Skin

Skin

Who would have thought that skin color determines so much of life… I guess every adult learns the lessons of life but these are not things we think of much as kids.  Having an African American daughter has made me very aware of the issues for better and worse regarding skin color that I overlooked being white in a white bubble.  Costa Rica has been an interesting thing to this regard… I don’t know if it is a good thing or not but people of all ages here fall over themselves to tell Audrey how beautiful she is.  I used to attempt to keep them from touching her, her braids, her skin… until it was impossible, it is a cultural thing.  From young boys of 7 to old men of 90 to young teen girls to the aged grandmothers and all in between Audrey is someone they notice, pour over, smile and wave at, take pictures of and merely adore.  We talk about it, she doesn’t like it all too much, though she is used to the stardom.  I lay awake and think about what does that look like from her eyes, what does that mean, if anything, to her… I am grateful for the definite positive tone, it certainly would be horrible were the same attention paid in a negative way.  It causes me to wonder why I am a white man with US citizenship, good education and functioning body in this world that hold all of those things in high regard, why did I win the ovarian lottery. What would I be like if I were constantly ridiculed for how I looked, how I walked or did not.  I certainly can say I hold animosity every time I check out at a store and know I have been overcharge because I am a gringo, which is more common than not.  There is a small red button in the lower right of the cash register that adds 18 to 80% to every transaction made by a gringo  (I have not seen this button but there is most certainly evidence of its existence, at least in their minds)  I think often of the millions of African Americans and other races that have, for hundreds of years, seen far more injustice for the color of their skin than what I have experienced and learned to be silent about it, compliant, even polite and loving… would I? I fear not.  What would i be like were I a discriminated minority?  I do feel pretty bad as some locals give the stare of hollow hate to me, whether it be from a perception of what they have been taught or if it is just hating the seemingly "rich american" or what, it does bother me.  Most ticos are very nice, some are exemplary and have become my best friends, though just as many are dark towards the guy in the red ball-cap and worn out Keens.  There is a disturbing trend where all advertisements are a fair skinned model, even if they are tico.  I have yet to see ANY tico advertisement featuring darker skinned models, though I am sure one exists.  Funny dichotomy in a country falling over themselves to adore my daughter.  I think I lack some character strength, I want to be filled with love even when hated, I hope that this experience grows my tolerance gland.  

Wet

We brought a double stroller to Costa Rica, it was our personal luggage cart in the airports and hotels, it was handy in flat beach towns for pushing around our "rice and beans" kids, Audrey and Autumn, and we actually met another couple who did the same but reported that it rusted into a pile of trash and they had to dispose of it. I thought they exaggerated a bit, or maybe they left it out in the rain or brought a really cheap Chinese knock off... nope.  They lived in the cloud forest. To give you an idea of a cloud forest you need to marry a few things in your mind, first, the weather of Seattle (as of this writing it has been raining 22 of the last 23 hours and it is not yet rainy season ) as in lot of rain and very nice temperatures, about 70 usually; mix that with the humidity you get when you cook rice in an enclosed room and everything is covered in a thin layer of moisture, then add clouds.  We are actually in clouds about 1/4 of the time. a grey ghost-like mist that rolls and envelopes the jungle like a slithering snake, bringing with it moisture that is unprecedented.  The jungle canopy shows the full foliage then retreats again into curtains of ghostly smoke.  From this dream-like trance enters real life...  Without a dryer there is no such thing as dry clothes here.  We are thankful to have access to one, however it is shared between over a dozen other people it still is a functioning dryer.  We had to move the double stroller into the house and off of the covered deck because mold was starting to overtake it.  I am sure one year out there and it would be a pile of plastic parts and moldy fabric with only hints of the metal remaining.  When I get dressed in the morning it is like putting on clothes that were removed from the dryer too early, only they weren't, they just spent the night hung up.  Mold seems not to act like I have seen it before, it is not in the corners, the dark areas, etc, here in the could forest I keep thinking that one of the kids put dirt on a wall, when I go to wipe it off, a small brown patch in the center of a wall, I realize it is a lump of mold. Very odd..  We had friends whom returned to the states for a couple of months, stored their Land-rover by the airport, returned to drive home after the long journey only to find the ENTIRE interior of the car fuzzy with mold.  My cellphone is only warranted until you expose it to humidity, meaning there is no warranty.  Even my Ipad was covered in a layer of fog on the glass the other day, making the picture on the cover look like the view out my window...  living up here though has been awesome.  I love the cloud forest; sleeping to the sound of rain, the temperature, the rapidly changing views that nature provides nearly in a continual movement, the 1000 hues of green from black forest to brilliant neon that we have mistaken for spray-paint on more than one occasion.   At night the little girls go to bed saying "good night jungle, good night clouds, good night.......  The journey continues.

Spoiled

Inspection
Every year all legal vehicles get inspected in Costa Rica, this is called Retive, this is also called "one full day per year".  In a first world country it would never fly to need to take time off from work for a car inspection, but here is blends into the backdrop of the rotunda of holidays, this however is your own holiday with your car.  The special day depends upon your plate number and determines what month you get to do Retive. If you miss it your vehicle is illegal and the only legal way to get it to inspection then is to hire a tow truck, I am not kidding.  There are no options for a 'one day pass' so you can drive it there and since the stations are few and far between driving it with risk of merciless impound brings a whole new angle to the puzzle.  For me it was a mere hour and fifty minutes to the nearest Retive station, one direction. You must make an appointment in advance, the tell you when to come and get 
In line.  During my commute to Retive my headlight went out, which i realized once in the parking lot and 10 min until my appointment, I chose to keep the appointment betting that I could explain it and pass and fix it later since otherwise my vehicle was safer than 95%of what I saw on the road here.  No dice.  They are very thorough here, checking far more things and to a greater extent than i have ever seen done in the states... A funny dichotomy considering the pathetic condition of most of the cars driving around me not to mention the litany of Moros with no lights driving at night. I wonder how the pass, seriously, because there are many traffic stops around that demand proper vehicle papers and impound the poor schmucks that leave it home. Retive was indeed an 8 hour process including barely passing the second time as the inspector became fixated on figuring out if my headlights were aimed too high in the air (no joke here, he seriously tried not to pass me for this while i am surrounded by vehicles held together with bailing twine and sheetmetal) in the end I did pass, got my sticker and green lights me for 12 more months of traffic stops.

Inspection

Inspection
Every year all legal vehicles get inspected in Costa Rica, this is called Retive, this is also called "one full day per year".  In a first world country it would never fly to need to take time off from work for a car inspection, but here is blends into the backdrop of the rotunda of holidays, this however is your own holiday with your car.  The special day depends upon your plate number and determines what month you get to do Retive. If you miss it your vehicle is illegal and the only legal way to get it to inspection then is to hire a tow truck, I am not kidding.  There are no options for a 'one day pass' so you can drive it there and since the stations are few and far between driving it with risk of merciless impound brings a whole new angle to the puzzle.  For me it was a mere hour and fifty minutes to the nearest Retive station, one direction. You must make an appointment in advance, the tell you when to come and get 
In line.  During my commute to Retive my headlight went out, which i realized once in the parking lot and 10 min until my appointment, I chose to keep the appointment betting that I could explain it and pass and fix it later since otherwise my vehicle was safer than 95%of what I saw on the road here.  No dice.  They are very thorough here, checking far more things and to a greater extent than i have ever seen done in the states... A funny dichotomy considering the pathetic condition of most of the cars driving around me not to mention the litany of Moros with no lights driving at night. I wonder how the pass, seriously, because there are many traffic stops around that demand proper vehicle papers and impound the poor schmucks that leave it home. Retive was indeed an 8 hour process including barely passing the second time as the inspector became fixated on figuring out if my headlights were aimed too high in the air (no joke here, he seriously tried not to pass me for this while i am surrounded by vehicles held together with bailing twine and sheetmetal) in the end I did pass, got my sticker and green lights me for 12 more months of traffic stops.

5 people

5 people 
The Costa Rican culture deserves a bit of space here as there are a few fascinating things we have seen.  i will start with some background.  Picture if you will a world where nothing ever really changes as far as the weather, you can live out your life under a thatched hut if you wish as the temperature, on a whole, is 70 to 90 degrees F all year.  The land provides so many sources of food that you can actually subsist in the rural area by eating from the trees, plants, etc. If you really needed to.  Winter never comes. Drought never happens and basically no need to plan ahead exists.  Layer on top of that a sense that there are few 
Mortal enemies to the country as a whole, a Switzerland of the Americas... Giving rise to not a whole to lot need for outsmarting enemies, creatively scheming but instead giving rise to a culture with no military, a nearly nonfunctional police force and nonexistent coastguard.  adding to this nonchalance is then topped with a GDP of tourism and coffee.  Now let's get into daily life...   
Costa Ricans will avoid conflict like the plague, we have witnessed first hand and heard many tales of workers leaving a job over minor confrontation.  The genesis of confrontation is not far away as the culture also dictates that if you ask a question 90% of the time they will give you an answer.  It doesn't matter if they actually know the answer or not, they want to be seen as knowing things and do not want to disappoint you so they just make up answers that may be true. When you are needing directions this is particularly interesting as we have the 5 person rule now, it takes asking 5 people to get to your destination.  They will even tell you firmly with exactness exactly where to go as if it is their own house when truly, they have no idea at all.  Time is also relative, truly the word "tomorrow" ( manana) translates to tomorrow, but means some day after today.  If the promised deed is not done within 2 days you must begin a type of personal coaching,  

Cloud forest

Cloud forest

After several months in the beach town of Uvita my eyes got all moist as the truck pulled out onto the costal highway to make the move to the cloud forest.  I wiped those sweat drops and drove south for half an hour.  It was 9 pm, I had been packing most afternoon and this was the second trip, I was soaked from a mix of sweat and rain water as it had been raining for the last 6 hours lightly.  Audrey had been my sidekick on this second trip and had fallen asleep upon contact with her car-seat after an afternoon of helping dad and playing with the scattered remains that get left behind when moving.  I said a prayer of gratitude for Anna, our cleaner, in whom I have complete confidence... She also cared at times for the kiddos and we will truly miss her. I turned off the costal highway  after 30 minutes and carefully and started the climb... 7km of dirt road lay ahead that nestle us up and away from traffic, theft, mosquitoes, heat and the grocery store. The clouds had rolled in as the Isuzu scratched and clawed slowly up the steep inclined road which by US standards would never be allowed to be built, clearly  near or above 30 degrees inclined in places.  We will spend the next 6 weeks here, at OSA Mountain Village at about 2000 ft elevation and a little slice of heaven. As I unpacked the rain increased, the last five loads were cut short at two and left for morning as the clouds opened up a deluge... A downpour that continued until about 2am at which point it rained even harder for another hour.  The hustle and bustle of beach town life that never really stops was replaced by rain, the hum of crickets, insects, chirping of tree frogs, and a melodious silence.  We have been here a week now and that silence has been both welcomed and not.  The cell phones occasionally work here, not in the house, but 100 or 200m up the hill, the Internet is spotty on the corner of the deck but does exist, thank goodness.  The temperature is chilly at night, the days are temperate with the clouds rolling in for afternoons and looking like a day at the bay in San Francisco.  We are clearly deeper in the jungle, the foliage in impenetrable unless cleared, and the sounds of the jungle are enveloping.  We watched Earth, the DVD about animals and earth climates and saw some views that could have been shot from our deck or bedroom windows... The adventure continues.

No electricity

No electricity
Last week an arrangement was made for the school that our girls attend to arrange for a meeting with members of one of the indigenous tribes that live in the south here.  The tribe, the guyami, are the original inhabitants of this area and have a distinct Indian look. The tribe members wanted to come to the school and visit so lthey met at the school and brought some handmade wares and dressed up for the occasion.  This sounds like a typical meeting of a few cultures and was, but what was most striking was that some members of this tribe had never before left the mountain, an altaplano area where they live, a few hour walk from the end of the dirt road that is the closest access to the area.  These group members had never seen electricity, they had never seen a cell phone and have huge culture shock... Funny since they were in culture shock coming to Uvita, I was in culture shock coming to Uvita as well only for the opposite reason.   
We are visiting Escazu, a suburb of San Jose basically, that has a striking range from the most affluent to the poorest slum-like areas we have seen here.  Poor squatters and farmers are one thing, usually happy and living in a home-made shanty drinking coconuts and eating of the land, these metro pockets of slum are tucked in a few hundred meters off of the main access to palatial homes and are were very reminiscent in several ways to me of Kibera, a massive slum I visited in Kenya.  There is something different about the faces of the adults in these areas that i hope to be able to capture some day on film.  I wish i had time and connections allowing me to interview the inhabitants as i did in Kenya, as it was a fascinating window into the lives of the poorest of the poor and only fills me with more vigor to spend the bulk of the rest of my life in a venture such as micro finance.  Amy and I share a passion therein.
A few quick stats that I must share about all of this since we are on the topic... About 1/3 of the world population lies on $2 per day or less, something that those whom have never been able to leave US soil have no point of reference for. The Kibiera slum houses about 1.1 to 1.2million people in an area roughly 2-3 square miles, no typo there. There is on toilet for every 40,000 residents, extremely few have electricity and there is no indoor plumbing and no water provided.  The average dwelling is 10x10 and houses 6 to 15 persons and rent is $32 per month.