First Half: Out and About.
5:45 A.M.: Scout wakes us up and explains how the picture alarm clock isn't working properly--due, of course, to the loss of electricity at some point in the night.
6:15 A.M.: Suzy goes on a run around the neighborhood, so to speak (--it is actually, down the steep steep driveway, then a mile straight up a hill, then a half a mile down and around a bend, and then up a wall of a street until either your legs refuse to cooperate, or time requires that you turn around, or, in Suzy's case, until a muy curious squirrel attacks you, and then back home again). Joe makes breakfast burritos and slices avocados for the troops.
7:15 A.M.: Suzy returns (no squirrel attack, but two sightings that kept her pace up) and Joe goes on the same run. Suzy eats and gets kids ready for an outing to the pool with our friends, Roger, Lehdi, and Junior. Joe, on his return, running back up our ridiculously steep driveway, must leap over a giant tree that has fallen over and is now blocking any intention to leave or visit the property. I tell Suzy, and then tell Oscar (the head of the farm and our gracious, wonderful neighbor) about the fallen tree. His family invites me in during their breakfast then sends me home with 4 corn-on-the-cobs which they had just prepared (--such generosity is typical, actually).
8:20 A.M.: We call Lehdi and explain how we are unable to leave the premises. Some minutes later, she calls back and tells us that they will drive both their cars so they can pick us up instead. Suzy takes the kids to wait at and inspect the fallen tree. I finish my breakfast, including one corn-on-the-cob, grab the three car seats from the car, and go down to meet everyone at the bottom of the driveway. By the time I get down there, Oscar and Juan (another friend who lives and works on the farm) have already cut the tree into pieces and cleared the way. But because Roger and Lehdi are already there, they figure that we can just jump in with them anyway, which makes me happy because I don't want to carry the car seats back up the driveway (--did I mention already that it is really really steep?).
9:30 A.M.: We arrive at a university outdoor swimming pool. Water is freezing, and cloud-cover, plus a bit of a breeze, makes it a bit of a tricky outing. But we persevere, swim for an hour or so, dry and dress ourselves, and then play soccer on a covered basketball court.
11:30 A.M.: Roger, Lehdi and Junior then take us to the Multiplaza (a medium sized mall). I see a security guard fall over in the parking lot and have a seizure. I go to help turn him to his side. It was a strong seizure, shakes, drool, scary sounds like choking. (Interesting, I am all gringo, of course, a clear outsider, but I know seizures and everyone else let me help. Either a man seizing on the ground of a parking lot becomes the world's man, and any other man in the world can come to his assistance, or they thought I was Kory Foa or a doctor. Whatever it was, I am surprised by my access and sheepish in my effort--silly social restrictions inside my own head). We eat at Pizza Hut, and then, as it turns out, it's Dia de los Ninos at the mall (Children's day--one of the many unique holidays of Costa Rica), and there are a bunch of activities for them to do, including a giant inflated pirate ship, upon which each of ours nearly breaks a leg or arm or neck and enthusiastically laughs. Balloon animals, face paintings, clowns on stilts, and a big inflated soccer goal, where some guy shoots soccer balls out of a canon at some poor six-year-old in giant goalie gloves--the kid tries to defend himself as much as the goal his parents threw him in front of. Our three watch for a while and then we're out of there.
2:30 P.M.: Roger and Lehdi take us an alternate route home, which shrinks our world a bit more--apparently another bigger mall, and the biggest Price Smart (like Cosco) in Central America are both less than five minutes from our home. We had, for a month now, gotten lost again and again trying to go to the Price Smart in San Pedro, because that was the only one we thought existed--an oversight, I guess, of our school director. (We don't go to Price Smart much, and don't want to, so it's not as funny as it seems, but still...seriously???) We shop with Roger's family: they buy dog food and a few other things; I buy organic Acai juice. Suzy and I are exhausted, the kids too, when we return home. We say goodbye immediately to our friends--and a huge thank you--mainly for their great friendship, a carry-over from the Mike, Andrea and Bec year down here--mucha buena gente (great people).
Halftime (lasts a fraction of a second).
Second Half: Home.
3:30 P.M.: Scout sees Sarita, our neighbor Oscar's youngest daughter (and Scout's best buddy in Costa Rica, even though she is ten), and starts playing with her. The kids hang out with Sarita, Manuel (another neighbor) and Ariana (a family friend of Sara's), all playing and eating the entire bag of grapes I bought yesterday. Ulga, our beloved neighbor, Oscar's wife and Sarita's mother, comes over and gives me another cooking lesson: homemade potato fries.
4:00 P.M.: Mariola, the 13-year-old daughter of Don Francisco (the owner of the property), and her firends Camila and Sofia all come down the upper part of the driveway on their bikes. These three girls are students of mine (8th graders), and they speak English fluently (write it pretty well too), and they decided that the Costa Rica vs. Panama game on TV was boring, despite the fact that Mariola and Camila were decked out in their Costa Rican jerseys. We all play soccer in our front yard instead, Sarita in goal, Manuel rocketing right foot bombs off the heads of Ariana and Charlie, and the 8th graders pretty much trying to defend against me. Suzy is talking on our internet phone to her good friend Molly back in the states.
5:00 P.M.: Francisco (the aforementioned owner, and our landlord) comes down to see what the girls are doing and to check on his greenhouse (full of orchids from all over the world). Scout is running back and forth between our friends who have, by now, splintered into two different play groups: Mariola and her friends, playing with Kiefer and Charlie; and Sarita with the rest, who are practicing dance steps while listening to songs newly downloaded on Sarita's phone. Francisco visits us specifically (he loves our children and is so natural with them), helps the kids cut sweet lemons they retrieve from a tree in our front yard, borrows a grocery bag for some produce from his greenhouse, and gives us some tomatoes before promising to tell us tomorrow about booking a whale-watching boat tour off the pacific coast for both his family and ours next weekend. Sarita's group has mingled again with the older girls, and Ariana and the triplets keep taking turns doing tricks and taking diggers on the little hill that is our front yard, as I applaud and shout out praise for either their moves or their toughness. Scout, one time, leaping from the stairs onto the grassy hill, bouncing twice and turning, until falling backwards and whip-lashing her head against the ground. She then calls out in the silence of our collective concern: "That's my favorite dance move." Oh, man, did we laugh. Francisco leaves, Sofia helps us remove a baby gecko from our kitchen, and then Suzy and I start making Gallo Pinto for dinner.
6:00 P.M.: Everyone has gone to their respective homes. Our three are sitting with us on our back porch, eating dinner (--the porch lights are the only ones working in the house at this time--the electricity went out again--this time while we were making dinner--cooking on a gas stove by flashlight. This also is typical--in fact, I am thinking of telling the kids to ignore the picture clock and just start setting their schedule by power outages).
7:25 P.M.: Kids have finished their bed time routine and are already zonked. Suzy asks me if I have a lot of planning to do tonight. I say, "Of course, but I want to record the happenings of this day first." It occurred to me that what was so extraordinary about this day was how it almost passed without my recognizing it as extraordinary. It almost seemed typical somehow...*
9:10 P.M.: I press the "publish" button on the blog and go to grab my planner.
*A not-so-brief note after further reflection: But life is extraordinary, all by itself--the way it is, anywhere, any time, for anyone. It is not that Suzy and I are in a different country or situation that makes this noteworthy--this day--this Domingo en una finca de Costa Rica. It is more that, traveling and seeing the world, seeing and knowing a different angle than we have ever known, we reteach and renew our spirits to take up and match our new means. But the reteaching is what matters, not the means and any means should suffice, the oldest and most secure as soon as some drastic shift of country and clime, of station or technical ability. How to reteach our spirits, habitually, daily, without having to wait for an impetus--becoming the impetus in and of ourselves--that should be our objective--that is what there is to learn here. Else we learn only to flee from circumstance, calling ours the thrill of escape instead of discovery, taking, as Thoreau rightfully notes , ruins to ruins merely. For life is noteworthy, the whole thing miraculous, each breath worthy of our highest contemplation, even when we fail to see it as such--or especially then. Life waits upon us regardless, and then we season it how we will.
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