Thu: if you’re reading the blog— STOP! yeah, not gonna be happy seeing a photo of a palm-sized spider that looks as crazy as this one. oh well, already got your plane ticket so you’re stuck comin’ down here :) these spiders are rarely seen anyways… but so creepy looking.
the kids have taken to mel real quick. imagine that. the library is consistently filled with the murmurs of reading and miracle of children’s laughter… haha, but no joke. and for the most part neither are forced, but merely encouraged with prizes of candy or pencils. melissa will also be teaching the reading class at Escuela Camino Claro for the next few weeks. go mel!
guau! put some plants in dirt and watch ‘em grow: my basic lesson plan around Las Gemelas’ garden — and it’s working! things are shooting roots, sprouting sprigs, and just asking to be eaten. if you don’t believe me, just look at Naomi, she was so tempted to have a taste that mid-photo she began munching on a leaf.
when we first started planning for the garden and setting things up we all had our doubts as to the outcome of our projected peapatch, but who would’ve thought it’d look so healthy so soon. there are yard beans longer than jump-ropes already. i’m pleased with their gusto and encourage the other plants to learn from their fine example of surpassing expectations. the yucca is above ground and photosynthesizing as we speak. looks real good, except those weird little purple growths some have developed…but neither here nor there since you eat the roots…heh heh. we’ve even got things growing that we didn’t plant. on one of the fence posts there’s a really cool orchid (maybe) growing. hadas conveniently points this out in one of the photos. i’d like to take the time to point out right now how awesome hadas is. such a strong and positive force in the pavones community — thanks for your motivation and support.
hot dang, the garden at Las Gemelas elementary school has been planted and is growing! costa rica is a splendid location for gardening with children (or children-like adults) because the soil is often rich, moist, and loose, making it easy for digging and planting. so long as you avoid the telltale shard of glass or plastic bag that made its way into the composition of the soil, you’ll be fine.
once things are planted the kids, and kid-like adults, need not wait to long for some action on the gardens behalf. the school and myself had a 2-week break and upon our return to school we were stoked with the life and progress that has taken root, muahaha no pun intended ;) but seriously, i even caught a couple rocks smiling at our results.
hadas and i are thrilled with the help we’ve had from all of the students and teachers at Las Gemelas. we’ve also had several volunteers come through and lend a hand, including cal and his group from Oregon. WOOOH cal! (cal is one of the “cool teachers” everyone wanted in highschool— cal rocks). OF COURSE, the garden would be nowhere without the help of alberto, the know-all of gardening. on thursday you could find us and another volunteer, marissa, hauling boards of teak from down the street for the construction of our compost bin. yeah we made quick/beautiful work of that compost bin. marissa and a few other study-abroad students from UCSF have been working with environmental issues and art in Punta Banco, right down the dirt road from Pavones. i honestly plan to take photos of the garden this week to show its progress … before the pinche horses somehow make their way in to eat everything.
i don’t trust horses. sorry all you horse lovers. ya got dog lovers, cat lovers, and horse lovers. i can trust a dog, but the latter two, nope. but let’s not leave on a negative remark. a friend of a friend once said “instead of killing two birds with one stone, wouldn’t you rather feed to birds with one seed?” ha! sounds so corny, but yet so comfortably politically correct…haha
wow, i rarely kill time on the internet anymore. bad for blog, good for life overall— i think we can all agree on that as a fairly certain universal truth. ahhh surfing is a good time user (i was going to say killer, but it seemed kind of morbid). but, this blog isn’t about surfing; it’s about this amazing bar of caramel-filled chocolate i bought at the border.
from top to bottom on the blue wrapper it reads:
‘Costa Milk’
then there’s a line—is the line in gold-writing, you may ask? and ‘no’ i would reply, it’s white. but the word below it is not only printed in possibly the finest cheap gold ink, but also italicized, claiming:
Excellence
and it couldn’t be truer. and finally as we reach the bottom of the wrapper there is a single square of Costa Milk chocolate seemingly floating like an angel against the deep sky blue wrapper. now whoa isn’t going to buy this when shopping compulsively during a border trip? by the way, border trips always seem to be hectic.
the bar made it home to pavones in the back of the truck filled with tires right alongside yours truly. it got a little warm back there for the both of us, but at least he got to go into the freezer back here in the house/the school — always a funny joke to point out that yes i live at the school. c’mon, we all thought about how easy it would be to work and sleep in the same place, right? living the dream…haha, yeah right.
we planted in the garden at Las Gemelas today…but even more exciting is two snakes were found! so cool, right? the kids killed one, a little boa. the other one was a survivor— and he had a voracious appetite to boot. naomi, hadas’ kid and one of my students came running about a snake and so me and some kids went running to it. he had this toad half in his mouth. we had our fun looking at him.
okay, so finally got back through photoshop again to save these puppies small enough to upload.
benefit dinner, a clear success. david’s giving it the classic gesture of approval. some gave other classic body movement suggestions of satisfaction: hands in the air — what more can the man say?
i know i had fun. gerardo and i practically shut the place down! that sounds worse than it was.
*if the pictures are small, click on em.
it’s like this: who exactly is responsible for flying time? there’s no way it can be a full-time job, because sometimes it’s flying and at other times it all together seems to stop. i do know that time can be important yet meaningless. i really hate to refer to a hip-hop song so coldly, but Del the Funky Homo Sapien was on point when he said ‘time is too expensive’ — cuz it damn well is! if time weren’t money, like they always say, we could be as frivolous as we’d like. not unlike whoever is flying the time, there’s someone out there telling everyone that things like time and money are more important than pretty much everything else in the World, right? couldn’t we all put our heads together and have a good think about this conundrum? flip the whole mentality and paradigm over like a gluten-free pancake. haha, nerd joke there.
so that being said, i just looked over at the calendar here in the school and was like ‘my God, it’s well into June already’ and then i was thinking, ‘so…pretty much seems like May. and June’s kinda like July, ya know?’ then i was thinking about what happened last month, cuz i certainly wasn’t taking a lot of pictures — actually more like a dozen. the benefit dinner! like 3 weeks ago or something we had the Escuela Camino Claro dinner up at el Castillo here in Pavones. the whole town came to the….okay, not the whole town but, ya know, more than expected. there was pizza and burgers, pasta and salads, and margaritas! damn, i have a picture of a guy at the benefit giving a well-deserved thumbs up, but i just closed photoshop because this computer can do only one task at a time. BUT i am finally posting a picture of the pavones beach looking into the sweet bay…mmm…sweet bay —
last week Hadas and I hung out in two different classes at Las Gemelas working on some garden-related activities. the kids made posters to show what they thought should go in the garden, what it should look like, and create some ideas. i had a good time, hopefully the kids were inspired a bit about gardening…but i’m not sure i’d go that far. haha. anyways, these boys escaped from class a little early and were then entertained at the window by some traditional dancing. it was pretty cool, although i think they were more likely taunting the boys that were inside dancing. haha. little hellians…ah to be young and rambunctious again. nah, i don’t think i want to go back to that.
