Festive Gringos and Abandoned Dogs

Saturday, April 3, 2010

(Click on photos to enlarge)

Our hopes for serving as a magnet for visitors to Costa Rica is off to a great start with our long-time friends Penny Cash and Joel Glenn’s arrival last week. On Wednesday, Layne and I hopped on the trusty autobus for the 45-minute ride into San Jose where we met them at our favorite bed and breakfast, Apartotel La Sabana, along with Penny’s older sister Karen and her fun-loving husband Joe. After Penny and I did our “happy dance” greeting, the six of us were off to Karen and Joe’s son Greg’s house in Escazu, an upscale suburb of San Jose. As noted in my last post, Greg and his wife Amanda are the proud new parents of a little baby boy named Lincoln so Karen and Joe are here doing the grandparent thing with great enthusiasm.

         Greg and Amanda are Peace Corps veterans, Greg now retired from that role and starting a new job soon at the US Embassy while Amanda has moved into a management position with the Corps. Both of them are still passionate about the program and committed to continuing its good work in other capacities. Working as a Peace Corps volunteer is an unfulfilled dream of mine so I appreciate their dedication to work that serves the poor around the world.

         The Embassy provides these young people with some pretty snazzy housing in a beautiful gated community. Their large two-story home happens to be right next to the pool. How handy is that!? Naturally, after the well-deserved oohs and ahhs over little Lincoln with his over-sized feet (that boy may be tall!), all of us, except for the new Mom, headed for the pool house with a round of beers. One round led to another and soon we had a table full of “dead soldiers,” plus a very festive group of grown-ups laughing our heads off at one funny story after another. Greg was delayed in joining the party by a car alarm that refused to shut up. But his trip to the auto repair shop was successful and inexpensive: only $10 to fix it. Following a pizza dinner with way too much wine generously supplied by Joe, we finally said goodnight and headed back to the hotel by taxi.

         After enjoying La Sabana’s delicious breakfast the next morning, P & J rented a car and the four of us headed for Atenas, finding remarkably little traffic on the roads because of Semana Santa (Easter Week), a major holiday here when the entire country basically shuts down and heads for the beach. We even found our local neighborhood festooned with bougainvillea-garlanded crosses on our walk today, apparently placed there yesterday in honor of Good Friday.

         Penny and Joel were suitably impressed with our little chalet and we had a lovely evening with cocktails on the patio watching the sunset, then Chifrijo for dinner. What is Chifrijo, you might ask? It’s a basic Costa Rican dish that I’ve adapted somewhat: rice in a bowl, topped by seasoned red beans, sprinkled with a fried meat (in our case spicy sausages), all covered with a lime-dressed cabbage slaw. It’s pretty yummy!        

         After P & J drove off yesterday headed for tourist adventures in the rain forest and on to the beach, a couple of bedraggled puppies appeared in our compound, both thin enough to slip through the metal bars of our gate. Desperately under-nourished, we can only assume that they were dropped off and abandoned. What a problem! We clearly cannot adopt the pups since we’ll be leaving in May and we are confident our landlady would not appreciate our leaving two stray dogs on her property. It is an all-too-common situation, unfortunately. Costa Ricans simply do not see companion animals with the same loving eye that most Americans do. Many are tied up and just fed now and then. Others roam the streets, un-neutered, thus producing still more strays. 

         After a consultation with our neighbor who has two small dogs herself, we decided to call our local animal rescue friends, Frances and Bruce, who live down the road. Regular readers will recall our meeting them at the school fund-raiser a few weeks ago. Since then, Layne and I have paid them a visit on our morning walk and met the house-full of 18 dogs and 5 cats that they care for. Frances has built a splendid clinic space in their home where local vets come and provide shots, spay and neuter services and emergency care at reduced costs, most of which Frances and Bruce pay for out of their own pockets. Their operation is called Lighthouse Animal Rescue and they truly do amazing good work here in Alto de Monte, providing valuable services to the local animals. Lighthouse is in the running for a $1000 prize through the Animal Rescue Site and I would very much appreciate all my blog readers taking a moment to visit that site and cast a vote for them every day, if possible. (You first click on the “Click here to give - It’s Free” purple button; on the next page, click at the top on the “Vote Today” banner. Then in the search space, type in Lighthouse and choose Costa Rica. When Lighthouse comes up, just cast your vote, then confirm it on the following page.) It’s easy! And we really want them to win that money!

         So Frances said if we could care for the dogs until Sunday when she has a spay and neuter clinic scheduled, we could bring them and the vet will treat them for worms and hopefully neuter them, if they are old enough and if their poor health will allow. After that, we don’t know what will happen. Stay tuned! 

Leaf-Cutter Ants and a Machete-wielding Carpenter

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

(Click on photos to enlarge)

         What a hodge-podge of leftover details I have to write about today. We have spent some time this afternoon cleaning our small chalet since our housekeeper called yesterday to say she was “muy inferma” or very sick, and couldn’t come today. Dunia suffers from asthma so in preparation for the arrival of our good friends, Penny & Joel, we were left with the housecleaning, a minor task really. Penny and Joel, aka P & J, are on final approach to Juan Santamaria International Airport as I write this, heading for some quality time tonight with their family in San Jose. Penny’s nephew Greg and his wife Amanda have just had their first baby, a little boy named Lincoln, who must be about three weeks old now. Penny’s sister Karen and her husband, Greg’s parents, are also here on a visit and we have plans to join all of them in San Jose tomorrow for what promises to be a festive evening together. And since Amanda is the Assistant Director of the Peace Corps here in Costa Rica, I hope to get some ideas from her on worthwhile volunteer opportunities.

         On Thursday, P & J will come out to Atenas to overnight here before they head up to Monteverde for a night in the cloud forest and then on to the beaches in the northwest province of Guanacaste. Ah, the life of the tourista!

         For us Gringo locals, life goes on as usual in our little paradise. In my last post, I mentioned the green mangos that Dunia had brought to us. Not knowing just how to use an unripe fruit, I turned to the Internet, of course, and learned that in Nicaragua they use these mangos for a “refresco,” a drink similar to what Gilberto prepared for us using the tangy citrus fruit in our front yard. With the mangos, the drink is more frothy but it has a delightful tart freshness that really quenches the thirst. We plan to try adding a little rum tonight, just for flavor!

         A week or so ago, our thoughtful landlady Hazel (with Kat above) surprised us with two fine-looking wooden slab tables for our patio and a large piece of the same wood to serve as another table top out in the yard on top of a tree stump. The wood is the beautifully grained madera called Guanacaste and for which Guanacaste province is named. Hazel was so cute telling us, with a devilish smile, that she knew we needed something to put our drinks on in the evening. And she also thought we might like to take our tall bar stools out to the tree stump table so as to have a different angle on our ocean vista and sunset. She had arranged for her friend Manual to come by after work to affix the wood slab to the stump. Exactly on schedule, I heard a voice at the gate and quickly went to let Manual in. Using his handy machete, Manual carved shims and nailed them on to level the wood and soon we had a new table.

         As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Costa Rica definitely has a large insect population and we recently had occasion to meet one of the most destructive of the pests. While Kate and Gilberto were here last week, they observed that a few plants in our garden showed damage caused by leaf-cutter ants and cautioned us that the little beasts could devastate foliage overnight. Sitting out at dusk the other night, we noticed a brigade (well, Layne thinks it was a full division!) of the creatures marching along the path just beneath our long patio bench, each of them carrying a chunk of leaf much larger than themselves. They were clearly on a mission! Using the flashlight, we followed them along the incredibly long trail they traced, across our lawn, around the palm tree, over the driveway, across the other yard and down to the bottom of a concrete abutment where they apparently have their nest. While we regret the damage they are doing to our plants, primarily a poinsettia bush, you have to be impressed with their industry, their teamwork and their determination.

         Kate had recommended a product called Mirex, which we found at a local garden shop, but when Layne looked it up online, he found that it is such a toxic poison, it has been banned in most countries around the world. Again, we have to shake our heads in dismay at the pesticides that are used in Costa Rica. Could the use of such products be connected to Dunia’s asthma? One might suspect as much. We plan to return the Mirex and hopefully substitute a more organic product to discourage our leaf-cutter friends.

         And finally, let me tell you about some of the birds we have here. You’ll recall the four Toucans, which served as a greeting party for us on our first night. Since then, although the Toucans have not returned, we have enjoyed watching several stunning yellow-breasted birds that come around each evening. A clay-colored robin-type bird, the national bird of Costa Rica named the Yigüirro, is also a familiar sight and sound. It was given status as the official bird in 1977 due to its strong and melodious calls that signal the start of the rainy season and because it lives so close to Costa Rican homes and is so familiar to Ticos. This little guy has such a loud voice that my mother can even hear its song during our Sunday Magic Jack telephone calls. Then there is the striking orange-breasted bird, an Oriole look-alike, which sits high in a nearby tree but is too shy to land on our fence. So it was a pair of the yellow guys that agreed to “pose” for a portrait for the blog. Hope you enjoy!