home

I woke up this morning to the sound of cardinals in the yard, the faint sound of traffic on 35W, a cool breeze through the bedroom window. Now dark weather is approaching from the west, the neighbors across the alley have a backyard full of white blossoms, and nothing is tropical and everything feels vivid, green, familiar. I am in warm pjs and a sweatshirt as I write. I've had my tea and frosted mini-wheats. It's as though, in some ways, I've never left. And yet of course it is not.

I couldn't remember how to access the internet from this computer. It took a good five minutes of looking at various icons and straining my brain. I had forgotten how the charming cat Theo is also really obnoxious. I will need to put on socks soon. Socks! I haven't had cold feet in months. I need to walk and fetch our car from the body shop (one of Mike's many adventures when I was gone was getting dinged by someone as he drove to yoga class) and would love to pick up a cup of coffee somewhere, but I have NO money and no immediate access to any, with my ATM card frozen. I just thought of my cell phone and after searching for a while found it but not the charger. A cell phone. I know for sure now that I do not need it. But I'm glad to have it again.

I have never felt that I lived a life of luxury. But coming home last night to this house, with its comfortable furniture and kitchen equipped with a dishwasher and stainless steel coffee maker (after using the worlds oldest and grungiest Mr. Coffee for the past 9 weeks), with the wood floors and soothing paint on the walls, I suddenly felt affluent in a way I never have before. The spaciousness. I have lived for 9 weeks in a place with no aesthetic appeal in any shape or form (though the gardens outside my apartment were lovely) and to come back here reminds me how much I take for granted in my daily life. I live well. I have comfort and beauty and the ability to buy things I might not need. I am grateful.

Leaving Costa Rica yesterday was a strange experience. We drove through Alajuela with Antonio, the sun beating through the windshield (the only air-conditioned cars there are the orange taxis from the airport that charge 3 times the regular rate), sweat soaking through my shirt in the familiar lines, dripping down my chest. I haven't really described Alajuela and I have no other Central American city to really compare it to, but it's a bustling town crammed with storefronts and small sodas (streetside diners), with dogs running everywhere, with lots of pollution, lots of honking (honking means anything from "watch out pedistrian, I'm coming" to "move" to "hey there, amigo" to "cute girl!"), broken up sidewalks with missing storm sewer covers (you must always look down when walking), people with their hands full of lottery tickets which they hawk on the corners, newpaper sellers walking between cars at red lights (sometimes people are also selling cell phone covers and sunglasses this way) and much else. The overall effect, when new to the place, is overwhelming. But yesterday it all seemed familiar. I was sad to say bye to Antonio, and he was sad, too. He gave Kerry and me his address, asking us to call if we ever return. We gave ours to him but I don't know why, really; he would never have the ability to visit here. The money, the visas, the whole thing.

But once we went into the airport, which was air-conditioned, we said goodbye to 90s and overwhelm. Things felt almost American. And what does that mean? I think that's the question for me in the next few weeks. Burger King. Gift shops that accept credit cards, charge in dollars, and that look, well, like airport gift shops. In the airport in Houston I noticed the piped in music. I had heard lots of bad music in Costa Rica--the CRs seem to love American pop music from the 70s and 80s--but no one there has the money to put stereo systems throughout buildings. I noticed the many TVs. I noticed how fast we all moved, desperate to make our too-close connection, winding through lines to get to the next stop in customs, being yelled at by airport workers ("Make TWO lines" "Go over THERE" "If you're traveling in a group, separate PASSPORTS and BOARDING PASSES now", etc.) All my Costa Rica mellow vibe evaporated immediately. I became just what I had been--a panicky, grumpy woman who was sure someone was getting where I wanted to be first. But we made it.

And I am so glad to be home. Home. Whatever it means. I'm here now. And I am very glad.

Farewells

I feel compelled to tell every Costa Rican I come in contact with that I'm leaving CR on Sunday. I don't know why I feel so compelled, but Costa Ricans are very polite and all act appropriately disappointed with the news. In the taxi today, I told the driver I was leaving tomorrow and he said, "oh! xohhutoieow manana sodfoite tarde lfnfk noche?" I fell back to my fallback position: big smile, nod, say "Si." He continued on that way for several kilometers. I grasped certain things. Finally I said, again part of this desire to part on good terms with every Costa Rican, "Costa Rica es una pais bonita." Every Costa Rican already believes this country is wonderful. The taxi guy seemed a little stumped at what to say in return, so finally he said, "Y la gringa es muy linda." I guess it's a fair trade-off, his country is beautiful and I am pretty. Thank you, taxi guy. Thank you, Costa Rica.

Our friend and pirate cab(that is, unofficial) driver Antonio just called me. His English is slightly better than my Spanish, but he wanted to know if the "problema con sus dinero" was resolved. I told him everything was fine, that the bank had replaced my money (I think I said something like "the bank returns my money") and he said, "Oh, Cullen, my family is very feliz about your dinero." He was genuinely horrified by what had happened. He didn't need to call and check on me. But he did. That's just one example of the kindness of most people here.

I counted my money--I had a $100 bill my mom had given me which I exchanged yesterday--and after buying gifts for folks at home and dinner tonight, I should have enough to pay my $26.00 exit tax. So, with a little help from my friends, I survived the monetary disaster and should be fine.

Daisy the cat (I don't know if that's really her name) has disappeared. I hope she is alright. I won't get to say goodbye to her, but I doubt she'd care anyway. Mine was just a nice house with good chairs and easy access through the hole in the screen. Sometimes she let me pet her, but I had to be careful because sometimes for no apparent reason she'd bite. And I never fed her, so she didn't love me.

I can't believe I'm leaving this warm (in every sense of the word) country. I will miss so much here. Even downtown Alajuela, which has a certain kind of chaos about it, has come to feel familiar. I hope to return someday, but I will most likely return as a tourist, and that means the experience will never be the same. Well, no experience can ever be repeated, now can it? But that desire to come back, to have a place here again, is very strong in me.

As is the desire to return to my familiar life. Mike asked what he should have at home for us when we arrive and my list surprised me: frosted mini-wheats, soy milk, a good loaf of bread, and some good cheese. Pretty simple stuff. I think I'll be so appreciative of my bed, my comfortable couch (the couch in my apartment here is furniture abomination--itchy, hot, with wooden bars between each cushion so care must always be taken when sitting down), my car. But I don't know, really. Just as I don't know for sure what I'll miss most from here.

So, adios, Costa Rica, una pais bonita. (could be un pais bonito. Could be something else entirely.) And Costa Ricans. Thanks.

and now, the rest of the story

I used to love Paul Harvey. When I was a kid in Kalamazoo, I would sit in the car listening to WKZO radio--AM--while my dad ran errands to the hardware store or whatnot. The sound of Paul Harvey's voice over that AM static takes me back to a time when it seemed like every story had a possible twist at its end, a possible small miracle inside it.

So this terrible thing happened. My ATM card was somehow copied and the bad guys somehow got the PIN number and they had, as the police woman said yesterday, a fiesta grande all over Costa Rica. But here's the rest of the story. Everyone here has been so helpful. Everyone at our wonderful credit union in Minneapolis (Affinity Plus, that would be) has been wonderful. Eldon who works at Visa was wonderful, asked me if I was related to the poet Robert Burns, put the block on the card, invited me to visit in Canada someday. The police here took my situation seriously enough to ask me to come back and talk with their lead detective. They are seriously pursuing the leads. (I have to say one question they asked me today was whether I'd made friends with any Colombians since I've been here. Bad things in Costa Rica are never done by Costa Ricans! I had to say I didn't know if I knew any Colombians. I really can't tell the difference between Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans and Panamanians--by looks or accent or any other clue. (as if I could tell accents! I still struggle to understand a word.) ) The credit union has already returned the stolen money to our account. Aside from the temporary problem of having no access to my bank account, all is fine. And so quickly. People have asked if I'm more anxious now to get home, but really I'm not. I still look forward to my homecoming, but I don't dislike Costa Rica because I experienced this weird theft. It could have happened anywhere.

Tomorrow I will pack up and Sunday morning I will leave. I'll do my last blog from Costa Rica tomorrow. All endings are bittersweet, and I'm surprised to feel some real sadness at leaving. This despite the enormous spider that's taken up residence in my fruit bowl and will not be done in. I asked some students (who came over today to swim) to kill it and the young men went running away screaming. I don't like to kill bugs, but this one is big, so I was hoping those tough guys could handle it. The young women didn't much like it though one was convinced she needed to save it. Her efforts convinced it to disappear only to return this evening, back to the bananas it loves. Big arana. All this is to say I've had enough of bugs. Last night (don't laugh) I became convinced my pillow was buzzing, that some creature was inside it making a terrible, faint buzz. Is this crazy? Perhaps. But it had been a night of junebugs and moths and mosquitoes buzzing and biting and falling, for no reason, onto me and my bed. What was buzzing? I have no idea.

Still, this is an amazing place. I have had amazing adventures. And tomorrow is my last day.

darkness

I had a great poetry teacher once--John Woods--who said each writer could only use the word darkness only 2 times--it's too self-consciously dramatic. But I think I'm allowed the word now.

Yesterday I could not take money out of the ATM machine. This happens, so I wasn't worried, except for the fact that I was down to about $1.50 to my name. Paul and Susan, my colleagues, invited me to dinner, and we stopped at the bank that always works, and it did for them, but not for me. I got a little twinge in my belly. Something wasn't right. Paul and Susan--kindly-- loaned me $4o.oo until I could get money out of the bank. When Mike called me last night (I still can't make international calls from my apartment--the block that doesn't officially exist is still on my phone) I mentioned the trouble to him. He got online and discovered someone(s) in Costa Rica has withdrawn thousands and thousands of dollars from our account in the past few days. There was a lot of money in there because Mike just sent in a large check (outstanding, of course!) to the IRS. The weird thing is that I have my card--it wasn't stolen. The other weird thing is the bank allowed these people to make transaction after transaction--12:29, 12:30, 12:31--until they reached the daily limit. Why allow that? How did the bad guys get the pin? How did they get a card? What will happen now? Mike cancelled the card, but now that leaves me low on money. I can get an advance on my credit card, I guess. And Mike is there in Mpls, trying to clean up the mess.

This is not a small issue, and it brings up all sorts of unpleasant questions. Such a thing could happen anywhere, but it never has happened to me anyplace. I'm very, very cautious here about everything, and was just feeling pleased not to have experienced any "tourist" crimes here. My gut feeling is that, since I used the card at a restaurant where I go all the time just days before all this happened--the only time I've used that card here except to withdraw money--that someone there did this. That makes me even more unhappy, as I sort of know those people.

So, days before I return, I'm out of access to my checking account which has been pretty much drained. Someone in San Jose is having a very good week. And some people in Mpls and Alajuela are not. Do you think the IRS will understand?

learn something new every day

For example, it turns out the past tense of to be and to go IS the same in espanol. And the word for 'this' is esta. Oh, if I could tell you how much that little word helped my conversations in class today. And apparently houses with lots of wood are attractive to scorpions, who move from the sugar cane fields when the temperatures get too hot. (I might not have understood all these facts correctly.)

This afternoon I took Emily for a birthday pedicure at a beauty salon. Women here have fancy toenails, with polish and designs on each toe. So now Em's toenails are an orangey pink with pretty white flowers. A woman who worked there just chatted me up, blazing kindly past my incorrect Spanish (many people, helpfully, correct me and after a while I find all the correction to be a bit demoralizing) and saying she thought Emily was my sister. I of course loved this, and remembered my mother's pleasure when a waitress in Manuel Antonio asked if my mom and I were sisters. I guess, logically, one could wonder if that means my mom looks twenty....

I know I moan a lot about my lack of skill in Spanish. I do not exaggerate when I say I am not gifted in languages and am terribly inarticulate. Still, when I think what I've accomplished in 9 weeks--or perhaps I should give credit where it's due, to the Institute with its fabulous teachers--I'm really amazed. I can make my way here. That's pretty amazing considering I started out with three sentences, one of which was "Tengo dos gatos."

Now I'm off to the theater to see that Lorca play. Tomorrow is my last class in Spanish and my last class teaching. I can't believe my time here is really coming to an end. Hasta manana. (Imagine the tildes in the right spots, por favor.)

like a good neighbor; or, scorpion redux

So I'm sitting on my couch, feet up on it, luckily, when out from under the TV table strolls a very large scorpion. It heads for under the couch. It is big. If my last scorpion was maybe three inches, this one was easily four, probably four and a half. Right underneath me, casual as you please. Once it disappeared completely, I ran next door, summoned Kerry and her brother-in-law Tom (visiting from Chisholm, MN, land without scorpions) and they rushed over, Kerry with her camera and can of bug spray, Tom with a tennis shoe. Tom pulled the couch back, smashed the scorpion with his shoe and all was well. Then, as consolation (and so everyone will know why she is such a delightful neighbor), Kerry brought me a glass of wine to calm my nerves. I don't feel so much shaky as defeated: get me back to Minnesota, por favor. So here I sit, wine in hand, feet up on the coffee table, maintaining a serious level of alertness. Many people have explained that scorpion bites won't kill. This is not all that comforting, especially when followed by "your legs might feel numb for a few hours" or "the pain might be excruciating." You can believe that I won't forget my nightly scorpion-check-in-the-sheets routine.
The good news is: only one June bug (or whatever the hell they are) tonight. Those are harmless, of course, but unwieldy and annoying. And a glass of wine before bed. All will be well. All will be well. All manner of things will be well.

some things I've learned

1. I am bad at Spanish. Anyone reading this blog--if you know anything about Spanish--will not find that insight terribly earthshattering. The only verb I seem to remember in the past tense is "went" which I keep using when I mean "was" and, well, enough said.

2. If you have a fairly flat roof (most are, here) and it's made of metal (most are), then you can hold it down in strong winds by putting big rocks on it.

3. Lizards are our friends.

4. April seems to be beetle season. Some fly. (Can beetles fly? If not, what are those awful creatures?) I don't mind bugs in general, but these big ones tend to fly and then suddenly fall, often upon me, sometimes in my bed, and I find this grotesque. The possibility exists that I experience the same beetle over and over again as I can't bring myself to kill them (not out of humanitarian impulses but because I couldn't stand the crunch) and so I carry them outside. Do understand that these bugs are at least 1.5 inches long, fat, noisy and constantly coming in my house.

5. Even 9 weeks in Costa Rica isn't quite enough. I haven't made my way to Guanacaste where the beaches are supposed to be fabulous, or to a coffee plantation, or to a volcano where I could see anything. I only went to San Jose briefly a few times (mostly to the bus stations). And I would have liked to get to know more Costa Ricans.

6. The people here are truly kind and generous, patient with gringas who stumble around in their language and culture.

7. I can live on my own. I'd never done it before, and now I feel pleased to know I could do it again.

8. I'd prefer not to live alone. I am a talker, it turns out, and lack a certain ability to entertain myself.

9. I can stop my list at nine instead of charging ahead to number ten. But I won't.

10. This experience has been completely worthwhile.

rainy days and sundays

It's not rainy. But it is Sunday. I am overwhelmed by homesickness. Funny, really, since I'll be home so soon. Maybe it's because I'm alone for the first time in three weeks. Maybe it's because I know that spring has come to Minneapolis. Maybe it's because I need Maggie and she needs me. No matter, I am homesick. So I've begun to get ready to go. I started cleaning out my fridge, all the proof I never needed that the person with organizational difficulties in my family is none other than me. The milk was curdled. The lettuce was brown. Very ugly.

Then I decided to go to the Mall Internacional here in Alajuela. I've never been there, but the locals are quite proud of the food court. So I got all dressed and ready, called the taxi, and can't get through. The best laid plans.....I'll call again in a while and I'm sure I'll be able to have my adventure. I must stop at the grocery store, too (see above) but I don't want to buy too much. No more of those chocolate-covered Macadamia nuts. Oy. I actually bought them as a gift to bring home to someone who shall remain unnamed as I don't want that person to know I ate her present.

I realized that in yesterday's post, saying I ate a package of cookies might confuse (or alarm) people not familiar with Costa Rican packaging. Everything comes in individual packets inside larger ones. So my favorite cookies come in packages of four. The fact is that I can eat at least two packages in one sitting, but no matter. I was pleased that each package only has 80 calories, but I have begun to doubt that I've understood the whole calorie thing correctly because the Macadamia nuts also said one serving (5 nuts) was only 80 calories. Simply not possible.

Last night Daisy, my occasional cat, came in through the hole in the screen door, walked over to the chair, and clawed it for a few minutes. She's not my cat and it's not my chair, so I let her do whatever she wants. She doesn't look well: she's limping a little and moving sort of slowly. But I don't know who she belongs to or if I should try to find her some medical care. Pets are beloved here but not in the way they are in the US--hardly any are fixed, for example, and many seem to live a (human) hand to mouth existence. As she was walking toward my door to leave, she froze. I knew she could see something between the door and the wall, but I couldn't see it. Finally I went over to investigate just as she was getting ready to pounce. A little lizard was hiding there. I yelled, it ran toward us in confusion, I picked up the cat to save the lizard, the lizard ran, the cat jumped down and the rest of the action took place outside, for which I am grateful.

Off to the mall and the food court.

Is anyone out there? Are you still reading? This is an odd form of communication sometimes; I do long for your voices in return.

Ah, soon I will be home. And then, dear friends, we will be in human space, not this odd electronic universe. How I long for that day!

misc.

What I ate today. So far.

2 pieces of toast with jelly
8 chocolate-covered macademia nuts
1 fun-sized snickers bar
1 package of Maria galletas (cookies)
1 Imperial beer


This is a diet seriously lacking in nutritional value.

I thought I had a great scoop for, well, mostly Maggie, who might be the only interested person I know. I saw a film crew following around a group of beautiful, bored young people in Manuel Antonio National Park and then again at a restaurant there called El Avion (which is actually in the body of plane that Oliver North bought during the Iran/Contra events). I was just sure the kids must be from Real World, but as a good investigator I went online and found that casting calls for next season's Real World are being held now. So I don't know who those people were or why they had their own film crew or why they looked so utterly irritated with each other.

As for my diet, luckily I've been invited to my friend Kerry's house for dinner. Things are looking up. I am trying to live on the groceries I have, but clearly this can't last or I'll be eating mayonaise and rice for dinner soon. I am down to my last roll of toilet paper too.

When I get home, the things I want to do most are (aside from kiss and hug my dear family) : go to Dunn Bros (the coffee here is great, but try buying a cup of it to go); drive my car; eat fresh spring rolls from Jasmine Deli; look at my garden; weigh myself (I haven't done that in 9 weeks and I'm getting a bit curious--Costa Ricans are so laid back I haven't had one moment of body self-consciousness, a lovely respite. But I would like to know what I weigh. Esp after all those chocolates); read my mail; sleep in my bed; pet my dog; walk around Lake Harriet. That's just for starters.

What will I miss here? Eating dinner out for 5 bucks, including a glass of wine for a dollar. The warmth. The wonderful Costa Rican pace of life. As Rosie who works at the Institute once said to me, "You stress, you die." The warm oceans. The mountains. Oh, there will be much I'll miss. The sound of Spanish in the mouths of native speakers.

Off to Kerry's for dinner. Spaghetti and salad. That'll help.

nice monkey 

mean monkey 

monkey business

I've just spent an amazing amount of time figuring out how to post photos to my blog. Because it's a time-consuming activity, I have just put two photos on to start (though when I checked, only one showed up). At Manuel Antonio yesterday, my mom and I walked a fairly quiet path and suddenly the jungle around us was full of white faced monkeys. They seemed to be young ones, playing and running around on the ground. The longer we stood there, the closer the monkeys came. A very nice one got right up next to us, playing on a big metal sign dedicating something to someone. He jumped up and down on the thing, rolled around on it, and generally captivated us. Then his friend came along. I don't know if the friend was older, or ornerier, or just had a low tolerance for tourists with cameras, but he came right to the edge of the little sign they were sitting on and, as the photo shows, gave me quite the look. He then barred his teeth at me (I was no more than 3 feet from him) so I stepped back. I think that encouraged him, because he began clapping his hands at me, teeth showing, and literally chased me down the path. He seemed extremely pleased with himself, too. I beat a hasty retreat.

I am alone here now. Lonesome for home. I will be sad to leave--floating in that warm water of the Pacific yesterday, I realized I don't know when or if I'll be back. But I know spring has started in Minnesota and I miss my house and my family and driving my car. My pets. But mostly my family. When my mom left I cried again, but not quite as hard as when Mike and Maggie left. I'm so conflicted: I have loved my time here in so many ways (where else would I get chased by monkeys?) but I am also homesick.

So: 8 days left. I can't believe it.

intercultural communication

One thing I love about being here is that, since I understand so little of what is happening around me, I really see things. At home, I have a slot in my brain into which experiences fit: city buses are allowed to drive on the shoulder of the highway, say, or waiting a long time to be served in a restaurant is a sign of poor service. But here nothing has a slot, and so I have to look and look and try to make sense of things.

The past weekend was a long celebration for Juan Santamaria, the guy who died setting fire to William Walker's safe house, thus driving Walker from Costa Rica. It took a few more tries before the Central Americans finally killed the guy (he was one determined person; he kept coming back and back in order to fulfill his dream of slavery in Central America), but our local guy certainly gave his life for a worthy cause. On Saturday, my mom and Mike and I went to the farmer's market--maybe my favorite place in Alajuela--and our way out was completely blocked by a parade of horses. I am not exaggerating when I say there were at least a thousand cowboys (and cowgirls) riding their horses into the streets of Alajuela. Everyone had on hats, and many were dressed in slick outfits--lots of black, lots of tight jeans. Some people were drinking beer as they rode, some were talking on cell phones. One guy pulled his horse up to a van parked on the side of the road and a guy inside made him a scotch and soda for the ride. Did he pay for it? Was the other guy his friend? Why drink scotch and soda on horseback? I can't answer any of these questions. The horses were doing a wonderful high stepping kind of walk that looked a bit like dancing (clearly, I know nothing about horses) and the three of us watched and watched and watched. Eventually it became clear we would be there all night, and Mike was pretty sick, so we had to dash across the road finally when the way was sort of clear. Were awards given to best horses? Who cleaned up all that shit? I have no idea. But the whole event was pretty cool and utterly strange to me.

In Cahuita, we had rain the whole time. In fact, for about 24 hours the whole country was covered in rain, unusual for this time of year, but the Caribbean was rainy for 5 days. So we came home after just one night. Mike was sick anyway and the girls wanted one last day of sun before they went home--which they got, managing to burn themselves to a crisp on their last day here. Maggie walked out of her cabin (she and Lizzie shared) in Cahuita, and luckily I heard her walking around in the dark. When I asked what she was doing, she said she was going to the hammock and Lizzie was supposed to follow her. At this point I realized Maggie was locked out and Lizzie was sound asleep, so the only possible explanation was that Maggie had been sleepwalking. She vehemently denied this at the time, but by the next morning she admitted to being quite surprised to find herself walking through the gardens at the hotel in the middle of the night. Pretty scary. And poor Lizzie: when we finally woke her and got her to open the door of the cabin, I heard Maggie snap at her, "you were supposed to follow me." To which Lizzie replied sleepily, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Tomorrow I do one more trip to Manuel Antonio, this time with my mom. It's such a great place--I'd recommend it to everyone. Then we get back on Friday, my mom leaves on Saturday and I'm done with traveling--except for the one last important trip home.

Adios from the land of scotch drinking on horseback!

a quickie

Much to grade tonight and phone calls to await, but I thought I'd try to catch up briefly. Mike and Maggie (and Maggie's friend Lizzie) left today for home. They were supposed to leave yesterday but, after a tearful farewell and much bereavement on my part, they showed back up a few hours later...at the spa where my mom was staying and where I had gone to recuperate from my sadness...having been bumped from their flight. So we all spent the night in plush accommodations and they went back to the airport at 5 this morning. I think they are arriving home just now, and I sure hope the promise of 1st class all the way made the being bumped worthwhile. I will soon know.

I sent Mike off with my terrible flu, but he is, unsurprisingly, tougher than I and seemed to be managing quite well. No matter what happens, I imagine he will not face a series of injections of antibiotics anytime soon. Having my family leave was far more heartrending than I'd imagined; I felt the same way I did when I was in second grade and had to take a bus to a new school (when busing arrived in Kalamazoo, Michigan). I cried hysterically the whole way, my friend Joanna trying to comfort me and looking absolutely baffled at the depth of my sorrow. All I could think yesterday was: I should be leaving too. I need to go home.

By today I felt a little better, luckily, and anyway it's just two more weeks. I don't mean to make it sound as if I don't like being here because that's not it at all. I just have a strong conviction that I've been away long enough.

Oh, but there's so much to talk about--the parade of thousands of horses we saw in Alajuela this weekend as part of the Juan Santa Maria festival (he's a story in himself, the guy who saved Costa Rica from William Walker, an American who wanted to make all of C.A. part of the US and a slave state); Maggie walking in her sleep in Cahuita; Spanish (progressive, I remembered, is estoy + root +iendo or ando: Estoy estudiando. Estoy viviendo in Costa Rica por neuve semanas). Etc.

But maybe tomorrow I'll tell all those stories. In the meantime, here's wishing safe travels to my weary family. Since you guys left, "the bed's too big, the frying pan's too wide" to quote Joni Mitchell.

and thanks for the great letters Sarah and Terri. They mean so much to me.
more soon, promise

Gripe

The word for flu in Spanish is la gripe. Perfect. And that's what I had, for the first part of my illness anyway. By yesterday, still sick, I realized something else was going on, so I went to the doctor in Alajuela. A woman who works at the institute came with me and translated for me, and the doctor diagnosed an infection (though I never asked specifically where--I assumed in my lungs as I've coughed constantly for a week) and prescribed about 4 drugs, the most dramatic of which was a series (count 'em: five) of injections of antibiotics. So I went to the pharmacy and they gave me my pills and some vile white liquid I have to drink out of a little packet and 5 hypodermic needles and 5 vials of antibiotics. I went back into the doctor's office and the nurse used one needle and one vial, and gave me my first shot in the butt. It's been a while, I tell you, and little kids don't cry because they're babies; they cry because shots hurt! Then I walked out with my little bag of medicine, including syringes, and was told to go to any local pharmacy to get the injections each day. Could this be true? I was flabbergasted. I asked at school today and was told, oh, yes, the pharmacist will do the injection. So I went to the pharmacy after school and in my pathetic Spanish ask to get a shot in my ass. The first pharmacist thought I needed more medicine, or more syringes, but finally she understood and said, "There's no doctor here." Well, duh. So I went to a pharmacy around the corner, and that pharmacist said the same thing. The happy ending is that the second pharmacy was attached to a clinic, and the doctor ushered me in, gave me a shot, told me I probably only needed to have 3 shots instead of 5 (I love this man) and then didn't even charge me for his services! As usual, I have no idea why the first information I got wasn't accurate, or why the first doctor wanted me to have so much antibiotic, but I must admit, aside from the pain, the medicine works fast and I feel ever so much better. The tricky part now is that Mike, whose vacation has been subsumed by my illness, seems to be coming down with something himself.....

Otherwise, all's well. Maggie is here too, so on several occasions in the past week, my whole family has had dinner together. Fabulous. Maggie seems to like Costa Rica: yesterday she and her friend Lizzie (who came along) and Mike did a zipline canopy tour which was a huge hit with the girls. As I write, they are all at Arenal Volcano and hot springs for the day. I sure hope Mike's feeling ok.

We had a great weekend in Jaco. That's not the nicest place in Costa Rica--very touristy, a little seedy, somewhat overpriced. The sand there is black, too, which is less desirable for lots of reasons--it shows up in your ears, for example, when you're done getting pummeled by waves. Still, we stayed in a great hotel at the far south end of the beach, and we really enjoyed ourselves. The waves were fabulous--though I was mostly way too sick to enjoy them--and huge, so they'd knock you down and fill your suit with sand. I've never been in waves so big. The hotel had two beautiful pools, too, which were more restful than the ocean. It was great.

The plan is to return to Cahuita tomorrow, but we'll see how everyone's feeling in the morning and then reassess.

My Spanish continues to be, well, what's the word? Awful? I have pretty much learned the progressive tense now--by which I mean without thinking too long I could say "Estoy estudiar espanol" and it would make sense. Truly, as I typed that I had to stop and think and think. It could be totally wrong. And therein lies the problem. The future tense--isn't that the one with "voy a + infinitive"? Why can't I remember? Well anyway, I knew a few things for a few hours this morning, and we'll leave it at that.

More sooner or later, at this rate. But always, at least, in English.