July 19/20, right around midnight - Dar Es Salaam

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only.)

Drive from the airport to the hotel... so many people out at 9 PM, running between speeding cars without any streetlights or crossings... the frightening lack of sidewalks... blowing dust everywhere, in our eyes through open car windows... little strip malls that remind me of San Jose, Costa Rica. Motorcycles have a surprisingly high number of helmet wearers - but most of them have no brake lights!

There are Karibu Obama banners on every pole (Welcome, Obama) from his visit two weeks ago. Then my Portland credit union debit cards works at the ATM! Yes! Digital travel alert win. Rebecca said to touch the ground when I land - with my feet or my hands - since it's been so long since I've been connected to the earth. I do so with my hands in sight of the Indian Ocean. I'm amazed the long transit was bearable; I am a little buzzy when I sit still right now to write, outside our hotel on the plaza. It's warm - 80s - but breezy. So many billboards are in English and we pass a huge mosque of praying faithful; it's Ramadan.

I have been glad about twenty times already that I chopped my hair off.

Meggie and I spent a lot of time observing a couple with two young kids on the plane. Incredible teamwork. I commented to her (the mom) on it when deplaning and they both sort of smiled, flustered, but at Customs we were standing by each other again, and she told us how much it meant to her to hear that, and it made her feel they were doing something right.

Waiting for my bag to come out on the carousel, I gasp. I left my beloved pink hoodie on the plane! I have no choice and no language; I rapidly accept losing it - only to glance over at a man walking by, who has it over his arm! I get it back from the older man, shuffling through the baggage claim, headed for Lost + Found.

Note from Future Me: This pink hoodie will be highly valued, I'll come to find out, as it will be much, much colder than anyone expected once we get to the village! 

This reminds me of the iPhone back at O'Hare in Chicago... I was sitting at a charging station and having my oatmeal, when a woman next to me continued to unpack her bag, increasingly frantic. She mutters that she can't find her phone. Digs more. Realizes she left it at the Starbucks and asks her kid to watch the luggage - aggressively asks - and goes over to the kiosk. She comes back and says to her kid, her neighbor at the charging station, and anyone in earshot, "Wow, the employee said it was not there, she was sorry. She was totally serious and then a customer in line spotted it on the counter! Tucked away! She asked about it and I got it back! What a sneak! I almost didn't! Can you believe that?" (Actually, I can.)

So there's a moment from hours ago to contrast how another person's possessions are treated in the U.S. and here. And I know that it can, and will, go the other way in a heartbeat. Because what does an old man need a hot pink hoodie for? An iPhone on the other hand would probably be welcome.

However, it is still my memory of welcome (karibu!) to Tanzania.

-- -- --

Two photos below of the view from our hotel room door, toward the ocean and toward the lobby. 

It's hot, humid, and smells of disinfectant mop water. We have air conditioning and a hot shower here. The hard and squeaky double bed was a welcome sight to us both! So happy to share it, and to dig out our toothpaste... but NO brushing with tap water we decided. 

Time to take our malaria pills on the new time zone; mine at night and hers in the morning. 

It's a nice hotel by Dar standards; the Western toilets flush decently if not perfectly, and there is slow wi-fi to use. It's in a very safe little public compound with shops, a grocery store, a restaurant, an ice cream parlor. We find out later that this was the first transition point to the village life we'd be in. The first night, we paid for our room and crashed into a bizarre, jet-lagged sleep. 

We awoke at 7 AM to construction outside the room; the second night was officially part of the Global Volunteers program, when all our food/water/lodging/transport was covered by the program fee.

Oops!

I missed my little blog's 3rd birthday this past Sunday! So, here we are, in year 4 - in what started out as a public journal for friends during my time in Costa Rica, and grew into a little place on the internet that mainly keeps me on task.

I have a to-do list eight miles long - the Extra-G-Rated version of Storm Large's eight miles, ahem - and each day, I tick off (give or take) writing in the pre-dawn, making breakfast, packing lunch, going to work, working out, doing laundry, making dinner, cleaning up, catching up, sending a compliment or writing a thank-you note, flossing my teeth (!) and reading some part of a book.

And... I blog. Or, I try to.

This is so if some, or most, of things on the to-do list remain undone on a given day, or get skipped, or get guiltily ignored, at least I can churn out a blog post, big or small. And that's one accomplishment I can point to for the day, one that exists on "paper".

And as a bonus, I am ever so lucky to have a few loyal readers! Your ephemeral, digital and quiet presence helps me stay on task, here, as The Pig, so that I might continue to be productive and strict, in all the other ways I aim to be, and to keep the hearth clean and warm for the Muses.

It feels like this.

When I was a nanny... four separate times, for four separate infants... I was awed by every tiny developmental step. I could tell the difference between starting to roll over and moments from rolling over. I could tell the difference between a first pincer-grasp and a second pincer-grasp on a Cheerio. And of all the wonderful things nannying brought to my life, the glimpse into how fascinating a baby can be each day, each moment, was one of the most wonderful.

So I've made a second blog friend and she lives in Costa Rica at the moment, working as an au pair, where she made a video of "her" baby, the very one that I knew when *I* lived and worked in Costa Rica (when said baby was in utero and then a blinky, sleepy little newborn). Her blog is a light, bright and friendly exploration of food (no better blog topic!) and you can check the whole thing out here... but it was a recent post with a video of the not-really-a-baby-but-now-a-toddler that got me remembering...

The video (in this post here) captures exactly how it feels to take care of someone's child many hours a week. It's not that you feel the love of a parent, because that love is unique and encompassing, and was/is out of my league to comprehend. But it is a powerful, powerful love that combines pride in your work with pride in a growing little person, bursting with personality, with pride in knowing you are making an impact, no matter how unconscious. The video captures just what it feels like to do this noble work, and reminds me how people used to ask, "Oh, are you babysitting again today?" and I would - mood depending - laugh, snicker, snort, scoff or tsk in great offense, and say, "Babysitting? No. I'm going to work, as a nanny, today. Yes, I'm doing that." This was usually followed by an attempt to explain that no, I was not raising someone's child for them, and yes, it was a job that required real skills and experience. So thanks, L, for reminding me what that -- ALL of that -- feels like. It's important.

Good Thing Friday

It's been a busy week, what can I say?

I don't think starting to drink coffee at age 27 qualifies as a Good Thing, but it's important backstory. Living in Costa Rica, I never slept in past 7:30 AM, and usually was awake a little after 6 AM. That's what a pretty constant 12-hours-of-light and 12-hours-of-dark will do to a person. And I worked in an office - a frantic, bustling, hilarious house-turned-office that seemed to be powered by coffee. I think I started drinking it my fourth day there, and I ain't lookin' back my friends.

But better than coffee is coffee with milk - remember the containers marked "LECHE MILK" in Costa Rica? It's how they all drank it in the office, so I did too.

And then I came home, and upped the ante to half-and-half, as pretty much everyone in my extended family, on both sides, enjoys it.

And THEN we reach the real Good Thing for this week: Friday coffee with heavy cream, real cream. Whipping cream. Try it. It is so outstandingly good you may even want to get out of bed on Friday morning just for the sweet reward.

OK - One More Thing.

This is not an optical illusion. On the left, a bar of Dove Energizante! soap from Costa Rica. On the right, a bar of Dove Energizing! soap from Oregon.

Is this because our average height and body mass has been studied, and Oregonians are bigger than Costa Ricans? Is it a way of getting Costa Ricans to pay the same price for less product, since they don't have Costco on every corner?

One is 90 grams, one is 120 grams. It is a strange remnant in my bathroom cabinet - three bars left over of the demure, paler, 90 gram Costa Rican Dove soap.

"Tweets" from Today.

8:30 AM: I remember that my car's brakes, starting Monday night, are suddenly working at 25% capacity and I should do something.

8:45 AM: Oh yes. I remember again. Brakes. I have plans tonight, so I should get those fixed. Sigh. What a task; I have work to do!

9:15 AM: I call the mechanic, who was recommended to me by the chaplain where I was a hospice volunteer. He is, then, trustworthy. He says come over in an hour.

10:15 AM: I drop my car off, saying, please keep it to less than $200. I am saying goodbye to this car in a month and if it's more than that, eh. Junk it. I'll bus/MAX/cab it for a month.

11:45: AM: Mr. Mike the Mechanic (haha, get it?) calls me to say, $150 with parts and labor. It's all good. See ya after 2!

2:50 PM: I pick up my car, having spent the day productively working from Redwing Coffee, a bomb pastry/coffee/sandwich/everything place. My brakes bill is $151.57.

2:55 PM: My brakes are like new! Wow! So sensitive and, like, ab-fab'ly working.

7 PM: A realization: in Costa Rica, this would have taken two weeks, a bunch of cash, fifteen phone calls, two FedExs for parts, translating, waiting, begging, waiting and more. My lord. Life is SO easy. Problem solved in less than a day!!

*thus concludes the Costa Rica-themed posts. (maybe. probably.)*

Wimp Post.

OK so first you have to watch this YouTube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus

Then...

I got a huge laugh from this, and gave a nice snide, smug knowing laugh at the guy on the airplane who says, "This is bullshit!"

But we get our comeuppance, don't we?

Sign on my door on Friday reads, "On Monday April 20, the water will be shut off from 9 AM to NOON for repairs. We apologize for any inconvenience."

So today, at 12:10 PM, when it wasn't on yet, I was thinking, "This is bullshit!" And then immediately remembered that in Costa Rica, sometimes the water just turns off. Or slows to a trickle. And if the power happens to stay on, sure, you can call someone to complain. But the problem? There's just no water. There is too much development - houses, condos, malls, businesses, pools, lawns - without urban planning or zoning or environmental impact studies.

So, am I going to complain about the water being off for 3 hours and 20 minutes? No, I will not. I will remember that I had three days' notice and everything returned to normal in time for lunch.

But... Really?

I had a prescription delivered via the mail-order pharmacy yesterday. It's much cheaper, inexplicably, to have it FedEx'd to me than to pick it up three blocks away... literally, $20 instead of $90.

But the invoice inside says, "Payment Due Upon Receipt."

Now, um, really? Because in Costa Rica, that means the guy will stand in your house till you pay him. Or, if he gets bored, he will leave and then send a courier service every single day (always at the MOST inconvenient time) to request payment until you DO pay. (Sometimes twice a day. Also, lots of phone calls.)

Somehow, I doubt they'll know if I put payment in the mail today, tomorrow or even - gasp - Tuesday!

Interesting Side Effect #2.

The degree to which weather/climate affects culture/society is endlessly fascinating to me. John pointed out in Costa Rica that, "the weather has all the energy for you." It was true... the sun rises at 5:15 AM or so. By 5:45, it is completely light. It sets at 6:00 PM and by 6:30 it's pitch black. The rhythms of life are much more about conserving your personal energy in the face of hot sun, humid air and day after day of sameness.

You see, today the sun came back out in Oregon. It was out the first few days I was home and then has been in hiding, for, oh, over a week.

And when the sun comes out in Oregon, people are nice. They drive faster. They go out to eat. They smile and wave and walk faster. They sit on park benches and laugh louder. There is an incredibly palpable energy boost in the air, which only increases by being around more people. (As in, my house is lighter and more energetic. But my neighborhood is even more so. And downtown is even MORE so.)

So, I wonder today, would I trade it in? Would I trade in this buoyancy, this mood enhancer, this little gift... for a consistent 12hours of daylight and 12hours of night? For a "slow and steady wins the race" sort of attitude? Now the siesta (which Ticos don't take) I could adopt. In rain or shine, it's, as Martha says, a good thing. But I wouldn't trade it. I wouldn't trade the feeling of bracing against the cold, drearily staring at the rain, turning on lights at 3:30 because it's getting dark or cozying up with homemade soup. Because as old as those feelings get, their opposite is too good to pass up.

Sun! Heat! BBQs! Tank tops! Flip flops! And crisp, cool-almost-cold, blankety nights. THERE'S the kicker, and the reason I love the 45th parallel and my adopted home of Oregon.

Interesting Side Effect #1.

(There may or may not be more than one to report. But maybe this a small series for APoS.)

So, I was aware there would be some changes in my world outlook upon returning from over two months abroad. The ones I expected are not there, and some things I never expected have shown up instead.

Sunny afternoon, I'm standing on the train platform to head downtown. Two young men are standing next to me. They're tall, loud, about 19 years old, swaggering and intimidating people around them. Normally, myself included.

Same afternoon, I'm walking through Chinatown and get approached by a couple panhandlers - probably mentally ill and definitely homeless - and I would normally feel guilty, embarrassed, uncomfortable.

But I find... after living in a place where I could barely communicate... after seeing how stark the line between middle class and working class can be (not to mention the cliff between working class and poverty)... I am wholly unintimidated by pushy, swaggering punk kids. I am observant but not guilt-ridden in the face of poverty. I am, admittedly, a little annoyed at both: the display of false showmanship and the refusal to seek help from a sanctioned [government, charity, etc] source. I find myself saying, "Please. C'mon. Seriously." to things like this, and that may not be the best attitude ever, but it is some sort of rise in confidence and it feels good to not retreat quickly and mysteriously into shame or discomfort, as I used to.

I think this is a lens through which I am seeing the comforts of the United States. The cushions we have for when our neighbors fall. (Far, far from perfect, but far, far from living on a riverbank and bathing, cleaning and defecating there.) I am seeing how much easier it is to just stay home - 'home' being your own country, sure, but also your comfortable routine... be it job, relationship, friendship, sleeping pattern, exercise habit, communication style or anything. It is so hard to leave home, but I'm wont to say, today at least, that it is worth leaving home if only because when you come back - when I come back - you remember what's good about it, what's great about it, and see where you were stuck. And what to bring back from the foreign land.

These days, I am cooking healthier and more consciously, I am eating with awareness and for different reasons. I am getting up earlier and going to bed earlier. I am remembering to read a book everyday, and not just stuff on the computer screen. I am procrastinating less.

But my fuzzy blanket on the couch? That's just pure 'welcome home' and I love it.

Goodnight.

Conquistadora.

If nothing else is gained... we have officially conquered the Costa Rican postal service. That's right mis amigos... I got mail today!!

Arthur apparently sent me some mail that I was blessedly unaware of, full narrative address on there, on March 2. It's the 25th! That's some good turnaround time for a city with no addresses! Juan Manuel, my favorite guard, was perplexed by the mail today, but was sure it was for me.

Awesome! Mission Accomplished.

My Office and A(nother) Trip!

This is where I sit to do a lot of my work. My other "office" is the second floor conference room, which right now...


And I found out today I'm going to Panama City on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday! Woohoo! I hear great things, and we'll be flying in the small plane over the canal, eating out in some great old spots, and having some (hopefully) excellent meetings.

Beyond that, I've got a new farmer's market to visit tomorrow and some phone calls from the guard to field. I just had a three minute conversation with Miguel, but I really don't know what it was about. I hope it wasn't/isn't important... I think it was about whether I'm expecting guests tonight and if I would like to practice my Spanish a little more, because he is also learning English? Hmmm.

Might take a cue from Meggie's playbook... she taught her French kiddos really bad American swear words, like they wanted... except they were fake! So there were 5th graders running around La Rochelle saying "GUMDROP!" when they crashed their bikes, and calling their enemies "PETUNIAS!"

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

I've now taken two trips into/around/through downtown San Jose, Costa Rica.

First we have one of the central plazas, near the National Theater, which is lovely, and a couple other buildings are like this - a courthouse, perhaps, and the national bank?


But the rest of it looks like this:

The peeling paint, covered windows - gates or bars or wood, lots of overhead wires... the best description depends on where you've been. It's not the best photograph... so instead, let's compare it... have you been to:

Hastings Street in Vancouver, BC?

NE 82nd and NE Sandy Blvd in Portland, OR?

Downtown LA, in an alley somewhere near the LA Times building?

After dark in Brooklyn, along Navy Street just north of Nassau?

20th arondissment in Paris, 10:30 PM, windy and desolate weeknight?

These are all places very reminiscent of downtown San Jose. Dirty, intimidating, alternately full of people (not necessarily kindred spirits) and creepily empty, swirling garbage, loud music, slamming doors, fireworks (I think) and a general sense of foreboding.

I know I should be used to it now, but the barred windows and buzzers to enter the simplest of businesses still catch my attention. The funniest part of downtown San Jose is that it has... sidewalks!! It's old enough to be the pedestrian part of the city, where I live in Escazu has intermittent sidewalks at best. I wonder, sometimes, if I overreact to the foreignness of the city, and then, in the car, on the way to dinner, Grace said, "Oop, there was the pedestrian street. Gotta drive fast across it so you don't get mugged!" She's full of mirth and confidence, but I asked about why she lives in a city so full of challenges and danger and bureaucratic nightmares (we talked driver's licenses and permanent residency)...

The answer turned out to be there in my question. It's about surviving. It's about thriving. About enjoying the mess, the madness and lawlessness of a foreign land. It's about being so strong in the face of something so unknown and dangerous, and feeling totally alive.

Tonight, I'm not so sure, personally. I'm feeling just plain tired. But isn't it a thrill - a spine-tingling, rah-rah-rah'ing, pure, perfect thrill - to know that there are people in the world committed not to a week's adventure, a month or season's adventure... but committed to embracing and living a messy and gritty and real adventure for a long period of years in their life? I'm glad to know about it, and I'm glad to have driven through downtown San Jose in order to find Cafe Mundo... seen below... where we had a delightful dinner and great conversation, a sultry, tropical night that became a surprisingly cool, windy evening.

(on the deck and the bar inside...)

A Few Pretty Pictures.

Truly, AA is everywhere around the world.

A Peruvian creche vendor at a craft market in Santa Ana, which is about five miles from where I live in San Jose, and it feels like another world. It's small and cute and has a little downtown, it is precisely the sort of little town I pictured in Costa Rica - far from the grime and crime and bustle and mess of San Jose. It has (some) sidewalks! It has buildings that are not strip malls! And it has this amazing little church in the city center:



But five miles away there is this...





(This is the expansion of a sort-of-freeway-but-it turns-into-a-regular-road-in-two-miles thing. I will be navigating it in a week when I pick up John at the airport, in the dark! Ack!)




... and this too.



They're not jacaranda nor are they cherry trees, but they are similar, they remind me all the same of springtime. At my childhood home, the center of the backyard has a huge pink-adorned cherry tree in the spring. I was once in Washington DC in April, and have wanted to return ever since for the extraordinary cherry blossoms along the Reflecting Pool and Mall. And I know that when I return to Portland, it will be just in time to enjoy all the blossoms on the waterfront, outside my windows and in all my favorite haunts. As you can see below, the pink flowers only come here once a year as well... so I feel like I'm cheating the system, and getting two springs in 2009!

One Thing Makes Sense! Or, The Farmer's Market.

So, I've been wondering... I read that Costa Ricans have an average yearly income of $7500. Yes, there is a larger middle class here than anywhere else in Central America, but still. I've been to the grocery store. Things are roughly comparable to the United States. Half-gallon of (non-organic) milk? $1.85. Pound of coffee? $6. Dozen (unrefrigerated solamente, claro) eggs? $1.65. Bakery baguette? $1.25. Not much different than store-brand items. With luxury items taxed like crazy, gasoline and rent the same price, I wondered, how does this work? It just don't make sense.

Well, on Saturday, I went to a neighborhood farmer's market, and this one thing, at least, fell into place. As you can see below, it is a closed off street, with carts provided, on Saturdays in Rohrmoser, San Jose, Costa Rica. (The onions are so awesome, I took like ten pictures.)

I was with a fabulous coworker who answered my questions about 95% of items... and then, there were 4 or 5 fruits we had no idea about, a type of strange shelling pea we tasted and loved, and this:


Yeah, no idea. Some sort of awesome tonic to cure what's ailin' ya. Another stand said their similar-looking item would "Cleanse The Blood." Looks like a recycled Coke bottle to me, and I'm all for recycling, as you know. Maybe I'm all for cleansing the blood too. Perhaps I'll try next week.

Here's a view of the market, up close and far away...

It was a nice long road, on a hill, full of families and shoppers of all nationalities, filled with items like red cabbage, lettuce, cilantro, apples, potatoes, mushrooms... and then also starfruit, mango, papaya, homemade pupusas and tortillas, pineapple, yucca, berries, frijoles, tonics and highly aromatic fish, shrimp, chicken, calamari as well as a cheese monger. (Erin, Nikola: I'm sorry I was not courageous enough to brave the cheese monger this week. I can never remember if it is 2.2 kilos in a pound or 2.2 pounds in a kilo, and I was too scared to get it reversed when ordering.)

But back to the point... which surprisingly is not the variety or the kind and polite vendors or the variety of customers. The point, the one that's the same the world over, is price. And this is how the annual Costa Rican salary suddenly made sense.

To illustrate, here's what I bought, since I was a bit shy and wanted to be sure I'd only buy food I will use this week, having a fridge already well-stocked:


That's a fresh pineapple for 85 cents, a pint of strawberries for 95 cents, ten mandarin oranges for 45 cents, organic arugula for 75 cents, two packages of Brussels sprouts (I am addicted to them, what can I say?) for $1.35 each.

TEN MANDARIN ORANGES... for a TOTAL of 45 cents!! I am excited about this.


They really kick a cocktail up a notch, they make water nice and flavorful, they garnish the heck out of grilled fish, they are great in a salad dressing... but it turns out they make Brussels sprouts taste a little like marijuana. (Or maybe the Brussels are grown near it?...)

Anyhow, next time I'm going to the market with an empty fridge at home, and buying mushrooms, onions, potatoes, mango, papaya, melon, berries, tortillas and herbs at, like, a third the grocery store price.

In closing, I am still a bit befuddled, even tonight, by the idea that in United States, farmer's markets I've been to in Brooklyn, Montana, Portland, San Francisco... they are all grocery shopping for rich people. We rich people like buying organic, we like meeting the men and women who grow our food and we like being part of the community. We like taking a whole morning to shop, because we have just that much time. We like how it makes us feel European.

But here in the developing world, rich people shop at speciality meat markets and clean, Muzak-playing, "American-style" grocery stores. The regular people and the poor people, THEY shop at the farmer's markets. They know their neighbors, the farmers, and they pay less and get more. It's a way of life to shop all morning for the week, it's the way of life that's been passed down and is normal.

I'm not sure how this makes me feel.

Partly, I feel like a poser at the farmer's market in Portland. I feel like my effort to culitvate a European attitude towards food is pretentious, expensive and annoying ... out to imitate an awful, reductive, stereotypical cliche of a culture that's better, more in touch with daily rhythms, simpler and purer. (This does not exist, I know, thanks to the popularity of Tony Roma's and TGIFriday's in my 'hood.)

And partly, I feel like I'm making a grand cultural statement about returning to our best human roots. To continue the theme from the last post, in the way that breastfeeding was inferior and gross to my grandparents but is now lauded and elevated by my parents and peers, perhaps buying local will eventually be cheaper, of higher quality and done by folks who are proud to be part of their neighborhood, culture, community. Perhaps in the midst of this economic meltdown, the economy and culture will vastly restructure, as some are saying. We'll stop buying on credit with no down payment and zero interest, we'll try for a slightly quieter, slightly simpler, and a bit more streamlined existence. I would like this. I like that shops are closed on Sundays here. Am I bored? Maybe. But it's better for everyone. So the farmer's market makes me hope for this change, for myself and my life, which will include buying only the ingredients I need for the week. A healthy change, a conscious approach to eating and life - a way of making myself eat the last bit of lettuce before it goes bad even if I don't feel like it.

But.

Do I have to get rid of my Costco membership now?

A Moment of Acceptance.

So I'm walking to the little market for some groceries, around 5 PM, and the streets are full of honking cars and exhaust, the sidewalks full of manual laborers, making their way home after a long day, and the strip mall cafes full of diners.

And most of you know how frustrated I am by the language barrier... I don't know who these people are who just "pick up a language" but they're not me.

Nikola pointed out that oftentimes really social people, who rely on their intelligence and verbal wit to relate to others, have the hardest time with language-based culture shock, because they have nothing to fall back on. No way to engage people around them, and their whole skill set - that's always worked - is useless in every way.

Hmmm.

Anyhow, today is a lighter note. Today I was walking midst the blaring music, the shouting drivers, the conversing cafe patrons, and I thought of pregnant women.

Not what you thought I'd say, eh?

Well, I have enough experience around pregnant women to know that towards the end of the pregnancy, when they just start being over it, they feel like it will go on forever. They'll be pregnant the rest of their lives. The unwieldy body, the discomfort, the lack of sleeping... it feels, 100%, like a permanent state.

So I felt like that today... I will never again be able to chat with a store clerk (as you know I love to do) or laugh while eavesdropping. This state of isolation is (or feels) permanent. But the weird part was that I felt fine about it. I thought, oh well, who needs language? I have a few people I can talk to, and I get by on smiles and gestures and the most basic of phrases, and that's OK. It's like monks who choose to be silent. There can be a grace in it, in the permanence of being Other.

But thank god it isn't. Like the babies who finally come, I realize that Saturday marks the halfway point of this journey, it will end, and before it does, I must - I must!! - learn the difference between the verbs poner and poder.

OK. Seriously.

We just had another noticeable earthquake. Marcela's poor little bonsai tree here was really shaking! (It was a good six or eight seconds. Ay dios mio!)

Dairy. Babies. Earthquakes.

The much-anticipated CAVU baby arrived on Monday night, and she is a beaut! Plus, everyone likes to feel useful, and the current preferred outfit is a tiny pink onesie from Hanna Andersson that I bought... (thanks to K!)... H.A. makes the most awesome, functional, long-lasting and not ugly organic cotton kiddo clothes. There are no jump-roping frogs or singing airplanes or "Mommy and Me Love You!" taglines on them. And the healthy little princess looks great in her pale pink onesie, IMHO.

In other news... I experienced my first earthquake yesterday:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2009eba4.html

Like, my first one where I was awake. And the first one where we were all talking and stopped, and my chair was rocking around a bit, and it went on for a while, and we had time to talk about it. It was scary and totally awesome.

Then a couple hours later, I experienced my second earthquake:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2009ebbr.php

It really shook the sliding glass doors and was a tad scarier, only because I had time to think, "Uh, are these quakes building up to a Big One?"

And finally, in today's collection of random notes, Costa Rican dairy products.

As you can see in the picture above, if you want milk, you can buy MILK/LECHE. But I challenge you, if you're a skim milk drinker, to find that. Or 1%. All milk here is MILK/LECHE. Now, I love full fat dairy. I think it's good for your brain, and when a dear cousin of mine was undergoing cancer treatment, she had to stock up on full fat dairy in preparation for the incomprehensible challenge of the treatments. I take this as a sign that full fat dairy is great for humans, and so the milk is NOT a problem, but please allow me to introduce the little container next to it. Costa Rican yogurt.

So I ate some descremado yogurt - skimmed? (De-creamed?) It was fine. It was normal yogurt. Then I wanted to try the orangey tropical looking kind, and I only half-noticed that it was NOT descremado.

Oh. My. Goodness.

It's not like Greek yogurt, or sour cream, both of which I love, though it is similarly decadent. It's somewhere between the mouth feel and hedonism of melted ice cream, but the balanced flavor and slight sweetness of a tangy, fresh yogurt. It's full fat dairy at its very, very best. I'm off to have one now.

(And yup, that's mayonnaise in a bag, as aforementioned on this very blog.)

My Indian Name.

No offense meant, but I have been christened with a Native American name... no, I am not "Dances with Wolves", and nor am I "Lady with a Green Backpack" or "One Who Buys Groceries at AM PM" ... though I could be those, too.

Instead, my dear friend Miguel, the very serious and dedicated night guard, has unknowingly given me a name.

Grace, a co-worker of mine's fantastic wife, came to take me out to a ladies-only dinner at Taj Mahal. (Their take-out menu says they're the only Indian restaurant in Central America. I don't know if it is true, but I've eaten there three times now, and it is so, so, so good. I like that it took Costa Rica to get me into Indian cuisine. Hot, flat and crowded indeed - right Mr. Friedman?)

So Grace, who is gringa like me but fluent in Spanish, of course, since she lives and works here, pulls up to the gate, and explains that she is here to visit Emily, the woman at the CAVU casa.

"You mean... the girl that sleeps alone?" Miguel asked with concern.

Stifling her laughter, Grace said, "Uh, yes. The Girl That Sleeps Alone. The gringa girl?"

But Miguel still called me to ask if it was OK to let in a "Grace" (which is even harder than "Emily" to pronounce in Spanish!). I told him it was, and he explained on our way out, "I'm a friend. I will call to make sure only other friends are allowed to visit."

Oh, Miguel. Whatever will you do in two-and-a-half-weeks when John arrives, and I become the Girl That Sleeps With Strange Gringo Men?

PS. For what it's worth, at least he can be "Juan". I have to spell it... A-Emmay-E-Ellay-E Griega. Say that five times fast.

Sounds I No Longer React To.

Dogs barking viciously.

Cars honking. (When crossing the street, when making an unprotected left, when falling asleep, when anything.)

Dogs whining or crying, from near or far.

What I thought were gunshots... but so did the Germans at breakfast I talked to. It turns out Ticos *love* fireworks for any and all celebrations.


And the sound I keep reacting to... the wind. The gusting, constant, terrifying wind. I am so surprised it can be such a large presence for someone, like me, who is not used to it. ¡Feliz fin de semana!