09.07.09 Monday, 8am Not All Who Wander Are Lost

09.07.09 Monday, 8am

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Synopsis: Playa del Coco Beach, dinner at El Velero, feeding a ferile cat, Kassidy, conversations with the potential school, hornet’s nests outside the house, the worker’s arrive, meeting the builder, an invitation to go out on the boat, over-tipping, the pool boy.


I can hear Spanish.

It’s a Monday morning and there must be some handy men or construction workers at the house down the hill. We’re at the top of a hill and the sounds from the valley float to the top like gifts in outstretched hands.

Yesterday as we drove back from Playa del Coco where we replaced the swimming suit that is on Kassidy’s bedroom floor at her dad’s house, she started counting monkeys. I haven’t seen one yet.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if the whole time you were here you never saw a monkey?”

The ink on her hands washed off under sun screen and ocean waves and swimming pool chlorine. It streamed and smeared down her hands leaving only trace evidence, like a wound that begins to heal because the body begins to self-repair. What inside of her is erasing the ink?

There are as many stray dogs here as there were in Guanajuato. They are harmless and starving and myopically seem to not even notice the people in their quest for food. While Kassidy felt compassion for them, it wasn’t until dinner, when we were approached by a very smart, ferile cat, that her heart strings were tugged.

According to the waiter, “THAT – is not a cat.” It’s an evil cat and they feed it from the kitchen in the back, but aren’t fond of it. She manipulated Kassidy until there was a discussion about possibly feeding the cat her leftovers. The way a dog responds to “Wanna go for a ride?”, it quickly sauntered back, while making eye contact with her. This tiny little ferile, calico cat wasn’t wild and untamed. On the contrary, it had learned that tourists like cats that remind them of house cats. I reached down to feel her bulging, low belly.

“Pero está embarazada.”

The waiter conceded. Wild, pregnant, calico kitty had chicken parmesan for dinner.


On the way home from the restaurant that is almost directly across the street, I turned the wrong way. A kilometer or so down the road we reached the grocery store and realized we were going in the wrong direction. I am the driver. Kassidy is the navigator. I have found that trusting her sense of direction is profoundly more reliable than trusting my own regardless of how confident I am. I am always wrong. It’s a handicap, remediated entirely by having a GPS. I think the GPS MIGHT work to get me from place to place once I’ve been there because the satellite and the coordinantes should work even if it doesn’t have a card for Costa Rica. I’ll try it today. The point is… I was lost. I was lost so close to home that I could have walked. I will be lost again. Jason gave me a compass for my birthday in a little metal frame that says, “Not all who wander are lost.” If you see me wandering… I am probably also lost. If you see me lost, though, I’m probably so used to being lost that I’m enjoying extracting myself from the situation again. I laugh at my handicap. Everyone else should, too. As long as you don’t see it as willful disregard for maps and directions and instead see that I am simply incapable of finding my equilibrium again once I’m turned around.

It’s appropriate that Jason gave me a compass because he’s also the person who tells me when I’m heading in the wrong direction. On Skype last night with Jason and Diana I learned that for the billionth time I misread someone. I tend to take what people say at face value. It does not occur to me that a person’s communication is more complex than simply telling the truth, so when they speak, I believe them. Is this not the same thing as not being able to find my way without a GPS? I lead with my heart. I listen with my heart. I make decisions with my heart. I am oblivious when I trust people and their intentions are inconsistent with their words. Costa Rica will be interesting because my understanding is that people are very polite and friendly, but say whatever is necessary to be perceived as polite and friendly. If anyone has a compass that would help me understand what people really mean when they talk that might be just as helpful.

Kassidy began speaking in Spanish Sunday. It was silly, broken Spanish with a smattering of giggled English words. She also swam in the ocean and when it pulled her under she smiled and laughed and looked happy. Just for a minute. But when it was over, she didn’t appear to remember her commitment to herself not to ever be happy again.

When I was almost exactly her age, all four of us were sent to California to stay with our grandparents for six weeks. I remember the agonizing feeling of being wrenched from the most important people in my life --- my girlfriends --- and deprived of the ability to spend the summer doing what they were doing. Back in the a days of long distance, we rarely talked. But we wrote letters and kept each other updated. I still have them. Dawn and Gena wrote mountains and I kept them bundled the way an army wife would.

I shared this with Kassidy in an attempt to bond.

“If it happened to you, how could you do the same thing to me?”

Failed.

“Did you ever forgive your parents or did you hate them for the rest of your life?”

Yikes.

But when we got home and got in the pool, me gingerly carrying my injured, bandaged arm above water, she swam under my legs like a dolphin and we talked. Our friends Diana and her daughter Marie and Janie and her daughter Molly have lovely relationships and survived their teenage years without the distance Kassidy expects in our relationship.

She is on the cusp of adolescence, but also still so very dependent. She wants to cuddle on the couch. She climbed into bed with me some time in the middle of the night. This may be my final opportunity to savor the morsels of childhood she’s still throwing from the dinner table. There is still no joy in the world that lights me up like making her laugh.

So… what did we learn today? When you dial a wrong number you say, “Disculpe.” Products in grocery stores from the U.S. are ridiculously expensive and hand lotion from Costa Rica is just as good. It is going to take me a while to figure out money. I paid with a credit card last night, but apparently you can’t leave a tip on a credit card. It is never a good idea to be taught about money by the person you are wanting to tip. I think I tipped about 20%, although my little books on Costa Rica say 10% is normal. Money is in colones and you can get a rough estimate of the conversion by doubling the number and moving the decimal point. So 500 colones is more or less $10.00. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. Right now I’m looking at prices and choosing the least expensive butter, but not having any idea what it costs.

I can’t believe I didn’t pack a Spanish / English dictionary. We need to find a book store. The ice maker is jammed…. there is a hornet’s nest on the blade of the fan….the internet signal is too weak so the modem connection cable needs to be moved…. Until you need the words, they are low frequency vocabulary. Once you need them, you find yourself pointing a lot.

A worker arrived to work on the roof, but one of the padlock keys had been changed, so he is sitting by the pool with me, speaking to me in Spanish and teaching me about Costa Rica. His nephews go to the school Kassidy will be going to. We will be spending our future Sundays at church if we wish to meet anyone in Playa Hermosa. (I may need to go shopping.) He has a girlfriend in Atlanta who visits often because she is finding $100 tickets into San Jose, a 6 hour / $3 bus ride away. He also told me that tips are included in the fine print on every bill, so when I generously tipped at dinner last night, I was raising the total tip to somewhere around 30%.

The next arrival was the guy with the key who works for the property manager. He lives in Liberia and gave me helpful advice on renting a less expensive car. His four year old son also attends the school in Liberia. More Spanish.

I spent the morning on the phone with the school in Liberia. Kassidy is scheduled for a test on Thursday morning. We will go visit between now and then to pick up some materials and see where they are in the curriculum and tour the school.

Speaking in Spanish feels like nails in my mouth right now. It’s strange. Yes… I speak Spanish. But as it comes out of my mouth right now I hear the errors in agreement and my need for subjunctive in every day conversation is incredibly high, so I am editing in my head as I go (Was that past? So I need imperfect subjunctive?) If I speak slowly my monitor jumps ahead of the words and corrects them before they come out. Mostly, it just chastises me after I’ve already said the words.

The builder of the house is married to a Tica and they have two small children. Apparently they are good friends with the owners of the house and the children learned to swim here. She recommended a different school that is closer. We may go check them both out. They invited us on “la lancha” this afternoon and we, in turn, invited them to spend the night in the two empty bedrooms downstairs. They are from Santa Cruz a little more than an hour away. According to my book on Costa Ricans, invitations are made easily and followed up on rarely. Since he is American and she is Costa Rican, I wonder which cultural customs they follow. They will be back to pick us up in a few hours when it’s not so hot. Or not. No idea. We’re going to get dressed for it just in case.

And there is a noise…. One I can’t possibly describe. I will wait until tomorrow morning and try to record it. Apparently the monkeys know when it’s going to rain.

And… Andrea… Shannon? I met the pool boy.