Charity Chili and All the Fixin's

The 5th Annual Atenas Charity Chili Cook-off is almost upon us and it's all hands in the kitchen. Scheduled for Sunday, February 12, the event is expected to attract over 1000 people this year and raise much more than the $3500 they donated last year to the children's orphanage in Atenas, Hogar de Vida. Ordinarily, being the chili chef that I am, I would be joining in the cooking fray, hoping to win recognition for my mini-world-famous chili con carne. Instead I've been recruited to serve on our Tico friend Marcial's team, along with neighbor Jackie, another fine cook, to help promote Marcial's excellent Italian sausage. (Check out our new Facebook page, which I helped Marcial set up.) Needless to say, our recipe relies heavily on the wonderful flavors of that meat.

In preparation for the big day, we have had several "trial run" dinners lately where Jackie or I have prepared our favorite recipe using the sausage, with Marcial overseeing the process. He actually has virtually no experience cooking chili so he's relying heavily Jackie's and my expertise. As a result we have enjoyed some very tasty chili lately, along with the pleasure of the company of Marcial and Sadie and Jackie and Neil and occasionally our other local friend Marc.

Neil "rolls" a good one

At the dinner party last week here at our house, after the chili was consumed Layne turned on the Wii game console and set up a bowling tournament for the gang. It's amazing how realistic that system is. Other than the weight of the ball, it "feels" like bowling and requires all the same movements and adjustments as in the real game. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, including Sadie who took her turn bowling with intense seriousness and in spite of her inexperience, compiled a respectable score. But the real contest was between Neil and Marcial, who as you can see, both got their game on. Although Layne and I remember the fun that night, we don't remember the winner!

Marcial bowls as Sadie looks on

On Saturday Layne and I joined our friends Leonard, Sally and Kevin for a bus trip into San Jose for a meeting of the Costa Rica Democrats Abroad group, which is affiliated with the overseas branch of the U.S. Democratic Party, Democrats Abroad. It seems there are enough United States expats living in various countries to comprise the population of a whole other state, some four to six million of us around the world with an estimated seventy thousand here in Costa Rica. I'm happy to report that Costa Rica's Dems Abroad group is one of the fastest growing clubs, according to the Democrats Abroad website. We met a number of new acquaintances who share our passion for progressive democratic values and learned some ways we may be of help to the group in social media marketing, voter registration and get-out-the-vote this year.

After the meeting, Layne and I walked from the Holiday Inn where the meeting was held a few blocks over to the National Theater, crossing through a lively city life scene on the plaza next to it. We wandered into an Apple store nearby where Layne bought a cable so we can watch movies through the computer, displayed on the television screen. Then we headed for the National Theater. A friend had recently given us an historical five thousand colones note, featuring beautiful artwork that is displayed full-size in the National Theater. I wanted a second copy so I could have the front and back framed together as an addition to our small Costa Rican artwork collection. We had been told there were street vendors selling them around the theater. And sure enough as we emerged from inside the theater, there was a young man with a handful of the notes, selling them for only 500 colones each, about a dollar.

With purchases in hand, we headed for Coca Cola, the large bus station from whence our Atenas bus departs. After asking directions from sales clerks in a shoe store, we found we were headed more or less the right direction. So we soldiered on and gradually the street scene became more like that around the bus staion, a bit rough and tumble with discount clothing stores all along the way. At a street vendor's stall, I asked again, Donde es Coca Cola, señor? One block down and one block over and there we were, just in time for the 2 p.m. bus. Another excellent adventure in our ongoing exploration of the land of Pura Vida! 

High Times in the High Season

Here we are, time for another Spanish/English dinner party with Marcial and Sadie tomorrow night, which means that almost two weeks have past since my last entry here. If I thought that “retirement” meant inactivity, boy, was I wrong! We scratch our heads at times wondering what keeps us so busy. In some ways, our schedule fills up with the luxuries of retirement: time to take long walks, time to correspond with friends, time for elaborate dinner preparations and dinner parties, and for Layne, that long-delayed novel is taking shape. Indeed, the man has over 150,000 words written and, he says, only a couple more chapters to go. Then we’ll have to learn what all is involved in self-publishing on the Internet.

The Aquacate Tree

But the dry season (or “high” season, referring to hotel rates) is definitely here. Suddenly the landscape has changed from lush greens everywhere to patches of dry, golden brown grasses on the hillsides. It’s somewhat reminiscent of those “golden hills” of California, but that would be in June, not in January! Our aquacate (avocado) tree is absolutely weighted down with blossoms and hundreds of tiny avocados. We can hardly wait till they ripen and we can enjoy guacamole every day.

Tiny avocados soon to be ripe!

Another plant in blossom right now is the orchid, my favorite. Waiting for the bus a few days ago, I noticed that the big cluster of orchid plants attached to the mango tree had suddenly burst into bloom. And what odd blooms they were! Orchids are known for the enormous diversity of flowers they produce and this was certainly one I had never seen before: curly, delicate purple petals around a pink-throated central core on a long spike coming out of the leaves. Quite beautiful and so unusual.

A most unusual Orchid

Orchids on the Mango tree

With the change of seasons, we are learning more about agricultural patterns here. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, we noticed some workers in the cornfield below us, chopping down the dry stalks with, of course, machetes. Just two guys to cut down the entire field! But labor is cheaper here than machinery and requires less maintenance, so to speak, so such heavy work is mostly man-powered.

Another example of labor-intensive work we recently encountered is making charcoal. On a trip back from PriceSmart with our friend Jeanette, we stopped off at a finca (farm) along the road to Santa Eulalia that Marcial had told us about where we could buy organic honey. While there we questioned the mustachioed gentleman in charge about the other products that he had in his large garden and learned that he also grows organic tomatoes, chili dulce (much like a green pepper), hydroponic lettuce and green onions. Part of the mixture in his hydroponic bins, we noticed, was bits of charcoal and since Layne and I had just purchased a small barbeque grill, we asked if he sold charcoal as well. Yes, he said, and proceeded to guide us further back in the garden to where two men were piling logs about 3-4 feet long into a deep gulley they had apparently dug. 

Organic gardener with Chili Dulce

It seems that they will somehow set the wood on fire and then bury it in dirt so that it smolders without burning, turning the wood into charcoal. Amazing! Whether or not this charcoal would work for our grill, we are yet to determine but it was a fascinating how-to lesson for us Gringos. 

Rough Road to a New Year's Bash

Dennis & Gerardo

We’ve had a great start to the New Year, beginning with a festive New Year’s Eve party at the home of our friends, Dennis & Gerardo of Pure Life Development real estate. In the two years we’ve been here, they have been our go-to guys in finding great places to live in Atenas. They are building an “eco-development” up the mountain from our first apartment in Alto del Monte in an mountaintop area called Estanquillos and they are now living in one of the first homes they’ve built there, a magnificent hilltop villa with an indoor pool, out-of-this-world furnishings and fantastic panoramic views of the Central Valley and the surrounding mountains.

When Gerardo invited us to bring in the New Year with them, we were delighted. We so enjoy their sense of humor, zest for life and big smiles that we knew we’d have a great time. And indeed we did, AFTER we managed to get there!

In English, the directions to their house sounded easy enough: “Take the road to Estanquillos. Go up till you come to a pulperia on the left.  At the next curve, turn right and go down the hill...Cross the bridge and then up the hill.  Our entryway is on the left hand side (bright Orange)!”  But the Spanish directions for the taxi driver were something else again: “200 metros norte del recibador de cafe, Calle Iris....Entrada naranja....” Unfortunately, they didn’t mean much to our cab driver, who was unfamiliar with Estanquillos. So after some hits and misses, we found the  bridge and started uphill as instructed, only to encounter a road that embodied every dire description of Costa Rican streets you ever read. Rocks, dirt, gullies, washouts, big humps. And remember, it was after dark. Oh, and of course, there were no streetlights.

As we slowly eased up the steep slope, our taxi high-centered with a wham. “Oh no, señor!” I said to our driver. “Este es no correcto!” This can’t be right! He understood and began slowly backing down the rough roadway. I had already tried Dennis’ cell phone but there was no signal this far out. In desperation, we returned to the pulperia, a small grocery, to ask for directions.

Dennis & his mom, left; new friends Peggy & Rick, right

With the driver and Layne waiting in the car, I tried calling on the store’s landline but Dennis’ cell phone still didn’t respond. Then I described Dennis and Gerardo to the proprietor. Yes, she told me, pointing up the mountain to a lighted house at the top. That’s where those two gentlemen live and yes, that’s the right road. Unsure that I understood correctly, I sent our taxi driver in to discuss the situation with the grocers. Layne and I watched anxiously from the car as the animated conversation carried on. Finally, our driver returned and despite our protests that it would wreck his car, in true Tico style he headed back up the road, determined to transport his passengers to their destination.

Which he did, bless his heart, gunning his engine and banging his oil pan in order to make it up and over the rough spots. He totally earned the big tip I gave him. Finally, we arrived and hiked up the last steep slope of driveway to a festive atmosphere of music, laughter, salsa dancing, great food and new friends to boot. At midnight, we opened champagne then watched firework displays all across the nighttime vista. Thanks, Dennis and Gerardo, but maybe we’ll wait until that road is paved before we come for another visit!

Sadie and Marcial

Still, it was satisfying that my Spanish is improving enough to converse as I managed to do that night. But Layne and I have begun a new system for learning Spanish --  “language dinners” with our Tico friends Marcial and Sadie. Sadie wants to learn English so it seems a good fit for us to get together and speak our different languages over a good meal. Layne and I hosted our first evening “class” last Thursday and it was a grand success. Marcial served as our “teacher” due to his fluency in English gained from teaching physical education at an English-language school for some eight years. Over guacamole and big bowls of chili, we alternated English and Spanish, with Marcial correcting us and offering grammar rules here and there. Sadie made homemade tortillas in a matter of minutes that were so much better than the packaged kind. And Marcial, who plans to compete in the big Chili Cookoff next month, was impressed with my chili recipe, which I had adapted to incorporate his wonderful Italian Sausage as the meat. We plan to repeat these dinners every two weeks or so and “poco a poco,” little by little, I know our Spanish will improve even as we have a lot of fun learning it.