(Home)sick

Well, after more than a year of go-go-going and raving about how the clean air and proximity to nature in Quebradas has kept me healthy and energetic, I came down with a terrible flu this week, and all I wanted was to be back at home. Being sick definitely makes the unexpected twists of daily life here less entertaining, my open-air tree house apartment less glamorous, and cooking every meal for myself less fun.
For example, on my way back up to Quebradas from the grocery store on Monday, the bus just stopped about 3km (and many hills) away from my apartment and the bus driver said he wouldn’t be going any further today because of some construction up ahead. But, we could walk a kilometer and then wait two and a half hours for the next bus to come down from Quebradas. Great. Fortunately, as I started my journey, some friendly neighbors with an already overflowing car made room for me in the back.
Then, on Tuesday morning I want to take a shower but unfortunately there is no water in my bathroom. I call my landlady and she goes on about how she has never had this problem until I moved in and it is because the bathroom is on the second floor and it’s not her fault and I can move out if I don’t like it. Then she let me take a shower in her apartment. This on-and-off lack of water has also prevented me from being able to make comfort foods such as soup or tea, so I have been living off mostly cereal and sandwiches.
By yesterday I finally got the sense to cancel some of my classes and meetings to get myself better, and then this morning I had high hopes of sleeping in and taking it easy when a neighbor called at 6:30 and laughed when he realized I had been sleeping. Phone calls after 6am here are pretty much fair game.
Don’t get me wrong, people have been nice and sympathetic here and offered helpful suggestions such as rubbing butter and honey on my back or drinking milk with oregano, but this is all just to say that not feeling my best has made me miss and appreciate the comforts and conveniences of home more than I have in a while.
In other news, I am training for a half-marathon (though that was obviously put on hold this week) in Tamarindo in September, so have been doing some fun long runs with friends in the Zona Sur, including a beautiful run all the way from Adrienne’s community to San Isidro, followed by brunch at Bazooka’s. Kind of like my old routine in NYC, but very different scenery.
I also recently started a Junior Achievement course in San Isidro for students at the Casa de Juventud, an alternative education institution for people who did not/cannot attend regular high school for various reasons. Having learned much from what went wrong with my last attempt at the course in Quebradas, it is going really well so far. The group is more mature and very motivated and has a pretty wide variety of talents. So far we have a name, a vaguely defined product, and a market study in development. Will fill you in when we are ready to release the details…
And I am currently filling my downtime with beginning the grad school application process, which is not nearly as fun as reading on my hammock, but if there’s anywhere/time to have to reflect on my life path and achievements, this ain’t so bad. The lack of constant internet connection makes things more challenging, but I suppose it also gives me a better story to tell.
Finally, I am helping develop a renewable energy project at FUDEBIOL that could be really exciting and may involve me hitting you all up for some funding when the time comes, so stay posted.
Okay off to chug another Emergen-C and continue on the road to recovery…

Katie D's B&B

July brought a revolving door of visitors, from which I realized in retrospect I could have made some good money if I charged for room and board (except for the visitor who had to bring his own bed, so I guess it wouldn’t be fair…). Andrew and Maddie showed up in Quebradas the day of our big launch of the Scouts group, which was a lot of fun, and all the ladies of Quebradas thought Andrew was very handsome. The launch consisted of a short presentation from the regional directors and then an introduction of all the leaders and the board of directors in Quebradas and then all the kids split up into their age groups and did activities with another group that is already formed in a nearby community that came to help out. That was really cool because our kids could see the other kids in their uniforms with their patches and all the songs and games they know, which was a good motivator. The next day we all headed to Dominical for 4th of July, and we stumbled on probably the most gringo-ized celebration you can find in Costa Rica. It was a bbq and fundraiser for the lifeguards of Dominical, with a bunch of drunk Americans, hot dogs, a giant American flag and homemade ice cream. Unfortunately the fireworks were canceled due to the rain, but we got the idea. Then Andrew and Maddie came back to hang out and help out in Quebradas for a few days (I put them to work in the school garden and English class) before continuing on their travels up north.
Two days later, Dan arrived, queen-sized blow-up mattress in hand, for his 2-and-a-half week stay at Casa de Katie. It was so wonderful to have him down for a longer than usual period of time and to have some downtime at “home” together. He learned to do dishes and sweep like a true Quebradeñan, to stuff newspaper in his shoes after we got totally soaked and muddy on a hike with the Scouts in the pouring rain, and to kind of almost appreciate cold showers on a hot, humid day. He also helped up lay out the fifth version of La Voz Quebradeña, which came out in mid-July, got to watch some quality women’s indoor soccer, and figured out how to navigate the big city of San Isidro on his own, although he asked someone how to get to Korea before they finally figured out he needed a post office (correo).
We also got some fun weekend trips in and quality time with Liza. We went one day to visit her on the organic farm she was working at, and her philosopher-farmer host father took us on a longer-than-expected tour of the grounds, stopping to reflect and teach us life lessons regarding the environment, spirituality and the chicken and the egg. He was a very interesting man with a very different perspective than most of the people I have come across in rural Costa Rica.
Liza, Dan and I spent another weekend in Manuel Antonio, where we saw MANY monkeys, a sloth, went kayaking, swam at a beautiful beach inside the national park, enjoyed happy hour looking out over the pacific coast on a beautiful sunset, and ate really, really well.
On our final weekend all together, two more visitors were added to the mix. We met dad and Lynne in San José last Friday, where we went searching for a little culture in the big city and were pleasantly surprised to find a cool little art gallery, and even better, an amazing gift shop and café with lots of recycle-art products and incredible desserts. But the highlight of the night would have to be when we got back to the hotel and dad took us in to see the casino, which was basically what you would expect of a Best Western casino in San José, and as we quickly turned and made our way for the exit, who do we run into entering the building but the rabbi and his wife from the Pacific Palisades! They had just come from doing a wedding on the beach in Guanacaste and were just hitting up one of their favorite late-night spots in town. WOW. That’s a small world…
The next morning we headed out on our weekend excursion to Tortuguero National Park. It was a four hour bus ride through banana country and then an hour and a half boat ride to our river lodge. We stopped at the Del Monte factory to observe the process, and it looks like miserably hard and tedious work, especially for the guys who are in the fields hauling bundles of bananas in the oppressive heat through a system that looks like the guys who train for football by doing sprints with a string attached to a giant weight. The boat ride was beautiful and felt Amazonian, which is the way many people describe Tortuguero. Our jungle lodge was right on the river and can only be reached by boat, as can all the other lodges and even the community of Tortuguero, which is made up of walking paths and has no cars. It was pretty hot and buggy there, but it was a lovely setting and there was a ping pong table and many hammocks, so I was happy. The next morning we did a “jungle cruise” boat tour and saw beautiful birds, more monkeys, some cayman, and got rained on, which seemed only appropriate.
But that night was the really special experience that people make the long trip out to Tortuguero for. We took a night hike down the beach to where the green sea turtles come and lay their eggs every year from July to November. We saw various parts of the process, from the giant turtle shells floating in from the sea to make their trek up the shore, to one turtle actually in the process of laying her 50-plus eggs in the giant hole she had dug for herself in the sand, to another turtle who had finished the process, and, exhausted and slow, was making her way back to the sea. The whole process takes about two and a half hours, and the mama turtles never see their babies hatch, and only 1-2 of each group of eggs that is laid actually yields a surviving baby because of all the predators that lie between where they are hidden in the sand and the ocean they have to get to, unprotected. It was pretty amazing to get to see and to think that all of this is instinctive for these animals, and they do it without any help or anyone telling them what to do, and they do it six times in a row, with only 15 days in between! And they know exactly where to go. Definitely made me wish I had paid more attention in biology class…
On Monday morning we flew back to San José from Tortuguero, which only lasted about 30 minutes but was a great way to get a better sense of the geography of where we were and had some beautiful views, including the smoking Turrialba Volcano. Then we bid a sad farewell to Dan and dad, Lynne, Liza and I headed back down south. Liza went back for her final week on the farm, and dad and Lynne hung out with me until Tuesday, when they went to visit Liza and get to know her host families for a few days. So it was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I had a great time having them visit and sharing in my experiences down here and having adventures of their own.
Now I have a pretty quiet month ahead of me, which I am looking forward to. I just attended ANOTHER training for Junior Achievement, so I am going to attempt that project again but with an organization in San Isidro and more support, and I am keeping busy with the Scouts and our micro-credit project AND I am (kind of) training for a half-marathon that a group of Volunteers is going to run in September in Tamarindo, which should be really fun, although I don’t think any of us are currently in the shape we would like to be. But it’s more just an excuse for a fun beach weekend and something to look forward to. Okay, hasta luego!