June 13th, my 23rd Birthday

The neighbor sent us some nice cheese and Coco made me surprise empanadas from scratch. 
We later went to town and had a couple beers with Coco's bro, bought some rum and came back to the house to celebrate.  I neglected to eat dinner and was blacked out shortly after returning to the house.  I can't drink rum.  But that's what everyone drinks here.  Anyway I hear I had a good time.  Mario told me I'm welcome here anytime, this farm is my home.  And he gave me the little machete i like to carry.  Hopefully it makes it home with me.  I will also return to my slow drinking habits when I get home. 

Memories of June 14th 2012

Not for the faint at heart or vegans.   Note: I was not pleasantly surprised to find photos and video this morning of the following account.

So the thing about waking up drunk is that there is time to ward off the hang over by continuing to drink.  But then if you aren't careful you are looking at a 2 - three day bender.  Not pretty.  But that's not really what this post is about.  Thursday morning I woke up to the sound of the english rock station blaring due to Coco's bro Abraham turning it on and laughing.  Nothing like a little Kiss & their "rock & Roll all Night" to roll you out of bed to drunkenly feed the squawking birds.  I won a 500 colonies ($1) bet from abraham tho for feeding the birds, but didn't win his silver necklace since I wasn't up by 5:30 am.

Pre cutting

So all of us are up for some reason, Mario(the farm owner) is in his grey tighty underwear chasing the bull.  Next Coco joins him.  Apparently Mario while still drunk and with no sleep has decided that the bull is too much trouble with his balls.  Running away to the next heard all the time, and earlier this week he even brought them home!  4 cows, a baby and the bull from the next farm came home with him for what I can only guess would be a cow sex party.

As the morning proceeds, Abraham and I are on the deck watching the crazy ass Mario chase the bull in his undies with Coco's assistance.  The next thing we know, the bull is tied on the ground, the knife sharpener and knife in hand and Mario is removing the bulls balls.  Then I'm being beckoned to bring the coffee to stop the bleeding.  But since I didn't know anything about coffee and bull balls, I brought the pot of coffee.  I am running back and forth in the field with the coffee pot, then the dry coffee, then the purple stuff to stop infection, and the dog to help lick the wound to stop the bleeding.  The bull finally had enough and fought his way up, squishing Coco's hand in the rope, as Coco was sitting on top of the bulls side trying to hold him down while Mario literally sliced off the balls. 

Then I've been handed the balls to carry back to the house with the bloody dog.  I'm not sure why this happened or why I was able to do this.  Thank you rum that was still in my system.  The bull went off to think about his new ball-less life.  Appearing only to be a little sad and confused.  I'm sure there was pain involved but not enough for him to make much noise or passout or put up much of a fight really.

After bringing all the crazy things back to the house I took Osa the dog to the river to wash off the blood.  There I decided to attempt the cold water soaking out the booze therapy and sat in the river.  Mario shortly joined me blood covered and still in his ridiculous underwear.  We talked of farms and land.  Shortly joined by Coco.  The three of us fully clothed laying in the cold river.  Abraham walked down but apparently doesn't know about the cold water therapy.  Which may not actually work but does take away the booze hot red burning that sometimes happens the next day.  The we made it back to the house dripping wet. 

Mario makes the best pinto!  When he comes to stay he cooks for us and it's always REALLY good.  Sadly this morning the meat in the pinto (pinto is rice and beans from the day before fried up with veggies and meat) was fresh cow balls.  Of course being the token Gringa of the house and the only one visibly freaked out by the mornings situation, I was served breaky (back in bed) first.  The pinto was delicious but I only ate two bites of the balls.  The first bite to a. be polite and say that I tried it, and b.  the second bite to confirm I did not like it.  Tasted and had the texture of liver which makes me sick to think about. 

Then in typical next morning Coco form we went to the bar to have a couple beers at 11am to take off the rest of the hangover.  Hair of the dog really does work(especially when the beer is rimmed with salt and limon.  they don't have lemons here.  Limons and limes is all I have found)  , unless you continue to drink.  In this case you repeat the next morning, hence the 2 - 3 day binge. 

Ah, what a way to start my 23rd year of life!  ;)

The bull appears to be fine, though slightly embarrassed. 


Kiss - Rock and Roll All Nite

You show us everything you've got
You keep on dancin' and the room gets hot
You drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy
You say you wanna go for a spin
The party's just begun, we'll let you in
You drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy
You keep on shoutin', you keep on shoutin'

(Chorus)
I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day
I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

You keep on saying you'll be mine for a while
You're lookin' fancy and I like your style
You drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy
You show us everything you've got
Baby, baby that's quite a lot
And you drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy
You keep on shoutin', you keep on shoutin'

Friday on the Farm

Today I:
did laundry
cleaned and made beans(the beans we have come straight from the field so you have to pick out the bad ones and the rocks and sticks before cooking)
made left over pasta fritata for breaky
sat in the sun for a few mins
fed pigs, cows and birds
thought
talked
laughed

A Few of my Favorite Things

The things I'm looking forward to:
Clean fingernails.
Not building a fire every day to cook, sometimes 3 times a day.
Hot water when I want it.
No dark brown/grey and black outs.
Unlimited internet and electricity.
Cheap beer.
Larger variety of food when wanted.

And really those things (except for the fingernails) aren't that bad.  The lack of hot water is hard when you want to shower and night or in the am.  So I shower mid day when the pipe is warmed by the sun and then quickly rinse the other times during the day!  And honestly I have nothing really to complain about, just the little things i took for granted my entire life.

i have photos and other posts to post, but might have to wait until i return to get to them!  oh well!
and now a little sunshine and warmish mid day shower! 

I should also add, that I will be happy not to have various bugs crawling on me in the night, biting and waking me up!  Or at least I hope I won't have that when I return!  :)

The Final Countdown

10 days until my return to “reality”.  But as I recently said in an email to some friends, at this point I don’t know what reality is.  I’ve mentioned before that I feel I’ve been living someone else’s life.  Not an Portland life, that is for sure.  The things that are different here range from beliefs, customs, attitudes, food handling, animal treatment, woman’s roles and rights, etc. etc.  and even though many of the people I have met speak English and have been exposed to America and Americans the underlying differences surface quite quickly at times.  But that’s not what I’m writing about now.  

I am filled with anxiety about my return.  My friends and families lives have continued on without me.  And though I’ve only been gone for about 4 months I haven’t had much news from home and I know that many things can happen in 4 months.  I’m also filled with uncertainty about what I want to do from here.  Work, money, houses, cars, pets and even bicycle decisions feel very pressing.  

However, there is part of me that thinks I’ll just enjoy summer and worry about that other stuff later!  Pura Vida!  Tomorrow is another day.  Even though that's what I've been doing for the last 1.5 years since my layoff.  If I've leaned anything at all in my time here it's that sitting in an office will be very a difficult life for me to return to.  

In farm news: 

The cheese making continues

The pigs ate the male duck

2 hens are broody sitting on no eggs - cold baths for them

3 bun buns are doing well!  

My chigger battle is futile, and I'm once again covered with them!  They itch like EmEffers!  

I hesitate to tell this one, but I encountered my first snake here in Costa Rica this week.  The other night Coco and I walked to the neighbors to take them some food and visit.  We both had flashlights and were looking for the Fer-de-Lance (Bothrops asper)Spanish Name: Terciopelo-  Most people don't survive the bites of these.  And the small ones are worse because they can't or don't control the amount of venom that comes out when they bite.  However, since I've never seen one, I only know that they are hard to spot and blend in.  They don't run like most snakes but will attack right away.  In a Costa Rican snake miracle I step right on it's head!  and didn't even know it until Coco was yelling and chopping it up with the machete!  He was in shock and awe that I wasn't biten.  He saw it right when I stepped on it, not enough time to warm me.  It really did blend in to the dirt road.  If I would have been biten, and actually made it to the hospital in San Jose or Golfito, I would have probably been hospitalized for a long time while they tried to stop the spread of the damage.  Some people loose their legs or have to have many skin grafts from other parts of the body.  Needless to say, my walking anywhere at night is probably not going to happen again.  :) 

To answer some much asked questions:

Yes Coco is my boyfriend.  No, I don't know if we will ever see each other again.  Yes this is breaking my heart.  No, I am not painting.  No, I am not an alcoholic, still a binge drinker with maybe more binges.  :)  But in the last 2.5 weeks we've only drank a couple of times.  Yes, I'm excited to see people at home, but no, I'm not really looking forward to returning.  No, I don't have any idea what I'll do when I get there!  

That's it for now.  The solar panel situation is still not good so my power supple on this computer is VERY limited!  

Love and bunnies nose kisses,

Serena

 

 

Crazy for Mangos!

Yesterday on my way back from buying a few things from the pulperia (small local store) I stopped and gathered a crap ton of mangos!  The walk to the store takes about 30mins at a medium pace.  And about a quarter way there are two huge mango trees and no one else seems to care about them.  I made mango juice, beans, rice and pico de gallo yesterday, while Coco was clearing the property.  

Today we got up at 5:30.  I fed the birds and Bunnies.  I have 3 baby buns left and they are doing pretty well.  They only drink a little milk for dinner and are eating grass, fruit and some rabbit pellet food.  They keep escaping at night so I think
tonight I won't lock them in.  

Today we are fixing the fence again.  And I'm hoping
to do a bit of painting before dark! 

This is my outfit more often then not.  Tho I usually carry the smaller machete when I need to carry one.  This skirt has been the most worn item I brought.  I think I'll make some from this as a pattern when I get home!

Architectural (In)diges(tion)

I can't believe I don't have a better before picture! 

After mentioning how much better the kitchen could be if I could see out etc. etc. etc. Coco finally said, ok let's do it!  So we did!

The roof slanted all the way down to the sink counter area so it got really hot fast with the fire and the sun.  There was also no way to see out from here! We had to finish in one day, which we did.  It actually only took us about 5 hours including cutting all the wood we needed.  It was a lot of fun and the farm owner showed up right when we finished.  He was shocked and happy! 

We cut boards out of these planks with the crazy little saw for cutting limbs off trees!

During!

After!

After!