DAY 5 Thursday, September 10, 2009 7:50am

DAY 5 Thursday, September 10, 2009 7:50am

“We are not passive spectators, but active contestants in the drama of our existence. We need to take responsibility for the kind of life we create for ourselves.” – Nathaniel Branden, PH.D.

Synopsis: Kassidy is drawn to activism, I start working again, Kassidy "parte de la familia"



I am alone. The house is quiet. I am using this time to keep working, as people are beginning to notice how terribly behind I’ve gotten on my to do list. It occurs to me for just a moment that I should take advantage of this time somehow, but it’s not practical, so I plug along. The Advanced Spanish DVD is on-line now, thanks to an hour and a half on the phone with my brother teaching me how to use this really cool software. (Noon on Wednesday).

This morning Quiana and Kevin woke up and made a dash for the pool and Kassidy joined them. Their Spanish is comical, but Kassidy is hanging in there. She was trying to teach Kevin how to swim. How do you say, “kick”? How do you say, “flatten out”?

“Se quedan flojos” Quiana tells Kassidy about the goggles. Kassidy continues to make adjustments for her, but has no idea what she has said. (They’re loose.)

When they decided to go down to the beach to watch the demolition of the house and the restaurants, Kassidy asked to go with them. The encouraging thing was that she voluntarily chose to hang out with Spanish-speaking people on her own. I think Scott the builder is enough of a bridge for her that she was willing to take a chance.

(Re-cap: Costa Rica passed a law that nothing could be built within 50 yards of the beach because those are public areas. There are no private beaches in Costa Rica. The buildings that had been there for a hundred years wouldn't move, so Costa Rica started tearing the structures down. Wednesday morning they arrived with police, people from the city, demolition people, etc. etc and the family stood and watched everything get torn down.)

“I wanted to go up to them in the bulldozers and say ‘I know you think you’re doing this for tourists, but I’m a tourist and this will not help. Tourists come for history, and you’re destroying history.'” she tells me when she gets home.

And I SEE my daughter again, all self-righteous and angry and dedicated to a cause. To the core of her she is motivated by fairness and justice. For the same reason she is angry that we are here (it wasn’t fair and she didn’t get a vote), she is also ready to take up arms for this family she has just met.

They took a family picture on the beach and Kassidy stood a ways apart, she said. “Come here,” they told her, “You’re part of the family.” And then, she relates, “Clara Rosa put her arm around me.”

She asked me how to start her own blog.

And then we talked and talked and talked. And we were normal again. We put music on really loud and went out to the pool for a night swim. We were warned about mosquitoes and bug spray, but there aren’t any. Maybe it’s because there hasn’t been any rain.

Today we will go into Liberia, where Kassidy will take a test to try to get into 7th grade at ICS. You can google the school and see what it’s like by putting in ICS Ciudad Blanca Liberia.

Today we learned that you can get a wicked sunburn at 8:30 in the morning. We learned that water is a precious commodity. There are only two hours of water a day here, but there is also a back up tank. Yesterday the water outside the house was off, which means that the inside of the house was running on the tank. No idea why, but we’re being very careful with water.

Now, Thursday morning, we are sitting on our balcony over-looking the ocean during the totally pleasant early morning hours. It’s not hot yet. This side of the house is in the shade in the morning. For the first time, Kassidy is up early, so she is sitting beside me eating cereal and using binoculars to hunt for monkeys. A yellow breasted bird is drinking from the swimming pool. A drive to Liberia stretches out in front of us. The Farmer’s Market is in Liberia on Thursdays and Fridays, so we’re going to go check it out. There are bird sounds and chattering sounds and cooing sounds coming from everywhere as though the trees are alive. I am gentle with this moment, careful not to poke or prod it for fear it is so fragile it might crumble in my hands.

“It’s too quiet here,” Kassidy says.

Sigh.