sick

i've been in bed and at the clinic for the past 11 days so not much to report. i'm sick. they're taking me to the capital to see a new dr. on friday.

Hacinedo Papel (Making Paper!!!!!)

I spent a day with the "Grupo de Mujeres" learning to make recycled paper. This local women's group is working to learn new crafts so they can create stuff for the tourists to buy. Tourist dollars are the main source of income for the Sarapiqui community, and account for over half of the country's yearly income.

We took a bus, then a taxi an hour out into a small community of homes in the center of the Chiquita Banana Plantation (agro. exports are the country's number 2 money maker) to learn the craft from a woman who learned the craft from a continuing education class. There are very few native crafts/ visual arts practiced in Costa Rica, and there is a national movement to increase buyables for tourists to pick up as they pass through.

Though we were in the middle of a sea of banana trees, we did not use banana products in the paper, we created paper shreds of used paper and piña (pineapple) leaves. I have yet to learn why.

Outdoor kitchen where we cooked the piña pulp.

Blending the recycled paper pieces.

Draining the water from the pulp.

Laying out the paper. Bad photo, but you can see the room we were working in and some of the surrounding yard.

That's the end of the sequence 'cus my camera died.

The Weekend

It´s friday and sunny (finally!) and we´re going tubing in the river!!!!!!!!
This is my favorite swimming hole right by the office! It´s also good for after work reading!

Kicking Puppies and Fistfuls of Rocks

I sleep in pretty late here. I don´t stir until about 6:30, about an hour after my host mom leaves for work. I have a quick chat with my host senora, the grandmother and unquestioned matriarch of the family, then I go for my daily jaunt into town. I say "jaunt", because, as I understand it, the word makes no reference to a particular speed, and my jaunting speed varies greatly. Some days it´s a run, some days a jog, some days I jog into the town center and run home. It all depends not, as one might imagine, on my legs or my laziness, but on the local canine security. These dogs are mean and growly and they are as befuddled by my running as their tico owners, though in place of the odd stares, the whistling, hissing and cat calling offered up by their owners, the dogs snap and chase.

This is where the fistfuls of rocks come in. I keep my hands full of rocks as I run so I can pelt any overly curious pups, and this makes me feel more secure. In fact I feel pretty confident about taking on almost any of my four-legged foes, except for the local Rottweiler on a string.

Most dogs run freely through the streets, but not this guy. He lives on then end of a very heavy chain, which is tied to a sagging barbed wire fence, which is loosely secured to nothing, as far as I can tell. And though he doesn´t seem terribly concerned by my presence, I´m concerned by his. I know that if he ever decides I am a threat, they´ll be shipping me home in bags and boxes.

Pictures of stuff I haven´t told you about yet... : )

Host family, with home-made strawberry shortcake piñata.

Volunteer office in the AM.


View FROM my office.
View OF my office!

Moist Panties (wet shorts, soaked shirts, slimy socks, mildewy tennies...)

Yes, Miss Matzner, moist. Everything. Always. While there are many unpredictables in my new life, like the flying fox which bounded through my window and sent me screaming from my bedroom last night, I am happy to report that here is at least one constant, something that I can count on no matter what: the wet. If it´s a bad day, it´s sure to be a soggy bad day, if it´s a great day, it´s gonna be a gloriously soused one.

La mojada (the wet), is the backdrop of my new life, kinda like the cold in Minnesota, though, unlike the cold in Minnesota, I think I might actually be adapting to this crazy climate. I keep my rain gear with me at all times, and when the rain comes a fallin´ down I throw it on and continue whatever I was doing.

Ok. maybe it´s not that simple. There have been a couple days when everything I own is wet, and my moldy tennis shoes are stinking up my room, and I can´t hear for all he water in my ears and I feel kinda shitty. And I start to think "AH!, really, I´ve only been wet for a month, and I have yet to actually experience the wet season" (January through March is the "less wet" season, a there is no official dry season here in the RAIN-forest).
But these moments of "ah!"are just that. moments. and they seem to pass quickly. To clear my head of the "ah!" and my nostrils of the stink all I need to do is step outside. Immediately I am surround by the many beautiful living things that thrive here in this lush green land of the wet, and they renew my hope that this will be a place where I, too, can flourish.

(That reminds me, coming soon: a species list, so I can document all the cool stuff I´ve seen! I need to keep track of this somewhere, and I don´t trust my notebooks, they´re all kinda wet : )

Phew! 1st blog entry done! I think laying the scene is a good way to start out my blabbing, er "blogging"-- so the next time you´re daydreaming at work wondering "What is Sarah doing right now?", a question that must cross your mind hourly, at the least, you can be sure, that wherever I am, whatever I am doing, however I am doing, I am somewhere out there. wet. (and, probably missing you terribly!)