There are 6 months of glorious weather in the mountains where I lived. So many trees and vines..the vines will grow right in on you in weeks and it is creepy at first..that is when you learn to use the big knife, the machete..a sword really..
you are like wtf? Where did all these vines come from?
There was some sort of device the electric hippie put under the porch so it would sent to the university messages about the seismic activity with earth quakes and volcanoes..very cool..
The university came once to check it and they were polite and left.
By then my Spanish was passable.. Once I was to entertain an Indian (rich) guy, some sort of investor in the property..
He was nice but he told me to go home..
He takes my hand and looks me in the eyes and he he says to me, you have had a big event has separated you and torn you apart, I see the gap."
I was like yea, I know, what am I doing standing at a dirty beach town bus stop in the middle of nowhere?
I do not drink or party at the bar, I do not sleep with strangers in the middle of nowhere and I do not sniff cocaine ( you can always tell the sniffers)
La Mona En Seda
monkey house to me and my family
http://www.flickr.com/photos/capt_richard_barone/8384439762/
I would go teach English in town (3 km) twice maybe three times a week..the rest of the time I would stay on the hill and water the flowers and make tortillas outside. I would love to roll dough in a shady spot and just cook it on a open fire..after three years living in Tilaran, we had adapted to Costa Rican life..put the beans on in the morn, make some rice, chop a cabbage with cilantro and lemon, make a dough to fry up later, and go work your area. there were hibiscus fences in beautiful shades from yellow to red and purple..
the ylang ylang trees glowed their scent at night..sweet and heavenly..right before nightfall, the dragon fly came. it was incredible to see so many chomping on mosquitoes .they gobble them up..still, you'll want to hunker in for the night by 8..it gets buggy no matter what by then. the netting around beds in the tropics is there for a reason. by morning you might see some pretty big fellows resting on the outside of your mesh..mostly big moths, but still!
4:30 am the monkeys come..they had been so used to being fed, they banged on the big door in the back..
I got in to the rhythm of the monkeys..i gave them bananas and they ate and watched me work through the trees...they loved dough..on a few occasions they took my dough right out of my kitchen window!
I knew I should have closed the window when I walked out of there..but they are quick as lightening!
In what Costa Ricans consider winter, the rains came. You really do not want to be out too much when it is pouring rain..same as in winter here in Michigan, I suppose. The weather forces you in..driving is dangerous..
when it pours rain for days at a time, you are forced to stay in most of the time..
it was like this...
hotness, explosive down pour, rain steady..calm for a 30 minutes stretch or not..hot, explosive downpour..rain..on on and on with the rain..the books literally disintegrating before your eyes! Once I was caught in the rain while going to town, my sandal broke and I went to teach English with broken sandals .they thought low of me for that..I was appalled at their shallowness..people with money acted weird there..there is a much wider gap between the wealthy and what they perceive as poor..I was a neither their peasant not was I poor, but they must have thought so based on my broken sandal..
funny how some things just stay with you. I think that before I left CR, my student had regrets for his behavior towards me and my broken sandals..but all I remember about him is his arrogance and I can now see his fear..living well requires big money..developers money..millions really..a private beach is everything to them..having the suv and the pool and your child in private school..he wanted to learn English specifically to lure big investors in his beach front schemes with a couple of other big players..they wanted enough money to desalinize the ocean water so they could build their resorts for the rich..all with gates and guards..once I decided to walk the beach to another class just down a ways but they called to authorities and got me in trouble for trying to walk past a private estate..really?
My stomach hurts for those people..a little bit, it does!
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