Alone at last

Colored pencil drawing of woman standing behind pastry counter

I want the cake that makes me skinny

I’m at a café all by myself! Can’t believe I’m alone. I ordered a cake sight unseen. Was deliberating between one called Delicios and one from Chile and asked the waitress which was mejor (better) —she told me the Chilean one had more sugar and I said I’ll take it. Bring on the sugar, baby. Yesterday I worked at the Fabrica all day like the rest of the family. Finished the program though and I think they will love it. Yojida, Jose’s daughter is a dear. She’s very smart, beautiful too. She wants to learn to write programs with Access and I’m sure she will. In the evening Jose went to a meeting early, Stephie went out and Mirta and I did our own thing. Then Stephie came home and there was all kinds of excitement. More when Jose arrived. I couldn’t understand a word but decided Jose was having an affair and Stephie found out. Later I found out that one of Stephie’s friends had called her fat behind her back and this was what had bent the entire family out of shape. Great to know that I had my pulse on the finger of nothing.

Things to remember:

• Oso rides the motorcycle and the jet ski.

Receta:

• Arroz con pollo al a Peru.

• Put a little water in the blender, fill it with cilantro and a little red pepper (sweet).

• Brown two small onions and 2-3 cloves of garlic. Add tsp coriander or cumin (needed to smell both) as wasn’t sure of the translation. Salt and pepper chicken, brown with onions. Add one large cup beer to cilantro and I think some oil and bouillon cube.

• Pour over chicken and cook until chicken is done.

• Remove chicken, add same amount of rice as there was liquid—3 cups to 3 cups makes too much. Add another sweet pepper and some peas. Hmmm, may need to modify here—and cook for 20 minutes.

Booked an ART CLASS for 2 p.m. tomorrow with Francisco Chavez.

December 21, 2010
Categories: Family History, Recipe, Things to Remember . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

Fish Farm, Rain Forest, Oso the Adventuring Dog…day 23

Storm in the rain forest with a bull and some fish

Self-portrait as a cow fishing in a pond in the rain forest

Family is really important here. When William#3 heard that Carmen was going away for the day he came over to his grandparents place (an hour by bus one way) to hang out with them. He comes by every Sunday anyway, but this past weekend, he came by on Saturday too.

I went for a walk last night with Mari, Jose’s first wife. She told me she works in the plastic factory too. This morning their 2 year old granddaughter, Nicole, and Jose’s son Francisco came by early and sat on Jose and Mirta’s bed to visit while Mirta slept on. Everyone mingles continually. Mari’s boyfriend is probably only about 18—at least he looks it. She told me he was really young—still in school, so maybe only 16! Her oldest son just turned 25 so she must be 40, I’d think, but folks have kids really young around here.

Today is Francisco’s birthday so Mirta made a cake, put it in the oven, then asked Mari to take it out and frost it while Jose, Mirta, Nicole and I went out. I love this family too! Everyone wants to speak English, so we exchange words all day long.

We drove for around an hour today through gorgeous mountainous rain forest (horrendous roads) and then it lived up to its name and started to rain. We arrived at a fish farm/restaurant where we dropped a line with a ball of something on it—I didn’t even ask what it was—and within three seconds had a beautiful fish with a red stripe on the line. The bait man killed it in front of my eyes (I hate that), then took it to the kitchen and it was fried for me. Nicole caught the other two for Jose and Mirta. It then started to pour buckets of water. I figured we’d be killed on the way home because of the roads and the rain so ate chicharon (fried pork), fried yucca, 2 cups of agua dulce con leche and rice pudding. I hate the thought of dying when I’ve been resisting temptation. Mirta asked for raw onions and they brought us a huge bowl in lemon—must have been 2-3 onions. We ate them all. I had always thought I disliked raw onions, but obviously this is no longer true. Another cosa falls to maturity.

Jose is a very interesting man. The second of 15 children (12 boys in a row, then three girls) with an alcoholic father—I thought drunks weren’t supposed to be able to get it up—he and one other brother worked from the time they were 3 or 4 to support the family. Every centavo they made was turned over to the mother, who by the way is alive and lives with the father still, he hasn’t had a drink in over 20 years. They milked cows and mucked out stables, picked coffee and other fruit/vegetables. He didn’t have a pair of shoes until he was 11. I will get the next installment on his life later. I believe it is another novella.

Things to remember:

• Alisia#1 was 14 and Beto was 16 when they married. Alisia had 4 children by the time she was 20.

• No car seats for children; 2 year olds climbing ladders; Nicole wetting her pants and saying, she “didn’t do todo (all) in her pants, just part.”

• No cars are on the street today, not because it’s Sunday, but because there’s a soccer game on TV.

Recetas:

• Peel yucca and the other two veggies before boiling in water; no need to peel the purple potato-like thing, but add sugar to it. Add garlic to all of them after they are cooked.

• Mirta prepares all the food as soon as she comes home from the grocery and puts it in the fridge to eat later. This is a very good idea.

No food is ever wasted, in fact nothing is wasted. It’s embarrassing that I could be humiliated by someone throwing a popsicle stick on the ground when I’m such a waster in my regular life. I justify it by putting my garbage in the correct garbage can!

Everyone is talking at once, including about ten dogs. They all want to visit my mother in Darlington—they’ll think they’ve entered a hospital. Wish my camera hadn’t broken as I really want pictures of everyone’s faces—yes, we all have more than one face.

I think we’re getting ready for Francisco’s birthday; need to find a clock for this room. Am very cansada (tired) by evening. Spanish is exhausting—much easier when I’m telling my stories as I can control the conversation then. Really difficult at parties and I absolutely suck on the phone. Jose asked me why I don’t own a house and I tried to explain my life philosophy, but now in retrospect I believe the real answer is I’m a grasshopper and never save for the future. My philosophical reasons sound so much better. Strong-armed Jose into letting me pay for groceries today—practically had an arm wrestle in the check-out line. Really need a cup of coffee—forget the “malo for your health” I’m in CR!

The fiesta tonight was really nice and I didn’t even need the coffee. Mari, Albert, Francisco, Nicole and I attended—Stephanie and two of her friends attended briefly. Jose and Mirta barbequed steaks and pork, but I didn’t eat any as, since I survived the ride back today and there is a large chocolate cake waiting in the wings, I need to conserve some calories somewhere.

Heard many stories of Oso the dog today. I’m going to make a children’s book of his life, though I think the beginning will have to be censored or aimed at an older crowd. Jose gave Oso’s mother to a girl whose father wouldn’t buy her a dog. The mother was a pure bred poodle. The father wanted to breed her with another pure bred poodle but couldn’t find one, so locked her on the porch when she went into heat. However there was a gate and she backed her butt up to the gate and did the do with a half Pekinese-half something else and had a litter of puppies that look much like poodles with a really bad under bite. I wonder if anyone has thought of dog orthodontia yet? Anyway, the father was so mad he threw the puppies into the street where they were all rescued by different people. Jose took one which became Oso.

Jose and Albert are trying to remember all the Oso stories for me:

  1. Oso followed Jose’s car for three kilometers and Jose didn’t notice until he stopped the car to get out and Oso jumped in.
  2. Jose and Mirta and Oso went to San Jose and Oso jumped on a bus by himself. Someone told Mirta that he had seen Oso jump a bus and so she and Jose chased after 3 or 4 buses before they found Oso, sitting on a seat like all the other passengers, looking out the window. Everyone on the bus was laughing when they stopped to get him. I wonder if he paid his fare.
  3. This is so weird, Oso just came scratching at my door and now he is sitting in my room looking at me and whining like he wants to tell me something—he’s never done this before. Maybe he knows I’m writing his stories and wants his side to be told, or probably he wants me to leave out the part about the bad under bite.
  4. Once they left him at a gas station in Puntarenas and didn’t notice until they got back to Grecia. They drove back to the gas station the next day—it’s a five hour trip one way—and were told that a taxi driver had taken him. They checked out all the taxis until they found the right one, but the driver had given Oso away as a gift to his mother who lived in a different town. They went to the different town and found the mother, but she had a Doberman who didn’t like Oso, so she had given him to someone else. Finally, at this person’s house they found Oso.

I need to practice drawing dogs.

November 22, 2010
Categories: Family History, My Story, Recipe, Things to Remember . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

Return from Sugar Beach, ecological footprint, masturbation…day 21-22

Abstract image combining aspects of birds with aspects of human faces, representing ecological footprints

Ecological Footprint

I’m back with Jose and Mirta.  Yesterday morning was spent rehashing the trip with Alisia#1. Beto, who usually goes to bed around 7 p.m., stayed up until we returned around 9 p.m. on Friday night and even sat with us for an hour while we ate and Alisia#1 told him about our trip.  I think he’s a bit jealous.  Saturday morning Alisia#1 had a bowl of fruit set out with honey and whole wheat toast and my silverware wrapped in a napkin just like at the hotel—how cute is that.

Carmen went by bus to Heredia on Saturday to pick up Alisia#2 and Andrea, Alberto, Monica, Gilary and Estefan and then meet up with Edwin and Leda.  They all will take a bus to William#2’s home.  I’d like to see the looks on my family’s faces if I suggested 2-hour bus trips one-way to visit anyone.

I hung out with Alisia#1, Patricia, Beto and William#3 while I waited for Jose and Mirta.  Talked to William for half an hour with entire family in the room…no one has an extension in a bedroom.  There is only one phone, it is in the living room and it is not cordless. I speak in code, M for mother, D for dad, little bro for younger brother, etc.  Even though no one speaks English, most of them know the words for mother, father, brother.  Told him Carmen, Edwin and I want to seek out the half-brother none have met right in front of his folks.

Have I mentioned the CR habit of talking about how gordo (fat) or flaco (thin) everyone is?  They have no problem calling a person gordo right to their face.  When I eat something fattening, Beto holds his arms out wide and puffs out his cheeks and calls me gordita!  Poor Alisia#2 used to be flacita and is no longer so.  Everyone talks about it all the time and she just nods her head—I’d line them up and smack them!

Things to remember:

  • Carmen told me that when she was young and had a novio (boyfriend) at the house, at 6:30 p.m. Beto (her dad) would tell the boy it was late and time for him to leave. Good grief! No one even arrived to pick us up by 6:30 pm. I thought that folks in Latin countries stayed up late. Apparently not in all families.

Recetas

By Mirta

  • Ceviche – fresh fish cut very small, lots of raw onion sliced thin, cilantro, lemon and [different recipe] can include platanos and red pepper.  Also add pink potato-like veggie that is cooked first with sugar, not peeled.
  • Platanos: – chop very small and sauté with sweet red peppers, cilantro and potatoes.
    • 2 potatoes
    • 5 platanos, boil platanos first in water for 20-30 minutes

By Carmen

  • Chayote – boil whole in water for 1-2 hours, cut in half, scrape out inside and smash with grated cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla, add raisins.  Put back in skins, top with fine bread crumbs and bake 5-10 minutes.
  • Try same thing only use onions, cheese and chicken with chayote.

William’s mom has started folding napkins around our silverware at every meal. She is making a huge effort to make the food as pretty as it was at the hotel.  She was really enchanted with the kitchen. 

Carmen told me that her father was quite the looker in his younger days (as was Alisia#1) and the women were always after him.  Carmen tried to blame it 1) all on the women; and, drum roll, 2) on some myth that men don’t like to masturbate.  Bullshit.  1) Women have to tell men NO all the time; men can do the same thing. 2) Men love to masturbate whether they’re having sex or not and if they don’t like to masturbate, then oh well, lazybones. 

I think I actually conveyed these thoughts to her.  I don’t know the word for masturbate in Spanish and I don’t think Carmen does either. Or more likely she just doesn’t like to use it so we used rude hand gestures instead.  Can only imagine what her mom thought as I glanced up and saw her looking out the window at us as we moved our hands up and down in the age-old (well at least my age-old) sign for masturbation.  It’s kind of unbelievable that women would think men are so weak they can’t be blamed for not resisting a come-hither, yet we let them run the world. 

Told David not to kill anything unless it was necessary.  He was stung by a bee in the pool because he picked it up and decided to crush it in his hand.  Good for the bee to get in one last sting.  I told him he deserved it and that all life was important.  He thinks I’m insane and I overheard him telling Patricia and Alisia#1 about my saving a cricket and a spider, but now they are all very careful not to kill anything in front of me.

I was horrified when Alisia#1 reached over me to throw her trash out the window of the bus. I almost dove out the window after it.  However, after she saw me put my trash in my purse she started to do the same.  Heard them talking about me when I took all their popsicle wrappers and sticks and put them in the garbage can at the bus stop rather than flinging them over my shoulder.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  They may throw the occasional popsicle stick out the window, however, they use very few throw-away products.  I probably produce more garbage in a week than their whole family in a month.  Same with energy.  Dishes are washed in cold water that is collected in rain barrels and strained.  Dish soap is a semi-solid hunk that is used sparingly.  Paper towels are not used at all.  No electricity is used for drying clothes.  Lights are turned off when not in a room ALWAYS.  Hot water in the shower is really just slightly warm.  There’s only one car among all the people in his family I have met…Patricia owns it. Beverages are made from fresh fruit on a daily basis. Everything that can be re-used IS re-used.  Things that break are fixed.  Beto has been working on an iron for a couple of weeks. The ecological footprint of this family is practically invisible. Mine on the other hand…well mine is improving.

November 13, 2010
Categories: Family History, My Story, Recipe, Things to Remember . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: 1 Comment

More Sugar Beach…day 20

Jungle, Beach, Ocean

Rompio is the word of the week.  The toilet seat now broke, while I was sitting on it.  The trip to Sugar Beach was a great idea.  I have never seen Alisia so excited.  She gets up before dawn each morning and walks to the beach (about 4 minutes). She doesn’t swim but she sits on the beach and lets the waves roll up to her. Sometimes they roll her over completely. She does this several times each day.

Alisia on the beach with the waves rolling over her

The kitchen area has four wooden barstools at a cute counter open to the living room. The kitchen area itself is good-sized with all the regular stuff…well stuff that’s regular in America. Every time I walk into the suite, Alisia is in the kitchen just opening things and looking…the drawers and the microwave and the fridge.  She gestures me over to show me some new wonder: Mira, Sara, mira. [Note: My Spanish has been so bad that at one time I thought “Mira” was William’s nickname for me. Then I heard him say it to someone else and found out it means “look.”] The hotel really is spectacular.   Iguana, sapos (frogs), birds for days…absolutely worth the money, though I would be broke if we stayed much longer.

Alisia and David on Sugar Beach

Playa Azucar – Sugar Beach

David doesn’t need to listen to my bad Spanish anymore; he has learned to read my mind. He tells me where things I’m looking for are when I haven’t yet asked and asks me if I want this or that when I do but haven’t felt like figuring out the Spanish to ask. Maybe I should concentrate on developing this skill rather than learning Spanish. It’s probably not my skill though; it’s probably David’s. Best press on with the Spanish.

portrait of young man

Portrait of a Mind Reader

The father of the Hungarian boy thinks Alisia looks like Golda Meir—I think it’s just her hair.  But I want to look her up on the net anyway to refresh my memory which seems to be worse every day.  I can’t believe I plan on studying Italian next, then French.  I’m going to start making lists of words to memorize every day—maybe every other day.

The bus ride home was a very long 6½-7 hours with NO stops for the bathroom.  I don’t think I’ve ever gone that long without going to the bathroom.  Am too tired to think, so will draw.

October 23, 2010
Categories: My Story . Tags: , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

Everything is broken, my head, my camera, my pencil…Days 18 and 19

cartoon character with orange face and purple lips

Self portrait with everything broken

The mornings are spectacular here, it rains in the afternoons and the evenings are beautiful with clouds, but the air is fresh.  I swam in the ocean, or rather bobbed around like a cork for hours.  A Hungarian woman bobbed around with me, visiting, for a couple of hours. We didn’t have to move at all. Just laid on our backs and rolled around now and then to stretch our legs.

I have many wounds: everything is rompiendo (breaking).  My head, my camera, my bracelet, and now my pen.  Later: also my ankle…hurt but not broken.

I hit my head on an underwater ledge in the swimming pool while showing off to David, age 14.  David, not me, though who would guess by my behavior.  Have a huge knot on my temple—briefly worried about brain damage (10-20 minutes) but decided I couldn’t have damaged what I wasn’t using.

Also worried about cancer of the shoulder, but recalled incident a few years ago when was worried about thigh cancer and finally remembered I had walked up and down the front stairs 20 times the day before for put-out day.  Actually ruled thigh cancer out fairly early that day because I hadn’t ever heard of it, in favor of dehydration.  So, used my deductive reasoning this time to narrow down other possibilities to four hours of swimming, including but not limited to, the butterfly stroke and/or the fall I took with the backpack containing all the shells on Sugar Beach.  I am planning an art project with them…the shells, not my wounds.  Hope I can un-funk them.  My wallet, money and passport are all really malo from ocean water.

Things to remember:

  • Fat dog chasing owners in car down busy San Jose street with our bus behind beeping and flashing lights. Eventually they noticed us and stopped for their dog.
  • Hungarian boy’s stories: a) said he was in a bicycle accident, in hospital six months, only walking again for two months; b) said he was 11 years old—ha. Didn’t even have all his permanent teeth. c) said he had raced in a bicycle world championship…at age what, 7? When I started to ask his mother about his bike accident, he flashed his arms in front of my face and shook his head desperately to make me stop, the little liar story-teller.
Woman with red hair

Hungarian Woman

October 19, 2010
Categories: My Story . Tags: , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

Playa Pan de Azucar…day 17

abstract representation of the beach

The Beach

I am waiting for Wm’s mother, sister Patricia and her son David to get ready to have a bite to eat in the restaurant. Incredible light show is happening outside.  I saw several lightning bolts touch down in the distance and could smell the electricity in the air.

It took 5½ hours by bus to get to Playa Flamingo and then another 20 minutes by taxi to get to Playa Pan de Azucar.  The bus ride was beautiful, though hot.  The driver had music on so the whole bus could enjoy it.  At one point everyone sang a couple of the songs together.

I should back track.  Yesterday Patricia, David and I went shopping and asking questions about how to get a bus to the coast.  We walked from bus terminal to bus terminal to bus terminal to find out our options.  Weird that they don’t all depart from the same place.  Ours ended up leaving from the Coca Cola Center, another mystery in that name. I am not sure why, but no one wants to use the phone to find things out—let your fingers do the walking is not a common move around here.  No one would call to book a hotel. I finally did all the calling and even managed to get us the Tico discount.  I think Wm’s family was impressed with my business like performance on the telephone.

Patricia and David were supposed to pick up Alisia#1 and me at 7 a.m. but didn’t get to us until 7:30 a.m. so we had a nerve-wracking time hoping to make the 8 a.m. bus.  The driver kept saying we would never make it by 8 a.m., but Patricia directed the man like a pro and strong armed him into taking the route she wanted. We made it there with four minutes to spare.

Our room is the size of William’s parent’s house and Carmen’s house combined—maybe larger and right on the beach.  There is a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms.  Patricia and David have one bedroom and Alisia and I share the other.

We had a great time in the ocean which is as warm as bathwater but not as clear as the Atlantic.  Then we went to the swimming pool.  When we had dinner tonight, everyone was stunned to see a napkin folded in a special fold in front of them and they very carefully set them aside so as not to disturb the fold.  It turns out they were that fancy paper we find in the bathrooms of expensive restaurants in SF and this really blew them away.

There’s a big problem with mapaches here (raccoons) which of course there would be as they follow me all over the world—am waiting to find pigeons breeding in my window and the circle will be totally complete.  [Note from the future: I was given a mapache bone as a talisman for good luck with love and money and I carry it everywhere.]

Observation:  No one seems to fart out loud in CR, including me!  And I would know about others because the toilets are not exactly miles from the other rooms.  Not sure what makes this process quieter than in SF—do U.S. toilets echo more? Is it the air? The food?  Also do not need to use much toilet paper—hmmm. What’s it all about, Alfie?

October 14, 2010
Categories: My Story . Tags: , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

Family Histories…day 16

Chubby woman with green body and purple and red hair

Self-portrait fitting into tight pants



 

Things to remember:

  • Alisia#1 (Wm’s sisters and father call her El Jefe…the boss) asked me what I normally had for breakfast and when I said cereal, she and Carmen went out and bought chocolate flavored corn flakes for me—they’re actually quite good.
  • When something is papaya-colored, it is the inside of the papaya, not the outside.
  • All dogs hate David—I think he has ADD.  Don’t think the two are related.
  • We always keep the plug in the drain in the shower when we’re not using it; we always keep the toilet seat down, we always keep the bathroom door closed.  These things worry me slightly, as the only reason I can figure out why we do these things is to keep something from crawling in.  Kathy Gould once had a rat jump out of her toilet in Milwaukee so she kept 4 or 5 phonebooks on the toilet all the time after that.  We’d flush the toilet twice before lifting them off, then “go” like lightening and slam the books back down.
  • Rice is served at dinner (almuerzo as it’s at noon) every day, even when we have spaghetti or potatoes.
  • The salads are delicious and all Beto and I use for dressing is a fresh squeezed lemon.
  • I am not actually gaining weight.  I can fit into my tightest pants.
  • Someone from the family stops by to clean about twice/week.  Today it was Alisia#2; a couple of days ago it was Monica.  And I mean they really clean.  Everything is always spotless, limpia, limpia, limpia.  They’d be horrified if I was willing and able to tell them about throwing confetti all over my floors for six months instead of cleaning them. It was actually quite cool…sort of a colorful version of sawdust on a bar room floor. I only allowed metallic confetti…no paper. I had my standards.

More exciting historical family drama as heard from Carmen:

[Note 1: I don’t say “told by” Carmen because we must take into consideration that Carmen’s Spanish is being translated by me.]

[Note 2: I told William I would know more about him and his family than he knows and it sure looks like I was right.]

[Note 3: Carmen tells me to write all these histories in my journal as she tells them…escribe escribe. She thinks this will be a grand book.]

Found out that Guillermo was an alcoholic and also that he didn’t want Patricia’s son Alberto around so either kicked him out or he ran away at 12.  When Carmen asked Patricia where Alberto was, Patricia didn’t answer, just hung her head so Carmen asked again and again until Patricia told her Guillermo didn’t want him.  Carmen had a fit, told Patricia that there were tons of men in the world, but Alberto was blood.  Carmen went looking for him and found him working in some type of cargo place and took him to Alisia#2’s home.  Alisia#2 kept him until he got married, but Carmen made Patricia pay for psychological help for Alberto. They are all very close today, by the way, so it must have worked. Guillermo and Alberto even seem to get along. But then again, Guillermo doesn’t drink anymore.

Found out that William#3 doesn’t want Rosabell (his mom and Wm’s youngest sister) to have a boyfriend. When she invited a man over to her house to watch TV, William#3 came home, found him in the living room, and hit him over the head with a broom….fwhap (Carmen’s sound effects). The man left, never to be seen again. 

Found out that William#3 was dating a woman his mother’s age, who has 3 or 4 children.  Think there might be issues here? 

Found out that my Wm’s father had an affair when Alisia (Wm’s mother) was pregnant with Edwin, the 4th sibling.  Alisia packed up Daniel, Wm. and Carmen and left Beto (Wm’s dad) and when he came home (he worked up near Nicaragua at the time and only came home every couple of months) there was nobody living in his house.  He went looking for her and finally found her, went down on his KNEES, and begged her forgiveness and she told him he could only have one woman—good for Alisia. He told her he would only have one woman if she would come back to him and they have lived together ever since.

The reason we know this story is that Edwin told us that last year a man came by his house who claimed to be his half-brother.  He wasn’t home at the time, only one of his step-daughters was there (Edwin married a woman with 9 children…which is another big history), so nobody in the family has yet met the new half brother.  Edwin told Beto and Alisia the story and asked if Beto had another son. (Maybe all families have exotic stories happening but we just don’t talk about them so they get lost to the ages.) Beto denied the entire story, but Alisia said, si, es VERDAD (the truth).  Perhaps this is why she almost fainted when she saw William#2 for the first time…maybe she thought Beto had been up to his old tricks. 

Carmen and Edwin and I are going looking for this man after we return from Panama. Leda’s daughter said the guy looked a lot like Edwin.  Carmen pulled her lower eyelid down with her index finger and said we would see.  She calls us the Costa Rican Interpol.  We think he lives in the north near Nicaragua.  Our plan is to stop in different towns along the border, point at Edwin and ask if they know anyone who looks like him.  This is our plan? We are keeping our plans secret from both of Wm’s parents. 

Edwin also used to be an active alcoholic.  He told me he drank every day and had six accidents before he got a grip.  Leda helped him, gracias adios.  He didn’t go to AA, Guillermo did.  Just before they left, Carmen got out the bible and read something and then everyone started praying out loud; everyone said something different at the same time so I couldn’t really understand exactly what anyone was saying. We stood in a circle, Leda, Edwin, Carmen and me. Then they all focused on me.  Leda stood in front of me and placed her hand on my heart and Carmen and Edwin were behind me with their hands on my shoulders and everyone prayed out loud. 

Because I don’t say anything during these praying circles, I have a feeling they might just be realizing what a heathen is in their midst.  I have started closing my eyes to try to blend in a little better, but I don’t think anything less than praying out loud will satisfy here.  I keep trying to recall my grouping theory in these moments but it’s difficult.  I must say that it feels good to have people praying over you, though, so I am just enjoying the moment…sort of a group psychic, spiritual and mental massage.

October 11, 2010
Categories: Family History . Tags: , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: 55 Comments

Mamonchinos and Anonas…day 15

Woman with the head of a mamonchino

Self portrait as a mamonchino

Awoke to a sky so brilliantly blue I thought Carmen’s prayers had whisked us to heaven.  The first few days I was here I thought she was saying, Gracias Adios (thank you goodby) to me and I wasn’t sure why—finally realized it was three words gracias a Dios (thanks to God).  I am picking up on everyone’s facial expressions, if not their Spanish.  I now say “si” with my mouth pushed out like I’m French and a furrowed brow many times a day. This is how William’s mother says “si.”

Had a great breakfast, incredible fruit plate, juice, café con leche, bread, fried cheese and fried toast with jam.  Forget not fitting into my clothes, I probably won’t be able to get up my narrow-assed stairway in San Francisco.

After desayuno, we walked through a mariposa farm with the most butterflies I’ve ever seen.  There were huge brown ones with eye-like patterns on their wings eating bananas with 1½”-2” proboscises.  The flowers and plants were from some other planet or possibly just a different dimension.  One was as big as Carmen’s 10 lb. papaya with a cream and purple outside and a deep maroon center that looked like a huge mouth.  It resembled a giant orchid. 

We went to the Lancaster Botanical Garden—Carmen in a skirt and high heels because she was hoping to catch a German man.  It is a huge place where I would like to spend hours wandering around with William and sketching plants.  Enormous bamboo forest and another wilder forest where I had to help Carmen climb under some trees.  I don’t think William’s family think I’m very feminine, though I’ve always seen myself as fairly girly.  However, the time to be girly is not when hiking is involved, Carmen. It was actually pretty funny to see her trying to duck under a low branch in high heels and a short skirt screaming for my help…or more likely for the help of the German man who never appeared.

We took a cab around the lake to Orosi, Cachi, back to Cartago and on to Llorente.  Another great cab driver – he spoke more slowly than Eduardo so I understood some of what he said.  Bought a hand-carved woman for William’s folks from El Sonador and have this strange feeling that William and I bought almost the same thing for them last year.  I can’t wait till he gets here—we’re definitely spending a few days on our own to relax, draw, tour, etc….mostly etc. 

When we returned, I went to the veterinarian’s to buy dog food—do vets sell dog food in the U.S.?  I don’t think so.  Then delivered a big bag of something we bought there for some animal (unclear what this animal is but I think it is for a hamster) to a neighbor.  The neighbor and her daughter-in-law both think I am very pretty—I thanked them, of course: one can never be told this too many times.  The daughter-in-law came right up to me to look more closely at my face and touch my hair.  The mother was absolutely adorable.  A little sparrow of a woman with a wonderful tinkling giggle, which I heard many times as Carmen related all the mistakes I have made in Spanish. 

I have developed a passion for a fruit called anona. Beto told me this word is also used to describe someone who is crazy, though I didn’t really understand why, probably like calling someone a turnip head. I am also enamored with mamonchinos, a type of lychee with little hairs sticking out all over the outer skin which you don’t eat (see my self portrait above). I’d like to sneak into the house and grab some, but it’s impossible without being seen as there is a window from the bedroom where everyone is watching TV, to the kitchen.  I remember this window well from when William and I stayed in that room.  Talk about inhibiting the “etc.” in one’s life. No one would care if I ate the mamonchinos, but I’ve already had a lot of them and Beto puffs up his cheeks when he sees me eating and calls me gordita (supposedly a cute word for chubby but there really is no cute word for chubby in any language), so I am going to restrain myself.

September 28, 2010
Categories: My Story . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

Teleferico, Walking Trees, Orosi Valley, Irazú Volcano National Park…day 14

Character derived from looking at Volcan Irazu

Portrait of Volcan Irazu

Photograph of Irazu Volcano
Irazu Volcano…the real deal

Carmen and I were taken by a man from her church, Carlos, to the teleferico. He has a bad marriage and wants to divorce—I think he’s interested in Carmen.  She says he’s too young and not German.  I told him to divorce first, then look. He is the same guy that drove us to the testimonial. The teleferico is in the Bosque de Lluvia (rain forest) and boy did it lluvia. The teleferico is a six-seater cable car that goes through the treetops.  Absolutely gorgeous, a never ending story of plant and animal life, insects and birds.  There is one tree with shallow roots that throws out vines from high up and when they reach the ground they take root, the old part of the tree dies and the new part becomes strong, eventually throws out its own vines and so the tree “walks” through the forest.  

At the moment I am sitting in an outdoor restaurant on a cliff overlooking the Orosi Valley.  There are jungle and crop covered mountains, a large volcanic crater, Irazu, towering above us and a river meandering through the valley below.  Carmen and I have a room with this same view and a bathroom downstairs also with this view from the toilet—I want to return with Sweet William.  We took a taxi to Irazu because it turned out there were no buses on a Sunday, which you would think would be the busiest day of the week at a National Park.  Still, the taxi there from the house and then on to our hotel on the other side of Cartago was only $35—so it was probably the way to go anyway.   

Carmen and the cab driver, Eduardo, humiliated me by pulling plants up by their roots in the national park to take with them.  I tried to pretend I didn’t know them but they kept shouting “look at this one.”  We’d probably be in jail in the U.S. right now.  

The crater was filled with brilliant green water and the sides going down into the crater were rocky, moonscape-looking terrain. Actually, the whole volcano looked like a surreal moonscape, except for the plants that Eduardo and Carmen were stealing.  

Eduardo would say something to me in Spanish and then when I didn’t understand he would turn to Carmen who would repeat it in Spanish.  It actually worked most of the time.  For some reason I can understand Carmen’s Spanish, but almost no one else’s. Maybe I’m reading her mind and don’t understand any Spanish at all. Carmen is napping at the moment.  I walked to the Mirador—a lookout and beautiful park with views of a lake in the distance.  I already used up all the calories I burned on an agua dulce con leche—basically hot whole milk with enough brown sugar to make it taste like creamy maple syrup.

September 22, 2010
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Daniel…day 13

Face that is half man half woman

Family Dynamics

Spent the morning on the internet and the afternoon sleeping. Having fun is exhausting.  Tomorrow we take a teleferia through the tops of the trees and Sunday we go to Irasu Volcano.  Learned mucho about William’s family from Carmen tonight.  Daniel was apparently a loner when they were young and yelled at Carmen all the time until she cracked him over the head with a broom—I think it was a broom; it might have been an iron but I hope not.  He was forced to marry his first wife by her parents (mama?) when he was 21 and she was 15.  They separated when he met his second wife who already had a son and then Daniel and the second wife had a daughter together.  Due to some family disagreement, no one has seen the current wife in years, nor has anyone been to their house.  Daniel comes by his parents’ house by himself on the major holidays.  His wife apparently had “incidents” with both Carmen and Alisia II. So they don’t associate.  I believe Carmen was busted by the second wife for chatting with the first wife and that started a bit of the problem, but I don’t think Carmen and Daniel have really been great buddies ever since the broom/iron incident.

I told Carmen a story William told me about how Daniel was extraordinarily strong as a young man and was lifting weights in front of a crowd and everyone went “oooh” when he lifted a really heavy weight off the ground.  Then when he brought it to his shoulders they all went “whoaaa” as his private parts fell out of his shorts. I would have liked to have seen that.

Beto finished his first puzzle, with a little help from Patricia, David and me.  He almost had it finished when he decided he was missing some pieces—falta falta!  However, it all turned out fine and now he will glue it to plywood, frame it and varnish it.

Ha! More and more Spanish all the time. 

September 20, 2010
Categories: Family History . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: 4 Comments

Feministas, Prayers and Panties…day 12

Woman with facets of indigenous people and caucasian people

Feminista

Attended a Feminista meeting with M and M on Tuesday evening.  Margo gave a speech on the internet in Spanish.  Very impressive.  Met many very interesting people including two women who print a Feminista newspaper, which I have casually left on the table for William’s family to read.  Almost left my shoes in M and M’s car, but knew they were there somewhere as I could smell them.  Mucho funky from the mud on the banana plantation and the Atlantic Ocean.  Carmen has somehow managed to get the smell out—unbelievable.  I figured I’d just have to live with every dog and cat in the city following me for the rest of my stay.

[Note from the future: I was wearing these same shoes to an event at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and they just fell apart on me. The soles crumbled into tiny little pieces, leaving a trail everywhere I walked. I wonder if this happened because of Carmen’s cleaning.]

Wednesday I spent half the day in an internet café—a different one than I was using as I pooped in the other one after days of one of the traveler’s curses, constipation, and the toilet didn’t work.  Feel sure they can’t pin it on me but am taking no chances—DNA testing and all that.

Today Carmen and I went first to a lawyer’s office where we met up with the pastor of her church and Carmen signed some type of testimonial about the church, I think to verify its existence so the pastor can go to the US to raise money.  Before we left the office we all put our arms around each other, kind of like a huddle, and the pastor prayed the loudest but Carmen and the lawyer (female) ran a close second.  They were all saying different things at the same time. Carmen and the lawyer said a lot of gracias and Senors and the other man, who drove us, used the word Padre a lot.  I didn’t say anything.  Though I heard my name mentioned by each of them a couple of times—they were probably asking the Senor in the Sky to watch over me carefully as I fell twice walking up the stairs to get there.  I think the stairs are different heights.  Carmen told me I need to watch my feet instead of looking around.  I didn’t tell her that I just recently quit watching my feet because William told me to stop looking at them all of the time.

Carmen and I then went to an exposition for computers that was supposed to be the largest in the world.  It was probably the smallest such event I’ve ever seen.  The computers were very expensive compared to Dell, unless prices have soared in the past two weeks.

Afterwards, we took a bus to San Jose where we walked into some art galleries and around town a bit and then took a bus to Alisia ’s (this would be Wm’s sister Alisia II, not to be confused with Wm’s mother, Alisia I) house somewhere in outer Heredia.  Also went to visit Alberto, Monica and Gilary—Patricia’s son, wife and 6-year old granddaughter.  I was amazed at what this little girl can make with only a set of dominoes.  Her mother also drew a picture on a piece of paper and this is what she used as a coloring book. There is no money for a real coloring book here.

Alberto made a pair of socks for me with my name on them at the sock factory where he works.  The first night I was here I thought I heard William III (this would be Rosabell’s son, Wm’s nephew, William III, not Wm’s son, William II…yikes!) and Beto and Alberto talking about the various merits of bikini underpants vs. other types and sure enough, they were.  William III works in a panty factory where he sews panties on a sewing machine.  Alberto makes socks using some type of computer. William III mentioned that they make gigantic panties for WalMart in America and he wondered what these gigantic women looked like to need such gigantic panties. By the way, I have never told William I (my William) that men don’t call their underwear panties. I get too much of a giggle out of hearing him use the term to tell him. [Note from the future: finally had to tell William about panties as we were at Sears and he stopped a store clerk and asked him where the men’s panties were! “Why you let me say that all these years?!”]

Carmen and Alisia II tried to convince me that the world is a much more dangerous place than it used to be, but I managed somehow to tell them that they think it is more dangerous because they watch shows that feature all the bad things that happen all over the world—including much blood—and that in the past, there wasn’t a camera focused at the site of all the bad events and even if there were, the media didn’t put it on TV.  Alisia looked like a light bulb had gone off in her head but I could tell Carmen remained unconvinced.  Had the same conversation with William’s folks and they looked like light bulbs had turned on too.  My next move will be to tell them to quit watching those programs as they are being brain washed into fear poco a poco.

Carmen went to a prayer meeting tonight.  She told me that she does this every week and prays for everyone in the family including me.  She’ll probably be spending more time on me after she reads the paper I left for her.  It has a long pro-choice article that’s going to flip her out.  Need to beef up on my Spanish pro-choice/anti-war terminology before that conversation.

September 3, 2010
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Photos with the BriBri

Photos of the family whose home we invaded for lunch. I took no photos of people’s butts as they were getting in and out of the canoe, unlike my cousin Margo whose butt is now fair game.

I don't think this young man is going to stay home on the farm.

August 15, 2010
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Multi-Mono Culture, BriBri, Spiders and Bananas…Day 9, 10, 11

colored pencil drawing of woman with leaf as a head and cherries and leaves as hair

Self-Portrait as a Multi Cultural Goddess

Margo and Madonna met me in front of the church in Grecia and off we headed for Puerto Viejo.  Torrential downpour through the mountains, then an obstacle course of potholes, in the dark, from Limon to their beach house.  We could have been lost forever in any one of them…maybe dropped into the bowels of the earth, met up with those folks who are living in the center of the earth…but we made it there safe and sound.

Madonna and Margo are incredibly interesting.  They have traveled all over the world covering human rights’ issues for a Central American radio station. I shall say no more as I think that should be their story to write.

On Sunday we drove to the center of the BriBri’s (an indigenous people) land and then were taken on a 3-4 hour ride between Costa Rica and Panama in a canoe that had been carved out of one log.  We went up-river through rapids that were probably 3’s in river rafting terms with one guy poling in the front and another in the back.  Eight of us were in the canoe in total.  These were skinny little dudes doing the poling…I say this because we weren’t “skinny little dudes” doing the sitting.  We hiked up to a waterfall and swam in the pool beneath it.  There were two Italian guys with us and one fell and bruised his face pretty good.  We told him it made him look macho…which he was not at all if you know what I mean. 

Madonna fished the entire way. When she didn’t catch any fish on the right side of the boat, she threw her pole into the left side and announced that she was going to try the fishing in Panama. The BriBri said that even though Madonna was actually raised in Puerto Rico, she was more Costa Rican than rice and beans. They did not say that about Margo and me and I am still to this day puzzling over that one.

We hiked to an area that has about 30 BriBri families, though you’d never know it as you couldn’t see one house while at another.  It takes anywhere from five minutes to one hour to go between houses.  They prepared a wonderful lunch for us in a thatched house with bark floors. You had to climb a ladder to enter.  Guillermo took us on a tour of their organic, multi-culture banana and cocoa plantation.  We slipped and slid through mud up to our ankles, but it was incredible. 

Colored pencil drawing of a banana tree with a face and a nipple

Mono Culture (aside: mono is monkey in Spanish)

The banana trees can live 20-25 years in a multi-culture setting, but only five years in a mono-culture setting.  The BriBri also raise many medicinal plants, one of which Margo takes for depression rather than pharmaceutical drugs and says it works great for her. All in all, it was an unbelievable adventure.  Margo and I kept looking at each other and saying “we are a LONG way from Wisconsin.”

That night we went to hear some music in Puerto Viejo, which is like a mini-Jamaica, very different from San Jose and the Pacific Coast which have hardly any black folks.

Monday we went fishing and snorkeling in the Atlantic and I saw unbelievable fish and coral and snails.  By the way, the beach house is on stilts and huge (over a foot across) crabs live under it and all around it.  Madonna catches them sometimes and puts them in a cage, feeds them till they’re fat (how do you know when a crab is getting fat?…could they be skinny inside their shells?), then eats them. 

 

Colored pencil drawing of spider with face and woman's body

Portrait of My Sister Patsy as Spider Woman (checking to see if she reads this)

I walked smack into a huge spider web the first day on the way to the toilet, which, by the way, is outside. And by huge, I just want to say the body of the spider was around 1.5-2 inches long and .5-1 inch wide. This is not counting the LEGS. So you can imagine the size of the web. I don’t mean to be a wuss about this, but it was something out of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There was a point in my life when I thought I might become a naturalist…Indiana Sarah and the Temple of …. Incidents such as this have convinced me that I made a wise choice in not traveling that path.

Everyone kept warning me how dangerous Limon and the Atlantic Coast are, but M and M said Costa Rican’s think this because there are black people there.  Racism is pretty rampant – boo hiss.  Even I might have been a little leery of the men walking along the road with machetes, though, if I hadn’t seen Madonna gardening. Madonna gardens with a machete.  It seems to be an all-purpose tool on this side of the country.

M and M’s regular house near San Jose is gorgeous—lots of windows, lots of wood, and a bathroom that is totally cool.

The butterflies have been unbelievable—huge iridescent blue ones; red and black ones were mating right in front of my nose.

The cats were also doing something in front of my nose.  One male and one female youngster in a 69 position nursing on each other…and the male had an erection.  The female was kneading her paw into him very, very near this erection, too.  Hmmm…decided to draw outside to give them some privacy.

August 15, 2010
Categories: My Story . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: 1 Comment

Mouse, Karaoke and Tight Clothes…day 8

cartoon rat

Self portrait as a mouse

Today I wrote a database for the Plastics Factory, a very simple one, but at least it will track orders and payments.  I hope I can find enough Spanish to teach them to use it.  I enjoyed having a day to think about otras cosas than Spanish. 

It’s raining cats and dogs, well dogs anyway.  No cat would dare to rain anywhere near this place.  Mirta has a phobia about cats and all the poodles have been trained to chase any cats away.  I still haven’t figured out exactly how many poodles they have, but it’s a lot.  There are two 3-week old poodles in this house and five 2-week old poodles in Jose’s daughter’s house.  We contact her by shouting through the kitchen window. 

Tomorrow I go to the Atlantic Coast with Margo and Madonna.  Jose thinks it’s dangerous because people are poor and there isn’t any work there.  He also said that gringas like it there because they can get drugs and sleep with black people.  There are plenty of black people in the U.S., why travel so far? that’s what I want to know.  I’m pretty sure Americans like it because of the music and diversity—at least that’s why I’d like it.  The drug part might be correct, but again I have to wonder: why travel so far for something readily available in the U.S.?

Later that night: I was drawing, but had to stop to record this.  I was unhappy about the enormous roach that was here last night, but now a mouse has just run across the floor– not that I haven’t had them in every place I’ve ever lived. I thought at first it was a REALLY big insect, but no, I now have a regular zoo in here.  It must have been all the rain.  I’m trying to keep a good attitude about these things, after all, at one time I was considering a career as a naturalist. I do wish nature would hang out in someone else’s room, though.

Went to a Karaoke bar/restaurant with Jose, Mirta and Stephie.  I had two coconut drinks and so much food it’s getting ridiculous.  Tonight it was a huge platter of fried chicken, fried pork, fried fish, fried cheese and fried unidentified vegetables, along with ceviche with bananas and lots of orange lemons.  I thought they were green oranges, but they are lemons with green peels and orange insides, whatever happened to lemon yellow?  Both Jose and Mirta sang songs.  I didn’t have the nerve.  We really had a blast, though.  Jose knows everyone.  I’m so lucky to know these people. 

Mirta made ceviche for lunch today and it was out of sight (ha! I have dichos tambien…William’s family, especially his father, Beto, is teaching me many Costa Rican sayings. Twanis, Mahi [can’t find it in the dictionary, so unsure on spelling] translates to cool, Dude.).  Mirta is Peruvian so all of her cooking is Peruvian and WOW can she cook.  The mouse is making noises in the corner.  Maybe she has a family and is nursing, it sounds just like the two puppies nursing.  I don’t have the nerve to pull back the curtain to look.  I remember thinking I could catch a mouse with my hands in college and pulled open a kitchen drawer to grab it. I was so startled when I saw it actually in the drawer that I ran in place and screamed—which I almost did just now as it ran out from behind the curtain again, darted across the room, saw me jump and ran back behind the curtain.  I’m going to brush my teeth and give it a chance to settle into my bed.

Well, I’m back from the bathroom and I can still hear it behind the curtain.  Am going to sleep with my socks on—I don’t know exactly how this will protect me, but I feel more secure with them on. 

Observación 1:  Costa Rican women are much sexier than I am.  Their clothes are much tighter and lower cut.  I look like a 50-year old woman in a 14-year old boy’s clothes.  Well, actually I am a 50 year old woman.  Still, I don’t think I shall change my style soon as I didn’t have to suck in my stomach all evening (thank God, considering what I ate) like all the other women.

Observación 2:  Americans are so much more wasteful than Ticos.  More on this later.  Forgot to mention that Jose came home with a new second hand car, a Range Rover or something like that—big anyway.  It broke down on the way to the Karaoke place.  He called one of his sons on his cell phone, who came and towed us back with a Suzuki Sidekick about 1/3 the size of the Rover.  Even though the Sidekick was smoking when we got back, we hopped in and continued with our evening.  No one was bent out of shape about this.  I want to own this attitude.  Maybe I could bottle it and sell it to gringo commuters in the US of A.

May 11, 2010
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I’m in big trouble—the operative word here being BIG!…day 7

Colored pencil drawing of woman with big butt, boobs and hair

Future self-portait in my soon-to-be-purchased red boots if I continue to eat like this.

Jose and Mirta arrived and we went for a “typical” meal after picking up Mirta’s daughter, Stephie, from her father’s house.  If this is typical, I’m in big trouble—the operative word here being BIG.  Corn bread, corn tortillas, corn cake, fried bananas, chicken with melted cheese and refried beans. I think I gained more just writing it down.

There is another novella in this compound.  Jose is turning his house into a bed and breakfast and is building 12 apartments in a square around the main house.  There will be a park in the middle.  There are several other apartments already built—4, I think.  He took me through a couple of them.  One houses his ex-wife (the mother of his three children) her boyfriend (novio) and one of Jose’s sons; another houses his daughter.  Working in his plastics factory are his brother, his brother’s wife, his nephew, and his two sons.  Everyone seems to get along well.  Miri, the ex-wife, walks in and out of Jose’s house as she needs to during the day and appears on the best of terms with Mirta…Jose’s current woman. 

Stephie, who is around 18, lives here with Jose and Mirta.  Stephie and I danced for an hour today and we’re getting up tomorrow to do another hour at 7 a.m.  She can really move.  Jose took us all with him to deliver plastic toys for piñatas all over two Costa Rican provinces.  I’m going to write a database for him tomorrow.

The biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen just ran in through the open door—probably pushed it open.  Like it has places to go and people to meet.  I hope I’m not one of them and he’s just passing through.  [Book recommendation: The Roaches Have No King] We keep most of our things off the floor; I have a theory that it’s because the insects are too heavy to climb.

Stephie told me she doesn’t have a tattoo because it says in the Bible – Matthew (though it would have been cool if it had been Mark) – not to mark your body or you won’t go to heaven.  Hmmm. [Note from the future: I have heard this many times in the past few years, probably directly attributable to the popularity of tattoos, but this was the first time I had heard it. What’s the reasoning behind this…need to research. Is it just a rule or is there some specific reason it was banned.]

April 26, 2010
Categories: Family History . Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

The Papaya Vendor’s Joke…day 6

Self portrait as a coffee up

Self portrait as a coffee cup

The papaya William II gave us is not ripe.  Beto told me about a papaya vendor who was missing a finger. He would hold up a papaya and tell you it was so ripe his finger went right through it, when actually his finger was missing–ha ha ha. I get another joke in Spanish, a chiste. 

I am waiting for Jose and Mirta.  No idea what happened to them, but I seem to remember they ran a bit late.

We did laundry today.  The washing machine is outside under a roof with no walls, but it is kept spotlessly clean and covered with plastic when not in use.  There is no dryer.  We hang everything on a system of clothes lines that crisscross the yard.  We move the clothes along the lines as the sun changes position, then, when it begins to rain, we move like the lightening that streaked across the sky to take everything down. I can’t believe people wear clean clothes all the time. I would wear the same thing for days on end if I had to go to this much work to wash clothes. Before William moved in and forced a washer/dryer into my life, I had someone pick up my laundry, wash it, fold it and deliver it…and it still took me a week to put away. I am very lazy compared to these people.

April 22, 2010
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The 10-pound Papaya at the funeral…day 5

A vase with the sun and moon as a flower, faces and a body

Self portrait as a vase...pronounced vaahz

What a day.  William’s son arrived around 10 a.m. and we took a taxi to a bus, then another taxi from where the bus dropped us off to his home.  His children, Monserrat, age 2¾ and Bryan Gabriel, age 1+, were adorable.  They served us a wonderful lunch with fish, rice with camarones, pickled vegetables and potato chips.  I think the chips were there in case we hated everything, we could at least eat the chips.

Now for the interesting part:  It turns out that William II’s mother and stepfather treated him really badly.  He was made to wear old worn out clothes and no shoes and she did nasty things like rub Vic’s vapor rub into his eyelids so he couldn’t go anywhere because his eyes hurt.  And he had to work, work, work, work, work.  The rest of his siblings did not get this treatment.  At 14 she told him to get out of the house.  He then lived on the streets in the frontier area near Panama and around Limon until this older woman (whom I met) took him in and became his second mother.  He has an aunt that hadn’t visited her sister (his mother) for years and didn’t know he had been kicked out.  When she found out, she went around Costa Rica for years looking for him and actually found him finally, when he was 17.  She then told him who his real father was (my William) and where my William’s family lived. 

William II had no idea that the man who raised him was not his real father, though he didn’t look anything like the other kids.  [Note from the future: Carmen told me the step father was black, which made it hard for me to believe that William II didn’t suspect something was off, but it turns out he just has dark hair and eyes and darker skin than William…who has green eyes and blond hair.] The mother had told the aunt to never tell her son about his real father, but she named him William Alberto after William.  How weird.

Anyway, the aunt took William II to William’s family’s house [William had been living in the US for many years already], but no one was home, they were all at Patricia’s house.  They asked the neighbors where they were and the neighbors actually knew.  So they went to Patricia’s where they were all having lunch and knocked on the door.  Apparently Alisia (William’s mom) thought she was seeing a young William and fell back into a chair in a faint and everyone else gasped.  [Note from the future: more about this later. William’s mother may have thought William II was someone else totally…stay tuned.] The rest of the family was called and eventually everyone met him. 

I didn´t understand this entire history while they were telling it.  I just thought they were saying that he felt different from the rest of his family and when they got out the photo albums and Carmen started saying how old William II´s mother looked and other equally uncomplimentary things, which of course I DID understand, I was so embarrassed.  I kept saying how I thought she was very pretty.  After all, I got the man, I can be generous.  Later Carmen filled me in on the details in slower Spanish and I wish I had said she looked like an old hag, too.

Carmen and I then took a taxi with the whole family to downtown Heredia where we parted from William II and his family and took another bus to a cemetery where we attended the funeral of a cousin of William.  The lady who had died was an artist who studied in Spain and the USA and was a millionaire.  We met William’s mom and sister Patricia at the funeral and all sat together, along with a 10 lb papaya that William II picked off his tree for us.  (William asked us if we were sure we wanted to take the papaya with us to the funeral and Carmen said, why not? We didn’t steal it.) We were the poor relations.  Everyone on that side of the family is apparently quite wealthy and the only time they see William’s family is at funerals.  Patricia also wore jeans, which was a surprise as she usually wears dresses even when climbing trees – I think she was thumbing her nose at them. 

Three people stood in front of the church and sang songs and Patricia almost blew me off my seat when she joined in with them at the top of her voice…which was quite good by the way.  As far as I could tell, she was the only person in the church who was singing other than the trio in the front.  I was sitting next to her and let me tell you my eyebrows certainly shot up into my hairline when she started belting out the tunes.  Maybe there’s a reason they aren’t invited to many events put on by that side of the family. We did walk in with a 10 lb papaya under our arms, too, remember. Lots of rich looking old ladies all in black attended…looked like they belonged in San Francisco.  The dead woman had two children, the son was killed in a drug deal gone bad, according to Carmen, but the daughter was there with her family. 

After the funeral, Carmen and I took another bus to San Jose to a shoe store where two men made all the shoes.  I’m definitely buying a pair before I go home…I have my eye on a pair of high-heeled, red suede over the ankle boots…just perfect for a woman half my age.  Then we took a bus back to the house.  Whew!  Tomorrow Jose and Mirta pick me up in a car.

It’s 10:10 pm, time to get to sleep.  We get up between 5 a.m. and 6 am. Everyone here goes to bed around 8 pm. There are approximately 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark all year round because CR is near the equator. It varies a little, but not much. William’s mother gets up before everyone else every day. It’s certainly a peaceful time of day. Not a time of day I normally visit.

I also understood my first joke today.  Beto (William’s father) joked that he had started the microwave when he had actually started a fire in the wood stove outside that they use for cooking things that take a while, like the jam they made out of the fruit Patricia jerked out of the tree yesterday—guayaba , I think—absolutely delicious. He let me lick the spoon. Yes, I am over 50, but like my neighbor, Howard, I may be one of the oldest 12 year olds on the planet.

April 16, 2010
Categories: Family History . Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

Carmen is looking for a German husband…day 4

Post Columbian Artifact

Post Columbian Artifact...a self portrait

Went to the Mercado in San Jose today with Carmen.  She wants to find a German husband, or at least a German-American husband.  I’ve been given the task of finding one for her, which reminds me of Gus’s parents.  His father answered an ad put in the paper by her father.  Well, their marriage lasted over 50 years.  Gus and Carol answered some other call and look at how bad their marriage was.

Back to the Mercado. Carmen bought a huge bag of fish heads which she then told me were for juice, fresh juice.  I was horrified as I pictured her putting the whole mess in a blender and serving it up raw…mmmm, fish head juice.  Turns out that it’s a Panamanian expression for soup—still, I hope I have some other place to be on the day she makes that.

Tomorrow William’s son will come and get me to visit him and his wife and two children, ah, that would be William’s grandchildren.  I have no idea how I am managing to communicate with everyone. My Spanish really sucks.  William’s father keeps correcting the others so they don’t teach me bad Spanish.  David (14 years) took me to the post office today, then I got out the paints and we painted together.  I may not be able to say much, but the kids love me because of my art supplies.

We shook all the ripe guyabas out of the tree today to make something – jams, I think.  Patricia (aged 45+ and wearing a short dress and high heels) climbed a rickety old ladder leaning against a rickety old shed and pulled the fruit off the tree with a long pole, while her father pointed out the ripe ones.  I really love this family.

We gave William’s father several puzzles which he had requested.  He asked me to translate the back of the one he started because he thought it said it should take 20-30 minutes and they take him five days to do.  He was pretty worried.  Turns out there was a recipe for corn muffins on the back of the puzzle for some unknown reason.

 

Dear Charlie (email),

Am having a great, but exhausting time.  My Spanish is worse than even I thought it was.  Williams family is taking this business of teaching me Spanish very seriously and they make me pronounce every word 400 times.  This doesn´t seem to help me remember the word, by the way, so my journey to fluency may be long and arduous for all of us.  However, I have actually improved my ability to understand even if I can´t remember the words to say them myself.  My dictionary is attached to my hand.  I´m thinking of drilling a hole in it so I can wear it around my neck.

Dear Mary (email), 

 All of Williams brothers and sisters have already been over to visit, some of them several times, except one who has an eye infection which is being mysteriously (to me) blamed on Nicaraguans….

April 14, 2010
Categories: My Story . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

What’s happenin’ Butterfly, what’s happenin’…day 3

Butterfly with human body

I am metamorphosing

Went to a Pentecostal Church with Carmen.  Wow!  Everyone in the church – men and women –was crying including the pastor.  Some people went to the front and kneeled or laid flat on the floor to cry.  It seemed absurd at first, but then I remembered my latest of life’s lessons – the first impression/thought I ever have about anything is usually wrong.  These folks probably have many things to cry about and Jesus Christ was not necessarily one of them. Carmen dragged me to the front row, I guess so we could see better, but maybe because she thought I might want to go to the front and cry, too. The way my communication skills are not happening, I almost did.

April 13, 2010
Categories: My Story . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

Befuddled…day 2

Confused and befuddled...a mere shell of my former personality

Much of the family visited today, too.  

Hi Patsy (email to one of my sisters), 

Am learning at the speed of mud.  This internet cafe only has Spanish on its pcs, so it is a bit difficult to figure out how to do things.  I didn´t realize I even read the menus anymore, but now that they are all in Spanish I sure can´t remember them. 

Hi Mom (email to my mother), 

I was so exhausted yesterday I could barely speak English, let alone SPANISH!, but somehow I managed to make it through a huge family party.  I was asleep, however, by 7 pm and didn´t wake until this morning at 7 am.  I´m set to jet today, however.  I feel great and my Spanish is improving by the minute.  Or maybe I am just faster with my dictionary. (Is this exactly the opposite of what I just told my sister?)   

Journal: 

Everyone is taking my Spanish lessons very seriously.  They correct me and make me repeat things continually.  If I don´t learn Spanish here then I´m just not going to be able to learn it at all. 

 My every-day life in Costa Rica is going to be way different than my every-day life in San Francisco.  I already appreciate things I had never even considered, like not having to wash my clothes by hand in a big basin of water.  They have just purchased a washing machine (it is kept outside) and are very proud of it, however, they don´t have a dryer.  They have no microwave or toaster or dishwasher or … actually it sounds like my house before William moved in. 

One of the dogs, a diminutive brown brindle named Binky, tried to bite me.  If no one had been watching, I’d have bitten him back but it is only my second day here, so I didn’t think that would be cool. The other dog is blond and white and inexplicably named Blackie.   I feel like I may have entered the pages of some strange Mexican novel. 

Painted pictures with Gilary (6, pronounced Jilary…though they told me it was like Jilary Clinton), Monica (Gilary’s mother) and David (14…son of Patricia, one of William’s 4 younger sisters). They think my drawings are strange, but interesting. 

 Tomorrow I visit my cousin who runs a feminist radio station down here with a friend.

April 12, 2010
Categories: Family History . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Sarah Curtiss . Comments: Leave a comment

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