wall with no sign of being used.

I got my blogs up and running without any hitches that I could see. I was planning on including some pictures that I took, but the upload for the first one was taking so long, I decided to cancel that adventure.

As soon as we got back to the house, it started raining for a little bit, then we all sat down for dinner. Lesvia isn’t feeling well, so she wasn’t there at dinner. Other than that, it was a particularly lively meal — in more than one sense of the word. The first was that there were more bugs than normal trying to get at us and our food. The second was that everyone was taking care of these bugs in unusual ways. Brenda instructed Alan to take care of the bug on his forehead, so he slapped himself on the head. When Daniel had a particularly loud clap, nearly everyone imitated him. Yeah, maybe you just should have been there.

The meal itself was surprisingly midwestern. Ground beef and macaroni sprinkled with parmesan cheese was the main course, and there were side dishes of beets and onions, tortillas, and tomatoes. I mentioned to Ken that it tasted like convention food, to which he pointed out that it was actually special meeting food. Then he admitted that there is little difference between convention and special meetings here, so it would serve as both.

After dinner, we all helped prepare sandwiches for tomorrow, since it’s going to be a day of travel for nearly everyone. Ken, Alan, and I are off to Nicaragua, and the sisters are going somewhere else. Their bus leaves early in the morning, I think sometime between 6 and 7, and ours leaves around 9:30. Of course, there is going to be lots of traffic, so we’re only making one trip, leaving here at 4:45. This will be interesting.

It’s funny to think that I’ve only been here three days. In that time, I really feel that I’ve bonded with this little group, even through our language barriers. Just today, Brenda revealed that she knows a little English, but she suffers from the same shyness I do with Spanish. This evening, I showed her pictures of my family and the friends in China, and we taught each other a bit of our own languages.

The others don’t really speak any English, but we can still enjoy each other and communicate as necessary. We opened the guanabana since it’s finally ripe enough, and we all shared that strange fruit. It’s not something I’d choose first, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The drink we had for lunch today had a very fresh taste, and this wasn’t quite/at all the same.

The large beetles that have been flying everywhere are a great source of amusement. Brenda offered Ken a present and placed one on his hand. Vilma came over and put one on my shoulder. It’s interesting to be in a culture where things like that are just part of life. Aside from the mosquitoes, none of the other insects do much harm, so there’s no reason to kill them. If you do, then you have to deal with a dead bug, so you might as well let it finds its own way out.

I guess I should try to get to sleep now. It’s about 4 hours earlier than my bedtime at home, but I’ve been getting up about that much earlier than I normally do anyway. Tomorrow will be a special case, and I hope I survive.

Not much has happened since I last updated, although several hours have passed. Dinner tonight was really good with no surprises. The main dish was essentially Mexican fried rice (rice, onions, peppers, meat, and peas). For more than a second, I was convinced that the peas were chiltepes, since they’re about the same size, shape, and color, but after a reassurance from Ken, I was good to go. Also on the table were tortillas, beans of a potable consistency, and the usual salad. One of my favorite things about meals here is that alongside the chilis and salt is a plate of limes to use as condiments. I think this should be established worldwide, or at least in the parts of the world I visit.

After dinner, we all helped finish off the ice cream from yesterday, and we listened to more stories. I always find it amusing to hear the names of people I know converted into Spanish, but even that little lack of focus usually causes me to lose the point of the story.

After dinner, Daniel’s sister Hilda arrived from the northern part of the country, I believe. It’s always nice to see so much love and kindness inside such small packages.

Pretty much since then, I’ve been resting and thinking, trying to get my head wrapped around what’s been happening today and be prepared for what will happen this week. I’m on the list for attending three studies this week, all on the same chapter, with all but one or two of the same people. I am expecting this to be simultaneously difficult and fruitful.

Trying not to exclude myself from everyone else, I usually keep my door ajar when I’m not sleeping. Unfortunately, I discovered that when nothing else is going on in the house, the bugs all congregate in my room. I already removed one large beetle, but I have a small posse of vulture bugs circling the light above me.

Many of those bugs will feast on me tonight, just like they have been doing since I got here. Judging by the frequency of nibbling, I’m expecting to come home with some sort of mosquito transmitted disease for every day of the week.

Daniel, the owner of the home, is some sort of carpenter/mason/handyman build it guy. I’m not sure, but I’m fairly certain he built the bed I’m sitting on, the chair my bag is on, and the door that’s now keeping more bugs out of my room. A few years ago, he had a job building hundreds of desk chairs for a school, and he still has a few extras lying around. We can only communicate very slowly and deliberately, but he always has a big smile on his face when doing so. Daniel’s wife, Reina, is much more reserved and quiet than he is, so I haven’t experienced much of her personality.

In contrast, all of the sister workers have very prominent personalities. They spend most of their time cooking, so I like to stop by and make interested faces and short sentences of understanding. It’s really special when you have so much to talk about with such little means to talk. At that point, it’s not the content, but the spirit that matters, and that’s more than sufficient for communication.

It’s another early day tomorrow, and I’m going to try to get as much comprehension in as I can. That means I should try to get as much rest as I can and probably have a lot of coffee in the morning. Wow, I sound like my dad.

Before I came to Central America, I was warned many times over that it was going to be hot. The only long sleeves I brought are the ones attached to my hard shell — which I packed because I was also warned that it would rain.

Well, it has already rained. Interestingly, I have no desire to use my jacket. The rain, while heavy and loud, is quite pleasant. Even standing in it feels comfortable, but that might also be because I brought only light and breathable clothes.

I was warned that sleeping might be uncomfortable, since it’s warm even at night. Keeping this in mind, I slept last night under only the top sheet-like blanket on my bed. Strangely enough, it took a while to fall asleep. The bugs kept buzzing in my ears, the rain frequently changed volume, and my body felt sticky all over. After a while, however, the exhaustion caught up to me, and I fell asleep.

I woke to the sound of voices around 5:30 a.m. Feeling somewhat cognizant, but knowing it was way too early for me to get up, I assessed my surroundings and tried to go back to sleep. The first assessment I had was that my left arm was cramping right around the elbow. I then realized that I spent most of the night with my arms clamped close to my chest because (surprise!) I was cold. I desperately wanted to be beneath the thicker blanket-like blanket I was sleeping on, but I was in my stubborn sleep phase and refused to do anything about it.

Around 6:45, I arose and put on some clothes. At the requested 7 a.m., Ken came to check on me. Seeing that I was awake, he informed me of a very special offer: the sisters were doing laundry. I figured that would be as good a time as any to take a shower and put on clean clothes, so that’s what I did.

I had been somewhat putting off taking a shower, partially due to my experiences with culinary surprises, and partially because of the random exposed wires connected to the shower head. I bit the bullet, and after a little hesitation and a lot of faucet twisting, water came showering from the head.

It turns out the wires are part of a brand new hot water system, and my shower was quickly heated to what I would consider a perfect shower temperature. It was a wonderful experience up until the point where I had to step out of the shower into the brisk outside air.

By this time, the air had warmed up to a comfortable temperature, so once I dried off and clothed, I was doing fine. Not too long after that, we all sat at the table for breakfast.

Breakfast was a combination of pancakes, sunny side up eggs, and refried beans. Possibly because of Ken, everyone had coffee as well. Near the end of breakfast, a bag of Honduran treat was passed around, full of what appeared to be thin mini donuts. They weren’t.

I have no idea how they’re actually made, but here is my guess: Start with a recipe for a really bland, healthy type bread, except don’t add any yeast. Form the dough into O shapes the size of silver dollars. Let them sit out for a few days until they dry up, then cook out any moisture they might have. Stuff them into a bag and serve.

To be fair, they didn’t really taste horrible, but they were incredibly hard and dry. I could only bear to eat at most a quarter of one per bite. This was partially due to my biting abilities, but more because my mouth produces a limited supply of saliva. When i was politely trying to consume this treat, I imagined that it must taste similar to hardtack.

After breakfast and story time, there wasn’t much else that needed to be done. I opted to go with Ken and Daniel into the city for some groceries. Ken was looking for a particular coffee cup for Alan from Cafe Americano, one of his favorite coffee shops. After stopping by one which didn’t have the cup he was looking for, We drove back to the airport to try the shop there. The road goes right next to the runway, so I got an even better look at how ridiculous the landing is.

The coffee shop at the airport also didn’t have the cup, so Ken decided he might as well get a cup of coffee. Having already consumed one cup over my usual average of zero per day, I politely declined the offer for my own, and we all sat and discussed things of which I only had a mild comprehension.

After the airport, Daniel dropped Ken and me off at the supermarket while he went to get some cheese. While Ken and I were gathering the things we needed, I couldn’t help feeling a little familiarity with the experience. It was similar to a Chinese grocery shop, just smaller and less crowded. I even recognized a few obscure brands that don’t make it to the American market. It was also a nice feeling that I understood much more than in China.

On our way back to the house, we got stuck behind a few trucks that would in no way pass a smog test. Due to the quality of the vehicles and heat of the day, there really isn’t a choice but to drive with the windows down. At one point, I thought I could feel the carbon monoxide enter my lungs, but then I remembered that I can sometimes be overly dramatic. Either way, I’m still living, and I think a year in China would do much worse damage than a few weeks here. That’s right, I’m blaming my early death on China.

Now back at the house, we’ve been doing a few chores that come up, but there isn’t much preparation needed for the special meeting tomorrow. I’m trying to do everything I can, but I also get the feeling that everyone feels it is their responsibility to do work for me. It’s a strange struggle.

After a bit of that, Ken finally gave me a task that I could do and feel completely responsible for: getting some sort of whisper mic to work. There was a wireless system that had some broken internal wires, so I patched them up and managed to get power, only to discover that no sound actually transmitted. We’re going with a wired system.

Now, having run out of things to do, I have been told to relax before lunch, which should be any time now. I did what I do best when told to relax — write about everything that has let up to the relaxing. I’m sitting on my moderately comfortable bed with my feet wiggling in the air, sipping from a glass of papaya/pineapple juice that will likely give me diarrhea in a few hours. Go ahead, envy my life.