A Gringuita in Costa Rica

Waiting at CIMA

2009-09-24T15:36:00.004-06:00

Out past the big hospital,
the monolith with its reflective glass facade and gun turret windows
we waited for you in the car
until I caught a glimpse of something
Across the herringbone pavers styrofoam para llavar boxes
wedged themselves against the curb
We walked to the end of the parking lot
where empty paint buckets and plastic straws nuzzled rock gabions.
But over the edge we found wild grasses
pink and soft as thistle down
they snickered in the wind
laughing at man's need to fill the world with concrete
We explored this
tiny, wild world
until you
returned.

Driving Miss Sarah~

2009-09-12T15:06:00.009-06:00

I wrote to family and friends recently about a hair-raising trip I took from the capital, San Jose, to my home in Talamanca. So I thought I'd attend to the blog and write a bit about driving in Costa Rica.

Ticos are not the worst drivers in the world (regardless of what you've heard or believe); a couple of years ago that honor went to Italy, but it's hard not to imagine, what with all the Italian immigrants here now, that Costa Rica hasn't passed on a blind curve—one of the favorite driving maneuvers here—and pulled ahead for that coveted status. In all fairness, though, I believe the statistics for Asia were left out of the equation. My guess is that many countries could vie for first place. I've heard driving in Thailand is a bit like WalMart the day after Thanksgiving.

The statistics for Costa Rica are pretty dismal though. According to a Tico Times article, "Some 340 people died in traffic accidents last year [2007], and about 530 were seriously injured, according to the Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT). Nearly 40 percent of the victims were between 20 and 35 years old."

I think one of the issues here is an attitude shared by all the Ticos I know. It is best summed up by a small story. Many years ago Alan and I heard a nightmare tale from a friend whose husband died suddenly. That was bad enough, but it soon became apparent to his widow—our friend—that she was about to loose their property because there was no will. We decided to see a lawyer and ask about the issue. After relating the problem, I asked whether we could be assured if, God forbid, something should happen to Alan that I would be protected by the current paperwork we held on our property. The lawyer smiled and said she thought so. I pressed her further asking, "If he dies will I have ownership of the land?"

To which she replied, "I think so. I don't think you have to worry. Something would have to happen." There it is in a nutshell. Costa Ricans live by this motto. They drive by this motto, and that is why they pass on blind curves: something would have to happen.

But, the Costa Rica legislature wants to do something about the spine-chilling ordeal of getting out on the road. In December of last year—yes, that would be close to ten months ago, now––the legislature proposed a whole host of fines for dangerous driving. They slammed their foot down on the break pedal and swore to punish those offenders.

Bad Drivers Have It Coming screamed the headlines in the Tico Times (/Dec 12-18 2008) and to be sure many of them are stiff. Here is a brief rundown:

I particularly like the "driving while tipsy" category. I'd bet that on any given weekend six out of ten drivers on this coastline violate this law. And that's a conservative estimate.

I would be worried about the speeding fines (and/or jail terms) but it's hard to get up to the speeds they speak about here. For instance, what is this a picture of?

Is it: (a) the moon, or (b) a stretch of road outside Puerto Viejo?

The road is so bad in our little community that it often takes us thirty minutes to pick our way over the four kilometers into Puerto Viejo. Some stretches are so bad the truck has one foot or another in a hole and resembles a lunar lander clambering up and wallowing down into holes. There are faster drivers than us, for sure, but their cars aren't on the road for long. Alan's 1987 Jeep pickup is now the oldest running vehicle in this area. No small feat.

Most speed limits in Costa Rica range from 60-90 kilometers and hour (about 35-55 miles an hour). The most likely offense listed would be 20 kilometers above the speed limit, and the cops do love to nab you on this one while you are trying to overtake a slow car. We carry a radar detector.

But I digress. The legislation. What about the legislation?

According to the Tico Times: The bulk of the new law was supposed to go into effect Sept. 23. But lawmakers have found flaws as well as a political concern. The flaws involved misnumbered paragraphs that would void some penalties. Lawmakers also consider some of the fines disproportionate, they said.

But what about the political concerns?

Again, The Tico Times: The March 1 date would have the law going into effect after the Feb. 7 presidential and legislative elections. [However] One aspect of the law is the obligatory vehicle insurance that would have a heavy financial impact on Costa Ricans when they sought to pay their road tax before the first of the year.

Oops! Don't want to piss off those voters.

Yesterday's news: the legislature voted last Thursday night to delay for six months the effective date of higher fines found in the new traffic law. (Until after the election!) That vote was the first. A second and final vote is planned for this coming Monday.

They also seek to correct misnumbered sections of the traffic law passed in December, and to eliminate an increase the cost of obligatory insurance of vehicles.

The vote last Thursday was 37 to 4. I bet next Monday's won't be much closer.

The good news here is that the laws for drunken and reckless driving have already gone into effect.

But what does all this really mean for us drivers?

When I was in San Jose a couple of weeks ago, I saw big reader-boards on the main drag in San Jose extolling the new law and the fines. I said to my taxi driver: "Boy, looks like Costa Rica has some tough new laws."

He grunted.

"Or," I said, "this is just an alert to all drivers, that the mordida for the cops has just gone up."

To this he laughed out loud, shook his head, and said: "You must have lived here a long time. You know us too well!"

Getting Teste(s)~

2009-07-12T14:23:00.007-06:00

It's been awhile since I've written anything for the blog. It's not that we've been busy with sarna, although I have equated our current difficulties with our neighbors as being worse than mange (but that's another story, another blog). Thank the insect gods, the mites are gone. It took weeks of daily laundry, weekly injections, and frequent puppy washings, but we are rid of them. Finally.

The pups are growing rapidly and are really looking more like dogs than puppies. How fast they grow! In fact, we are now looking into the whole spay/neuter thing. I have read that Basejis have special needs in that regard. Like Greyhounds, Basenjis have a high muscle to fat ratio and can be over sedated quite easily, sometimes resulting in the death of the dog. They also need their reproductive organs intact for long bone development (no, not that long bone!). So I have been doing a fair amount of research.

During my Internet searches, I ran across some interesting information. The person querying the particular dog blog I was reading, said: We are ready to neuter our young male Basenj and are looking into Neuticles. I was mesmerized. Neuticles? It couldn't be, could it?

I hit the link immediately, and, yes, it could be. It is! Testicular implants that, according to www.neuticles.com, "over 250,000 caring pet owners worldwide have selected… as a safe, practical, and inexpensive option when neutering." Clearly this had to have happened before the current economic downturn. The Web site goes on to say, "Neuticles allows your pet to retain his natural look, self esteem, and aids in the trauma associated with neutering." I don't think I'm alone here when I say there is more anthropomorphizing going on here than is good for any one person.

You should check it out. There are various models for your dog. You could, I suppose, give your miniature Schnauzer a set of cajones to offset that Little Man Syndrome he's always had. Why not give him a larger more impressive pair, say those fit for a St. Bernard or an Irish Wolfhound? It's really up to you. With any major credit card, you can purchase them online using their handy chart as a guide. The original Neuticles are "crafted from FDA medically-approved polypropylene. Not plastic but resembles plastic in firmness." Now this would make me feel better about my dog: putting polypropylene in my pup.

One of the many reasons we are having our dogs neutered, aside from the fact that we are not breeders and don't want to bring more unwanted dogs into the world, is that Chacho has a typical male (dog) attitude. He is headstrong and only stays home when he wants to stay home. I have done operant training with a clicker and threats, but we are now working with an electronic boundary to keep him safe and off the street. The Neuticles sites says:

With Neuticles®-
It's like nothing ever changed...

Nothing has changed!? This is not what we want. We want it to be very different than before. So, we will not be buying any plastic bollocks for Chacho. I don't think he will notice, frankly… but maybe he will stay out of the street.

Here are some newer photos of them

Bibi is very unusual for a Basenji. The only thing she loves more than water is mud. I call her my Bog Dawg.

And, Chacho is a very handsome little man.

S Is Not For Sarna~

2009-05-04T13:09:00.006-06:00

I was making great headway with the puppies until two weeks ago. We had a good schedule. They'd conquered Sit, Come, Off, plus a few other commands.

And they do comply, even now, about ninety percent of the time. Our walks, three times a day, keep them tired. Cross my heart, knock on wood, and fingers crossed, we have not lost any shoes to them. They haven't even stolen the little wooden door stops that Kashie used to like to chew. They are good little dogs.

Then the kitten came. Really, the kitten was our hired man's girlfriend's. Rosa found it in the street a couple of days after Kasha died.

"She'll hunt rats when she grows ups," Rosa said. She named the kitten Perlita, Little Pearl. And she was very cute.

Then José and Rosa went on his annual vacation for most of the month of April. They arranged for José's father to live in the house and take care of their two love birds, José's mangy dog, and the kitten. But, José's father works every day and there was no one at the house most of the time, so after about a week the kitten moved in with us.

My morning feeds became a juggling contest to get the cat off the kitchen counter, the puppies out of the cat's food, the puppies in their crates, and our old dog fed out in the garage.

The Basenjis adorned the kitten. It turned out Bibi was quite right––before, when she gave me the withering look–– when they were roughhousing with the kitten; they weren't doing anything bad, and the cat could easily fend for itself. They became inseparable.

I now had three puppies and the kitten. I refused to let Perlita in the house at night, so she climbed the screens and mewed at us continually while we tried to watch baseball on the TV. If I let her in, the puppies couldn't calm down and raced around the house, up over furniture, and generally caused Alan and me to consider abandoning the living room altogether for our bed room. There was no way I could keep her out of the house during the day, and no way to keep her home.

Then Chacho started to lose his hair. At first, it wasn't anything serious. I just noticed a lot of hair on the floor each night to dust mop. Then we began to see the bumps under his front legs (what do you call dog's armpits, anyway?). After a week of this we took him and Bibi to the vet. The verdict: sarna. Mange. Scabies. You can call it whatever you want, it's still horrible.

Chacho got an injection at the vet's office and the vet sent me home with another to give in two weeks. He also gave me a rinse to bathe him with twice a week. We went home.

That evening I noticed a scratch (from the kitten) on Bibi's nose had blown up into a festering sore. She hadn't lost any hair, but I poked and prodded and found the same bumps Chacho had on Bibi's chest. I gave her the injection meant for Chacho and washed her down with the rinse.

The next day Holly, our little mix, had sores all over her chest and belly. Back to the vet, this time with José's dog, Oso, and Holly. He sold me a whole vial of ivermectin and the syringes and three bottles of the rinse. I began the routine that has become my entire world for the past two weeks.

Every morning I pull out all the dog's bedding and throw it in the wash. Afterwards, I hang them out to dry. I cover the couches with spare towels so the dogs aren't lying directly on them. Then, we do the usual feeding, walking, training, and playing. In the afternoon, about three, I wash the puppies down with the medicated rinse, wash out their kennels, reline their kennels, vacuum the house and the couches. Then I rest.

The other night, while watching the news, I discovered a bump on my ankle. I scrapped it off with a razor blade and scrubbed the bejesus out of it with disinfectant. I was about to cauterize it with a lighter, when Alan pulled me off.

I told José to wash his dog every day and can only hope to hell he is doing it. The only one to escape the scourge so far is Campeón who has snarled and snapped at any puppy coming within three feet of him. I injected him anyway.

Two weeks later, we are seeing progress. The bumps are minimal on Chacho, although the little guy looks like an old broken down leather coat or suitcase. Alan calls hm Satchel. Holly's coat is looking better and I'm marking progress by how little hair there is on the floor. This is the tropics, though, and things grow here. I think, and the vet said, I may have to battle this for a month or more.

And the kitten, who I took to calling Vector, because we now think she carried the sarna from José's dog to ours in those sharp little claws of hers.? She is gone. Rosa gave her to a friend, and I hope for their sake that she did not carry the mites to their house.

It's been quite a busy time.

S, which does not stand for sarna!

Elderly Cadet~

2009-04-21T10:46:00.008-06:00

My husband is 6 feet 3 inches tall. Most Ticos are short, which is why we bought a certain American Standard toilet. It is called The Elderly Cadet and is a couple inches taller than your average toilet.

I was appalled by the name and almost refused to buy it. I feel about it the way I feel about certain candy bars I refuse to buy because of their names. I don't want to say to the store clerk, for example: "I'd like a Big Daddy, please." I just can't bring myself to do it. And these days it seems a person might get into bit of trouble, depending on the inclinations of the clerk.

In my youth I stuck to Hershey chocolate bars or Hershey with almonds or Fire Stix (those lovely hot cinnamon hard candies with plastic wrap that invariably failed to come off, allowing the purchaser to eat that too). When feeling adventurous I'd have a Mounds or an Almond Joy, (because sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't). I realize that my world was made all that much smaller by not trying the others but I maintained my dignity.

Now I find myself doing my daily business on something called The Elderly Cadet.

Let us reflect upon the meaning here for a moment, (as I have done while sitting on this throne of ours). The word cadet means, according to my American Oxford: 1) a young trainee in the armed services or police force, or 2) archaic. A younger son or daughter.

We all know what elderly means and some of us are becoming uncomfortably familiar with not only its definition but how it feels on a cellular level.

So here is my question: what exactly is an elderly cadet? Does this imply that we are getting a bit old to call ourselves cadets any longer, or–– what I think it means–– that we are cadets in the ever-growing army of ancients. Recruits, if you will. Not exactly old yet, but still not wanting to bend the knees quite that far to reach the seat.

However, cadet also stems from early 17th Century French and specifically from Gascon dialect capdet, a diminutive based on Latin caput–– ‘head.’ The notion “little head” or “inferior head” gave rise to that of [younger, junior.]

So maybe this is simply humor from a toilet designer at American Standard, and we actually have a toilet called The Elderly Head. If so, the person who named it probably used to have a job naming candy bars. The ones I refused to buy!

There are a lot of them

Some Thoughts on My Father-in-law @ CPR

2009-04-15T09:04:00.002-06:00

The Camroc Press Review
We are besotted with microwriting—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, whatever. See the guidelines and submit something that makes us feel real emotions.

A short piece a wrote about my father-in-law is up at The Camroc Press Review. I wrote the micro essay several of years ago and posted it on my blog shortly after he died in 2007. Rewriting it for publication, I decided to leave the piece in present tense because those tough old codgers should be remembered as if still living.

I am pleased to appear at CPR. There are many, many talented writers there. Take a tour, and if you don't find my piece through the above link try this one and read both my pieces in the archives.

ABIFMAD~

2009-04-05T13:56:00.015-06:00

My mother introduced me to Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day a month or so ago, and it has now become affectionately known in our family as ABIFMAD. I gather the authors, Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg, refer to it as AB-in-5. It really doesn't matter what anyone calls it, the important thing is that this bread is fantastic.

Fantastic and simple.

I love bread. I love good bread and was paying a whopping $8 a loaf when Alan and I lived in the States. And that was several years ago. God only knows what it's going for now. Since moving here I have made bread and bagels but could never accomplish what I used to buy in the artisan bakeries up north. But it was either make it or do without.

Costa Rica is a wonderful country for many things, but bread isn't one of them. In fact, their bread stinks. My mother once described it as feeling and tasting like "blown up soda crackers." To be fair, the last few years have shown a bit of improvement but only because of all the Italian expats here. There are places to find a decent baguette, but the vast majority of Costa Rican bread remains the infamous Bimbo-- the Latin version of Wonder Bread--or the blown-up-soda-cracker bread my mother remembers so fondly.

Because of her, and the authors of ABIFMAD, I am now making wonderful artisan bread. It is chewy and fragrant, and the crust, as my father likes to say, fights back. It wasn't an instantaneous success story, but that is only because I cannot locate (easily) unbleached flour, which absorbs water at a different rate than bleached flour, and I had to adjust a bit because of the humidity here. But my third batch came out perfectly, and I might add that none of my efforts have been throw-aways. By perfect I mean that the crumb was light and shot with air holes, the crust crackly and crunchy, and the flavor yeasty and full-bodied. BREAD!

The recipe is so easy it's ridiculous and everyone should be baking their own bread from now on. Essentially, the discoverer of this method, Jeff Hertzberg, a doctor, is lazy--by his own admission-- and he was looking for a way to bake bread without all the fuss. He mixed all the ingredients together threw it in a container and let it rise for two hours and stuck it in the fridge. When he wanted to bake a loaf he simply pulled off a wad of dough, let it rise, and then baked it on a pizza stone in a very hot oven, Voila!

One batch makes four loaves and will sit in the fridge for up to two weeks, When you want bread pull off a wad and bake it. I'm sure he had failures before this incredible discovery, but we are all now the beneficiaries of his efforts.

I have improvised a bit. I have no pizza stone, so I use a cast iron skillet. My dough tends to spread rather that rise in this humid climate so I put it on parchment paper and let it rise inside a proper sized pot; now it goes up instead of out. Then I transfer it to the skillet when it's time to bake.

Today for lunch we had a roasted tomato slice and mozzarella cheese with pesto drizzled over it, a tossed salad with romaine lettuce and arugula, and a small fillet of salmon…

And bread!

Puppy Obsession~

2009-03-28T10:21:00.050-06:00

I'm completely obsessed with our new puppies. Although, I have to say, I feel a bit like a schoolteacher who has one scholarship student and two moneyed prep students in my charge. They've been with us about a month now, and I'm slowly beginning to understand Basenji language, which is quite different from other dogs I've had.

Today, for instance, the female, Bibi, gave me a privileged and withering look that said as plain as if it were written in any book, "We're not doing anything bad, besides José said it was okay to play with his kitten." Well, I know José did say it was okay, but I think three puppies and one small kitten is no match, even with the claws. When the little Basenji male, Chacho, pulled at the kitten's tail while Bibi darted at the head and the mix, Hale, moved around to the side, I told them, "Leave it!"

When Bibi refused, I picked her up and took her home. She spent most of the rest of the morning ignoring my commands to "come" or "sit." We had a short leash induced Sit-Stay-Come session. Then I ignored her.

A little before noon I was talking to Alan out in his shop when I felt a wet nose on my calf. Bibi, wiggling her tail and wanting up. I think the thing about these dogs–– as opposed to terriers, for instance–– is that they are strongly bonded to their owners, so ignoring them is the worst of punishments.

My friend, Gary, sent me a letter telling of someone he knew who left two Basenjis in the car while he did some business at a radio station. Gary didn't say how long the man was in there, but it was obviously too long for the dogs. They tore out the man's entire back seat.

Yes, Basenjis don't like being left alone and they don't like being bored. Think four-year-old children. Out Of Bounds I believe is how Dr. Spock described the age.

They also have a reputation of being snarky when awakened suddenly. The advice is to wake them with words first before picking them up out of a sound sleep. I told Alan I'm a bit that way myself to which he readily agreed.

***

My days start at five when the sky is still steel gray and dew is heavy in the potrero. I get dressed, load my pockets with liver cubes, and head out the door. There I am met by three wiggling, jumping, happy dogs wanting to go for a walk. If I pull on my rubber boots, spray up for mosquitoes, and head out of our front yard fast enough, they do their business on the walk and not on the porch.

The four of us walk down the yard and past the mammoth fig tree that borders the potrero. It stands 150 feet tall, its upper branches filled with bromeliads the size of Volkswagens and its gargantuan root system flaring away from the trunk like the gray fortress walls of a castle. The Great black hawk lives up there and some mornings I hear its high keening call as we pass by.

Then we cross one of the many drainage ditches and walk beside it down to the bottom of our property line. For several mornings this week I've noticed tracks in the mud at the bottom of the ditch and wondered what would make a trail like that. There is a flat track about three inches wide flanked by tiny footprints not an inch apart. The track is straight and purposeful. One morning the trail stopped abruptly and went back from where it had come. No iguana or Basilisk lizard could make a trail like that. I think to myself: snake, from the dragging center line, but their movements are more tortuous, and they don't have feet. So what could it be?

This morning, as we crossed back over the ditch at the far western edge of the property, there was a small puddle under the board-bridge where the water has yet to evaporate from the last rains. The bottom wriggled a life of black pollywogs, struggling to survive in their restricted world. In the middle of all this sat a small box turtle, feasting on the pollywogs. I was afraid the dogs would discover him and moved on, but realized the riddle of the tracks in the ditch had been solved.

Half way up the potrero, the first faint rays of light fingered their way through the ragged jungle to the east and I heard the howlers calling to each other. The dogs stopped at their own pace to relieve themselves.Then they all had noses to the ground intent on the smells of things that passed in the night.

Hale (like a good scholarship student) is the best at following commands and is often the retriever for the other two. None of them would come this morning, though. Passing under a madera negra tree, where a whole troop of howler monkeys gamboled in the branches above, the little dogs feasted on monkey scat while the howlers grunk grunked over their heads. I watched the monkeys slip from limb to limb as gold rays stretched out across the meadow. Then I moved up the way.

My rubber boots clunked steadily against my shins as I walked along the swampy bottomland toward the eastern border of the potrero. The little dogs eventually tired of the scat and raced through the damp grass to my feet, sat up expectantly, asking for a bit of liver. On our way back, I passed the monkey flower tree which is in bloom right now and smelling of Lily of the Valley. I picked some flowers and as we passed Kasha's grave I tossed them there for her.

Then it was back to the house for dried kibble and a good clean up while I made breakfast.

They will nap off and on for a couple of hours and then it will be another walk, round about ten. And another in the late afternoon: Cat Crazy Time, as my mother calls it. Then they wheel out in front of me and race down the potrero, bulldozing dried leaves out of the way.

The Basenjis intentionally trip themselves, doing somersaults in the grass. They graze like Angus cows and chase each other until Hale's tongue hangs to the ground and her sides heave. And the Basenjis? They barely get a pant up.

So, it's walking, playing, and a lot of chewing! And, like many scholarship children, Miss Hale doesn't feel that what she is given is nearly as nice as what the privileged kids get (even when she has an identical chew toy herself).

Miss Hale in her favorite mode...with something in her mouth.

A Puddle of Puppies~

2009-03-13T11:37:00.011-06:00

One thing I knew for certain after our dog, Kashá, died: We needed a puppy. Not a puppy to replace our dog--because there is no replacing her--but a puppy to help fill the gaping hole left behind, and to staunch the tears. A puppy to remember that life goes on after loss and that an open heart can love again.

At first we considered a Boxer because we need a watch dog, and Kashá was the best. When she was on duty no one came into our yard without being cleared by one of us. This area of Costa Rica… well, actually, all of Costa Rica is quite dangerous. Once, while sitting in a small Italian restaurant in San José, I watched a woman come out of her place of work, pop open the trunk of her car and inspect the contents before closing it again and driving off. As I sipped my glass of wine I realized she was probably looking for a stow-away, someone she might inadvertently take inside her barred and gated compound where he would then rob her and her family, or worse. The papers and local news are full of these sorts of stories. Here in Talamanca, we do not have walls around our house, or even bars on our windows. We have dogs. They are our security system and are well worth the cost of dog food and veterinary care. And we love them.

We looked in the paper for Boxers and found a couple of ads, but when the owners sent pictures the dogs were too stocky for our taste, resembling more bulldog than the leggy Boxers we have seen. We also read that they tend to be aggressive toward other dogs of the same sex. That ruled out a male, as we have two older males on the place already. They had a female, but by then I'd found an ad for Basenjis.

I have always wanted a Basenji. They are odd ducks of the dog world (excuse the mixed metaphor), more like cats than dogs, really. Descended from pariah dogs of Africa, they have been man's companions since ancient times. Originally from the Congo, they were used by Pygmy tribesmen as hunting partners, flushing out small game into waiting nets. They also appear in murals from the time of the Pharaohs. Some argue the god Anubis is actually a Basenji. In any event, Basenjis are an old breed.

We went to see them on a Saturday morning and I was completely smitten. The breeders, the only breeders in Costa Rica, had four pups--three males and one female-- and both parents for us to see. The owner let the mother out of her pen so she could take the little guys for an exercise run. Resembling an inflated balloon that's been released, she ran in wild circles with the four pups hard on her heels. By the time our visit was over we'd picked out two. But Basenjis don't bark, so what kind of watch dog would this make?. They make plenty of other noises, I've found out since, but barking isn't one of them.

The next day, Sunday, we went to the animal adoption fair held every week at a central park in San José. The organization, started by an incredible American woman, Karin Anne Hoad, is called Asociación Animales de Asis and rescues street dogs of Costa Rica. They do not put down any of the animals they rescue and have developed a relationship with the veterinary school to get all the animals spayed or neutered. Volunteers help socialize the dogs and they have found homes for dogs with cancer, dogs with only three legs, and, most incredibly, a dog that had most of the top of his head chopped off with a machete. The dog was actually at the park with his new owners the day we were there. His head is a bit scarred, but he is a very happy, functional dog.

There were quite a few older dogs there, and I was attracted to a female Shar Pei mix. She was tough looking with broad scars across her chest. I asked about her and was told she was found wandering the streets in a badass section of San José. I watched her for awhile; she seemed friendly and eager with each person who came by her cage. I was about to go over and visit her when one of the volunteers set down a crate of puppies next to me. There were two pups, one black with a long tail and another, tan in color, leggy, and droopy ears. Her face looked very Lab-like and I asked if I could look at her. I picked her up, and that's the one we arranged to take home the next day. I was going to name her for the park where we got her: Sabana, and call her Saba for short, but then remembered that there is a feminine hygiene napkin by that name. So... she became Hale (pronounced Holly)

They tried to get me to take the Shar Pei, but, feeling a bit like the little old man and the little old woman in Wanda Gag's old children's book Millions of Cats, I decided that three puppies was enough. I was also concerned that the Shar Pei might be TOO friendly and we needed a watch dog.

Monday morning we picked up the street dog and one of the Basenjis. The little female we named Bibi, African for Lady.
I'd had a sleepless night the night before, wondering what I had got us into. Maybe the Basenjis were a mistake. Maybe they were too hard to handle. I'd read about them online the night before. Fox like in appearance, Basenjis grow to be about 16-20 inches tall and are quite independent thinkers. Smart and with "the attention span of a gnat," as one Web site put it, they can be a handful in the wrong household. Anyone looking for a dog that immediately follows commands ought not even look at a Basenji. They tend to be somewhat like terriers, I think: out to please themselves. The best match, according to everything I read, is someone who has had a lot of dogs, is not Alpha-challenged, and is ready to find a fun way for the dog to learn. The best technique with them, I read, is to ignore them. They thrive on affection and cannot stand being given the cold shoulder.

By Monday morning I figured I could handle one. Later, if they weren't all sold, and I liked the dog, I reasoned, I'd get the other. Alan and I drove home with two puppies and all their gear.

Since then we acquired the other Basenji, the little male we call Chacho, and I am busy from about five in the morning until seven at night.

A tired Basenji is a good Basenji, is one of the cardinal pieces of advice I've gotten.

I'm giving it my best shot!

Nine-Night for Dogs~

2009-03-03T13:42:00.010-06:00

The beginning is always today.
Mary Wollstonecraft~

Last Friday was our dog Kasha's Nine-Night, a day recognized among the blacks here on this Caribbean coastline. The tradition originated in Jamaica and is still practiced today when someone dies. Three days after the death and again nine nights after the death, friends and family stay up through the night to help the dead pass along on their journey into the next world.

For Kasha's Nine-Night I placed money, a little rice, and some dog food in small dishes on my Buddhist shrine. The dishes were surrounded with figures representing the Chinese birth year of her entire family. Our hired man, José, cut fresh flowers each day, replenishing the old ones on the shrine, and incense floated across my living room throughout the week.

Saturday, around three in the morning, I awoke feeling her presence, as though she were moving off and on her way. She is missed in this world.

We now have puppies to blunt the heavy and hollow feeling of loss. Partly we need a replacement watchdog in this very dangerous countryside. Kashita was our primary warning shot. Partly we need companionship, and she was certainly that. We are adjusting...slowly to the new members of the family.

I will blog about puppies and house training and all of that soon.

Crack! and Thump~

2009-03-01T10:30:00.004-06:00

Crack! and Thump; With a Combat Infantry Officer in World War II

This book is a tour de force. Barry Basden captures Charlie Scheffel's life in battle so vividly you will think you are there. It is funny, frank, and sometimes horrific. I was unable to put the book down...

To read the rest of my review please follow this link.

Ode to a Little Red Dog~

2009-02-26T15:20:00.001-06:00

A jug fills drop by drop. Buddha~

Maybe it's because you were an urchin, the only one to survive the litter. Or, maybe it's because you were left on our property— your mother off looking for food— and I took you away from her before you were ready. Maybe if you hadn't been born in the year of the rabbit…

All these maybes cannot erase the fact that you are gone: dead and buried February 18, 2009; poisoned by rat bait left too close for you to resist. Whether anything would have changed the course of your history we will never know.

I remember when we found you on that rainy afternoon ten plus years ago. You crawled out from under our table saw covered in sawdust from the wood that eventually gave you your name: Kashá. Alan thought you were a wild animal, which of course you were. We dried you off, bundled you up, and took you home, thus taking responsibility for your welfare and binding our hearts forever to yours.

You watched us build this house in Punta Uva. You came faithfully each day as we struggled to get it right. When it was done you found a spot on the veranda where you could watch both sides of the house to keep guard over us. When we left to go north to work for six month stretches you were disappointed but never complained. You lived with our hired man, never forgetting who we were when we returned. Your welcoming licks and wiggling whines were enough to make me never want to leave you. Ever. You were an outside dog at first, but were so polite and such good company you became an inside dog. Spoiled, some would say.

But what is it about you that always made me have safety dreams about you? Why did I always see tragedy when I thought about transplanting you from this place to another? Now I will never have to worry, but instead I am bereft.

I have never known this house without you and now it echoes with longing. Everywhere I look, a memory flits just outside my grasp. The pain sometimes so deep I am afraid I will not come up for air. Today I took flowers to your grave out in the potreo. Out where the squirrels will run over your head teasing you to get up and stalk them once again. Yesterday, Alan and I planted a Kashá sapling that will grow tall and strong off your body. We burned incense to help you through bardo, and I will come often and spend time with you as you make the passage.

I could use a little help myself and know if you were here you would sense my sadness and try to cheer me. The Buddha says: "Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without." And sometimes I can see you in my mind's eye and know you are well and don't need my tears, so it is really only for myself that I morn. Left behind to suffer.

I have always strived to attain the Buddhist path of non-attachment, but your death has made it clear that I know no more about non-attachemnt than I know about speaking the Tibetan language. It is all intellectual, this detachment business. The pain and suffering I feel is surely what the Buddha talked about when he said: "He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes."

I am drowning, little Kashita, hunkered down in the rain. Waiting it out.

One day I will feel less pain. I will feel less empty and will not brim over with tears when I mention you. I will not, like today, realize that the banana cake we ate for dessert— a favorite of yours— was made before you died, and that I'd offered you some crumbs a little over a week ago. There will be many things like this, I know.

And perhaps we will see each other in another life. You will be going around again, I think. You came a long way in this lifetime, learning to be braver than you'd like, learning not to feel abandoned. But food was a nemesis for you, like alcohol to the addict.

I will be coming around again too, it's clear to me now. I have not seen enlightenment. Have not learned non-attachment.

Right now I ache.

Rats! It's My Domain~

2009-02-15T10:50:00.005-06:00

It's been quite a week.

I decided— apparently, somewhat arrogantly —that I should have my own domain name. I own this blog, but thought how nice it would be for people to be able to access me by myname.com rather than myname.blogspot.com. I found out I could buy my very own domain name for $10 a year. Pretty cheap.

Why not?

So I purchased the domain name scmorgan.com. (There is a long story as to why I can’t have sarahmorgan.com that involves an Englishwoman who writes bodice rippers.) Once the domain was purchased, I went about changing my scmorgan.blogspot address over to scmorgan.com. I got a message "another blog is hosted at this address." Well, unless I'm totally nuts, that’s me!

I tried and tried without success Others helped and ran into the same issue. Then I began pawing around inside my new domain and found the Host Records. This area looked really serious so I closed the door. I read blogs about the difficulty, which is apparently not a rare occurrence. www.nitecruzr.net has an entire blog dedicated to Blogger and Google domain issues. There I found long discussions on the dreaded ERROR 404 message as well as the one I was dealing with.

I asked power posters for help and got some assistance there. With instruction, I went back into the bowels of the beast–– The Host Records–– found my blogspot address and, holding my breath, deleted it. Then, according to instructions, waited two days for the servers of the world to recognize me, and tried again to have blogspot take my new address. Now it says: SERVER CANNOT BE FOUND.

So, I’m making headway of a sort I guess. But I have spent days on end twiddling with this irritating little task. Not writing my blog.

Not writing, period.

Reviewing Quoz

2009-02-14T14:24:00.001-06:00

Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey by William Least Heat-Moon

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
In the coastal community where I live, a sign at the entrance of a small hotel reads: A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arrival. It sums up the difference between travelers and tourists, and perhaps quantifies the spirit with which one ought to pick up... Roads To Quoz: An American Mosey.

This is not a book for the impatient....

Please go to The Internet Review of books for the complete review.
www.internetreviewofbooks.com will get you to the Web site.

To go directly to this review, try: http://tinyurl.com/aodfom

View all my reviews.

Under the Weather~

2009-02-08T15:47:00.027-06:00

Costa Rica was hit with a cold front and strong winds last week, leaving 200,000 people without light in five provinces. Winds up to 85 km per hour were recorded, knocking down trees and tearing out utilities across the country. The photo above, courtesy of our newspaper La Nacion, is close to Matina and our usual road from the Atlantic coast to the capital, San José. Needless to say, we have been at home and staying put.

Here in Punta Uva the storm raged for days on end. The weather people didn’t seem to be able to pronosticar further than two days, always promising it would abate by then. It did not. It was actually worse than the rains we had in December. It rained so hard that our potrero filled with water and the whole place looked like a lake. I spent most days mopping up water off our wooden veranda and trying to keep things from blowing away. The rest of the time we huddled under blankets, wearing turtlenecks, long pants, and socks. I know this sounds lightweight to you people in the northern climes, but it was cold!

Yesterday was the first day it was clear enough to go to the beach. Alan took the two dogs for their usual afternoon romp and said trash from the ocean had been thrown fifty meters inland, sand was hurled over the little road that hugs the coastline in front of our house, and everyone had plastic covering their porches. A disaster zone.

Today the meteorological people say the cold front has left and there will be clearing over the next few days. That means the mosquito population with bloom like thistle down, but at least it will be warm.

In all that rain our little pond and bog garden acted as they were designed to: the overflow from the pond siphoned off into the bog garden and it, in turn, ran off when it got full. Alan found some lovely water plants in one of our drainage ditches and transplanted them in the pond. One is a lily of sorts that blooms only at night.

The other is this pretty water hyacinth that surprised us this morning with a bloom or two. The dragonfly on the grasses has been there all day. We thought he might have frozen to death in the cold. I hope not! We will need him to do his work when the mosquitoes hatch.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-26T20:37:00.006-06:00

The Lunar New Year, which begins today, ushers in the Year of the Ox. Those born under this sign are said to be dependable, calm, modest and stable.

The Year of the Ox falls in the years of 1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997 and 2009.

I was born in 1949 and am an Ox. An earth Ox.

We are said to be bright, peace-loving, often easy-going and trusting. But, on the other hand, we can also be stubborn, methodical, and fiercely competitive, with...uh, oh.... fierce tempers. My husband will vouch for that!

Oxen are also said to be natural born mentors and life is filled with examples of people who have gone on to great success because of them.

Barack Obama is also an Ox. A metal Ox.

According to one source I read: "They respond like poets to the beauties of nature and of solitude." And I have to admit, I do love my solitude.

The source also said: "Oxen are unique, they are the flower that bursts through the crack of cement."

I like that.

Ox.

Check out your own chinese zodiacal sign.

That's How I feel Too, Sasha!

2009-01-22T15:24:00.002-06:00

Earthquake!~

2009-01-11T17:16:00.004-06:00

There I was on the third floor of a medical building in San José. A half hour early for my yearly exam, I sat patiently in my OB/ GYN's waiting room. I had just passed my husband, Alan, a magazine and was about to fan through the pages of one I picked out... when all hell broke out.

At first I wasn't sure what was going on. The windows behind me started to rattle, and then the coffee pot on the end table next to me began to shake. I heard people gasping. I don't know whether it's the years of ER work––something––but it takes a near apocalyptic event to get my adrenaline flowing. I watched as my doctor staggered out of her office and, hanging on the door frame, called out to her husband in an adjoining office. The secretary froze at her desk, her mouth forming a permanent Oh! expression. By now the walls were lashing back and forth and I could hear glass breaking inside the exam room. People screamed out in the hall. A loud rumble filled my ears. How I envision the end of the world.

"Manuel... Manuel." My doc kept calling.

Any sense of fear I had was momentarily displaced by a sense of disbelief. I have been in earthquakes before but always out in the country and always in manageable situations, and by manageable I mean I could move to a place where I felt safer. I sat there in a room where these things don't happen wearing on my face, I'm sure, the same surprised little Oh! look the secretary wore on hers. Then my Lizard Brain finally awoke, and I felt the jolt of fight or flight hormones course through my system leaving a taste of aluminum in my mouth.

I realized we were in the middle of a strong earthquake, and the overwhelming desire to flee took over. I imagined the building going down; Alan and I trapped under piles of concrete. Dead would be preferable to trapped as far as I'm concerned, my claustrophobia legend in the family. I have always said that if captured by "the enemy" all they would have to do to obtain information would be to place me in a small space and wait about 30 seconds. I'd even make things up for them.

Dr. Badilla's husband emerged from his office saying, "Everyone please remain calm and stay seated." As though there were much chance of standing with the building dancing the merengue all around us. Forty seconds can feel like a lifetime and that is about the duration of the first tremor to hit San José in last Thursday's 6.1 magnitude earthquake.

As soon as the shaking stopped, I said to Alan, "Let's get the hell out of here."

We squeezed out of the now crowded waiting room and bolted for the stairs. All nurses know where they are located in any given hospital, and we hit the deserted stair well, banging open the metal door. We were down and out of the building in seconds. Outside people milled around and most were on their cell phones trying to reach family. I tried to call our hired man, José, but realized with all the people attempting to make contact there was no way of getting through.

Then, deciding all was clear, we reentered the building and sat down in the lobby with a whole slew of people to watch the TV in amazement. The epicenter was about 20 miles north-northwest of San José and is an area Alan and I know well. We have often taken the scenic drive from Sarapiqui to San José, wrapping up around Volcan Poas in mountainous terrain filled with waterfalls and steep canyons, then down into the city. That road no longer exists after last Thursday. The footage local channel 7 showed was of complete devastation. I'll include this link so you can see. If you don't understand Spanish just fast forward to the film clips. The one toward the end is quite amazing.

While we sat watching, we could feel the aftershocks, replicas, some strong enough to rock the building again. They continued through the rest of the day and on into the night–– upwards of 2000, I've heard. Most were too small to be felt, although I counted about 15-20 of them in various offices around San José that afternoon.

Reports began to come in through the day. Initially, there was one fatality noted, a young child who was selling cookies to tourists as they passed. A slide buried her. Then other reports began to come in: 200 tourists stranded at a resort hotel at Varra Blanca, the road destroyed on either side. Villages cut off from rescue workers and hundreds upon hundreds of people rendered homeless within minutes.

Back in our hotel in the late afternoon we heard the death toll had climbed to three. Today, according to CNN it stands at 34. The Red Cross continues to work to locate all those listed as missing.

We are fine and at home again as of yesterday. Our hired man said they never felt a thing here in Punta Uva.

Pipilachas in the Garden~

2009-01-04T09:52:00.007-06:00

Pipilachas (or dragonflies) have discovered the little pond Alan and I installed over the Christmas holiday. They tracked it down it the minute the hole was lined with plastic and we filled it with water. Our first (visible) inhabitants.

We discovered, quite by accident, that a large red pipilacha likes to stand guard over the pond. He established his outpost on a piece of string Alan used to tie up some transplanted lemon grass at the pond's edge. We thought nothing of it, but when Alan removed the string, the dragonfly had no comfortable landing strip anymore. He used the lemon grass for a bit but it swung about in the breeze and wasn't satisfactory. He finally settled on the tips of a very large agave plant. It was further away from the pond, though, so he had to fly out on reconnaissance flights more often.

This morning, as we sat on the porch having our morning tea, Alan said, "There! See, he's landing on it."

Earlier, Alan had placed a bit of wire for him. It looks quite Japanese in its simplicity and form, and the pipilacha seems taken with it and now uses it regularly.

So this morning, with camera in hand, I crept as stealthily as I could to catch a photo while he rested on his perch.

No chance of that.

Dragonflies have been around for millions of years. According to The British Dragonfly Society, they predate dinosaurs by 150 million years. So they are survivalists in the most Darwinian of ways. They have adapted themselves to their environment and, as a result, still live and reproduce much as they did millions of years ago. One of these skills is their eyesight.

Again, according to the British Dragonfly Society, "Dragonflies are visual hunters and have impressive vision being able to see in color as well as ultraviolet light and polarized light, which enables them to see reflections of light on water. Their large compound eyes are made up of as many as 30,000 facets or lenses."

That's 29,999 more than you or I have. Consequently, I was no match when it came to outmaneuvering him. I didn't get any closer than three feet and he was off and away, wheeling up over my head. I sat quietly on a rock by the pond and could hear his papery wings buzzing overhead. I remained as motionless as I could, and soon he became calmer, lighting briefly on his wire outlook. On one of his forays out I turned on the camera, focused it, and waited, sure the battery would go dead-- or the thing would shut off automatically. But it didn't and, ultimately, I was able to get these pictures of him.

I don't know how long he will be around. I read that the average life expectancy of adult dragonflies depends on the part of the world they live in. In temperate climates, according to a Beginners Guide to Dragonflies, the largest portion of the dragonfly's lifetime, which may amount to several years, is spent in the larval phase while the adult phase is only one or two months. In species common to the tropics or subtropics, however, larval development may be reduced to a few months and the adult phase as long as a full year. So that's nice.And the best part is, both larvae and adults devour mosquitoes. Maybe he will be with us for awhile. Not like those butterflies of ours. They are gone before you can say... PIPILACHA!.

Goldilocks' Rice and Beans~

2009-01-01T11:31:00.009-06:00

It's New Year's Day and I'm making rice and beans. Actually, it's pronounced more like: rice'n beans. Rice and peas, my neighbors call them. In some parts of the world people eat them for good luck. Here, they are a main stay in the diet.

Along this Caribbean coast they are made with coconut milk and served with jerk chicken, fish, or pork chops and a shredded cabbage salad. If you want this same meal with white rice and red beans on the side, you ask for a casado. Literally translated it means married. To get real rice and beans you ask for rice'n beans with chicken (or whatever). You can order it in most restaurants, but there are outstanding rice and pea cooks and some that are not so great.

In all the time I've lived here, I've never gotten the recipe right. Partly that's because the women here have no written recipe as we know them: one cup of this and two cups of that. They tend to cook the way their mothers did, pouring in some of this and some of that and they know how it should look to make it right. Every time I've watched someone make rice and beans something has come up that took me out of the kitchen just as they added the liquid, and they DON'T WANT THAT LID LIFTED. NO SIR. Consequently, I had to fend for myself.

For a long time, I thought the two were cooked separately and then mixed together when done. When I found out that wasn't the case I asked about the liquid. How do you balance the liquid already in the beans with what is required to cook the raw rice?

"It's just a knuckle above the rice. That's all," Miss Olga once explained as though I were daft for asking. I got various other answers along these lines and began to over-think the problem. Was she talking about the "Tip Segment?" - The phalanx with the fingernail, or the "Middle Segment?" - The middle phalanx. The "Top Knuckle?" - The upper joint, closest to the fingernail. "Middle Knuckle?" - The middle joint. You get the idea.

I have made them dry, the rice not fully cooked for lack of liquid. I have made them soggy from too much. I'm looking for that Goldilocks recipe this year and spent last week searching the Internet. Most of the recipes referred to using a can of red kidney beans. No cans here at the end of the road but there are dried beans enough to ballast a freighter.

I finally found, what I think is my answer... it's cooking as we speak, and perhaps––just perhaps––they will warrant a picture when they are done.

Alan went out into the potrero this morning and fetched a coconut, husked it, drained off the liquid in pan, and broke it into pieces. I took the meat and liquid and, using my blender, shredded the meat. No grater for this girl; my knuckles have enough scars from abuse over the years and I don't need more. The locals have these enormous homemade galvanized ones they call "scratchers." That is exactly what you end up doing to yourself with one of those, too.

Then I took red beans I soaked overnight and cooked them with a panameño pepper (scotch bonnet) thyme, a little garlic, and some onion. I can't cook without those last two ingredients. A friend of my husband's claims he can't eat food that includes garlic or onion. I could never be married to a man like that, that's for sure.

Once the beans were tender I fried up a bit of onion, garlic, a little cilantro, and red pepper in a large pot. Added the beans (2 cups) and stirred in the white rice (1 cup). Once those were nicely mixed, I added the coconut milk and enough water to cover the mixture by three quarters of an inch. I know. This sounds exactly like Miss Olga's recipe, but at least it was specific and not a "knuckle." It turns out they are roughly the same measurement.

Here are the results:

I have to say the rice and peas are quite good. I still don't feel I've conquered the light and fluffy rice that Miss Olga used to make, but then she will be 95-years-old this February and has a lot of lead time on me. I suppose if I were to make them every day, or even once a week, as she did, I might get there in a few years. I don't know if she still dabbles in cooking as she's moved to Limon to live with her son, Alfonso. And it might simply be that I remember her cooking and loved her cooking hand, as they call it here.

My husband says they are delicious, but then what else is he supposed to say? It's like asking him whether a dress makes me look fat. He's not touching that one, either!

And here is a bit of eye-candy for dessert. This buttefly and some congo bees were working a flower out in the yard by the new pond yesterday.

Here It Comes!~

2008-12-21T16:04:00.011-06:00

Here Comes the Sun~

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say it's all right.
Little darling it's been a long cold lonely winter,
Little darling it feels like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say it's all right.
Little darling the smiles returning to their faces,
Little darling it seems like it's years since it's been here,
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say it's all right.
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes.
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes.
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes.
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes.
Little darling I feel that ice is slowly melting,
Little darling it seems like years since it's been clear,
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
It's all right, it's all right. The Beatles~

For us here in Costa Rica, it's not such a big thing, but for all my friends in those northerly latitudes... this song's for you. That's you in Northumbria, England, on the cold North Sea shore; you in Ontario, Canada, where it is below freezing and snowing still I'm sure; you in McMinnville, Oregon, where the snow is six... no, make that ten inches deep; you in Juneau, Alaska, where you probably haven't seen the sun rise above the horizon for over a month now; you in North Easton, Massachusetts, and all the other "yous" who are in the land of ice and snow and dark.

Have faith, the sun will return.

Alan and I celebrated the Solstice with a roast chicken, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and fresh broccoli. We ate out on the front porch, which is our normal dining area most days, but today it was knock-your-socks-off gorgeous.We finished installing a small pond in our front yard and today we watched as pipilachas (dragonflies) in wonderful colors of red, orange, and blue swooped over it to investigate. A pair of Kiskadees took a bath in the jug we are using as a water fountain, skidding across the water like ducks. Then they stood on the rim, shook themselves dry, turned around, and scooted across again. Other birds saw the commotion and joined in, using the rocks around the pool as launching pads. We also have a resident frog in the pond, now. There isn't a lot of plant material for it to hide in yet; we have to go on a water plant search soon, but it seems to have decided to stake out its territory before any others.

Alan found the first of the blooms on the irises he planted last fall. They should be spectacular when they are all in bloom... soon.

Greed in a Time of Giving~

2008-12-17T11:00:00.002-06:00

I read about Bernie Madoff and his ponzi scheme the other day, all the people he took down while raking in the millions… no, make that billions of dollars. They say it will go down as the biggest fraud case in history. But Bernie has nothing on us here in Costa Rica, or maybe this is where he learned his trade… or where he'll end up. This is, and has always been, the place to accomplish this kind of investment formula.

I suppose it all started with Robert Vesco, back in the 1970s, or that's as far as my collective knowledge goes. He bilked U.S. investors out of millions of dollars, putting it into dummy corporations all over the globe. After an investigation by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and it became clear that charges against him were imminent, Vesco took the corporate jet and fled to Costa Rica— along with about $200 million.

He spent the next fifteen years fighting extradition. Even got a law named after him: The Vesco Law. He donated $2.1 million to Sociedad Agricola Industrial San Cristobal, S.A., a company founded by then President José Figueres. Figueres then passed a law to guarantee that Vesco would not be extradited to the U.S.. Eventually his luck ran out, though; Costa Rica repealed the law and signed a treaty with the United States.

He managed to dodge the bullet, flying to Havana where he lived out his life. Cuba is a tough place to end up and I have read that he was eventually sentenced to 13 years in prison for "fraud and illicit economic activity" and "acts prejudicial to the economic plans and contracts of the state." I believe he died a couple of years ago. Some say in jail, others say he never served a day.

I gather that Bernie Madoff is out on a $10 million bond and can't travel outside of New York City area, but Vesco managed to escape the long arm of the U.S. Law. Kenny Lay died––died, or committed suicide––before he ever served any time for the whole Enron debacle that left thousands penniless. Then there are The Brothers.

These guys are my favorites. The Villalobos Brothers, our Costa Rican brand of swindler. I was once courted by one of their "investors" when I first arrived here, wet behind the ears, back in the early 1990s. Their scheme had operated for over 20 years. It was safe, they promised me.

"You and Alan should really think about investing with them," said Joe, an aging Canadian fireplug who liked to pass himself off as a judge, even though he was really just a bailiff in a small municipal court in Ontario. "All you have to invest is $10,000.00, and you get three percent interest every month, more if you reinvest the interest. I can introduce you to the president of the company. He's a really nice guy, owns a helicopter business."

"Yeah, well thirty-six percent interest a year sounds dirty to me," I told my husband later that night. "And you know what they say when it sounds too good to be true?" We never did invest in the "fund" but many, many others we know did.

It was run by Enrique Luis Villalobos and his brother, Osvaldo, out of a small office in San Pedro, a suburb of the capital, San José. There was religion involved apparently. Enrique claimed to be a minister and had a church he was "supporting." He was charming and there are still investors today who claim he was framed by the government; Costa Rica is to blame for the loss of their money. Enrique Villalobos is now an International fugitive with millions of other people's money.

In true Ponzi fashion The Brother's Fund fed off newcomers, paying off previous investors until Canada finally blew their cover in an investigation over drugs and money laundering in 2001. In May of that year the Canadian Mounted Police busted six people in Canada and confiscated 1200 pounds of cocaine. At the same time the Costa Rican police raided The Brother's offices in San Pedro. Computers and files were seized. The Villalobos? One of them went to jail, but Enrique—the brain— is on the loose somewhere.

Alan and I talked about it and agree it would be the perfect set up for money laundering. Think about it. If you had, say, $500,000.00 of dirty money and couldn't use it for legal purposes, what better way than to put it in an investment fund that paid out at thirty-six percent a year. It would only take three years to get your $500,000.00 back as "legal" interest. You wouldn't be able to use the dirty money, so you just leave it there and move on with the clean interest, knowing there are more drug sales to be made and more principle to be invested. The other investors— the chumps full of larceny, as my dad likes to call them— got stuck holding the bag.

There were many people who had their entire retirement invested in that fund. I imagine there are people in that same situation right now with the Bernie Madoff mess. Granted Madoff was only offering eleven percent interest, but that still seems high for normal mutual fund growth. He found a lot of investors, though.

Here's the rub: greed outweighs caution ninety-nine percent of the time, or, as PT Barnum is supposed to have put it: there's a sucker born every minute.

We've known this in Latin America for years, but America is catching up fast in the corruption business. Me? I'm not investing a dime in anything until there are regulations in place that make investing an option again.

One-stop Christmas Shopping~

2008-12-13T11:41:00.012-06:00

One stop Christmas shopping arrived this year in the form of a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) email. I opened my mail this morning and lo and behold there was the perfect gift: a certificate in someone's name for a reforestation effort of Costa Rica's dwindling natural habitat.

I immediately donated for my entire family so they might participate from a distance in a worthy project. The money will go to NRDC's partner group, Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE, pronounced CAT-EE-YA) and will go to reforest the area just to the north of us in the Turrialba region of Costa Rica.

Alan and once went to their headquarters looking for tropical hardwood saplings to plant on our property. We were very impressed with the place and their efforts to increase awareness of ecological effects of traditional slash and burn agriculture. Their stated mission is "to contribute to rural poverty reduction by promoting competitive and sustainable agriculture and natural resource management, through higher education, research and technical cooperation." They do this by working with the following target groups:

*Small and medium-sized low-resource farmers including those living in extreme poverty, and those with minimum means to diversify and become competitive

*Rural communities and local organizations

*Business-oriented farmers and agroindustrial entrepreneurs generating rural employment

One of the things they have done in this regard is to develop a mold resistant variety of cacao and have taught the people of this area how to manage their crops without disturbing the indigenous plants of the region.

In the late 1970s a mildew blight, Moniliasis, hit the crops of this region virtually wiping out the income of the locals. Our black neighbors have always claimed the banana companies brought the mold blight, saying they did it to steal their land. My guess it was a hundred plus years of mono-cropping and the mildew took advantage. Whatever the case, the cacao has never been as strong or as plentiful as before.

CATIE now trains people and implements farming practices with small-scale producers in order to increase the profitability and competitiveness of their cacao plantations without losing the environmental functions of these diversified systems. A worthy cause for sure and my Christmas present to my family.

If you would like to donate to this project please use this link.The monkeys will love you forever!

If you'd like to give to a cause closer to home, follow this link to the Natural Resources Defense Council's Web site.

Have a Merry Christmas and a greener New Year!

From Foulness to Serenity~

2008-12-06T13:31:00.016-06:00

Dawn crept under the window shutters yesterday morning, and as I woke something told me this day would be different from the past few weeks. I had closed them to keep the cold and damp of the weeks before out. Our bed linen has been clammy from the accumulated moisture in the air and it's been a bitter affair climbing into bed at night. I thought perhaps closing them would help. It did––a bit––but the dryer worked far better.

There was no sign of sun yesterday but something created a flirting promise of change from foul to fair. What was it I sensed about the day that was different? Certainly not the forecast; I rarely rely on that. Was it less humid than the preceding days and my body subconsciously relayed the message to my monkey brain? Or does the body know when the barometric pressure changes? I know some people with arthritis claim they can predict rain from the pain in their joints as the low pressure descends. One man has dedicated a blog to the whole notion, complete with graphs of barometric pressure readings and his subjective pain measured on a scale of 0-10. The National Institutes of Health has done studies trying to figure it out. The results are inconclusive, but still, I think, there is something there.

It was still overcast yesterday morning, although the cloud cover had lifted, and the dark jade-green days seemed to have given way to a lighter shade of pale. My mood became more elastic, or as H.D. Thoreau put it: "The change from foulness to serenity… instantaneous." As birds out in the yard returned with the industriousness of the starving I felt a return of a greener world, shedding the one of mushrooms, moss, and mold we have been living with since I got home.

Our dog Kashá must have felt it too. She took a tour out into the potrero to investigate what smells had changed during the dank days of the past weeks. She trotted with her tail high, stopped to sniff, and vigorously scratched the ground throwing grass and water out behind her (letting everyone know who was boss of this outfit). Then she sprinted to my side, all full of Dog Joy. When she is excited like this her eyes are shiny and so clear I can see directly into her soul. There is no malice to be found in that space, only deep and abiding love.

Slowly during the day the clouds parted and sun dared show herself. Briefly at first… as though afraid all of us might rebuke her for her time away. (Doing what?, is what I want to know.) None of us dared say anything bad, for fear she'd leave again, and over time she became more confident. By afternoon she had shouldered most of the clouds out of her way.

I needed to go into Puerto Viejo for groceries and all along the road people were out of their houses walking in shorts and T-shirts, visiting with neighbors; scantily clad tourists rode rental bikes in large flocks, slipstreaming around puddles and holes in the road; dogs investigated here and there rediscovering and establishing territories; and laundry was strung everywhere: on lines and on bushes and barbed-wire fences. All the houses were flung wide open and furniture soaked from the flooding had been hauled outdoors where it steamed like big Chinese hum-bows in the sun.

The weather is absolutely gorgeous today; not a cloud in the sky. I'm sure it will rain again in the next couple of days. The atmosphere can't cope with all this moisture rising up without sending some of it back down on us again.

But we are, at least for now, into some very nice weather.

It's a Disaster!

2008-12-02T15:03:00.012-06:00

Last week I wrote about the rain here in Limón province. Well, the statistics are in: November saw an increase in levels from the usual 372 mm (22 inches) for the month to over 780 (47 inches. That's well over a yard in a month!)–– and those figures were before the end of November. The rain has left people homeless and still it continues. Today it is raining hard and the electricity is gone… again.

The post office in Puerto Viejo was closed all last week and I finally asked the pharmacist across the way when the post mistress was coming back.

"Her house washed away, but I think she is coming back Monday," he said.

I was in town yesterday and indeed she was back at the job. I asked about her house while she checked my mailbox for a package.

"All my belongings are wet and most of them are ruined from the mud," she told me, "but my house is still there."

She is not alone.

According to our English language newspaper, The Tico Times, pending a complete report The National Emergency Commission (CNE) more than 4500 homes and dozens of roads and bridges were destroyed or severely damaged due to high waters and mudslides. The banana companies are declaring 21 million dollars in losses due to flooding, and no telling how much the locals businesses are losing because of the rains. At least one person has died and approximately 5800 people have requested refuge in 84 shelters in the region. Many families were trapped without access to relief efforts.

By Wednesday of last week we were declared a disaster area and President Arias made available 3.8 million dollars for the effort. Emergency operations have worked steadily ever since to reach the indigenous communities in the mountainous terrain of Mt Chirripó that were left isolated and without food or drinking water.

Helicopters from the U.S. Southern Command have been flying over our heads daily taking the needed supplies to people up in the mountains above us as well as into western Panama to our south, where, according to the United Nations, at least eight people have died. The photo I have included is of the town of Sixaola on the Costa Rica/ Panama border and is about ten miles from us.

We had a rainy season like this a couple of years ago. At the end of a three month period it had rained a total of 1375 mm (a cool 7 feet) of rain. By the end of that stint all of our houses were moldy and most women were going slightly crazy from being house-bound, but at least we had houses. I have gathered together clothes and food and dropped it off at a relief checkpoint. As President Arias said, "We may not be able to stop the rain, but we can all help the victims."

Let's hope for drier weather in December.