Loving Life In Monteverde

"Oh my gosh, larva, larva!" I continued cutting vegetables for the Tico beef soup. We see plenty of larva around here. Michael continued, "I squeezed the fly and out came larva!" Now, he had my attention. Sally chimes in, "Oh gross, what. . . , take that outside .. . wash your hands really really well, oh they're all over the place!" I put the knife down on the counter and hurried to a new biological surprise. Michael and John were playing around with a unique looking fly trapped on the window pane. Apparently, this one was carrying her hatched brood first class in the cabin. Upon some external pressure from the fingers of a 4 year old, this diptera's (scientific classification: Kingdom: animalia; Phylum: arthropoda; class: insect; Order: Diptera) exoskeleton split open to reveal about a dozen minute, wiggly larva (maggots). Upon seeing the light of day, some larva had ventured out immediately onto little fingers and the window pane, while some stayed within the warm confines of their mother's reproductive tract. I was surprised to discover that this type of fly, I don't know the family, produced eggs that hatched inside the mother rather than eggs that hatch externally as in the case of house flies. (note the mating houseflies courtesy of wikipedia) Unlike the bloated grains of rice type maggots found in smelly garbage cans on a hot august day in Chicago, these little larva appeared quite innocent and undeserving of a premature separation from there mother. But so goes life on this Costa Rica Dia de la Madre, their mother had a gaping hole in her side and her future looked quite bleak. Sally was not too happy about the whole thing, so Michael threw the fly outside, we washed our hands really really well, and I went back to cutting vegetables.

"Oh gross, there's ants all over the windowsill, did you guys just leave the larva there?" Yes, we did. I murmured something about mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom in our house, grabbed the camera and joined the boys to watch round two of the larva drama. Within minutes, dozens of our little black ants had located their next meal, hoisted the doomed wigglers into the air and were hauling them into a crack in the wood. I imagined a fateful game of 'your larva feed my larva.'

It was an amazing scene, not gross nor gruesome, but real, natural, a wonderful story of the complexities of life and death, survival and competition, reproduction and predation. Of course the human involvement cannot be overlooked, after all this did take place in our house. Just these few minutes of play and curiosity on our part will lead to rich discussions and vivid memories for some time to come. The great thing about living here, is that these stories happen all the time. This is but one of many vivid displays of the natural world we've experienced today. Pics not in particular order: Star of larva story broken in two w/baby, ants and booty, today's long hike to a stream, red mushroom, more insects, and a spider visiting me right now. Note: it is bigger than Antarctica.

Black Friday - No Malls, No Traffic, No Advertisements

There are so many things I love about living in Monteverde. Many have to do with adventuring outdoors in semi-natural surroundings (much of the forest around our house is second growth, but still very lush), learning about the lives of other people here, and living a more simple life.

Yesterday morning, we had a group of nine hiking through some trails at a neighbor's house across the street. Ages ranged from four to eighty-seven and to give you an idea of its challenge level, we had to take the dogs back home because John the elder of the group was worried they would fall into the ravine or pull someone with them. We ventured down to a waterfall, admired a massive strangler fig tree and a huge thirty five year old walnut tree that would take over one hundred years to attain the same size in Illinois. In future blogs, we will have to write about the strangler fig tree and about John's move to Monteverde in 1971.

As we started the hike, someone mentioned black friday and shopping. It literally brought a strange chill as I thought about sitting in a car attempting to navigate through the Best Buy parking lot and being continually bombarded with advertisements from every direction. I do not miss the gauntlet of commercialism that tells me "buy this, take your kids here, your life will improve if you have this, eat here, drink this, wear that, he can't be a man 'cause' he doesn't smoke the same cigarette as me," and on and on.

We do not have a TV, a car or radio. Yes, we do have internet and do need to buy things, but shopping is not part of the culture in this community. There are some signs with arrows pointing to a point of interest and most of the signs for restaurants and hotels are small and simple. There is one sign for the Super Compro along the road - its seems out of place and of course there are the two vehicles that occasionally drive by blasting commercials from their rooftop speakers. One driver we know, Ricky always stops and waves "Pura Vida", cheerfully accepts guayvas from the boys and lets the boys speak into his microphone! In general, consumerism is not a major part of people's lives here.

On a related note, I faced a challenge in the 7/8th grade classroom this week when I introduced a method for presenting an animal species. I instructed them to create a magazine, TV, or radio advertisement 1) as a vehicle to tell the audience about the animal while 2) encouraging preservation of its habitat and 3) discouraging the construction of a shopping mall that could endanger the species. The kids understood their animal and the concepts of habitat preservation and endangerment, but stumbled with the advertisement part. When I presented a task like this in Chicago, the students would run with it and I would be impressed with the creative juices, but these kids just did not understand advertising the way the Chicago kids do. I realized, after playing a TV commercial actor and showing magazine ads that this would be difficult. I asked, too late, who had experience with creating an advertisement, and two students raised hands. They presented their animals on tuesday, with a varying degree of fanfare!

Oh no! Children in this community will have a disadvantage when competing for that marketing executive job after college! These students have plenty of talent and skills that I would not find in a Chicago classroom (blog about that soon). I think about the meaning of education: Are we training our child to be a good worker? Or, are encouraging our child to be a learner for the sake of learning. Is education a combination of these or something completely different? Depending on the culture, does the purpose of education vary from neighborhood to neighborhood? and country to country? We are part of our culture.

Posted are some pics from yesterday's hike and of local advertisers. Signed M.

Waterfalls & other Wonders

Although life here in Monteverde is at a slower, more manageable pace, I feel like the days get away from me.  “Was it yesterday that we hiked that wonderful little trail to the waterfall or was it last week”?  Activities seem to bleed over the days in the calendar; maybe it is because the activities are so diverse and ‘unscheduled’, much more spontaneous than perhaps what we are all used to.  Sometimes, the planning and scheduling of life gets in the way and contributes to our ‘stagnation’.  Here, my mind is freed-up from the clutter, you would think that would help me keep track of what day it is, but truly I have to look at my calendar setting on my watch each day to do the reality check…ah Yes, it is Sunday! 

Last Sunday we hiked La Catarata (the Waterfall Trail) which is just down the main road.  After calling out a few “holas”, and getting no acknowledgement, we decided to sneak under the chain link gate and see what kind of trouble we could get ourselves into!  The boys did really well – the trail provided many opportunities for them to hone their climbing skills, clutching onto old, wet ropes which were strategically placed along the trail to help navigate those tricky ‘ups and downs’.  We delighted in having the entire trail to ourselves -- all we could hear was the distant waterfall and the occasional bird.  A few water obstacles to navigate and luckily no snakes lurking.  The waterfall was perfect, not too big or overwhelming, but rather peaceful and serene.  We treated ourselves to an ice-cream at the Cheese Factory to cap off a great couple of hours.

A busy school week for Mike as he continues to get his routine and tools in place.  When he mentioned that he needed to plan out his math and science ‘scope and sequence’, I was like a kid begging for candy from their parents, with hands stretched out and fingers wiggling – “Gimmee, gimmee,  please, please, please, let me plot out your timeline on Excel”.  I was thrilled to lend my assistance and help organize and present his thoughts and vision.   I quickly put together a very colorful plan for Mike with bar charts, dates and key milestones.  Ah – was good to know I haven’t forgotten everything from a professional tools perspective.  I feel a little like Mike’s personal assistant – I have been helping him in the evenings with computer ‘stuff’ or just as a sounding board for any new ideas he has floating around his mind. 

Friday, we had Stewart (a first grader) over to play after school.  Fridays are short days – school wraps up at 2:15, so still a good portion of sunlight left for play.  His mom, Veronica was headed to Santa Elena and Stewart wanted nothing but to come over and play with the boys.  We had spent some time with them on Independence Day  and apparently Stewart had talked about (along with our boys) how great a time they had earlier in the week, so there you have it!  I would take the three kids home while Veronica did her errands and Mike stayed at school late to get a head-start on the coming week.  Personally, I considered just getting three kids home by myself a huge ‘win’ !,  It was hours of soccer, swinging, climbing and finally gardening… Earlier in the week, Stewart so proudly showed off his garden at his house, he quickly went to work gathering up bamboo shoots and aloe plants on our walk home from school and gave us all instruction on how to plant them in our backyard.  We shall see the fruits of our labor.

We had another awesome hike on Saturday, this time we ventured up to the Cloud Forest Reserve (where I run each day).  We hiked a trail with the boys that Mike and I had conquered seven years ago during our honeymoon.  I remembered it like it was yesterday, Mike not so much, of course I said that 7 years ago, his mind was all-consumed by his lovely bride so perhaps he was more focused on me than the trail J  We hiked up to the Continental Divide where the rain falls to the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other.  The boys did great and had plenty of energy to make mom nervous as they ran around the look-out deck, pushing their luck leaning over to get a better glimpse of the view.  No rain, but plenty of mist and clouds – the trails were quite dry and one could see the toll the dry weather has taken on some of the foliage along the trail.  Half way into our hike we heard the familiar word “Poop”, so after all the time we have spent trying to get our boys to use the toilet (and not pee in the woods or in the pasture or in the front yard for that matter), we told John, “well, you’ll just have to go in the woods”.  A confused little face looked back at us and after some additional reassurance from his mom and dad, that “yes, this is the only option”, he dropped his drawers and quickly took care of business.   Mike quickly pulled out a poop bag from the back-pack and stowed the little treasure away for the return trip!,   We ended up carrying the boys on our shoulders the last ½ mile where they both proceeded to fall asleep, they snoozed through the cab ride home, the transfer to their beds and proceeded to sleep almost to 4:30 p.m. that evening.  Did I mention we had to be at a dinner by 5 p.m.?  Luckily the boys woke up in good moods, a quick wipe-down and off we went to a dinner at a Parent’s home, put on by the School Board members.  Michael and John had a blast playing with the other kids and were excited to see some familiar toys (scooters, big wheels, dump trucks)…toy heaven, Costa Rican style of course, as the kids played hard, using the tile ramp in the back of the house as their runway…happy to report that no trips to the clinic were needed, although mom was on-edge the entire time watching and waiting to dive to protect a skull – no helmets!

Today, Sunday, another full day – a run for mom, a quick splash of the face and douse of powder and off to my first Quaker Meeting  (more on that later), as I left for the meeting, Mike and the boys were busy making Guava jam from the fruits on our trees.  Looking forward to having some on my toast tomorrow morning.  Very labor intensive, so Mike tells me.

P.S:  Although we love Strider (the dog – see earlier post), we have decided not to adopt him and make him part of our family just yet – our plate runneth over and adding a dog to the family is not in the cards right now

 

Side Note:  For those of you that know me, I don’t cook – I am one of the lucky women who married a man who enjoys to cook and is pretty good at it.  I can now say that I have cooked about 5 times in 7 years of marriage (three of these times being here in our new home).  I’ve even managed to bake banana bread a couple of times and have gotten the “YUM” word in return from the two boys.  Not bad, considering our oven does not have any temperature settings.

 

Finally, more crafts, the boys enjoyed necklace making last week and happy to report both are still ‘intact’.

 

All for now.

Signed:  S

MOOSH-GOOSH!

Oh my aching bones! Truly I still think I am 25; but then I look in the mirror and see the wrinkles and the gray hair and feel the soreness in my body after yet another busy weekend which was capped off by a totally awesome hike in the (what the Schaefer family refers to as) MOOSH GOOSH!

Saturday we made it all the way into Santa Elena to the Farmers Market on our two legs! YES, no 'mooch a ride this weekend!" The boys ended up on our shoulders a couple of times, but for the most part, they walked the 3 Km...a milestone indeed. We loaded up on our weekly fruits and veggies and also popped into the pharmacy to get some additional photos of the boys for Mike's work visa. George (a Texan transplant) gave us a lift home - a full 4 hours of activity, ending just this side of "crankiness" :)

Saturday late afternoon we headed to Bromelias which is just a stones-throw away (we share the same driveway) for a night of music and art. Bromelias is an awesome venue for concerts - surrounded by beautiful, lush gardens! The music was delightful, everything from drums to violins, guitar, sax, and singing, oh the singing - I have so much respect for musicians! The kids frolicked with the other youngsters and Mike and I visited with others in the community. We arrived home around 5 p.m. to about 1/2 dozen kids who had taken over our front yard. Boys lined up to have a turn on the tree swing. Yikes - one mom against six 5-7 year olds all vying for a turn on the swing - I survived...barely and no severe accidents to report! We then proceeded to christen our fire-pit and actually, due to Mike's persistence, had success. We had rain earlier in the afternoon so we were not very optimistic but happy to report we enjoyed some sausage on an old, worn skillet by the end of the evening. Several neighbors popped in to chat fireside as they cut through our pasture on their way home. The boys enjoyed chatting with 7 year-old Sequoia who coveted a little lizard we found roaming about. I love the smell of a fire despite the smoke getting in my eyes.

Today I started with a run while the boys whipped up yet another yummie batch of pancakes. Kath (who lives across the road (just through the pasture) returned our flashlight which we had lent her the night before. Kath and Mike made tentative plans to get the kids together for an outing later today. The rain came, the heavens opened up. I think this was the loudest and most rain in a short amount of time that we've gotten since we've been here. By noon, we were in Kath's truck (along with her 4 and 6 year old (and Kyle came along too) off for an adventure - and adventure it was.

Our mission, to pick Marias (which I would equate to small blueberries). We parked and off we went - the dirt road turned into a trail (if you can call it that) think of it as a river-bed and imagine it after the hard rain we had in the morning. Total MOOSH GOOSH - it was delightful. I understand that this trail can take you all the way to San Luis which is 7 Km from MV. We picked Marias along the way and bickered about who had the muddiest shoes. Kath proceeded to carry her crocks and walk the entire way in her bare-feet - a braver soul than I. The vistas were spectacular - we could see the Bay of Nicoya. The clouds had cleared and we had sunshine for the entire 2 1/2 hour hike. We were all filthy by the time we all piled back into Kath's car. We shared bread, pancakes and berries and had a lot of good laughs and some almost injuries too along the way. No snake sightings although I kept thinking we would see one after the rain; perhaps one lounging on a rock sunning itself - but no such luck. Michael and John were real troopers as it was all down hill, negotiating inches of mud and rocks, and then uphill on the return. No carrying or shoulder rides this time. On our way home we put our patience to task as we had a herd of cattle in front of us...with very full utters to boot! OUCH - doesn't that hurt?

We returned to meet Ginna walking past the house, after a couple of moments of chit-chat, we invited her up to the house. We had fun getting to know her better and the boys enjoyed showing off their tree swinging abilities. We spent the majority of time watching a squirrel that I am convinced either had rabies, was bitten by something or was drunk as it sat under a tree for an hour while we looked on and the boys tried to torment it (okay, torment is too strong of a word). Finally, the poor thing got itself back up the tree (for now). An interesting shot of the squirrel checking out to see how it matches up against Limper the dog.

Mike made a batch of soup which was perfect after a long hike and a warm shower. The Sunday night movie "The snow leopard" on Planet Earth.

Still no firm verdict on Strider the dog!

Now, it is time for sleep!
Signed: S