October 31, 2009 5:56am ¡Pura Vida!

¡Pura Vida!

October 31, 2009 5:56am
SYNOPSIS: Pedro’s wedding last weekend; the Playa Panama elementary school tamale fundraiser; scuba diving certification progress; how Kassidy is doing; I get Pura Vida.

I hear monkeys.



One Congo Aullador, actually, who has decided to be my alarm clock. One of our first purchases when we arrived here was a wind up alarm clock. We set it on school days in case the electricity goes off in the middle of the night. This morning the digital alarm clock was blinking 12:55, but the Congo Aullador was singing to me.



I am sitting on the balcony outside my room. I do not want to come back to the states. Every morning I wake up and open my eyes and immediately look at the ocean. Even after two months I’m incredulous. So I check. To make sure it’s still there. I suppose that’s how someone in love feels, looking over in the morning to watch someone breathe and being incredulous that they’re that lucky. Tomorrow morning I will wake up and it will be dark. I will arrive at the airport as the sun comes up. So this morning, is my goodbye. I am feeling present and appreciative. I’m also feeling like my feet want to be in that water.





La Boda

Last weekend we went to Pedro’s wedding. We followed Mike and Carla up to Santa Cruz, a couple of hours away. Kassidy took some pictures from the window as we passed through a cattle drive. I just never stop thinking that’s funny.



We arrived at a bar in a little town… Nimbu?… Nubu?…Namby? We turned right at the painting of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs painted on a pre-school. You know where I’m talking about, right? We paid their buddy the bar owner 5000 colones to watch the cars overnight and then Scott Hansen, the builder of the house we’re living in, drove down the mountain to pick us up because our little rental car couldn’t make it up. It was a 40 minute drive up Pikes Peak… if Pikes Peak weren’t paved, and if they hadn’t yet cut that winding road wrapping around it. The rains had created ditches and gullies, rather than potholes.



We arrived for the 11:00 wedding with the lawyer / reverend who would marry the couple at 11:10, and so began our experiential education into the Tico time schedule. The wedding started around 1:30. It was a small group of family and a handful of neighbors. For most of the day we were the only people there who weren’t related by blood or marriage. In addition to the standard unsurprising ceremony, which was traditional and archaic in its language, there was a tradition in which the reverend asks for coins from the gathered family and friends. She put 13 coins in her hand and blessed them and then gave them to Pedro. Pedro then gave them to Teresa. It was a promise that Pedro would be a good provider and that Teresa would be a good steward of their household money. She was placed in charge of all things domestic. The wedding ended with a kiss and then a champagne toast. The reverend asked everyone to raise a glass to the couple and individually make a wish for them ---love, patience, humor, that they would always have food, for many children. Witnesses were randomly selected. They both signed their names. Afterward, there was no procession, as there had been no procession in. Immediately prior to the wedding the bride had been sitting on the groom’s lap drinking a beer. After some cajoling, Mike managed to get everyone into one family picture. The family dispersed to get food ready. (They had literally slaughtered a pig for the occasion.) Everyone else moved to a bench on the outskirts of the veranda and hung out. This activity persisted for the rest of the day. People moved from the bench to under the covered veranda when it started to rain. The food was set out on the table outside and people filled their plates and sat down. The bride went to take a nap. Someone drove the reverend / lawyer down the mountain and, while they were gone, thought it might be a good idea to stop by the grocery store and pick up a white cake. They cake was set on the counter. Someone cut it and passed pieces around. Dancing and hanging out at the wedding site continued until well after we went to bed and then it moved into the living room where it continued until the wee hours. When we were ready for bed, there were several available floor spaces for our air mattress. We were shown to the floor beside the bed of the bride and groom. I stared at him absolutely incredulous. No… thanks. We took one of the kid’s bedrooms.



I had a great conversation that night with one of the drunk cousins. He was commenting that Kassidy was a little too young to propose marriage to. He was 22. He had consumed almost an entire bottle of rum. I think he was inspired by the woman from Atlanta marrying his cousin Pedro and thought maybe he’d see what other American women were available at the wedding. We were, as I mentioned, the only people there not related to him. Kassidy was too young and apparently I was too old. Kassidy found him to be creepy. I found him to be amusing. You know… like the town fool. There are three mixed race marriages in this family. Two of them are between older American men and young Tica women in the family that originally owned all of the property in Playa Hermosa. I heard there were a couple more, too, but they don’t live here anymore and I haven’t met them.



The next morning the cooking for that many people was constant. They had spent a day earlier in the week making tamales and now they were being boiled. I had the opportunity to take pictures of the entire process of tamale making at the school yesterday. Banana leaf and then masa (cornmeal rolled into a ball), and then peppers and onions and some kind of salsa thingy and then meat and manteca (that means lard – just a little piece of lard, because lard makes everything taste better) and then roll it up in the banana leaf and wrap twine around it and boil it. There was absolutely no schedule. People woke up, ate something, and then sat and watched TV. Jurassic Park and then Water World and then Pirates of the Caribbean. I wanted to go for a hike and, eventually, a couple of the boys said they would go with us. So Kassidy tucked the puppy under her arm and off we went. As we walked from the house to the trailhead, we picked up about 5 of the guys. The women all hung back and waved. I should have known better. Marcos brought a machete. This was not hiking. It was trailbreaking.



When we got back I made CDs of wedding pictures for Teresa before she went back to Atlanta and a second copy for one of the aunts who had a computer. Sometime that morning Teresa had been cleaning up and found her bouquet. She walked into the house, called for Ceci and threw it over her head directly at her. Ceci caught it. Woo hoo! Except Ceci is married to Marcos. This Tico ceremony would have driven a wedding planner up a wall. I thought it was cool. One of the advantages of being this laid back is that the anxiety about being late disappears. There’s no such thing as late. Things just happen whenever they happen.



Although we were still on no kind of a schedule, I didn’t want to drive back in the dark, so we finally got a ride back down the mountain about 3:30 and got back to Playa Hermosa just as it was getting dark.



Ohhh… just while I’m sitting here writing I can hear the waves crashing on the shore. Sigh.



La Escuela / Secret Santa

There is a fundraiser coming up in December put on by the 4 communities, Playa Hermosa, Playa del Coco, Playa Panama and Sardinal. The money that is raised from the event and auction goes to support the schools in these towns. I have been going down to the school in Playa Panama this week with John. I translate for the teachers while they tell him what they need. They are building a new bathroom right now, but don’t have the money to pay for the US $200 in labor, so they made tamales for 2 days and sold them for 500 colones (a little less than a dollar) apiece. I took pictures of the process. They have a travelling English teacher who comes in Mondays and Tuesdays. They have been told that they might be able to get a second teacher next year which would mean that instead of teaching 1st through 3rd grade in one room in the mornings and 4th through 6th grade in the same room in the afternoons, that they would be able to offer full day school. To do that, they need one more classroom. If they build that classroom with specific specifications (fans, bars on the windows etc.) the government will give them a couple of computers. This same type of fundraising built the first bathroom and the Kindergarten / pres-school classroom. This school serves 15 K and Pre-K kids and 54 1st through 6th graders. School is free, but students have to purchase their textbooks and buy uniforms and school supplies. The teachers also let the parents know when they have run out of toilet paper.



I’ll post pictures, but what I’d like to do when I’m home is see if we can tackle any of these projects. They have bathrooms now, but no sinks where they can wash their hands. (I know… eww.) They have textbooks, but no reading books. They have a pathetic play area for the littler kids, but it isn’t fenced in. I took pictures of the swing set. It is not something any of us would let our kids play on without an up to date tetanus shot.



There is a kitchen where the kids are fed lunch. A small amount of money is provided by the government for this school lunch program.



These conditions are livable, but I’m motivated to make them educational rather than just livable. John tells me that this is not the worst school. When I get back he will take me to others that this fundraiser supports. They have been in shacks with absolutely no food at all.



The underbelly of Costa Rica exposes that the myth that this is not an impoverished country is just that. It is beautiful. It is amazing. I am so very enchanted by this place. It’s just simply not true that everyone is literate. I think they only surveyed all of the people who could read. It’s also not true that everyone is fed.



SCUBA diving certification

I cannot breathe under water. I panicked. I couldn’t clear my mask. I couldn’t equalize. I felt like I was on an airplane my ears were so pressurized. Multiple attempts to clear my mask failed. I could not relax. I was with my friend Heather who had far less trouble than I did and can’t wait to go again. She was graceful. I was graceless. What else is new?



Did I mention that I panicked in 8 feet of water in a swimming pool?



I am practicing clearing my mask in the pool before I go back and am also buying a mask with a release valve in Colorado. I need every possible advantage.





Kassidy

I volunteered to read The Phantom Tollbooth to Kassidy’s class and while I was there stopped in to see the principal. How are things going? So, I told her the truth and also told her that we weren’t sure we were going to stay at Ciudad Blanca next year. She was aware of the problems, but didn’t know how bad they were. After some discussion, they have decided to move her to 8th grade next year. The school year begins in the middle of February.



I like her. We have had some difficult times together, but now when I pick her up at the bottom of the hill we take a minute to be excited that it’s the end of the day and we get to be together again. It’s a moment we hadn’t been appreciating. One day I was late and it was horrible for her. We both realized how much she looks forward to seeing me parked next to the bus and decided to relish that. She’s very excited to come home. When we come back she’ll be travelling with my parents by herself. We’re totally excited about that, too.



Pura Vida



I understand Pura Vida now. It was an abstract, silly concept when I got here. Now it’s a pace. It’s a feeling of going along with the waves and not fighting the tide. It’s a feeling of using the time for meditation and insight and presence. It’s what we would be… on vacation. It’s not just doing things slowly, it’s doing things more spontaneously. I lose track of whatever schedule I had intended to follow when something comes up.



It’s taking advantage of the moments in the day when the sun comes out to be outside. It’s taking advantage of passing someone on the street and stopping to chat. It’s dropping everything to watch the sun set. It’s spending an afternoon basking alternately in desire, pleasure and satisfaction. It’s beating the rain to the pool and floating happily but it’s also standing in the rain and feeling it instantly cool the surrounding air. It’s taking time to take pictures.



It’s having nowhere else to be but exactly where I am in this moment.



And it’s experiencing and appreciating the sensation of joy at being present in this very moment.