Historical Romances   
in 18th Century Spanish Texas

Week 1 

Good morning!  Lovely sunny day, 74 degrees, blue skies and a few clouds hanging over the mountain tops above us. I have gotten used to the roar of vehicles going up the hill outside my window, sort of like living under an airport flight path.  Hermelinda insisted on doing my laundry - okay by me - while I came up to the Instituto to get back to work on finding material on the early settlers.  In the depths of the night, I get scared that I won't find enough but then I come up here and everyone is so helpful and kind that hope returns. I still think optimism is one of the worst traits since I keep hoping for grand discoveries and when they don't come through, I get discouraged.  If I was more pessimistic, finding anything would be really great! The experience two days ago, however, was amazing!

Day before yesterday, Ernesto, a very pleasant tall thin young Costa Rican  with an Afro and a scraggly goatee who is working on an NSF (National Science Foundation) grant from the University of South Florida on the diet and nutrition of the Costa Ricans in these valleys, offered to take me with him to visit some of his study families. We drove in his car down into the next valley in San Luis. The road is a very very steep, narrow, frighteningly rutted, rocky with no shoulders and no guard rails and long drops down into the valley.  Fortunately the traffic is not heavy but the occasional bus or taxi makes passing, as we squeeze over into the ditch a little hair raising. 

His people have tiny plots of land tucked into the forests.  23 such plots were purchased by a group of Quakers with money from a French company and given to some of the local people with free water and electricity. A few of them have built tiny two-room houses out of corrugated tin and concrete in the few bare and slightly less steep spaces.  Our guide, whom Ernesto has helped clear some land, was an old talkative codger, emaciated, with scoliosis twisting his back, a toothless grin, bony hands with dirty  claw-like fingernails, close cropped gray hair, worn out moccasin shoes and ragged shirt and pants, and incessant chatter about how men used to fight with machetes to prove their manhood or to win wives.  

He had brought an armful of bean plants to Pepita, the woman we were visiting. He  had pulled up the plants out of the field we had crossed since it is easier to take up the whole plant and pick the beans off of it after it dries.  In the small open spaces for farming, weeds battle with bananas, coffee plants, chayote, corn, wheat and a dozen crops I don't know. There are no neat rows and cleared ground, everything is a jumble with the forest closing in along the edges.  They are not allowed to cut any of the forest, not even for firewood, or to have enough land to grow crops to survive on. One man was ordered to pay a $200,000 colon fine, which he probably didn't have.

Pepita, the woman to whom Ernesto had brought a bag of clothes from his family in San Jose, was small, wrinkled, round faced, brown hair pulled back in a braid, and dressed in an old skirt and neat but patched black blouse with worn sandals.  She complained of colitis and several other maladies but promptly ushered us into her tiny dark smoky, low-ceilinged 12 by 12 house and sat us on her ragged couch along the inside wall.  She offered us mangos from the tree outside - evidently the only thing she had to offer.  They were delicious but we picked fibers out of our teeth the rest of the afternoon. 

Her house had a tiny stove but she was cooking over a fire on a concrete kind of bench in the corner, fueled by fallen branches from the forest in a corner alcove with a smoke stack leading outside. A tiny table for two was tucked into the far corner of the room and the few pots and pans hung over the open concrete  sink where a single pipe leaked water. A few forks and spoons were stuck between a slat and the corrugated wall, and the very important knives were tucked along the edge of the sink next to the wall.  Her rusted refrigerator served a dual purpose, when she opened the back door and used a string to tie open the door -- to the handle of the refrigerator! It was also decorated with cut out Christmas trees and valentines from wrapping paper.  Her deceased Italian  husband had painted murals on the waist high concrete walls with crayons. The rest of the wall is corrugated tin, without doubt bitterly cold in the winter when the wind comes whistling down the mountain.

They make a living by selling the few crops they grow to the hotels either in Santa Elena - over the mountain - or to the University of Georgia campus across the valley. Her current husband had brought in about six decrepit looking ears of corn and was out picking fruit to take over to sell. She would pick the green beans of the plants our guide brought and either use them for food or sell them.  Chickens are not an option since they will be killed by wild hogs or feral animals.      

We sat and listened to her tell us of her ills for a while for which there is a very poor clinic down in Lower San Luis. There is some local "curanderismo" or folk healing but not like there is in Mexico. After thanking Pepita for her hospitality, our gangly guide led us through the forest on narrow muddy paths ducking branches and stepping over strangler fig roots.  Of course he regaled us with stories of finding a "terciopelo" in a bunch of weeds that some of the American volunteers were helping him roll up.  He chopped its head off with his machete, of course, saving the day!  A terciopelo, as Ernesto whispered to me, is a fer de lance, one of the most poisonous snakes in the world.  Thank you very much, I really needed to hear that as we trekked through the weeds around his small patch of coffee, beans and bananas. I thought he was carrying his machete at his belt but it turned out to be something far more important , his file to sharpen the machete.  His cabin was just corrugated tin with three walls and a piece of plywood to lie on for napping during the day.  He doesn't live there but down in San Luis, a considerable hike down the mountain.

At Ernesto's request, he led us farther down to the home of Dona Virginia Leiton, evidently the "wealthiest" of the citizens of the little conclave of La Bella, and resident- not owner - of the last of the 23 parcels.  Her cabin is the same size as Pepita's but with an eight foot ceiling, brightly painted in orange brown but also built of concrete and lumber. The ubiquitous and also ratty couch was staged against the inside wall, while a large table with four chairs was placed next to the windows.  

Her kitchen, at the far end of the 10 by 12 room,  was much more modern looking, or at least less rusty, although just as small with a tiny stove on the right, a concrete sink with pipe and faucet on the far wall,  and an elderly refrigerator next to the windows on the left.  Beyond the couch on the inside wall, up two steps behind a curtain, was the bedroom where she hosts students from the University of Georgia campus down in the valley.  Now, you know there has got to be some major culture shock going on  for those students!!!    

 Her three 12" wide windows look out across her steeply sloping flower garden, to the drop off into the valley below.  She loves flowers and plants all kinds, which bloom throughout the year. She can see all the way down the valley and across the plains to the Gulf of Nicoya and the Pacific Ocean, a view that the tourists at El Establo pay $200 a night to see.   It is the best of the places for a view but it doesn't have much of a space for growing crops. Our guide helps her with her plants and her two sons and a daughter bring her food and are even getting her a telephone.

Dona Virginia's family were the first ones in San Luis so I would love to get some more stories from her.  She says her mother had 14 children with only her husband up here in the wilderness and that they often had nothing to eat but hearts of palm which could be cut from the local palm trees.   Her parents had come up here because her father could establish a free finca or ranch.  It took all of his life, but the two fincas he established, are now owned by Dona Virginia's sons and they are planning on building her a better house. Virginia was brought up in San Luis and married a man whom she met in school.  He left her and she brought up her three children  working doing cleaning, and  learning to do massages for the hotel guests.    

She graciously, in the grande dame style, brought us fresh made coffee with the last of her milk and sugar, and small sweet cakes on mismatched plates and bowls.  She is a portly woman in her fifties with reddish hair and a pale complexion - no Indian blood here - and she was dressed in a bright green lace blouse, with dangly earrings, eye make up, a long brown polyester velvet skirt stretched tight across her broad posterior and her hair pulled up in a pony tail. (If SHE doesn't lose weight going up and down the mountains, there is certainly no hope for me, ten miles a day or no!) She had dressed up to go down the valley to see a friend who happened not to be in, so she was especially pleased that we had come to call. She was  very sweet and completely at peace with her surroundings, thankful for her  wonderful lifestyle and the fact that she has so much more than she had as a child!  Wow!

After that experience, yesterday listening to the young North American architecture students make their presentations here at the Institute was a real contrast in cultures.  They had all sorts of beautiful ideas and plans for new Red cross facilities, an old folks home, a college campus,  and places for community centers and local gardens.  All it takes is tons of money and the infrastructure to support it, none of which is available,  of course.  Several dozen of the townspeople were here to listen to the ideas, but as one woman rather bitterly pointed out, last years' architecture students also suggested how to do a Red Cross facility and nothing came of that either.  I wonder just how much of that sort of frustration and dashed hopes these people can stand!

Church last night with Hermelinda in Santa Elena for the 25th anniversary of their town church. The evangelicals have nothing on this bunch!  Hand clamping, foot stomping, three guitars and percussion, a regular family affair, the mother and daughter kept us kneeling through lengthy EMOTIONAL prayers and the "message", about gathering the fish, was made by the deacon-- husband and father of the three musician sons.  The church is plain wood boards  built into an arch, about 25 feet high,  and painted white, with natural colored wood behind the altar. Very primitive framed paintings of the stations of the cross hang along the outer walls,  and two simple statues of the Virgin Mary and St Elena. Nothing like the great stone churches built by the mission fathers in Mexico.  They are working to build another church since the small one they have is not big enough for the feast days of Santa Elena that are coming up in August. I will get to see them so I will report.  

Okay, enough blathering! Time to get to work! 

Week 2       

Much shorter, I promise!  

After the excitement of the Evangelical foot stomping and clapping at the Catholic Church last Thursday, the Quakers on Sunday were considerably more restrained - an hour of silent meditation, then introductions and announcements. Benito Guindon, youngest son of  the now famous Wolf Guindon, local Quaker farmer turned conservationist, had brought with him a baby sloth wrapped in a sweater tied around his waist.  The mother had been killed and someone found the baby still clinging to the carcass and brought it to him. The small brown furry creature with tiny round eyes and small nose, has long slender arms with giant hooked claws  with which it was hanging on to Benito and looking at the world by tipping its head upside down and backward. During the meditation he fed it mounds of pink hisbiscus flowers!      

First of the month everyone brings a dish and there is a big potluck lunch for whoever shows up, in this case about 50 people. Fortunately, I was warned ahead of time and brought a beef stroganoff casserole along with my own plate, fork and water bottle! Sat and talked to Kay Chornook, a Canadian social activist who has just completed the book on Wolf Guindon and Marian Howard who invited me to go with her Bank Street, New York,  group of teachers to check out the Quaker School. Very small and intimate. The students have painted sayings from famous people all over the walls - all very inspirational.  

Marian is the one who infuriated the Quakers, one Stella Wallace in particular, by writing about Stella's husband's affair  with one of the other Quaker  women and publishing it in her Anthropologist dissertation!.  Seems the Quakers are not immune to affairs of the heart.  Hermelinda who was living on John Campbell's property at the time while her husband worked for him, told me that Campbell's daughter, then aged 18, had several trysts with Hermelinda's husband for which she has never forgiven her. Hermelinda insisted they move to town, and her husband left her soon after for someone else!  What a little Peyton Place! 

Kay self-published her book on Wolf which is rather unusual and is now working on distributing, so I helped her work up her e-mail page to send out to environmental agencies. And universities - Frank you need to book her!  She is very personable and sparkly and would make a great presentation at Sam!  

 Back to the lunch, Lots of wonderful fruit bowls, macaroni, salads, and very little meat. There was some pejibaye, a small stringy kind of round dry unsweet fruit, smaller than a peach, that has to be cooked to death to make it edible. The locals sell bags of it alongside the road, each person with their own little covered garbage bag covered lean-to.  It is peeled and sliced to get the seed out and then loaded with mayonnaise or cream cheese.  I think it is just a means of conducing your mayo to your mouth!     

There is a Scrabble game Friday afternoon, a musical concert next week, and several presentations at the Instituto on the Bell Bird corridor, and intros for the latest group of students.  An older, short, stocky, bearded Australian is giving a presentation on a Peace and Conflict Resolution program on Laos during the Vietnam War next week, and the most exciting is the wedding next Sunday of Janelle Wilkins, the Director of the Instituto to her long-time beau who decided if she was going to be down here, he wanted to be with her too.  

Of course I couldn't keep my big mouth shut, so I volunteered to help with the decorations.  The ceremony will be held at the Quaker Meeting hall in the afternoon after Meeting, very simple, since it is a second marriage for both.  She likes Calla Lillies which grow wild around here, and are still in bloom farther down the mountain. Hermelinda says she can get me some from her sister, and Deborah Hamilton got me some leftover Christmas ribbon to tie up bunches of callas to put in the windows.  

Deborah is a pretty, fiftyish, blonde, blue-eyed, petite biologist who came 16 years ago and stayed and now  owns Libreria Chunches.  I thought it was just a bookstore, but it is a tiny little two room, two story WalMart store that sells everything that you can think of at an office supply store, from paper and pens to computer discs and books,  plus souvenir stuff, and, of course, green and gold Christmas ribbon.  She also wisely installed a little Internet Café with bathroom on the second floor and it is crowded all the time.  They have good lunches and coffee and tea, as well as comfy tables where Willy, the Australian and Roane, his "partner" a slender, gray haired woman and I sat and whiled away three hours (!!!) bemoaning the state of the world and chatting over banana nut bread and tea. 

Also got to attend a great musical presentation by a group called Quarteto Arje after dinner with Pam, the architecture professor.  We dawdled over wine and had to walk back up the road in the pitch-black darkness, stumbling over stumps and rocks.  But we made it in time to hear four lovely young Tica university women, shimmering long black hair and sparkly earrings, dressed in deep red halter tops and black slacks playing Saxophones, and then accompanied by four young men dressed all in black with trombones. The delightful boleros, big band, rhumbas, and Brazilian Tico Tico was wonderful and the brilliant sparkling gold of their instruments against their outfits and the dark background of the forest outside was simply stupendous. 

Everyone seems to come through this area so I am meeting more and more people but that means more fun, not more research!  I'm hoping Kay Chornook will give me a guided tour next week, since she has been here on and off for many years.  And then hermelinda  my hostess, is taking me to meet her father tomorrow.  He was one of the original Tico settlers. Tico, of course, is the nickname for Costa Ricans!  

Okay, gotta go meet Ernesto for lunch and discussion of possible grant proposals.  I found out this long rambling description is one of those infernal BLOGS!  Sorry!!!

Week 3

Hi from Costa Rica, otra vez!  Finally, finally a beautiful sunny day, never completely cloudless or windless, but thank goodness it is not raining!

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to get a  7 hour walk (pretty much all day) on Saturday with Kay Chornook, the author of Walking with Wolf, so this was Walking with Kay. We were fortunate that the day was also fairly clear but windy.  Kay has been here on and off for about 17 years. (What is it about this place that people keep coming back?)

Since I helped her to put together her email to sell the book, she agreed to give me a guided tour - and it was quite a tour!  I was pleased that I was able to keep up with her, only some panting and gasping and lots of sweating, but she was too, HA!   

The road up to the Reserve is rocky and muddy, slick, slippery mud so I am not sure how people spend time looking into the trees for wildlife, since I spend all my time watching my footing and keeping up!  I hear it was the Organization of Tropical Studies - not the Quakers - who decided not to pave the road since they want to hold down the traffic.  The bad part is that it has caused a major decline in visitors to the Tropical Reserve and hurt the local hotels and tourism agencies. 

Mills Tandy, from Friday's Scrabble game, had invited us to stop by his house for coffee. We had hiked up into the forest with giant trees towering on either side of the road, vines hanging down, dense vegetation under the trees, and we came to a locked gate.  Kay just clambered around the gate on the mud and we went up a long sloping roadway built of 4-square concrete blocks which are laid with their openings up so the water can drain through.  They help with the mud a little but they are still slick where the mud oozes up between the blocks and the weeds and flowers put down roots and get a bit of a hold. 

The forest seemed to get denser and we finally came out into an opening along a cliff face, where Mills had built a house of steel beams, two stories up into the canopy.  He has a porch all the way around and big windows looking out at the tree tops and off across the valley.  Like almost all the houses, it has one big central room with kitchen and dining room at one end and living room and bedroom at the other. He's used corrugated plastic over head for skylights so it is lovely and bright, with tiger-striped tropical wood on the faces of all the steel doors in the kitchen and living room.  His bathroom, with a big plate glass window, looks out at a wall of tropical plants and flowers. 

He has a large furry dog, a Bouvier, like an English sheep dog, which ought to keep the thieves away since his bark is pretty awe inspiring. He is not, regretfully, much of a watchdog, and more lick you to death! It turns out that there is a lot of robbery around here since most of these Biologists, like Mills, are gone for part of the year, and their computers, answering machines, and copiers, printers, etc, are a temptation to locals who know where the houses are and that they are untended.  That is how Kay has been able to stay down here for so long, she house sits! And Dog sits, too.    

He treated us to coffee and then, at Kay's insistence, we walked up more of those concrete steps into the forest to what Kay calls the Plastic House. It is a very tall thin house about 12 feet by 12 feet and about 12 feet tall, built entirely of corrugated plastic with a little bit of wooden walls inside to separate the bedroomlivingroomkitchen from the bathroom.  I run those all together since the double bed takes up the vast majority of the room, leaving a narrow 2 foot walkway around the right hand wall and the far wall which contains a refrigerator, sink and two burner propane stove.  Unlike the little shacks at La Bella, this is really quite elegant, with all the utensils hanging neatly over the stove in artistically arranged rows, and lovely paintings hanging on the high walls of the local flora and fauna by artists from the area.  Mills, by the way, is happy to rent this nook for only $700 a month if you are interested.  

From there we hiked back out to the road and on up to an overlook where "Precaristas" (from the word precarious in terms of how the farmers survive by subsistence farming like our little people down in La Bella) had cleared the land and we could look across pastures down to the Guacimal River, and over three or four ridges to the Canadian Biological Station up in the forest and down the valleys to the buildings of Santa Elena and Cerro Plano.  Above us ahead, we could see the forested mountain climbing up to the Continental Divide where the clouds blowing in from the Atlantic catch at the top and hide the  17 radio and transmitting towers which have been built.  One of trees ahead of us, a lone remainder of the forest which used to enclose this area, was covered with bromeliads and orchids which are usually hidden by the other trees in the forests.

Only an occasional car had passed us, but after another hour of hiking up the muddy road, we came around a corner and suddenly here was a parking lot carved out of the forest with about 100 cars, buses, trucks, vans, and motorbikes and dozens of tourists, each with their little guide, most of the guides speaking pathetic English or French or German.  All languages are required!  Along one steep muddy cliff on the left, was the Hummingbird and Art Gallery, a two story building with a high porch, a one-room art gallery and the requisite restaurant.  

For the last twenty or so years, the owners have been hanging hummingbird feeders in the trees which hang over the porch, so the hummingbirds expect breakfast, lunch and dinner, and they get cranky if it is late!.  They zip around chittering and cheeping like a swarm of gnats, totally unconcerned about the awed tourists all taking pictures with cameras that must be two feet long.  The hummingbirds are spectacularly colorful, iridescent blues, greens, purples, black, orange and red with a flash of white tails. Getting a clear shot of these jet jockeys of the forest is really almost impossible, so, everyone is happy to go inside to see the crisp, clear, enlarged photographs of professionals like the Fogden's who spend days hunkered over a flower to get a single image of a hummingbird.  Their books are available for your purchase! 

We didn't go into the reserve-- that is for another day-- since only 150 tourists at a time are allowed in and you have to make reservations through your tour guide. A sensible precaution, if they want to preserve the forest, I guess!

There was a Coati mundi ambling across the parking area which occasioned a mass clattering of cameras and tripods and oohs and aahs.  It is a long low-slung furry critter, about 12 inches high, with black pointy nose and face extending back to a long tail of whitish fur. The Reserve guard, Luis, with whom we were chatting, didn't seem to be concerned about whether people fed it or not. He and his compatriots do patrol the forest to prevent cutting of trees, hunting, or "precarists" settling in the forests.  

We left the Reserve and started back down toward Wolf Guindon's home.  We cut through the woods, as he has done for years, and where he recently had his heart attack, clambering over roots, ducking under vines, (I kept wondering where the snakes were) having to go around fallen trees, winding over muddy spots, and up and down the tree choked ravines. We finally came out into what Kay calls The Bull Pen.  As far as anyone knows it has never had a bull at all, but it is a small, sunny open glen where cows could graze on the smooth grass of the bottom of the little valley if anyone had any nearby. On the far side of the valley is a fallen moss-covered tree where Kay has had wine and cheese parties for her friends.  We didn't have either wine or cheese since we were covering territory and had to get to a lunch at the Friends school by noon.  

At the far end of the glen is a giant strangler fig, about thirty feet around that probably goes up about 100 feet into the air and is hollow in the middle.  Kay had a chance to climb it when she was working for Natalie Nadkarni, a tree-top biologist. Natalie used fishing line to throw over the top of the branches then used mountain climbing gear to secure the ropes and climb up to the canopy of the trees and study whatever she studied- I haven't researched her yet.        

Back into the forest on the other side, Kay pointed out homesteads cut out of the forest, houses built by the original settlers, by the various Quaker families, and finally emerged onto the edge of the woods where the Guindon's have just moved into a new home built by their various sons. Like all the houses, one big room with porches overlooking the valley and the gulf of Nicoya in the far distance.    

Lucky, the wife, is sick with a cold and Wolf, her husband, was asleep in a hammock on the porch, but they roused to welcome us.  Kay had to discuss finances with Wolf on the book and the complications of keeping the proceeds from the book separate from their private accounts seem to have kind of overwhelmed him.  They will go down to the Banco on Monday.

We hastened back down the very muddy driveway to the rock (and mud) road and got to the Quaker Meeting house in time for lunch with the CIEE group. I don't remember what that stands for but it is not affiliated with the Institute, so they use the Quaker meeting room.  It is run by a very pleasant couple, Karen and Gary, who bring students down to do biological field work.  It seems there are several competing "schools" that bring students down here and then squabble over Ricky Guindon, one of the sons, who does night tours at the reserve, or for one of the biologists like Mills to come speak to the students.  

After lunch, we did a quick tour onto the Rockwell land and got to meet Mary Rockwell, sweet, gracious, 70 plus year old wife of Eston Rockwell who, before his demise, made peanut butter.  Seems students used to bring it with them, or have their parents send it since there wasn't any available in the stores.  So, they ordered peanuts from San Jose and made peanut butter and candy covered peanuts.  She has a very Americanized house with a large lawn looking out over the valley. Elegant paintings on the walls, wooden interiors, and hammocks on the covered porch.  

We had to hurry back so we could meet and discuss wedding decorations for Janelle Wilkins ceremony tomorrow with Alberto Guindon and his wife Nidia.  We stopped at the Fonda Vela Hotel (site of the reception) to see if they were going to need our Calla lilies. It was sort of like offering to bring weeds to the Hilton! Each table was covered in white linen table cloths with light blue cloths and 8" by 8" center pieces of brilliant tropical flowers.  The deep blue folded napkins tucked into the crystal glasses were folded so they looked like a bird of paradise and each rested on a folded white napkin that resembled a long white tail. Blue and white bouquets of flowers lined the bridge and groom's table and giant decorations of bird of paradise and other flowers and palm fronds stood along the buffet tables.  They didn't need our callas!

Finally got back to Hermelinda's to find that her sister was just delivering the 60 callas. Now, we'll see how they look for the wedding.  More later!

Week 3 continued - the Wedding

So what do you wear to a Quaker wedding?  Since all I had was a long black skirt, I just put on a white blouse and called it good.  Hermelinda insisted that I polish my rather dusty black shoes, and I put on make-up, a scandalous waste among Quakers! Since Hermelinda has cleaned house for Janelle, she wanted to send something too, so she cut some kind of orchids from her garden and I cut the top off a plastic bottle and tied a bow with a bit of the gold and white Christmas ribbon from Chunches.  It looked fine and is today (Tuesday) sitting on Janelle's desk in her office.  

I called a cab since I was not about to carry two big buckets of calla lilies five miles up hill to the Quaker Meeting house.  Got there in plenty of time and started tying up three callas, one large (these flowers are huge - as much as ten to 12 inches across) and two small (our normal size), with the green and gold ribbon.  They looked quite elegant but I ran out of ribbon at ten bouquets, so we decided to hand out the rest of the callas so each guest could have a "Peace" Lilly to hold. It made the audience look most festive.  I forgot, however, that these just came out of the garden, and several people had to come outside, amazingly calmly, I thought, to deposit various bugs that had crawled out of the depths of the flowers!  At least no one screamed during the ceremony, since most of the bugs had departed by then.  

At Kay's suggestion, we hung the calla bouquets in the ten windows of the meeting house and stapled palm fronds onto the wood between the windows.  The ribbon sparkled and the light shone through the white of the flowers and the green stalks and since the string was almost invisible it looked like the flowers were floating in air. Several other people had brought armfuls of flowers, whacked off from bushes in their gardens.  Benito Guindon, he of the baby sloth (no, the sloth did not attend the wedding) had brought some big royal purple flowers and some bright orange firecracker kind of flowers that I arranged in a kitchen pitcher.  Someone else brought a bouquet of giant blue hydrangeas (they also grow to be about 12 inches across) and there were some bright yellow flowers, and Hermelinda's lavender and violet orchids.  We put all the flowers on a table behind the bench where the bride and groom would sit, so we had a veritable bower of flowers.  

We decorated after the Sunday "meeting" and ran over to the Lecheria - no that's not what it sounds like, no lechers involved, it is the cheese factory next door where we had a Tejana (who knew!) hamburger made from their pork products.  They feed the whey from the cheese to pigs and then sell pork ribs and sausages at stores around here. Got back in time to welcome and hand out the lilies to the arriving guests as they came in.  

Since it was a Quaker ceremony, like their Sunday service there is a LOT of silence and it was not something the local Ticos are accustomed to - remember the hand clapping, foot stomping service at the Catholic church in town?  The ceremony, as was to be expected since it is Costa Rica, was late since we had to wait on the Lucky and Wolf Guindon and various other guests.  When everyone was settled, Janelle's 17 year old daughter, went and got the couple and brought them into the meeting hall. Janelle was dressed in a gorgeous, real Belgian lace hip-length jacket in creamy white with a tea length flowing white skirt and Rick in a white short sleeved shirt and beige slacks.

They were to rise and give their vows to each other when the moment seemed right.  The silence stretched on and on and the Ticos were beginning to look at each other askance.  Finally they rose and spoke their vows to each other and then in unison when they shared their rings.  No priest, no judge, no one but them. It really was amazingly beautiful! They then sat down and the audience had a chance to share their thoughts, translated either from English or Spanish by Alberto Guindon, and two other members of the community, with silent respectful pauses in between each person. 

Many people spoke, including yours truly since I wanted to explain in Spanish that the Calla lily is called the Peace lily and since this was a sharing of peace and love between the couple, that we had shared the same peace and love with everyone by giving them a lily.  I was the only one who did my little bit in both languages. It seemed to be well received and several people afterward said they had wondered what the flowers were for - at least they didn't mention the bugs!

Finally, the couple got up and a table was brought forward where they signed the wedding certificate, then went outside onto the porch to receive all the well wishes.  As witnesses, all the hundred or so people were also expected to sign the document!  After much congratulation, we all drove or hiked over the bridge and through the woods, literally, to the Fonda Vela for the elegant buffet dinner.  

There were so many tables, however, that there was a very narrow lane for getting to the food.  But everyone managed to get huge platefuls of food while one of the biologists (who used to play with Sinead O'Connor) played the guitar and one of the community ladies sang. Five salads, then rice and seafood, and rice and chicken, and rice and beef, and rice and rice (for the vegetarians), and grilled chicken, ribs and beef outside on the barbecue. About a dozen cakes each decorated with different kinds of flowers. Huge vats of Sangria with fruit, and champagne to toast the couple.       

Everyone who was anyone was there. As Director of the Institute for the last year Janelle has gotten to know all these people and had invited them all. I know the reception had to have cost into the tens of thousands of dollars. I was amazed at how many people I now know in the community, and all so very pleasant and kind and friendly! You would think I had lived here all my life! We didn't have room to dance although the bride and groom attempted a small waltz and then everyone headed to the casa! 

Great evening and wonderful wedding!  Took down the decorations on Monday, and everyone at the Institute wanted flowers for their desks, so the Callas did not go to waste! Now,time to get back to research!  Will go to the National Archive next week. Hugs

Week 4

Good morning!  Another hot sunny day, but there is bound to be rain later!  The clouds are already blowing over the top of the Continental Divide which is just above us and will bring us rain soon.  Several unexpected discoveries this week!  

Now I know--When the cat's away the mice will play!  Turns out all that hand clapping and foot stomping and hallelujahs two weeks ago was only because the priest was gone.  The Sacerdote (priest) is back, double, in fact, since there is a visiting priest plus the local priest, both rather rotund, and suddenly the service is very formal, with bible reading, very short prayers, and a simple sermon, two songs, and no clapping or foot stomping. Reined in THOSE evangelicals, I bet!  Which was a good thing since the little scrawny nutty lady (Hermelinda says she looks like a drunk frog - sapo borracho) can't regale us with her lengthy prayers in which we got to hear all about her husband's affairs, and her family's problems!

 This week is the celebration of the Saint's Day of the Patron Saint of Santa Elena.  There is a novena or nine days in which each day is dedicated to two each of the little towns in the area.  The towns have their own singers that come, either a choir, or band, or guitar player and singer, and they bring big baskets of gifts for the priest who is visiting to celebrate the mass that day, and the mass is dedicated to them. They also read the passages for response and participate in the celebration of the ceremony.

 I remember an occasion where I got involved accidentally, but not this time! I was doing research and was waiting to talk to the priest about permission to use the archives. It was a huge, echoing stone cathedral with lots of gold and gilt and satin, and full of people in Durango, I think, where some very nice elderly lady came up to me and asked if I could read the liturgy. Thinking she meant, could I read in Spanish, I assured her I could so she hands me the booklet.  Halfway through the service, suddenly she came up to me and told me it was "My turn".  Scared to death at the hundreds of people down the long nave of the Cathedral, I went up onto the podium where she pointed.  I read the first paragraph, and suddenly there was the thunderous response from the audience! Nothing to do but go on reading and cringing for the response! I got through it, but I have learned to smile and politely decline if I am ever asked!  

After the very restrained service, where one of the wives of one of the men from San Luis read the response,  the town of San Luis (where I had gone to see the Parcelas of La Bella the first week and will go again Sunday) hosted a supper to raise money for the new church. Music in the background for the two local nutty ladies to dance, and much joking, laughing, yelling and hawking of wares by the men of San Luis. I treated Hermelinda and her sister Anais to Fritos - fried meat- pork, I think- on tortillas - absolutely running with grease - and a "Chorreado" a large flat cornfritter drizzled with - again, I think - sour cream.  Then we had to try pineapple upside down cake, banana cake, - they call it Keke - (how they got THAT pochismo - Americanized Spanish - I'll never know!) AND  prestinyos which is nothing more than fried flat flour thin pancake covered with honey. At least I know my pennies will help build the new church even if my waistline will build as well!  They also had very nice polo shirts with the embroidered Santa Elena on them and coffee cups also with Santa Elena.  Surely I will have to get some of those - in the larger sizes if I'm not careful! At least the climb back home up the 40 degree slope may have worked off some of the grease! We did make it home in time for the "Quien quiere ser millionario" - Costa Rican version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire which we watch religiously on Tuesday nights.

The next big excitement was the concert at El Establo, which I have now renamed Jurassic Park! There is a music festival being held for fifteen days all over Costa Rica.  El Establo is our version of the Hilton, so they offered to host a Viennese String Quartet in their Upper restaurant - cost for concert and cocktails was only $20, which the locals and the Quakers think is ridiculously expensive, whereas those of us from Los Estados (The States) find it enjoyably inexpensive. Rowan and Willy, my Australian buddies - both of them in backpacks, ball caps and hiking sticks, were also going to go, so we gathered at Reception half an hour early to be taken up to the building.  

Here I need to stop and give you background on El Establo. Don Rafael Arguedas, now long dead, was one of the original finca owners around here two generations back, and owned all of the west side of the mountain stretching from Cerro Plano  around the edge of the mountain and down to the creek or ravine known as Quebrada Maquina - Broken Machine - perhaps an apt name since the climb down into the ravine and back out will definitely do some damage. He donated part of the flat land on the West or right side of the road to found an elementary school named for him, of course, and sold the rest, the entire face of the mountain on the left, reaching up to the Continental Divide, to a consortium of Ticos (Costa Ricans) including Ruth Campbell Leiton, daughter of one of the first Quakers, John Campbell, and a tico from San Luis named Leiton.  (Her sister Martha was the one who had the affair with my Hermelinda Arguedas' husband - and it may have been an assault on Ruth that got Herme's husband fired from working for John Campbell!) Anyway, rumor has it that the president, Oscar Arias (who, by the way, has been diagnosed with Swine Flu, although he is better) has money in the hotel, so there may soon be a better road into our little burg in the distant future.

So, this group of wealthy types brought in massive bulldozers and earth moving equipment, stripped every tree off the mountainside, and terraced the whole mountain with roads curving back and forth climbing higher and higher, then tucked Swiss chalet type buildings for guest rooms into the cliffs, added tennis courts, swimming pools, spas, and restaurants, and high up on top, overlooked by the two story restaurant and lounge, a large pond/lake with a fake waterfall of pumped water trickling in for effect. At the entrance, down on the level of the main road is one of the three restaurants, so the local scum tourists can enjoy a "real" restaurant!  Behind and up the hill one level from the road, is the Reception area, protected by a barred gate with guards in very nice white uniforms where we were permitted to walk to. 

All the surfaces up the mountain are  covered with neatly clipped grassy lawn and occasional local plants and flowers tucked into the curves of the road and alongside the buildings. No one is allowed to enter or move around the place except in the minivans that run up and down the carefully paved mountain road, with periodic speed bumps to prevent - oh my heavens - skateboarders? Since Willy and Rowan and I were not guests of the hotel, we were told in no uncertain terms to sit in the lobby and wait for the van. I'm sure that prevents thievery!  I had tried to "dress for the occasion" with black slacks and white blouse (a different one than the wedding) but Willy and Rowan were in hiking attire.  We didn't fit in and looked it!  Finally the van came and we, along with several others, went up to the upper restaurant overlooking the man-made lake.  Yes, indeed, I felt like the dinosaurs were going to step out of the brush at any moment.  

 Evidently, the establishment had decided these Viennese masters were not really worth going all out for, so there were no vases of flowers, no decorations, cheap Sangria, and minimal cocktail hors'doevres.  The second floor where they were to perform faced due West (for those beautiful expensive sunsets) and since it was 5 pm the sun was just setting, throwing them into dark relief against the brilliant gold, orange, blue and pink of the sunset behind them. Fortunately, I changed seats onto the left side so I could actually see them, but the ten or twelve people on the right side of the audience were out of luck! Rowan, who hadn't moved over, tried using her binoculars to cut some of the glare and was sure the performers were wondering WHAT ON EARTH the audience was doing watching birds during the performance.  

The quartet, whose name I don't remember since it was in Austrian, all in black, was made up of a middle-aged  dark-haired man and a slender blonde woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, both playing the violin, a youngish girl with curly blonde hair also pulled back playing the Viola, and a tall bald-headed German (as we found out, a fill-in who had come with his wife), playing the cello.  The group played Hayden, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, and some waltzes and gavottes from the 1840s. It was lovely but only lasted an hour after which repaired to the first floor for cheese on bread rounds, small slices of baquette with tomato and basil, fried mushrooms, some thinly sliced beef - maybe tartare- and cucumber slices with small slices of salmon.  Also the large bowl of Sangria with too much fruit and not enough good wine.

We all had a good time talking especially with the local famous violinist, Gloria,  who has hosted concerts here back in the 1990s, and insists on training local kids in classical music. She is not in the least interested in being interviewed and let me know so early on.  But maybe if she gets to know me socially, . . . perhaps.  It may take another few years of coming down here to break down her barriers.  

Rowan and Willy and I again were told to wait for the van, and then, once back down out of the "park" we geared up for the rain and the hike back down the hill to Santa Elena.  What a completely different world! We stopped at my house, and I showed them my little room since they were going past.  They were grateful that I had, because they have worried about living in "minimalist" conditions and were embarrassed to have anyone over.  Doesn't bother me!  

So, this week I will finish up here at the Institute, watch the Saint's Day Horse races on Saturday, do La Bella down in San Luis with Guillermo Vargas on Sunday, and then take the Monday morning bus at 6:30 am for San Jose and the archives.  So much for the mountain quiet.  Nora, the wife of one of the biologists and a New Yorker, said she remembered when her husband first brought her to Monteverde. He took her down the muddy rock road to the place were the road for the lecheria  (milk - cheese factory) branches off to the left through the trees, and a small road winds off into the woods on the right, and told her this was downtown Monteverde.  It really is, even today, so San Jose is going to be a little different.  

I'll report on the horse races from there!  Hugs to all!

Week 5 

San Jose is definitely not as nice as Monteverde.  Big, crowded, dirty city, with dangerous streets at night and expensive hotels.  I was fortunate to have Kay Chornook hook me up with a room at the Quaker pension here in the center of town.  It is an old home donated to the Quakers by the Ridgways hence it is called Casa Ridgway and you only pay $14 a night for a dorm room with six beds, and a shower and bathroom down the hall.  $19 if you have your own room, which I will have to do next week if I stay since they have several large groups coming.  I may flee the town and head back to the mountains. 

Just a quick review of the weekend!  The horse races were not really races as such. A group of about 20 or 25 riders all gathered down at the end of the dirt road that runs behind the school gym just outside of town.  There were deep ditches on either side of the road, so the riders were constantly pushing and shoving and jockeying for position.  They consisted of a variety of ages from a little tiny kid on a very large horse, through 10 and 12 year olds, up to father and son teams.  Only one girl dared try to join the group, but since she obviously had not started training when she was really young, she was embarrassed and dropped out quickly.She couldn´t even get her horse to jump start.

The point was to start your horse as fast as you could go, then at a dead run, try to hold a small 8" spike of wood or metal and spear a small -and I mean small- ring that was attached by a piece of Velcro to a rope strung up over the road.  The riders had to stand in their stirrups to absorb the impact of the galloping horse and hold their hand steady enough to impale the ring without hitting the rope.  Very very few of them were able to do it, and surprisingly, it was the youngsters who succeeded most often. 

Meanwhile, the speakers were blaring Mexican rancheras - songs about horses and Pancho Villa and places in Mexico that I know these Ticos had no clue where they were, but the Nico (Nicaraguan) who was in charge of the music, said they would have nothing else.  And the guaro (local moonshine) was flowing freely and several of the watchers were getting rather boisterous.  Fortunately, the riders were not indulging too much, since that would have unsteadied their hands.  

Around the corner, in front of the gym, bright lights and more noise, a small ferris wheel was gathering steam, and a tiny merry-go-round was wheezing away.  Four booths sold cotton candy, churros with gobs of sugar on them, more greasy meat on tortillas, and a store selling every conceivable piece of Chinese junk you can imagine from key rings to plastic purses and toys of every description.

Inside the gym, the ladies of the church were sweeping, and putting up red drapes to back the altar, and putting together magnificent bouquets made up of huge piles of tropical flowers and palms, and even some full banana trees decked with balloons and giant ribbons. The men of the church had hauled all of the pews and flooring to raise the dais, and the altar and chairs over from the church.  I was gone during the horse races and when I came back in, the whole place was a tropical paradise!  Eat your heart out, Senior classes!

The next day at 10 was the parade to honor Santa Elena.  All of the little towns had brought their saints and had decorated their pick up trucks with flowers- evidently a cheap and very effective method - and little kids in angel costumes and Mother Mary outfits.  Proud fathers drove the trucks slowly around the triangle of the town, past the church then out to the gymnasium.  All of the townspeople followed behind their particular town saint, and carried the figures into the gym to sit in elegant splendor on the various flower covered tables around the altar.  

Then after another mass, there was another big lunch, and finally the REALLY REALLY BIG excitement -  Hallelujah!  It was BINGO time!  They had all sorts of ways of winning, and since there were several hundred playing, it was exciting.  The caller, obviously quite the pro, did a fantastic job of exciting the audience with his sonorous tones as he called out the numbers, hesitating before finishing the number.  Hermelinda didn´t win, but it is always "Almost!".  

I came on back up the hill (it´s still really steep but I am getting better) to pack and then went back down for the Reinado - that is the crowning of the Queen who has gathered the most money for the church.  Hermelinda´s little short fat, Sapo (Frog) friend, who was all gussied up in a nice green suit (how appropriate), came in third out of sixteen, and the eldest lady of all won the prize for having gathered over one million colones.  The sixteen little girls, who had also been sponsored by their parents or god parents or friends, had been crowned winners by the Priest who drew numbers.  The little girls in their beautiful princess dresses all enjoyed traipsing up on stage to give the gifts to the older women queens.  

With applause and music, and gift giving, the Reinado lasted until 10 o´clock so it was hard getting up at 5:00 am the next morning to catch the bus to San Jose.  It goes right by the airport, so I will probably use it to come down to leave in four weeks.  Doesn´t seem possible, but the time is running out. 

I´ve got to go hike up the street to get some groceries for tomorrow.  Ate tunafish and hard boiled eggs today at the ARchivo.  Not great success since everything that I am looking for is too "modern." Maybe I will find some success at the Church archives.  I have learned to get to archives and back on the Zapote bus for only 150 colones which is really cheap, although I got completely soaked yesterday.  Yes, it rains here too!

Hugs to all

Week 6 

Hallelujah!  At last a break!  Maybe it was because I wore my Santa Elena shirt- bought in support of the Church in Santa Elena, and embroidered very elegantly with the 25th anniversary logo!! That hasn´t stopped the rain, but I have learned my way around downtown.  The center of San Jose is actually very small, but urban sprawl has climbed up into the hills all the way around the town.  You can see little houses tucked into every ravine and valley up in the mountains around the Central valley.  The two nearby volcanoes are usually covered with clouds, but when it is a clear day, they rise up majestically and pretty threateningly I would think!  They aren´t active but the one that is, Arenal, wouldn´t you know it, the one right across the Tilaran mountain range from Monteverde, has been closed due to the poisonous fumes!  No more tourist profit over there and you KNOW there would be some wacky tourist willing to endanger their own lives and those of the guards to check it out!

Meanwhile, in downtown San Jose, I walk up the hill (and no, I´m not losing any weight!) to the old city fort.  I only got a little lost.  There are several wide streets in the downtown that have been turned into pedestrians walkways, but I got on the wrong one.  Then I hike down the hill to the National Theater which is an 1880s building which is said to be gorgeous inside.  It has just been restored with the help of the Spanish and Dutch embassies.  Don´t know where the US help was!  Then around the corner past a big florist shop with wonderful tropical flowers to the Zapote bus stop. I also found the AM-PM store which is like a 7-11 - not much selection- and made myself a lunch from their buffet bar to take to the archives. I also found the Mas por Menos (More for Less) which, Heaven help us!, has been bought out by Wal-Mart! I needed to buy pencils for the archives, but the store is still not Wal-Mart. They have no room to expand! 

The bus is pretty much just a bus, but the bus drivers are amazing with the money!  They have a big square of foam rubber that has slots and square holes cut in it to put the money.  The passengers hand them whatever change for the ç175 fare and the guy can instantly glance at it, divide it up among the little slots, or drop it into one of the BIG holes, pick out the change and hand it back all in a matter of split seconds!  It is amazing!  Then, while driving, shifting gears, avoiding cabs, motorcycles- which are like buzzing bees, he will resort the coins of which there are about seven or eight different kinds, some silver, some gold, in denominations of  ç500, ç100, ç50, ç25, ç10 ç5 plus the bills of ç10,000 ç5,000, ç2,000, ç1,000.  I had a ç5,000 and felt like I would get kicked off the bus if I gave it to him so I went and bought some Lizano Sauce for my salad.  They don´t have salad dressing but Lizano sauce is sort of like spicy Italian. That way I had my ç175 change for the bus!   

Saturday I will go to the Theater to see the lobby, don´t think there is anything playing, and to the city fort which is the National History Museum.  The great stone turrets of the fort still have bullet holes from the ¨Civil War¨of 1948.  Jose, better known as Pepe, Figueres tried to overthrow the liberal government during the election of 1848 when he only got about 8,420 votes in the national election. He staged a coup, then after a 9 month rule, and replacing the constitution, he stepped down and let the conservative president have the government. 

He´s the famous one who did away with the military - mostly because (I think) he cut a deal with the incoming president Ulate to be the next President, and didn´t want a military around to overthrow him!  Whatever his reason, it worked and now they spend all their time bragging about having no military, although the police act pretty soldierly!  They even stopped a kid and his girlfriend from necking in the park!  Frisked the kid and everything!  Can you imagine that happening in Mexico? Or the US, for that matter?

I had thought of catching the bus down to Cahuita to see Kay Chornook who is staying with her Afro-Caribbean boyfriend.  It is sort of like Padre Island only much more laid back, drug infested and hippyfied, where many of the Afro'Caribbeans in dreadlocks build shacks in the brush and live off the land as ¨precaristas¨ or squatters. Precaristas (from the word precarious for their subsistence living)  are the ones who settled Monteverde although they didn´t call themselves squatters.  They just didn´t know that the land was owned by the Guacimal Land Company, founded, now I know, by a britisher named Walter Leatherbarrow in 1901. I´m learning!  However, Cahuita would be very expensive, so I will stay here and go to the museum and work on my information from the archives.  

Zapote, where the achive is located,  is up in the hills west of the center but said to be a fairly dangerous section of town.  I find that the danger is the lousy sidewalks, the 6 inch deep water and mud flowing down off the open field, and the piles of brush left on the sidewalk so you have to walk in the street, taking your life in your hands!  And I thought Monteverde was bad. The first day when I walked back down the hill, (fortunately I had my umbrella but no raingear) about a mile to catch the bus I was soaked to the hips and my poor shoes were a mess from the mud! 

Anyway, the archive is called the ¨Platillo Volador¨ or flying saucer since it is built with sloping windows, narrowing at the top, all the way around a big circular building. It is completely made of poured concrete so it is cool, no need for air conditioning. The staff is pleasant, and the guard at the front gate took pity on me when he saw me crouched over the garden grate outside trying to drain my tunafish can to put it into my salad.  He squired me around and around down the curving stairway to the basement of this massive building and into the cafeteria.  Nothing for sale, but lots of tables and chairs for the staff plus a microwave and sink.            

After two days of sitting crouched in front of the computer looking for materials,  I was really getting frustrated from  hitting blank walls.  The Santa Elena Monteverde area is so new that the Archives don´t have much material past 1950.  If I wanted to look at 1800s, they would have that.  I spent hours on the Internet which covers about 25% of the material they have, and got a few things on Guacimal Land Company, and on a little bit on Santa Elena, but very very little.  

Guacaimal Land Company was the gold exploiting company that brought people to the area.  They had built a big hydroelectric plant that was used to power the port city of Puntarenas, but nothing up into the mountain valleys.  I´m still not sure if the miners moved up the mountain or if the settlers came over the mountains from the Central valley. I need a better map!  At least there are people whose parents or grandparents came and they still remember.  More interviews!  But I wanted the names of the people or the dates of the foundation of the towns and nothing was coming up! 

 Finally the archivist gave me the old fashioned file cards for the section on Government, and sure enough, after about 3000 cards, I found the towns!  The  Government included decrees that authorized the payment to towns for the construction of school buildings. I found the decree in which Santa Elena and two other nearby towns requested ç20,000 for their school.  I will look at the records tomorrow.  Then, today, I finally found the minutes of the Santa Elena coop with all the lists of all the socios or associates.  It only covers the years from 1971 to 1985 – and I don´t know why they quit but will find out.  With the names of all the important people, I can go to the Church archives and find out families, dates, marriages, weddings, etc. Then with the church records I can also find out when and  who asked for the founding of the churches, and thanks to the parade in Santa Elena, I know the little towns all have churches.    

Then, even better news!  It turns out that Jafeth Campos, the archivist at the National Archive did a similar history of a small section of San Jose called Turabía.  He spent four years on it and included the descriptions of the land, the rainfall, weather, topography, and early history of the Indians, plus the social and economic history and finally very detailed maps of how it changed over the decades. He focused on how the church boundaries influenced the creation of the town, called a Canton. He let me see a copy of it, so I copied his sources and his chapter headings.  Although Monteverde is different in its history, at least I now know where to look for the census info and the climate and topography which all plays a part in Monteverde.

So, my chapters are now organized, I know what to look for here and at the Curia – church records where I will go next week, and I know it will only take another four years!  Let´s see, that will put me at retirement! Hallelujah!  

Anyway, time to go cook my supper in the Quaker kitchen.  I am the only one who cooks but I always have Herr Heinz to keep me company.  He is an elderly Austrian-Canadian who is here to have his teeth fixed. I had a roommate night before last, a single woman from Surinam, by way of Fort Lauderdale where she works as a secretary for a cleaning company.  We had a nice time chatting about Surinam while she waited overnight for a stand-by on the airplanes to Miami.  I will have to move Sunday for another large group, so I may just bite the bullet and pay the extra $10 to have my own room, although there is no such thing as a private bath.  Herr Heinz and I chase the cockroaches out of the kitchen, the ants out of the toaster (I cleaned both the toaster oven and the toaster), and the lizards or skinks or whatever out of the bathroom.  At least there aren´t any mosquitos! 

This is the only computer, and it is in the TV room, and the various guests keep wandering by, and I don´t know if they are looking at the TV or at me for overusing the computer!  The beautiful petite, blonde with the much too tight blouse who runs the front office and opens the front door when you ring the door bell is hoping to watch the evening news but the daughter of one of the ladies here for the meeting of the Liga de Mujeres por Paz y Libertad (Women´s League for Peace and Liberty) has the TV commandeered to cartoons but I´m sure she would rather have the Internet.  So I will let her have the computer and I will go cook tunafish and macaroni and cheese - without butter or milk.  I forgot to get that at the store! Last night, beans, rice and avocado on tortillas, and if I beat the staff into the kitchen in the morning- before 7 - I make oatmeal with raisins and bananas for breakfast. Herr Heinz has sausage and cheese sandwich for all meals!  

Hugs to all!  I´ll probably write this weekend to report on the museum and the theater, and the excitement of San Jose on a Saturday night!  Bet I´m not going out! Hugs

Week 7    Howdeee!!!  

ºWell, so much for the best laid Weekend plans for going to the museum and to Heredia on the train! Didn´t happen, but maybe next weekend, but I´m running out of weekends! 

Herr Heinz wanted to go to the Saturday farmer´s market, so I tagged along to get an onion and a garlic to make my chicken and rice (with beans and tortillas and avocado) for the week. He  only got some bananas, but it was worth the trip just for the excitement, all the hawkers, hundreds of shoppers with their little folding carts. The costs were not that different from the stores.  These vendors know the prices in the shops and want to make as much as they can.  

It was fun to see!  Street after street of covered stalls selling produce of all kinds including some kind of strange, reddish orange spikey fruit about the size of a small peach with an almost translucent whitish mushy  inside around a small seed that is surprisingly sweet. The stall owner let me try one, but I bit down on the seed and was spitting pit bits for a while!  Luis, the night watchman here, says it is Rambutan or Mamon Chino or - according to one of the other guests (who is outside SMOKING!!!) Lichee nut. Also coconuts, chayote, yucca, and all sorts of other fruits and vegetables I didn´t recognize. I´ll have to learn what they are so I can describe how they are cooked and eaten as a part of the book.

Got back to the Casa Ridgway by noon Saturday and decided to go check out the University of Costa Rica Library which will have some of the books that Jafeth Campos, the Archivist, listed in his thesis. The campus was built in the middle of a forested park, and they actually saved most of the big old trees, and they are huge!  It is a 1950s style campus with buildings of concrete and glass, and students that could just as easily be on Sam´s campus. The only notable difference, is that they all kiss upon greeting – well, okay not guys to guys, but all the girls do, and girls and guys.  Not two kisses, like the Europeans, but just one. The guys thank goodness, have not adopted the fall-off-the-butt pants style, but all have T-shirts with sayings in English (even if they don´t have a clue what they say), and many with semi-styled mohawk haircuts with a small pig tail at the back.   The girls all wear the latest fashions, including the too-tight, low-cut, stretch tops, and the furry boots (they think it´s winter). Bluejeans everywhere on everyone, and cell phones and ear buds with music in every ear.  Margaret Mead, the anthropologist (the first book I read) said it has become a single world culture, and she is right!

I spent two hours on their computer finding dozens of possible books and heaven forfend! When they have open stacks it is so tempting to just grab books. This one might be good, that one looks interesting, hmmm, another good one, and another and another!  By the time I was done searching I had over thirty books- and when did I think I was going to read all of them?  By the time the library closed at 8:00 pm I had gone through about five thin books,  Fortunately, Ingrid, the kindly librarian agreed to store them for me until Monday.  That meant I had to decide whether I would go on Monday morning  to the archives, where Jafeth was going to make copies for me,  or to the library where the books were waiting. ARGH! 

Sunday I hiked up to the train station (got lost on the way, of course), but found that they had shut down the weekend tours to Heredia in order to fix the train tracks. The station is an aging but lovely old 1890s building with elegantly carved arched windows and doors, a green metal Mansard roof, a decrepit and broken down interior, and a brand new partially finished platform in red brick that had to be ready  for the Presidential ribbon cutting. Never mind that it will be another two years before the rest of the platform is finished or the building fixed.  The train, which is beautiful shiny and new,  had derailed twice since it opened last month, which is a little embarrassing, but not surprising!  This is Latin America, after all!  I was hoping to go this coming week, but some school students who are trying to get rid of their principal held a protest on Monday and blocked the train tracks. It cost the train company about 1 million colones in lost fares.  It finally ran on Tuesday so maybe I´ll have a chance to ride it before I leave.

Sunday evening I had to move into a single room, very much like a monk´s cell since it has some very small narrow windows up at the top of one wall.  Also a metal stand to hang and stack  things which I didn´t have before, and a bedside lamp!  We won´t mention the plastic bags stuffed into the cracks to keep the cockroaches out – they don´t work, but I haven´t stepped on a cockroach—yet!  The good thing is that I am just across from the bathroom.  At least I think it´s good, although Luis says it can be noisy if there are teens around.  He didn´t know how true that was!

The Casa Ridgway is usually peopled by very quiet, civilized, conservative people like Herr Heinz.  A lovely tall, good looking blonde  Danish couple, an equally quiet Norwegian pair, a group of college students from the US, the Philippines, and France, an elderly Costa Rican scholar of some sort, and even one of the really, honest-to-goodness Native Indians who was here to go protest for his people to the Legislature. Everyone is always considerate and thoughtful about not making noise or disturbing anyone else.   

I had moved to accommodate 30 teens who were part of a Folkloric dance troupe that had come to town to perform folkloric dances on Monday.  They were going to march in the protest against changing the designation of the Baula Turtle refuge at Ostional on the west side of the Nicoya Peninsula from a State Park to a State Reserve.  That would allow the big hotels to build within eyesight of the mama turtles crawling laboriously onto the beach and digging holes to lay eggs.  The light disturbs the turtles so there was going to be a big rally on Monday down at the Cathedral to stop the government from selling out to the rich hotel owners.  Aren´t you proud of me, I didn´t go to the march but kept doing my research!

At 5:30 Sunday evening, into our peace and quiet, suddenly drop 30 raucous, yelling, laughing shouting Costa Rican teens!  I ran for my room and hid, as did Heniz and Matt, the young Canadian, future diplomat! I worked on my cards for a while, but then relented and came out to find out who they were.  They turned out to be quite pleasant, although it took them a while of glancing side-ways at the strange gringa to decide I was okay! Only when they found out I was a 30-year veteran of the teaching wars, did they accept me.  We all finally piled onto the couch to watch the Miss Universe Pageant, and OF COURSE, Miss Venezuela won--- AGAIN!  And none of us thought she was that good looking. Fortunately, since they had to be up at 6 am, their sponsors put them to bed promptly at nine so they didn´t bother me at all! Besides, after weeks in Monteverde of  listening to motorcycles and buses and cars grinding up the hill outside my window, what´s a bunch of teens? 

So, what to do on Monday morning? I had Roxanne, the night watch person, wake me at 5 am so I could fix my salad lunch, eat oatmeal with raisin and banana and egg white breakfast, and take off to the library which opens at 7.  The bus, which was not full, was much faster than I had planned so had to wait half an hour until the library opened.  Rescued my staggering stack of books and claimed one of the small individual tables in the reading area. I worked for two hours then left my books and a few cards to make it LOOK like I was coming right back  Then grabbed a cab and got to the national archive by nine!

While Jafeth was fiddling with getting the clamp off the Santa Elena Coop materials so we could copy the lists of names, I went back to the Guacimal records, of which there were 262 records.  As I went through them, the picture began to come together. In the 1890s, a bunch of Costa Ricans were claiming land up in the Tilaran range near Abangares and Cañas where gold had been discovered – that is just over the mountains from Monteverde. Back at the Library later I would find out what was going on from Dr.Brunilda Hilje in her book on agricultural expansion.   

Then suddenly I started finding more and more denunciations of land (those were the way to claim the land) during 1900 to1905  by dozens North Americans and British and Italians and  Germans, men, women and even in favor of their children, all of whom ceded their lands to Walter John Ford Leatherbarrow, the British President of the Guacimal Exploration Company Limited. It took from three to five years to get the denunciation papers through the courts and then at the end the land was auctioned to whoever paid the most, - the documents even wrote out the Going Once … Going Twice … Gone! …Ford was always right there to pay off the bidders and claim the land from them.  He must have controlled the entire mountain range – but only on the West side, which is why the towns of Santa Elena, Monteverde, and San Luis and all the others were founded on land that was already owned! Those first Tico settlers that I want to write about were homesteading- I refuse to say they were Squatters- on Ford´s Guacimal company land! 

Sometime around 1914 Ford started the Guacimal Mining Company to mine gold. The next batch of items I found were court cases in Guacimal for the 1914s to the 1920s for beatings, homicide, and sale of illegal “aguardiente” or moonshine, called Guaro now. Most of the prisoners were jailed but I didn´t pull the records to see where or for how long.  One case even involved the Chief of Police who was suspected to letting one of the convicts escape!  Sounds like a mining camp to me!  After getting my lists of names copied, I grabbed a bus and hustled back to the library by 1 pm.     

Every one of the little desks was full and there was a note on my desk suggesting that I shouldn´t leave my things unattended! The students were looking at me strangely! The only things I left were the cards and THEIR books to hold my spot, but I was properly chastened! The first book I opened was Brunilda Hilje who explained in excellent detail, the reason the Costa Rican government wanted to give farmers land during the 1840s was so they could produce coffee for sale to England, to keep their workers awake during the Industrial Revolution!  Who knew?  

By the 1880’s however, Minor C. Keith, the American banana baron, arrived to sign agreements with the Costa Rican government for land to produce bananas, and to build the railroad to the Atlantic, for which he received 800,000 Hectares of Costa Rica. In the US that would not have been a big deal, all railroads received land, but in little tiny Costa Rica, that was a huge quantity of land! He controlled the country! No one shipped bananas without going through him.  He had also bought up all of the East side of the Tilaran range when gold was discovered.  He signed two more contracts and got several hundred thousands more Hectares for expanding his empire along the entire East Coast of Costa Rica. Nobody crossed him or competed with him and he took over the Northern Railway Company and the Costa Rican railroad line. Evidently he died in Costa Rica since I found a request in the archives for money from the Costa Rican government to have Keith´s body exhumed and shipped back to the States! What happened?  He didn´t have enough money left????          

Anyway, I still had a number of books left to go through when the library closed at 8 so I asked to leave them again, but no need to rush so this morning! Put in another long day, this time not slipping off anywhere, and got through almost all the books.  Returned some unread, but for the most part Hilje was the best of all.  I still need more census records and will go to the Church archives in the morning to find out the settlement of the towns, then to the National Institution of Geography which may have the maps I need to show where homes were located along the rivers.  

I´ve been listening half way to Who Wants to be a Millionaire but didn´t know most of the answers since they were about Costa Rica, so if this doesn´t make sense, blame the TV! Hugs and Abrazos!

Week 8   

 This is the last message from San Jose since it is Saturday night and I leave on the bus tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 6:30, so this will be shorter than usual!  The people here at the Peace Center had another mob of students in for the last three days and they just left this morning so I haven´t even been able to get NEAR the computer.

I got moved again, this time to the attic, not really, it is the second floor. I thought I would be clear of the cockroaches up there, but no, they still came up into the bathroom. Found one on the shower curtain and it must have been an old one since I was able to kill it without too much chasing! This bathroom is much, much nicer that the ones downstairs.  It actually has a shower, toilet, sink and mirror in a regulation size bathroom. It is just down the hall about ten feet and down two steps from the bedroom.    

The ones downstairs for the dorms are divided up—the four foot long counter with double sink faces two toilets with doors and the two showers are at the end of the counter. The only difficulty is that the toilets are in cubicles that are exactly two feet across and about three feet deep.  The doors are about ten inches wide each, and are impossible to open once seated.  Inside each one is a little garbage can where you are supposed to put your toilet paper.  A note on the wall says, if you accidentally forget and put the toilet paper in the toilet you are to fish it out immediately!  Yeah, right! One night I reached in to turn on the light, and heard a male grunt!  Scared me half to death.  He evidently hadn´t known how to turn on the light! I bet he learned!  So did I !             

This week was a group of seniors from down south somewhere who were brought to San Jose to absorb some culture.  Their professor is a very dapper looking gentleman with a white goatee, born in Guatemala and trained in Spain, and  retired from teaching  Latin American History in Michigan. He decided he wanted to get back to teaching in southern Costa Rica and feels it is his duty to educate his youngsters in the ¨big city life¨ of San Jose!  He convinced his school to pay for the bus, the hotel, the meals, and most of the cost of the opera, concerts and movies they went to!  I´m not sure how much the kids got out of it, but at least they enjoyed the San Pedro Mall!

The San Pedro Mall, which I visited, just as a cultural experience, of course, is four floors of stores for clothing, shoes, clothing, shoes, cell phones, music, clothing, shoes, and a food court that covers all three floors and has every fast food chain the US has ever thought of.  Jammed with people and all the girls buying everything.  This country has a pretty well-to-do middle class! 

Back to work, I found the Church archives and everything they have is from the 1500s through the 1800s.  Nothing past 1911, so they don´t have any of the records here.  They say the records are in Santa Elena.  So it is a good thing I invested in that Santa Elena shirt and got to know the priest! Of course, if I talk to all 4,000 people in Santa Elena, Cerro Plano, San Luis, and Monteverde, I´m sure I can figure out the genealogical charts. 

I did get to see a new book out by a young woman who worked at the Church archives for years on the reports by Bishop Thiel, a German monk who came to Costa Rica and was eventually appointed bishop for the country.  He wasn´t content to sit in San Jose but made trip after trip to every single parish in the country and wrote decrees on every single little church and village. He is probably best known for the trips to the native Indian villages and the reports he wrote about them, most of which have been published previously.  The rest of his trips around the country have never been published before and this woman did a wonderful job with the transcriptions, since some of the writing is challenging to read.  

Without intending to, Bishop Thiel´s decrees give a wonderful picture of what was going on in the country from 1896 through his death in 1902.  He listed everything--the broken windows to be replaced, the bell tower to be built, the church painted, the benches fixed, and then he started in on the priests themselves.  The cura (priest) of such and such church must stop attending the town festivals, and he should not be playing instruments, and he should certainly not be inviting people to his house to celebrate. Another was not to have women under 40 in his home who were not relatives, and he must not have his natural (illegitimate) children in his home, and he must maintain a better life-style for his congregation. The details are as fascinating as a soap opera especially since you see the changes in the towns over time.  How I wish our little towns had existed back then, but at least he did visit Puntarenas (that´s the closest coastal town) and I got to see what was happening down on the coast anyway.

The day got worse at the map place which also did not have any historic maps. I did get some topographic maps which show the deep ravines and valleys up in the mountains.  Also went back to the National Archives to pick up the copies of the only two historic maps that were of any use!  By strange fortune, a young man named Adrian Masters just happened to be there.  It turns out he is the son of two biologists from Monteverde and was raised there with the Ticos.  He was thrilled at what I was planning to do and started suggesting names of people to talk to and places to visit and talking about all the gossip.  What a contact!  He suggested e-mailing him and he would be happy to help with contacts.  Turns out I have met his parents, thanks to Kay Chornook, so I will go talk to them again! 

Still trying to track down the deed records that go back to our boy Ford Leatherbarrow, Willy and Rowan, the Australian couple gave me a good suggestion.  They were here for a two-day course in how to become a Costa Rican citizen.  One of their speakers told them the National Register had lists of corporations, so I thought I would try!

The National Register is a huge building, right near the National Archives. They handle all the records for the entire country on deeds, property, legal records of all sorts. The country bumpkins who come feel as overwhelmed as I did and fortunately they have lots of young helpers in orange shirts who are there to help. First I needed to find out the numbers of the property. Nothing on the Guacimal Mining Company, nothing on the Santa Elena Coop, and nothing on the Guanacaste Exploration Company, but the Productores de Monteverde, the cheese factory does have records!  So I got the numbers, then had to buy three documents for the tax stamps, then go to another line to pay  for a Legal page, then to another line to have them tell me what to write, Finally, requested the historic background for the property and left it with them. I will pick it up next time I am back in San Jose on the 17^th.  Then we´ll see if Ford Leatherbarrow shows up!

Finally today I got a chance to go visit the museum up at the big fort on the hill.  Magnificent place with turrets and galleys overlooking the city and the Legislative Assembly next door.  The museum is well done, mostly focusing on the native Indian artwork.  The Indians were particularly good at carving amazing three-legged stone seats or corn grinder metates made of  lava rock and carved underneath with intricate ornate decorations of figurines holding up the bench.  They also used jade and obsidian and made beautiful polichrome pottery. They were obviously influenced from both Peru and from Mexico. The colonial period had one room with wooden furniture and nothing else  The modern period had very little except three paintings of the Virgin, and some portraits of the presidents especially Pepe Figueres and the 1948 overthrow.  

Okay, maybe it was worth the $7 charged to foreigners.  Locals get in for ç1000 or about $2.  Also finally got to go to the theater with Willy and Rowan after we had supper across the street at their hostel.  There wasn´t room here so they had to stay at El Chante, which is owned by two lesbians who fight a lot.  It is more of a party place than this is, and even has a sort of above-ground swimming pool in the tiny back yard. It is much dingier, and dirtier, and not as inexpensive as here, and you don´t get breakfast.  Anyway, we went to a clavichord concert in the upstairs foyer of the theater.  As was to be expected  of a turn-of-the-century theater, it is wildly ornate with gold and marble baroque carving everywhere, figures in marble, ceilings painted with magnificent scenes of Costa Rica and cherubs and clouds, and corner shields in gold and Costa Rican flags.  

The clavichord was actually built by Manuel Donadio from Medellin, Colombia, and he had come up to CR to play a concert on one of his own clavichords that was bought by a local musician. Donadio was trained in Boston and learned to build the clavichords there since there aren´t very many still left in the world.  If you want to play them, you gotta build your own, I guess!  Unlike the concert at El Establo this was well attended, even by dignitaries from the Japanese embassy, and perhaps the American embassy, and several other diplomats.  The concert was Bach, Handel and several other French composers from the court of Louis XIV.  All very baroque too, but very lovely and well played.  Stopped for ice cream on the way home amidst all the partiers out on the streets, and wandered home as people were rolling down their metal doors and closing up for the night. Time  to pack and get ready to go tomorrow morning.  

Abrazos from San Jose!

Week 9  - or is it 10?  Last gasp!  

´m back in the land of the cucarachas (that´s cockroaches) and mosquitos at the Casa de Paz in San Jose. They have fumigated and the roaches are smaller but still evident!  I miss then nice cool weather up in the mountains. The last week there was quite an experience. 

  I had such fun working at the Parroquia archives, or at least in the Padre´s dining room.  Even caught him in his T-shirt and shorts one morning while Xioney was out and the kitchen maid let me in.  He graciously invited me in and let me   finish working on the marriage records and I finally got done.  Hundreds of cards, a huge staggering stack that is going to weigh a ton to bring back, but what great resources.  

Xioney had changed her schedule since she was going to be helping cook for the Queen´s dinner.  Turns out Doña Patricia, the reigning queen (she gathered the most money, not for any possible hope of beauty, a tall, gaunt, ascetic, gray haired, noisy, back-country woman from Guanacaste, their Texas) decided with the priest that they should hold a dinner for all the candidates who didn´t make it, to thank them for their work.  Xioney was not overly pleased and was worried about feeding 40 people.  Since I was sitting at the dining room table, right there in the kitchen, it was impossible to avoid getting involved. (Miss a party? HARDLY!) 

 I became the “madrina de la Sangria” (the Godmother of the wine), since they decided a Mexican must know how to make it.  I kept adding white wine, then red wine, then orange juice, then cut up fruit, then more red wine, then more OJ, then, of course, more red wine.  Doña Patricia and Xioney and I had to keep tasting at each addition, so by the time the chicken cordon bleu was done, the rice fixed, and the salad cut up and the plates on the tables in the Social Hall, we were having a grand time.  Doña Patricia was regaling us with stories of her youth.  She and her brothers found a tree which was hollowed out to allow the sap to ferment, so they stuck bamboo straws into the hole and had a fine old time.  The owner of the tree ratted them out to their father who assured the owner he would punish them but never did, until Mom heard about it!! Patricia remembers skeedaddling for the trees to avoid the whipping that was certainly coming their way!    

I cleaned up the kitchen while Doña Patricia liberally shared our concoction of Sangria with the guests. I was worried that there wouldn´t be enough place settings since Xioney had invited 40 and we only had 26 place settings. They knew better than to worry-- 20 people showed up!  The Padre had gone down the mountain to Cebadilla to perform a mass, so he was about half an hour late, so the Sangria came in handy.  Alberto Guindon told us a story about a previous priest who had gone down the mountain to do a mass and his chofer (driver) had gotten the car stuck in a mud bog.  He cussed a blue streak and when someone came along and finally unstuck them he went on to do the mass, but while he was praying at the church, the chofer was regaling the local citizenry at the bar with the stories of the priest´s amazing command of the “local idioms!”  When our Sacerdote Oscar finally showed up, he found me in the kitchen washing dishes, and asked if this was part of my Matrimonial research!

I had also decided that I needed to go to Las Juntas de Abangares, which was the central church for the area from 1936 to 1984, before Santa Elena was named a Parroquia.  I did think of calling but since Xioney was out, I didn´t get a chance to do so.  The bus to Las Juntas (the name means the Joining – in this case of the three main rivers of the area), left Santa Elena at 4:30 am, so Hermelinda rousted me out Wednesday morning at 3:30 and I hiked down the hill to the bus stop with my backpack with a change of clothes and my pillow (boy! Having your own pillow makes even hard board beds bearable).  We watched the sun rise over the mountains to the East as we drove north, climbing laboriously up over the mountain ranges then dropped back down into the valley of the Abangares.  Of course, nothing was open when we arrived at 6:30, so I wandered around the town with backpack, found out it is perfectly square, with the church in the middle but since it was founded by an American company – The Abangares Gol Fil (as the locals called it- that´s Gold Fields) it has no government plaza and no market square.  It did have a small park next to the church, so, for entertainment (!)  I spent the two hours cleaning up the trash in the park!  That´s desperation!       

Finally by 8 am I figured the church secretary should be opening the Parroquial offices.  Nothing. By 8:30, I had walked around the church several times, and still nothing.  Next door was the Casa Cural (the priest´s house) and if I could brave Father Oscar in his shorts, I figured the Sacerdote here couldn´t be too much of a threat.  Ah, but no! When I knocked on the door, a young seminary student barred the gate and informed me that Wednesday was their day off!  What to do?  Stay another day or go back on the 9:30 bus?  The Cabinas (a very run down set of ratty rooms with dripping, rusted window air conditioners) did not look appetizing, but when I went back to the bus station, a gracious young man told me to walk back across the river and there was a much nicer motel across the way.  

Hermelinda had forgotten to tell me that Las Juntas de Abangares is tropical hot, and my long sleeve blouse and long pants (proper for the church, I thought) were a disaster!  I just thought I sweat up in the mountains hiking my five miles to the Institute! But, sure enough, the motel across the way had a swimming pool, a tropical, thatch covered open-air restaurant and bar, and very nice air conditioned rooms with cable TV. Who could ask for more?  I did forget to ask about the beds (a mistake) which had very VERY thin, 3” foam mattresses on wood planks. Thank goodness for my pillow! I was tired so I decided to stay and promptly fell asleep to the comforting roar of the air conditioner.  I never moved out of the room, since I had my own food with me, until the next morning and luxuriated in flipping channels to my hearts content!  

By next morning I trooped over to the church again, and found the office open. When I walked in, I could see all the wonderful volumes of marriages, births and deaths over in the cabinet.  I was licking my lips, but the young woman burst my bubble!  She said the priest was in Cebadilla and the regular secretary had taken her child to somewhere or another so I would not be able to look at any of the records!  But, she happily gave me the phone number, so next time I can call ahead and get my Sacerdote Oscar to contact the Sacerdote in Abangares and make my connections for me. All that dish washing had better come in handy!

Fortunately, I still had time to get back across the river to the motel and check out and catch the bus back to Santa Elena.  I was suddenly glad I hadn´t been able to see the rough dirt road the day before.  The road is so narrow that the driver has to honk at the curves because they are so steep and the turns so tight that two vehicles can´t pass each other on the curves, especially not the big buses.  He had to back down several times to let someone come past, and several cattle trucks had to back up to let us by.  The drop offs are terrifying and the road so steep, the driver had to keep the bus in 1^st gear, grinding up the hill for miles, or it seemed like miles. It seemed to me that the old-fashioned way of riding horse-back across country for marriages and baptisms would have been much more comfortable and much safer.  It used to take people 4 hours to ride horseback to Las Juntas so I can tell you, the bus is not much of an improvement!  But I will have to brave the road again – when I get back- in order to get the records I need.  

Back in Safe Santa Elena, I returned to the Instituto.  Jim Warren, a professor down here on leave of some sort, decided to offer a history of Latin America by rounding up various people who could give lectures.  Of course, I volunteered but could not access all my beautiful Power Points back on my computer at home.  So had to do a very limited version but they seemed to enjoy the story of Cortes and the conquest.  I also got to listen to Martha Campbell who is not the great beauty that I expected from the stories Hermelinda told of her affair with Herme´s husband.  She is small, with almost no forehead, and her graying once-blonde hair, parted in the middle and pulled straight back -- doesn´t help,  and very big, blue bug-eyes. She had lots of slides of the early families, and seems to want to give the Campbell side as opposed to the Rockwell side.  I guess there is more friction in paradise than is evident!  I will need to listen to her again and take more careful notes.  

Saturday, with only a few days left, Herme took me to the weekly market where people bring their vegetables to the big gymnasium to sell.  The Mennonites were back and their pumpkin pie is scrumptious so I bought a whole one this time, instead of just a half. Also ran into Wendy Rockwell and Jim Warren and one of the City Councilmen, so this is becoming quite a cozy place.  After lunch (more rice and beans—I will never look at rice or beans in the same way again!) we walked down to see Doña Patricia´s little store.  She decorates for parties and has all sorts of thread, colored ribbon, figurines, flowers, cloth paint and cardboard cut outs, all crammed into a tiny “store” of about 6 feet by 5 feet.  If location is the key to success, she is out of luck, down a dirt road behind the mall, but everyone knows her and calls on her for her help.  

We finally got to do a little touristing by going to the Ranario.  That is one of many frog and butterfly gardens, but it had considerable investment in five big butterfly houses full of plants, with, admittedly, few butterflies.  They buy the pupas from collectors, but are never guaranteed that some insect has not laid its eggs in the pupa to eat the future butterfly. We did get to see some leaf-cutter ants in a long, long line marching along with their little green flags, having chopped up some tree to carry home to the nest somewhere in the forest. The girl guide warned us that they are vicious and give a really painful bite so we walked wide! The frogs were in glass cases about five feet wide by three feet high, with a mesh screen over the top.  Since some of the frogs eat each other, they have to be careful which ones they put together.  The little bitty frogs would be difficult to see in the forest, so it was fun to get to see the orange frog with bluejean legs and the big toads, with mouths big enough to eat rats!        

On the way home we walked through the new, not quite yet ready mall which everyone says is drug money looking for a place to be laundered. Why on earth anyone in their right mind would put a 51-store mall in Santa Elena is beyond everyone´s understanding.  There will be a big supermarket and maybe a big souvenir store, but the rest of the stores will have to survive off of the local populace.  The San Pedro Mall in San Jose has all those shoe stores and fancy dress shops, but there isn´t that much money in this area to support those kinds of sales. Hermelinda, who lives just up the hill from the Mall already has a large, unfinished hotel next door.  The town doesn´t need another business failure!!!

After a quiet Sunday with the Quakers, Monday was the beginning of the Independence Day celebrations.  On the 14^th, groups of students start carrying the “torch of liberty” from the northern border down the Inter-American highway and groups from each of the neighboring schools go down to the highway to light torches and carry them back up to the mountain towns.  Hermelinda´s grandson, Andres (who lives with her and she pays for his schooling, although he is nearly 18 and only in 8^th grade), wanted to be one of the runners, but the Adventist school that he attends wouldn´t send a contingent of runners, so he drove down with a bunch of friends just to be part of the excitement.  The torch, after the runners arrived at the gymnasium – many speeches, lots of singing of the five patriotic songs-- was passed off to each of the schools – although the Adventista didn´t come light a torch – the Santa Elena elementary school, the Colegio (high school) theQuakers and the Creativa School all did. 

In the evening, there is a parade of lanterns.  All of the little kids make lanterns in the shapes of houses with little windows and doors, churches with colored rose windows, even cows, or just accordion shapes and put candles in them, then hang them from coat hangers or sticks or rods.  With all of the parents, the children march down the hill to the church where some of the local dignitaries judge the best lanterns. It was beautiful to see all the bobbing lights amid the crowds of people as they walked down the hill to town.   

The next day, the 15^th is the actual independence day and WHAT A TURN OUT!  Hundreds of the kids from different schools all up and down the mountain, each in different outfits with drums and tympani and batons and hoops and fans.  The city council had set up a flat bed truck in Cerro Plano at the Redondel (don´t know what it is, looks like a bull ring).  Decorations were the banana trees, evidently the cheap, easy, quick decoration of choice, with crepe paper streamers in red, white and blue.  Their flag is two navy blue horizontal stripes on the outside edges, followed by two white stripes and a large red stripe down the length of the center of the flag. Again, more songs and speeches although half the dignitaries were late, including Father Oscar and Maria Elena Corrales (toad-like-the would-be next Mayor) and Council President Emilio Alonso Arguedas (young, newly graduated Vet, who wants to be the next Deputy from the area). Then after each band got to give a small taste of their skills, mostly just banging on their drums as hard as they could, they set off down the hill with dignitaries in the forefront.  

The costume variety was truly amazing.  The Quakers, evidently without a patriotic bone in their bodies, led the parade dressed in hooded capes of yellow, red and green satin with masks of animals, birds, etc.  Their majorettes, swinging large rainbow colored banners marched to IPod songs played through speakers in the truck with followed them! Not a single Costa Rican flag color in their midst—nor any martial airs, of course, given their peaceful propensities. 

 The costumes included navy blue and white checked skirts with white blouses for La Lindora.  Their navy cowboy hats were decorated at the back with white flowers, pearls and ribbons.  I don´t even remember the names of all the schools. A group of tiny girls in short white satin dresses had blue chiffon waist sashes and cute little royal blue mob caps (like Betsy Ross) and red pompons on their batons which they had a hard time handling.  Others wore short white skirts with red trim at the hem and sleeves and hoops of red which they jumped through.  One group of slightly older girls wore short red skirts, black belts and red strapless tops (that they had to keep pulling up so they wouldn´t be topless!) Another group wore white scooped necked blouses with triple layer short skirts in red, white and blue and fishnet hose and red flats that were wearing blisters on the girls by the end of the parade.  Some in baby blue satin bolero tops and skirts, with white cowboy hats, and high top white boots, were very good with their batons. There were several other groups, including one contingent in the typical folkloric wide flounced  skirts and peasant blouses.   

The Creativa School Band (which Andres had joined with the ç10,000 I gave him for his costume) was wearing the traditional farmer outfit of white slouch hats, long sleeved white shirts, and rolled up white pants with huaraches.  They were having a great time whaling away on their drums, but it seems the Adventista Director was angry that Andres jumped ship and joined the band of the other school, even though she hadn´t sent a representation, and may punish him by lowering his grades. That made Hermelinda mad and she may have to go to the school to fight for her grandson.  I think he tends to like to clown around and has had problems before!  She thinks he needs to be at the more expensive Creative where she thinks he will do better. He may not ever make it through!

Made a brief trip to Puntarenas, the coastal town that is the center of the state,  but when I ask for archives you would think I was speaking Greek.  Nothing available, but got a ride back with Alberto and Wolf Guindon who were in Puntarenas at the Hospital.  The ride back up was rough!  Alberto seems to believe that going at anything under a bouncing, bone-jarring 20 miles an hour is a waste of time, so we jounced our way homeward but got back much faster than the bus.  Went up to the reserve in the mist to buy a book on the forest animals, and then came home to pack.  

Bus back to the Casa de Paz in San Jose and the busy bustle of the city.  Went back to the Registro Nacional and after they told me I needed more information, I had to go get copies of microfilmed materials to the tune of another ç17,000.  I was really getting cranky when they sent me down to the basement to get more copies.  There, to my unbounded surprise, they had rows and rows of all the Deed Records, completely available and rather mussed up, with bent corners, folded and wrinkled pages and very little concern for their preservation.  At long last, they would let me see anything I wanted and I immediately began reviewing the 600 page volumes. It is all there, and I will be able to locate all of the original settlers with all of their fincas and their sales and dates.  There are ONLY 155 volumes, so it will take some time to go through them all.  I feel like I have finally hit the gold mine.  What a relief!  

I spent Saturday at the Tinoco library and found a book on the Abangares gold mine with detailed information from one of the miners who actually worked there.  And got to see several of the theses although not enough time to look at them all.  Checked out the national library which is very up to date with on-line information that I will be able to access.  Tried to get information from several government offices but they love nothing better than to send you to some other office, none of which have anything to offer.  So, nothing more to check so it is time to come home!  How wonderful to finally know what I need and how to find it.  I´ll have to come back, but it will be easier next time!

Love to all!  See you soon!