Bowl number 86

Lilian and I have decided to start waking up early in the morning to walk. We just started yesterday but it is great. I looooove waking up early and as if it wasn’t pretty enough here already, it is so gorgeous and tranquil at 5:00 in the morning. The sun is rising over the mountains, everything feels fresh and cool, all of the birds are singing, there aren’t many other people around. It is also nice because I get to spend time just chatting with Lilian. Yesterday was nice because when we got back to the house, I still had plenty of time before breakfast to work some. That was cool because if I hadn’t gotten a head start I wouldn’t have finished before the afternoon pick-up game. Today…we walked down to the eco-lodge as usual and went to say hello to Otoniel at the stable. When we got there, Lilian half-jokingly told Otoniel that we were going to feed the pigs for him today. She looked at me laughing and I said let’s go. So we did. We went to the back of the kitchen to get the food scraps. We had to split it into two bags it was so heavy and each bag probably still weighed between 30 and 40 pounds. Then we walked….I don’t know, a quarter mile to where the dirt path to the pig stables are. The path itself was also probably about a quarter mile and it was a quarter mile of purely mud and stones straight uphill. When we got there we fed the pigs then while they were eating we used buckets of water and a broom to clean out the pens. It was quite a process. I was definitely a little nervous when Lilian was said ok you do this one and I’ll do the other. I was said what? Go inside with them. She said yeah grab a bucket and a broom and wash out all of the poop and stuff. So that is what we did. After we finished cleaning, we gave them their allotted amount of regular pig feed and headed back down the mountain then walked through campus and back up the trail to go back home. When we got home it was about 7:45.

Lengua

Last night we ate the tongue from the cow that Otoniel helped butcher last week. I know that sentence sounds really gross but tongue is just another muscle and all meat comes from a butchered cow this one just happens to have been a friend’s cow. Eduardito and Lilian and I have had a couple of days of video fever. We have so many random, stupid but funny home videos from the past few days: us working, Lilian cooking, walking to the pulpería, sitting around the house, playing with the cat… It should be a pretty interesting mish mash of every day activities to have later to look back on. Today I got started setting up my project finally. I have been waiting for the lettuce seedlings to be big enough to transplant. I think I’m gonna plant them Thursday so I have today and tomorrow to get everything ready. I have hoed up all of the land, added fertilizer and marked out all of the quadrants with home-made stakes and string. Tomorrow I will prepare all of the quadrants with their various materials and hopefully have it all ready and planted on Thursday:)

Morning shot of guaro number…3?

It is 9:31am I just took a rather large shot of guaro with Otoniel. I woke up this morning at 9:00, which is by far the latest I have slept in here all summer. Last night Lilian and I went to a big dance that they had in bajo San Luis next to the plaza where we play soccer on Wednesdays. It was a lot of fun. There were a ton of people there. There was a large group from the eco-lodge, a lot of people from bajo and quite a few people from alto. I rode down with Lilian’s godparents, Rafael and Lilian, who come over the house frequently, and Lilian and Virginia. Lilian wasn’t going to go but she gave in. I was being pursued the whole time by a thirteen year old that I met last Sunday, at the pool party thing. I got Lilian and one of my other friends to save me a couple of times with a dance. Then Eduardito came. He never dances and I have tried to get him to dance with me before but I wouldn’t. He came this time knowing he was going to have to dance so it wasn’t too hard to get him to go dance with me. Almost every song after he wanted to dance. He doesn’t really know how to dance but we both had a good time so I ended up being saved by my thirteen-year old pursuer my fourteen-year neighbor haha.

Bowl number 68

Ok so that last picture of the cleared field has all those little trunks sticking up... today Eduardito, Otoniel and I spent the morning ripping them all up. It rained a little too which made it even more fun because we got all muddy.

Bowl number 66

Nothing dramatically different has been going on the last couple of days. I had to take a healing day on Monday because I got a blister so bad that I couldn't really walk. Yesterday and today however, I finished up clearing all of the brush off of the field that we have been clearing. It was hard work. Both days Otoniel and I got back to the house sweaty and dirty and tired, ate a big lunch and then had to take a nap. Julio was going to send some people to help clear it, but had to wait 'til next week because there is so much to do at the eco-lodge. We were laughing about waiting to see his reaction when we tell him that the two of us cleared the whole thing on our own in just a few days. Not much else to tell for now. Here are a few pictures of life over the past few days.

BBQ at the pool

Just woke up. It is 8:10, the latest I have slept so far. Yesterday was sooooo much fun. I went outside at 7:20am, sat on a rock by the street and waited for the big yellow bus that was supposed to drive by. When it came I waved it down. There was no one on it. Apparently I was at the beginning of the route cause there were literally three other people on it. As we rode along through Alto and then Bajo San Luis, the bus began to fill up until it was full of people laughing and talking and joking. After the was sufficiently loaded down with people and food, we were on our way. It was about and hour and half long trip. I sat with Alex, but was surprised at the number of people I knew besides him on the bus. It was a little unreal being on that bus full of San Luis locals on their way to a celebratory pot-luck and we didn’t feel the least bit out of place. Alex and I probably talked to more people than anyone else on the bus. We knew Lelo and his various family members we knew several of the kids from playing soccer in Bajo, we knew people from the eco-lodge…and the thing is about San Luis, if you know one person, you will meet twenty more, either of their family or their friends or just because people will come start talking with you. Rancho La Fe, which is a little recreational spot kind of in the middle of nowhere is where we spent the whole day. It was quite a change from San Luis. It was hot, sunny and there were palm trees and mango trees. It was lie a vacation from San Luis, which is such a funny concept. There was a pool and a restaurant/bar area and a soccer field. We spent the day playing in the pool, playing soccer and eating BBQ. It was a ridiculously fun way to spend our day off. We arrived at about 9:30 and left at 6:30 (when it got dark). After 9 hours in the sun, eating, drinking and playing soccer, I was just as tired and beat up as if I had a hard day of work, but it was worth it. I got back to the house at around 8:15, Alicia fixed me a late dinner and after tending to my latest blister, I went to sleep.

Morning cup of coffee number 21

I love morning coffee conversations with Otoniel. We started talking about piggy banks this morning because there was one on the television or something. He told me that he liked piggy banks. He told me a story of when he was younger and he was very poor and had a lot of debt because he hardly made any money where he was working. He really wanted to buy a chain saw because he knew there was a lot of work that he could get with one. He started putting any money he could spare in his piggy bank. He finally decided he would “kill the pig” and if he had half of the money for the chain saw he would get the other half some how, through loans or something. When he counted the money, he was only missing 300 colones (~500 colones = $1). Alcia’s brother lent him the 300 colones and he bought the chain saw. He worked for from 6:00-2:00 every day and when he got off at 2:00 he and his brother would go work with the chain saw cutting down posts to make fences for people. He said that after a few months he had paid off his debts and eventually bought a plot of land to build a house. After work, Alicia would go with him to help build the house every day. He said they dug holes in the sides of the ground and put candle in the holes so that they could work at night and that is how they built their house. I laughed and said all of this from a chainsaw. He smiled and said “Tengo mucha fe en los chanchitos.” Almost as good of a quote as when we were talking about politics and farming and he told me what his grandfather had said about one day everybody would have pockets full of money and nothing to eat. I can’t get over that one. What a perfect, simple summary of everything I am studying and passionate about.