bananas and more

Mike arrives tomorrow. I really can hardly wait. We'll head up to Monteverde and see what's there for a few days, then I have to come back here to teach my class and study Spanish. Then Maggie arrives and I will have my whole family in arms' reach for the first time in six weeks. It's been too long, in some ways, but the time certainly makes the reunion more longed for. Sweet.

Bananas grow in huge bunches. I thought the plantations would be like that Harry Belafonte song: come mister tally man, tally me banana....six hand seven hand eight hand bunch. Not that I really had a clue what that meant. Nowadays, each giant banana bunch grows inside its own blue plastic bag. So as you drive through the plantations, you see tree after tree hung with big blue bags. I heard several reasons for this--protection from pests, to slow the ripening of the bananas, to speed it up--but no matter. It's a weird scene. The huge bunches are cut from the tree by a man and caught beneath by another, who runs to hang them on enormous hooks that are run through the plantation on wires. Like what? Clothes lines, maybe. Or shower curtain hangers. Eventually a whole long string of banana bunches is pulled in for processing to a large room where the assembly line begins. Some guys cut the bananas into the size bunches we buy at Rainbow and toss them into water. Women sort through and grade them according to size and quality. Something gets sprayed on the stems of each bunch, stickers are applied, and the bananas are put in boxes headed for the US. Do know that lots of pesticides are used in the growing of bananas. Apparently the organic producers in Costa Rica sell almost entirely to Gerber. At least we aren't feeding our babies toxic chemicals. The work is hard and done almost entirely by Nicaraguans. Our tour bus actually stopped at a processing facility where we all took photos of the people doing their jobs. That felt weird.

We have had rain here the past two afternoons, which is very odd for the dry season. But the temperature has been heavenly--cool enough at night that I have to sleep with my blanket on. The Central Valley is really so temperate compared to the coasts, where 90s with 100% humidity seem to be the rule. Of course, there's also blue blue ocean to dive into there, which helps.

Emily is in Puerto Viejo at a hammock hotel. We'll see if she's still so enamored of hammocks after sleeping in one for three nights! Then again, I sound like a 40 year old when I say such things, don't I?

I realized I should really look up how to spell the names of these places I write about. But I guess you all can figure out what I mean, spelling never having been my strong suit.

More soon, after Monteverde.