After a very intense week in Nicaragua, the tales and pictures of which I haven't even thought about dealing with yet, I was incredibly happy to return home to my host-family. And they were incredibly happy to see me! Rosy, my mother, had just come back from a party arranged by ICADS for all host-mothers, which included food, bingo, and dancing. In the end everyone walked away with little presents (in Rosy's case, a purple violet, one of her favorite flowers).
They were all extremely excited to hear my stories, and impressions of their neighbor country, and overjoyed that I'd had such a wonderful experience there. I walked away from Nicaragua with a lot of new understandings that I am still sorting out and working to integrate into my vision of the world.
My last post is a bit melodramatic, but it fit my mood and thoughts at the time, and in many ways is representative of deeper impressions I felt. I now feel embarrassed to be apologizing here, in my own space where I have the freedom to write, about something that might have made others uncomfortable. But recognizing that is important, so I'll explain. I was exhausted from a week of stimulating (if not over-stimulating) experiences, lectures, and encounters. Finally, I was doing the last of my assigned readings for the Nicaraguan trip when I found that short poem at the beginning of a piece about world hunger. I was particularly struck, especially since I turned such a stubbornly blind-eye to the hunger in Nicaragua.
I have been conditioned (or, should I say, permitted myself to be taught it was alright) to look past the beggars of every age, gender, or background that approach me in the street, regardless of country, history, or time of day. I spent so much time thinking over what was in front of me, what social ills and triumphs I witnessed, but ignored the most blatant physical incarnation of poverty there is, and denied its existence by refusing to look it in the eyes.
As of now, I've moved from brooding on structural poverty and hunger, to brooding on the ways in which they are currently being addressed. Maybe I'll post my most recent class paper about it. It's not very good though..
But THAT'S not what I came to write about! I came to show some photos of what happened AFTER Nicaragua.
So, as I learned before I left Costa Rica, my host family here is quite large, and there are a number of small farms in the family - at least two. At one point I stated there were eight siblings, however, I learned last night those are just the girls. There were also four boys. Five, but one died young (as many, many do), at the age of 13.
But my host mother and her boyfriend bought a farm about five years ago, way up in the mountains, about forty-five minutes from where we live in Curridabat. Rosy was disapointed to hear that I'd already made plans to explore San José with a friend the next day, since she'd wanted me to come help them fertilize some corn on Sunday. I paused over my guava juice, and then quickly bailed on my previous plans. Sorry friend! There will be many more weekends. But there will be few opportunities to get to spend time with my host family, both with all the travel my Field Program will be doing, as well as with how busy the family is!
So yes, that's how I ended up in a clunking old minivan, driving through red lights up into the mountains, higher and higher into the foggy mists of the Costa Rican morning!
We didn't eat breakfast before leaving, so one of out our many stops along the way was to a little shop where we bought some empanadas and other morning snacks. Rosy's goddaughter rode up on a motorcycle with her husband (once a visiting minister from Panama, who accidentally fell in love with this young church-goer, and went from studying to be a Father to wanting to be an altogether different kind of father), and they chatted and caught up. Ana had packed us little sandwiches, and when we finally scaled the last mountain road, we say under a large lean-to and drank coffee and ate our breakfast, while waiting for the two other workers to arrive.
Soon they grumbled up, riding tandem on a small minibike. Both were friendly, and thought it was terribly funny that there was an American chilling (literally), eating empanadas and drinking coffee out of a thermos with them, and anxiously waiting to help them out. It was incredibly cold that early in the morning, so they too hugged their foam coffee cups while they caught up with Rosy and Randal. One is a deaf-mute, though despite the difficulty I had understanding him, he ended up being a joy to spend time with. Throughout the whole day he went out of his way to show me all the wonderful things on the farm, like I was a three year old just walking outside for the first time, and it is his hands that you can see in many of the photos holding up different fruits, trees, and leaves.
Once we had eaten, we walked down the steep path towards where there is a house looking out over the mountainous property. In the past, a family lived there to care take for the farm and to look after the pigs and cows that also lived on the property. However, due to terribly cold nights, and an apparent falling out with this family (who "preferred to sleep") the house now sits vacant, and the key for the padlock on the door has been lost. Rosy seemed rather blasé about trying to get back in at any point soon, though she did express her desire to live on the farm eventually, however I believe they would build a new, and smaller home that would be more insulated and cost less to heat.
At this point, we separated. Rosy and I headed down hill amongst the corn stalks to throw little pellets of white fertilizer on the roots of the plants, while the men headed in different directions. Though we didn't have to wear gloves, the fertilizer gave off an acrid smell and left a thick white powder on coating fingers. Another worker, who was putting red pellets at the base of banana and avocado plants used a plastic bag as a glove. This was an herbicide, I was told.
Though I was puzzled between my host-mother's stance on the importance of organic farming, in particular since she has discussed with me before her feelings about how detrimental pesticides are for health (and why she chooses to avoid buying especially non-organic fruits and vegetables), I decided not to question her methods or choices. Rather, tried to help out as much as she'd let me, and otherwise to enjoy myself - and to clamber around the mountains after her looking at plants and flowers, soaking up the beautiful scenery and place. I told her how incredibly lucky I am to have found a host-family here who lives in the city but owns a farm! Next time I go, I will inquire further about the products they use, how often they're applied, how they decided what to use, etc.
The actual work ended up taking less than half an hour, after which we clambered over to where there once was a field of avocado plants (which were sadly almost entirely eaten by cows). There, I realized that the expensive hiking shoes I own really couldn't handle the slippery mountainous terrain. I don't know how the farmers here manage, climbing up and down day after day. Once the last of the avocado plants were tended to, and beans examined, Rosy decided to bring me further down, into the forest where the trees are protecting a river that emerges from the mountains. There we walked along, looking at larger avocado trees, examining the air plants on larger branches, and tracking different birds. All of this we did passively, not as active biologists or aspiring naturalists, but just as a group of observant folk talking a walk through the woods.
We also found a sloth! Sleeping cradled in the top of a tree! It was clearly exhausted, because my group began clicking and clapping, to no avail. After a minute, one member began throwing sticks at the branch it was sleeping on to rattle it and oust it from its slumber. Finally, after several long moments permeated by the rattling and shaking of the tree, the sleepy beast stretched and looked around it slowly. It looked back at us repeatedly with extremely fatigued confusion, its long white fur making it look like a sleep-deprived teen. It was really one of the coolest things I've seen in the wild. A very close second runner up would be the congo monkey we saw on a Nicaraguan coffee-farm-mountain, though.
After this sighting, we circled the base of the mountain and then began the walk back upwards. Many tree roots on the side of the mountain formed the steps we walked on. However, my host mom had a bad knee from running when she was younger, so we ended up walking back up on a dirt road of an empty tree farm. After a pre-lunch snack, we said goodbye to the workers and descended the mountain into a couple small rural towns to run errands. Everywhere we went, we got involved in deep conversations with people, many of whom stared very openly and asked a multitude of questions about me. It was fun, but I was tired. On the drive home, we bought fifteen ears of corn on the side of the road, which later we ate as a pre-dinner snack. So much food!
Though I've been washed by waves of melancholia recently, my host family has been bringing me so much happiness! They are really wonderful people, and I am so happy to finally be able to speak with them comfortably, and to share with them (and be shared with in return!)
I'm ending this now but first would like to announce....today, I had a four hour Spanish class, all alone! Who would have though that in a little over three weeks I could go from having next-to-no Spanish, to being able to discuss incredibly complex things that I even have problems discussing in English for four whole hours? Not I. And yet, look at me go!
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