International Lunch Meeting

One of the very best things about travel is the people you meet. I´ve met some very peculiar people, and some really great ones. I´ll leave the peculiar for later.

Since this was a short trip, I only had time to go on one excursion. Coach and I signed up for a day trip to Isla Tortuga, with promises of white sand beaches, a ride on a catamarn, and a gourmet lunch under white umbrellas among palms trees.
Im very pressed for time today, so I´ll make this short and sweet.

The trip was all it promised to be. It was beautiful and delicious. But the very best part was our serendipitous traveling companions.

When John and I arrived, by taxi, to the pick up point at 6¨45 in the morning, we were carrying the excursion boarding pass for a young Japanese woman that the school had given us to deliver.

We quickly found her, and she had already befriended a young man from Mexico City, who was here working in San Jose.

The four of us fell in together, and we boarded a very plush bus for the two hour trip to Puntarenas. During a short stop where breakfast was provided, we all got our pictures taken with the resident toucan.

The hour and a half long catamaran ride to Isla Tortuga was beautiful, splashy and very elegant.Men in white shorts uniforms made continuous rounds with big trays of fruit and drinks.

Our Japanese friend struck up a converstation, in Spanish, with another young guy. He looked European, but his Spanish was so good, I wasn´t sure of his nationality.

Upon arrival at the picture postcard beach, there was time for snorkleing, swimming, volleyball or an impromtu game of soccer. (Yesterday was the equivalent of Super Bowl Sunday, only it was soccer that had everyone all revved up.)

At lunch, the Japanese woman, the man from Mexico City, Coach, the man of unknown origin, and I, who cannot be described, all sat together in very happy companionship.

As it turns out, the three younger people all spoke not only their own languages, Japanese, Spanish, and German, as our mystery guest was indeed German, they spoke a little French and a lot of English.

Since John and I have very basic Spanish, the linguea franca (sp?) of the day was English.

These three young people were astonishing.

The 23 year old man from Mexico City was with Proctor & Gamble, in Marketing and Research for Latin America.

The 32 year woman from Japan is in Costa Rica to research language schools. There is athe growing demand in Japan from retired Japanese professionals for experience and learning based tours and vacations.

The 25ish year old German man was here to start his internship with Chamber of Commerce International.


We all eagerly exchanged email addresses (they asked for mine first, much to my amazement).

Here s the note to self I came away with: WAKE UP! The world is very, very large and full of fantastic people that are as interesting, accomplished and as kind as anyone you ll ever meet.

It´s a changing, blending , wide, wide world out there. I hope I get to see more and more of it, because meeting people like this is really, really fun.

Marias Kitchen

Saturday was hot and steamy and after a crowded cab ride home, we put away all the groceries we had in our canasta. Maria chopped and washed and peeled until she had a refrigerator full of produce for the coming week.

Maria´s kitchen is a wonder. The stove, where she prepares meals at least three times a day, is a very old and miniture. The electric burners are flat like hot plates. It sits below a long window , high up on the wall; too high up to see more than the sky. A white curtain, with a band of cherries on the hem ,blows in the breeze. I don´t think the window is ever closed.

A set of open wood shelving serves as a pantry. It has the usual tea and coffee, plates and bowls, and all the boxes of things every kitchen needs.

A tiny, vintage refrigerator, the same brown color as the appliances in my childhood home, is set up off the ground on some pretty big wheels. So far, Ive never seen the refrigerator moved anywhere, though.

The small microwave that sits on a bakers rack that is between the wood shelves and the refrigerator gets a good work out every day, heating up mugs of tea, or reheating leftovers, just like in any other kitchen. Only the re heats are fried plantains sometimes.

On the side of the frig, someone has hung a scale model drawing in pencil of a new kitchen layout, next to a picture of new cabinets and applicances; cherry wood, black trim and stainless steel.

Around the tile breakfast bar that divides the kitchen and the living room, I often come in from school and find Maria and a cousin, or sister, or friend having a cup of coffee and visiting, or cooking together.

Under a small, overhead light, every night she prepares another wonderful dinner . Somehow , she seems to know what her guests would prefer. I never mentioned that I don´t eat a lot of meat, but after a couple of days, most of our meals have been salads, fruits and vegetables, a little chicken and of course, lots of rice and beans.

Last year, when the teenagers were here, there more meat dishes were served.

This is great with me. Yesterday, I saw a regular, unrefrigerated box van in front of the butcher shop, the back doors open and two men inside. Hanging from the ceiling of the van were about six huge sides of beef, and the men were taking one down , for delivery to the shop. I walked past and glimpsed inside. Large coils of sausage were laying on the counter.

Eggs are sold in all the little tiendas, sitting out on the counter in open cardboard egg crates. I have never seen any in a refrigerator, and in my Costa Rican home, they sit in the kitchen in the open shelves.

Every night a small amount of food seems to go a long way. Sometimes I think there won´t be enough for everyone, but no one, especially me, ever goes away hungry. What the six of us eat in the evening is about the amount two people would be served at one of our local restaurants.

The best part of dinner is sitting around the table with the family and trying to talk with everyone, or listen to their conversation. Talking to me, they speak rather slowly, but the kids can´t hold the pace for long. They will start the conversation simply and slowly, but within a few words, they forget what an imbecile I am and run up to cruising speed pretty fast.

Eventually, they leave most of the chore of communicating with me to Maria. She seems to have an inate sense of how to express most subjects in a way I can understand.

Of course, my language skills can lead to some hilarious mis understandings. The other night, Jose, the 10 year old boy, kept saying something about someone at his school having a problem or doing something about what I thought was their heel.

But unfortuanetly, he wasnt´ talking about a talon , or heel, (pronounce it tah LOAN), but about a condon (Coan DOAN) . Ill leave it to your imagination what that word means. As it turns out, a boy at school had shown up with some, and in an amazingly casual way, Jose was reporting this to the family at dinner.

Enter stage left someone who is getting about every sixth word when the kids are talkingsoveryfast. Of course I say, "what is wrong with his heel?" Que es malo con su talon?

Maria looks bewildered and asks me ¨¿Que?" So I repeat the question.
By now everyone has stopped talking and is listening to this interesting development.

By the time she realizes what I mean, the stage is set for explosive laughter. On all our parts.

Oh well.

Youreadthissentenceasfastasyoucanandnocheatingbytryingtodecipherindividualwordsincluding
onesyoudontknowthemeaningoflikeexpediciousorsomething.

I even had trouble typing it without using the space bar. I wish everyone around here had a space bar in their speech when they are talking to me.

Time to run. It´s almost dinner time,and for the privilege of a home cooked meal set in front of me every night, I guess I don´t mind being the live entertainment. After all, everyone is so nice about it, and I promise, I know now and forever the different sounds of talon and condon.

Market Day

As predicted, Saturday morning was as drenched in sun as the evening before had been awash in rain. Shortly after dawn,the other student, La Señora, and I got up with the rest of the house and got ready to go to the local Farmer´s Market.

Maria was ready with a big basket, and happily, the word is "canasta" in Spanish. There must be some connection to the card game, but having never played it, I don´t know what it is. I love these words that have an English connection in my mind. Makes it much easier to remember.

(Yesterday´s word was sheets. You know, for the bed. Sabanas. Necitamos sabanas en sabado. (Sat.))

Annyyyywaayy, Maria´s two daughters were ready to go, too. Mother and daughters alike were dressed in pink, one of the girls had on glittery pink shoes. With their beautiful dark hair, brushed to a high gloss, they made a rich picture

The market was about a 20 block walk toward the center of town, and the Saturday traffic was wilder than usual. Much to my delight, the littlest girl decided that I was her street crossing partner, and we held hands all the way there.

The market is blocks and blocks long down the middle of the street. Hundreds of people are shopping for the week, loading up little carts, huge baskets and many, many bags.

Everything was for sale. Piles of produce, carrots as big as as a rolled up newspaper, squash, onions braided together in ropes, lettuce as green and perfect as an open blossom. Pyramids of apples were stacked up on counters, a jillion limes filled baskets and of course,bananas, bananas, bananas in huge bunches.

A lot of the fruits were unidentifiable and some so exotic looking that you couldn´t believe they were edible. What were those things whose skins looked like wood? And those hunks of cactus looking stuff? At Maria{s urging, La Señora and I bought a round fruit about the size of a small basketball. It was green and hard and didn{t look all that great. But the man took a mini machete , cut the top off and handed us two straws. The juice was cool and tasty in the hot sun.

And there was more and more. Booths of dried beans for sale, piled up in bowls or in baskets. Dried herbs hung from under umbrellas. Boards covered with different breads.

The girls begged their mother from some little bags of powder that looked like Ovaltine or Strawberry Quick. Im still not sure what these are, since they were confiscated when we got home and Maria found the girls dipping a wet finger in the bag and licking it off their hands.

I thought of my mother when I saw buckets full of huge Bird of Paradise, and red bromeliads for sale. I bought some flowers, a few for my room and a few for Maria.

A salesman, wearing a bag with a product logo on it, stopped us and tried to sell Maria some new toothbrushes. They looked like any we would buy in the grocery, packaged the same way. The gimmick was the different colored bristles that fade as the toothbrush wears out. After a careful examination, she was a no sale and handed them back to the salesman.

We stopped at another booth and she bought socks for the whole family.

Here in this part of Central America, it is a strange mix of the worlds and commerce. There are hundreds of little shops around town selling anything and everything.

Sometimes the shop looks like a tiny collection of garage sale items, other shops have Quicksilver surf brands.

In the airport, plasma screen tvs advertise designer goods, but the other day I passed a man in the street with a wheelbarrow full of fruit, sweating, a tshirt wrapped around his head , as he pushed the wheelbarrow down a roadfull of pot holes.

Pretty soon we had what we needed. The little girls helped carry our very full basket, and after a quick stop at a local pet store/vet to look at a huge boa constrictor in a cage, we caught a taxi home.

The pet store, as it turns out, was why the older girl wanted to come with us that morning. She had come to see the boa constrictor that resided there.

I´m happy I get to see all this, to be here now, when the world has started this strange blending of commerce, technology and history. At one time, the idea of being in Central America at a Saturday morning feria would have seemed as far away as Jupiter. Now, it´s just a happy day spent with friends. And an big ugly snake.

La Lluvia

Ah, my first weekend in Costa Rica. Fun, lights, action. No.

Having just recovered from my little set back, and feeling rather weak, I decided not to try to sign up for any touring. Also, since there was just one other person at the school, there wasn t much demand for a weekend outing.

I have an arm chair in a cozy corner of my room. It sits in front of a big window, high off the floor, with a sill deep enough to sit in. It looks out into a small, walled courtyard, empty of anything but a lone shrub. The window sill is painted blue, and the mullions make a grid of yellow. The wall is pink. In the dim and cloudy afternoon light, the window frames a soft blur of color, and as the day grows longer, the setting sun turns the light from gray to rose. The whole room glows rose.

I spent a quiet afternoon and evening in my room reading, working a crossword , listening to rain on a tin roof , and learning more about the mysteries of language.

The light was enveloping, and the rain kept coming. In the morning ,at dawn, when the buses would begin again, the sun would be out and hot, and we{d walk with a big basket and 2 little girls to the Saturday morning market.

I Got Rythm, Finally

Up and at ém Tuesday morning, full of enthusiasm, I joined the others at the breakfast table, semi frantically running Spanish phrases through my head. The whole family was there, including the other housemate, a woman from Colorado about my age.

Her Spanish was much better than mine (especially the first day´s) and she proceeded to bombard me with questions, my fork half way to my mouth. I did the best I could to respond, while the whole family politely ate and listened. But she was a low talker, to boot, and not only could I not understand, I couldn´t hear. Operating on a jet lagged molasses brain rounded out the picture of dull confusion on my part.

I finally had to just ask for uno momento, por favor. Necessito comer. It´s hard to be extra special, super duper polite when you can´t think of any words except a few kindergarden level pleas.

Walking to school was nice escape and a tinge nostalgic. I was assigned my old teacher from last year, the same great young guy who did so well with the our class of ´06. There was just one other student in the class, a retired football coach.

At the break, I kept waiting for all the other classrooms to open and the garden fill with the other students, but except for one couple, there was no one else there. Even they were there for a couple more days.

I have some weird karma; always ending up places where everyone else has cleared out.

Wednesday was the semi finals for a big soccer game, and Heredia was in the line up. Someone tried to get tickets to go to the local stadium for the game, but they were all sold out. La Maestra of the school kindly invited us to her house for the evening, so the four of us went there and watched Heredia win.

Her 12 year old son cheered, jumped up and down, and yelled at the players in a swirling mix of English and Spanish. Very fun.

We all walked home together, along with all the fans pouring out of the stadium, to the serenade of cars honking and people cheering. '¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ Heredia, Heredia!!!

I woke up Thursday morning feeling rather punky, but went on to yoga class. For the first time in 10 years of practice, I left a class. I just felt too crummy.

I went to school, anyway, and my classmate arrived looking pale, also. Coach said he felt really tired and not so great.

It turned out that several people in our respective houses had some little something. I went home from school and went to bed, where I had a long, shivery night under every blanket and jacket I had with me. But even though it felt like days, it was only a 24 hour ick. All is well now. Not very fun and I´m really glad it passed quickly.

La Maestra told us that the license for Pepto had expired in Costa Rica and it was very hard to find. I felt kind of guilty when I didn´t offer to share my tiny bottle. I know, selfish. Thank goodness I only needed one dose for a slightly queasy stomach. And of course, I had my Cold Eze which really helped, laugh if you will. A virus is a virus.

The point of my medical records run down is that this situation did not, in any way, help my language skills. I felt like my brain was slogging along through very thick mud. I couldn´t think of anything, let alone stutter it out. Frustration is not my best side, and I was so aggravated with myself I was running through a sad story for American Airlines about why I needed to change my ticket.

But that´s one reason I´m doing this. It´s always good to challenge your weaknesses, and being a real impatient, self demanding, gripey gus is one of mine.

Today was great. We had a long conversation in class (in Spanish, of course) about immigration. Coach is from Tucson, and his views were wholly unexpected. There are immigration problems in Costa Rica as well. Other Latin Americans ,from countries not as well off as Costa Rica ,wind up here, and the national debate sounds a lot like ours.

Our Spanish was kind of fractured but our desire to understand each other was pretty intact.

Love you.
Karen

NextÑ Saturday and the Farmer´s Market, Central American Stlye

More Costa Fun

Its a quiet Sunday morning in Costa Rica, im back in front of a Spanish keyboard that I can t fully operate, and by popular demand, (2 people) I thought I d try to revive mamacitas travel.

This is possible only because of my in house cyber guru (jake) who coaches me as I plod and stumble through the many unfathomable changes of the internet domain. Seems as if Google bought Blogger and I had no idea how to make entries in the new format. Someone (Jake) fixed me all up, and now all I have to do is type on this crazy keyboard and have something semi literate and interesting to say.

If I stop capitalizing mid way thru, bear with. The shift key is in a weird place and i have to stretch my pinkie in an unnatural way. oww. Forget about contraction marks or other puncuation tools like question marks. Where are the right side up ones¿

I arrived last Monday very uneventfully. I had a 5 hour layover in Dallas, and I spent most of it with my nose pressed up against the airport windows, daydreaming that within a 45 minute cab ride I could be getting some Grammylove. I was very, very tempted to try to pull it off, but knew better than to :

A) Leave security and try to return without missing my plane (i d already had my whole backpack dumped and pawed through endlessly, once)

B) Arrive on anyone{s doorstep unannounced and

C) Try to tear myself away from baby slobber, giant, neck compressing hugs and long, involved , funny school girl stories in less than a couple of days. It would have just made it worse.

So I sat and stared and did my best imitation of the mysterious , love sick traveler. ¡Que lastima!

The airport in Costa Rica was easy, just like any other, with duty free goods, liquor and fast foods. Immigration was a breeze, all luggage intact.

Before they would let you out of baggage claim though, you had to put your bags through a single port baggage scanner. Reverse scanning.That was a new one .

Fortunately, I had been quick like a bunny while most people were still at the baggage carousel, trying to gather up their massive amounts of luggage and figure out if they should use the money exchange counters. So I breezed through this step. I imagine that with one scanner, the line could back up.

When I got outside, it was the usual noisy crowd of cab drivers offering rides, hotel personnell holding up their signs , families hugging and back slapping and assorted fellows offering to let you use their cell phones to call your amigos. A smile and a "no gracias, esperando por mis amigos" usually is all it takes. Even if my Spanish isn{t 100 percent correcto.

I scanned the crowd looking for mis amigos but didn{t see anyone I recognized. But everyone is on Tico Time, so no worries.

After 15 minutes or so, I spotted Zaida crusing along the arrival lane, scanning the crowd. No matter how confident you are, that{s always a relief.

"¡Zaida!", I shouted over the noise, waving for her attention. What a great feeling to see her face light up in recognition while she pulled over to the curb. She got out of the car and we had our own session of delighted hugging and exclaiming, loaded up mi maleta and took off for our 20 minute drive to Heredia.

I have to admit, it{s a wonderful feeling to arrive in a country so foreign and far away, and be met by a friend.

We talked all the way to Heredia. Even though it was as I remembered it, there{s always that moment of when you make a cultural shift as you dive into another world.

The town looks like a tumbling crazy quilt of every imaginable style of construction, everything from the best tile and stucco to whatever piece of salvageable building material that can be scavenged. The houses are pressed side by side right up to the sidewalks, which are broken and cracked and made of tile or patched cement. In some places the sidewalks are wide and smooth, in others, they are tiny one person witdths of heaved up concrete, all in the same block.

The whole house, including the driveway, which is sometimes made of beautiful tile, sits behind a locked, iron gate. Behind those gates you can see beautiful homes with gardens and fountains, small, two room apartment style places, and everything in between.

The streets are full of people. Everyone walks, or rides the thundering, diesel belching busses or takes a cab for the equivalent of a dollar or two. The traffic flies by, with a rolling stop and the stop signs and no traffic lights to speak of. Crossing the street is a learned skill.

It{s a different world.

In no time, we arrived at Marias blue gate and rang the bell.

She came and opened it wide, holding out her arms and exclaiming over me in Spanish, hugging and laughing and hugging somemore. I don{t think she thought I would really come back. (Try conjugating that last sentence in Spanish. oww)

I had my old room, bone rattling traffic, rumbling tin roof and all, and when I laid down in bed that night (this time I had the earplugs from the get go), that bed felt as familiar to me as any place I{ve been in the last year.

An unexpected side effect of living on the lam.

Right now, I can hear the church bells ringing, calling all the faithful for their walk to la iglesia. Time for my walk to el Parque Central to watch all the Sunday families.

The children buy bubble mix from the sidewalk vendors, and the air is full of soap bubbles that drift across the park on the humid, ocean drenched wind, right before the afternoon rains.

Love, Karen

Next: School, Language, and Brain Freeze

Instant Karma

I know I've said that I didn't want to go shopping for fear of bringing more stuff into our temporary digs, but I've had a good reason to be out there this week: Grammy Attack.

It's also been a good excuse to check out the local shops. I've been making the rounds of the stores and trying, with no luck, to find the fancy paper store. I'm not sure if Fresno has more than the Hallmark Cards. Hallmark used to be the best, but they've lost their market share, in my book.

Anyway, I went into a children's store yesterday, in search of the little unique laignappe. The store was well done; pretty, cute, but very, very loud.

They were playing rock on the stereo, and I don't mean Rock A Bye Baby. More like Rock Me Baby All Night Long. And not because I have colic.

They had lots of cute things, though, so I kept shopping, feeling only slightly icky when the female on the stereo started moaning about how she "adores your touch, every move you make is magic every night" etc., etc.

Now I've adored some babies and the touch of their little hands grabbing your finger is indeed a thrill, but I don't think that's what she meant. And ewwwwww. In the kid's store?

When I was ready to pay, the young woman behind the counter couldn't hear my question over the music and I had to lean in and repeat. I decided it was a perfect moment to mention the music.

"That's a strange song to have on in the children's store", I said with a sweet smile and a laugh in my voice.

"Oh, do you think so?" she said with a look of surprise , her eyes gazing upward as she started listening to the music. When she tuned in and heard the words, she blushed. It must be loud background noise to her all day.

"Well, we sell older kids clothes, up to size 16, and that's what they listen to now."

She went over to a long counter across the back wall to run my card and get the wrappings. The name of the store was spelled out in big, metal letters that hung individually on the wall above her head. They were slightly vibrating in time to the bass.

Just as she stepped back to bend down for more paper, one of the letters vibrated right off the wall and crashed to the floor, a mere fraction from her head.

"Oh my gosh!", we both exclaimed.

"Are you okay?", I asked.

"It didn't hit me", she replied. "I can't believe that fell off of there!"

I do know when to keep my mouth shut, so I did.

But I left the store wondering about what she had said. If that's what kids were listening to now, how did she think they found it, through their fillings?

Here's an idea, kids listen to this because someone is bringing it to them, not the other way around. You're not playing it because they demand it, they're demanding it because you're exposing them to it. Constantly.

They hear it because she was playing it, because some parent gave them money to buy it, or parked them in front of a TV that was selling it. Because every adult in their world made it easy to hear, everywhere they went. All the time.

I'm not by any means a rock and roll hater. In fact, I love it. There's nothing like it to make you feel full of life and energy. As an adult, I even like a suggestive lyric now and then. And I'm not suggesting that the store play some syrupy muzak of "This Old Man."

But if our kids are hearing sexual content, not to mention violence, in each and every place they visit, live and play, no wonder they're bored and jaded and overwhelmed and angry. The adult world is in their face every minute and they can't escape.

They can't escape to the empty lot in the neighborhood, the creek at the end of the block, the tree house in the woods, or even unattended in their own back yards.

Or even in a store that sells tiny booties and little hats.

And by the way, someone who wears a Childrens' Size 16 is not really all that old. Let's give the poor kids a break.