Diabetes in two weeks...

I am posting this without photos because I think I can paint the picture with words.  I am embarking on a two week adventure with no vegetables because Guatemala is a country devoid of green vegetables and healthy eating.  The amount of sugar in EVYTHING is frightening; it is the one thing I can count on whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner, most of which have been completely white meals.  Eggs and plantains in the morning - okay black bean mush is not white - begin the day unless I want to add to that the white bread that is also available.  Sugar is always on the table even when salt and pepper are excluded.  Yesterday we had chicken, rice and tomales for lunch, and the very, very large women had seconds of rice and tomales, washing it all down wi Pepsi.  In the evening we were fed another meal of chicken and rice, but because I am "vegetarian," I was given rice and fried potatoes instead.  I'm not complaining because they were delicious potatoes and lovely rice, but I abstained on the tortillas.

This morning we had omelets and white toast, but lunch mandated a chicken meal, so I watched everyone eat fried chicken, chicken wings, or some other form of chicken and rice; tortillas were on the side, but I noticed that the men wrapped their chicken inside a tortilla, including the man who ordered chicken wings, before eating it.  I ordered a tuna sandwich on "integral" bread, which is grain bread, but the sandwich arrived on not two but three slices of white bread, a side of fried potatoes.  

Our driver is from Guatemala City, and he eats bread all day long.  Someone suggested that he had diabetes and so he had to keep eating so he didn't get low blood sugar, but I noticed that he had a large bottle of coke in his car, and he seems to carry rolls with him so that he perpetually looks as though he has just popped a morsel or two into his mouth,crumbs often dusting his lips, or worse, a little chunk of bread dangling from his mouth.

The women are often overweight, and their eating habits are so unhealthy that I am certain that the diabetes rate must be skyrocketing.  It was interesting at the gay parade tonight to see many men dressed as women, thin, teetering on spiky high heels and wearing overtly sexy clothing that revealed most of their bodies, including some parts that were not their own.  I wondered as they paraded around the square what it meant to be a woman here, as the very heavy woman covered as much of their bodies as they could.  What is going on with gender?  With sexuality?

And how is a simple, heterosexual vegetarian woman from Philadelphia going to last for 2 weeks?

Quetzaltenango - day one

Breakfast: plantains, eggs and onion and tomato, beans and coffee!!

Ospedale Regionale HIV clinic where padre Roberts Armas gave a presentation on rights of people living with HIV.  THEY WERE GIVEN BOOKS SND FED EGGS, HOTDOGS AND THE EVER-present black beans, also a drink made of oatmeal water and WAY too much sugar (it's called atol).

Then, we saw the place where people can buy a full meal for three quetzals, less than 50 cents, and they all parade through the line with their trays, each little slot filled with rice, a meat, vegetable, dessert.  They can buy an extra tortilla for an extra quetzal.

They go through the line, get their meals served, and then sit at the tables.  One man raced up to me and asked if I would take his picture.  I dutifully followed and took him at the end of his meal, quite please with himself and his photo.

After leaving the government run cafeteria, we went with padre Roberto to a group of women who have begun a chocolate business.  These women were so much fun and so jolly, beginning with toasting corn for a cereal that they make and sell, to showing us how they roast the cocoa and peel it before it is then ground and sweetened.  They are using wood stoves that are eco friendly with pipes to move the smoke up out of the kitchen.

They were very patient and let us help them peel the roasted cocoa, but I made a dreadful mess, and I began to refer to myself as the cochinada Americana.  

After they let us "help," they served us lunch, chicken, gravy, rice and tamales, which seem to be hot blobs of soft rubbery corn mush.  I ate rice and tamales.  Once we realized we could actually buy some of their chocolate, they got another member of the group to bring a hot mound of just ground and mixed chocolate, which they then weighed and molded into bars.

They wrapped each bar without even using tape, just folding the paper neatly into a package.

But wait!  How about trying some hot chocolate before you go?  Ayiyiyi!

-!: now we are off for another dinner at the Iglesia San Marcos, probably chicken, race and tamales...

Guatemala Bound

It is 3:27 am, and I am sitting on my back steps, waiting for a ride to the airport for our 6:00 am flight.  It is balmy, not hot, this morning, but I have socks and a sweater on, knowing what I know about airport temperatures and airplane air conditioning.  No photo, no nothing this morning.  I have little to report other than anxiousness and curiosity, coated with some enthusiasm, but at this hour, despite coffee and yogurt, I cannot muster much else.

My suitcase is full of old sandals people have donated for women prisoners - some, I might add, are might high stepping for prison attire, but it is, after all, Chestnut Hill.

I promised I'd be curbside, so I'd better get out there, peanut butter and banana sandwiches packed for all.  

Lecheria

I really love the name of a milking or a dairy farm, and this is a little finca on the Rio Tulin, still family run where they make cheese, yogurt and EGGNOG of over 7% alcohol.  I see new possibilities in our future visits!

Here is the reception where Lucy showed us the different kinds of cheese, the yogurt and the eggnog.  The farm was their father's and he passed it onto his children who still run it, mainly the two girls, Lucy and Neeny, but a brother has some of it and grows Palm trees on his share.  The road was built right through the middle of the finca, so signs for Finca La Florita are on both sides of the road.

I think you can guess that these two lovely ladies are Lucy on the left and Neeny on the right, both sporting white plastic boots with which they step into the tub of sterilized compounds each time they go into the refrigeration area.  How cute are they??

From the finca we went down to Rio Tulin, one of my favorite spots, just to watch the birds and see the reflections.  Today the cows were not drifting along the side of the river as they were the last time, perhaps because they were being milked.

Before we went to the finca, we drove up to Monterey whee this palm tree has almost 20 oropendola nests in it - just incredible to watch the birds fly in and out of the little holes at the top or sides of these pendulous affairs that are their nests.

Here is a close up shot of Just one Palm branch weighted down with four or five nests, and the birds flew in and out with their yellow beaks and yellow wings and tails flashing against the dark black of their bodies.  Amazing birds.

Finally I include an afternoon lit photo of my evening fare, including chayotes, avocado, papaya and a pineapple and banana.  Does life get any better?

The Lost Boys of Sabalito

These are three friends in Sabalito who give me the scoop on the ex-pat community up there, but the best part is their depictions of themselves and how they ended up living in Costa Rica full time.  We went to furry Donal's cow farm for lunch, and I found myself surrounded by four men who had somehow gotten themselves here after living difficult or impossible lives without or with domineering fathers; the only person missing is Frank Schoefield, a former actor from New York who had Sunday congregations at his house until he died two weeks ago at the age of 95.  He had never met his father until his father tracked him down once Frank was well known; Frank had nothing to do with him, but to satisfy his fathering urge, he met Sergio (in the striped shirt) in Mexico when he was a young fatherless boy, and Frank adopted him.   They travelled and finally settled in Costa Rica over 30 years ago.  Sergio married and raised two now grown, successful children, but he took care of Frank when he got old and needed  care.  

I will only say this about the other three; Donal raises milking cows, Blaine writes wild fiction, and John is building a tower on his finca where he will have two statues of Jesus positioned at the top.  We are all special in our own way, and these boys have found each other and have forged creative paths that use their energy and their imaginations.  

I think this is what Donal finds so beguiling about his cows, the dark eyes and splendid eyelashes.  Here is his youngest babe - a two week old mooer.

My interest in sabalito is right here, a little plot of land that has a view to beat all views.  When I was there this week, there were about six tucans milling around in one of the big trees on the property, and we watched, spellbound, as they chattered mournfully, and then flew into another tree.

Sergio and Sonia have a finca not 20 yards up the road, and this is one of her dancing orchids that stopped me in my tracks.  Sonia can grow anything and does, but the soil and the climate up there help; she describes in her soft, fluid, lilting spanish that I can barely grasp that she can stick anything into the soil and it will grow.  I'm ready to try.  

 Sergio has made paths down to the creek at the bottom of this property, and he is leveling off a space for a little house, should I so choose.  Meanwhile, he has indigenous trees going strong, will plant some fruit trees, and if I'm impetuous enough, this is where I shall spend my old age, eating my own mangos, avocados, etc... 

When I drove back to Bejuco, I could feel the warm air envelop me, the sun glisten off the car, and the smell of ocean flood my senses.  I was home, but the mountains beckon yet, and I am not finished with this time or place where even strawberries are here for the eating.

Pura VIDA is what the Costa Ricas say, and it is, indeed, a grand life!

Loving the garish afternoon light

There is something repelling and embracing about the afternoon light here, and because it has such force, it is difficult to capture but I tried to show some of its frill and froth in these photos.  My heliconias and some hibiscus flowers look almost yellow in the sun's wash.

But inside where a new little orchid is budding, things look safer and more succulent.

The beach is glaring with a vibrant but receding sun, the waves dancing in the glistening reflection, but there is a reprieve in the coming shade of late afternoon.

And a breeze keeps the bugs at bay.

My favorite little estuary is so low that I can creep up to the edge without fear of lounging crocodiles, and this driftwood, so quietly still, is reflected impeccably in the water.

My little students up the hill

When I go up the road to read to the small children at the local school, I pass this house where a woman who cleans has about five children and then their children all living in this one house.  Sometimes people help them by putting windows in their house, buying extra food for them, etc., but mostly they seem to just have more and more children.  One of the daughters works down the road, and I gather she is a good worker and tries to encourage her sisters to get jobs.  I suppose babies have more appeal.  A terrific exception is s young woman I saw in Parrita yesterday who had been living with her parents in esterillos after she gave birth to a little boy.  She always seemed somewhat surly, but yesterday she positively sparkled.  She saw me and came over, introduced herself and really spoke some english to me.  She was married and going to school to learn to be an accountant.  She had been the kind of girl who was always sullen and seemingly disagreeable, but some door had been open inside her, and she was blossoming.  

This morning I could hear the children before I even had the shabby little school in sight.  They were playing loudly inside their playroom, and I went in to read them a goofy book about a spy who steals a magic potion for making thiNg s whiz and fizz.  I translated the story into spanish last night and read it as I showed the silly pictures.  When I ask the children which book they like best, it is always the one j have just read them.  Today was no different.  

After j finished reading the story, the children went back to their play time, and this is Angelo who has put on a golden hat and is riding a stick horse, making neighing horse noises as he trots around the room, utterly oblivious to his surroundings.  I love the shameless way children can go about their play with no self consciousness.  We adults could learn something from them.  This is my little giddyup man.

These are Crystal and Sadi, doing their best at jumping and swinging rope.

From skipping rope, the children moved to a little limbo time.  Here are Angie and Jefe showing their mastery.

After much pulling and tugging, sliding and jumping, they all went outside to the newly built playground where I confess that I noticed nails and screws incompletely holding the thing together...

This set is right beneath one of those trees that look like they have Christmas decorations still dangling from the branches, so it is all very festive looking despite the raw dirt beneath the children's feet.

Even teacher Paola has paper work to attend to, and I suppose my being there helps her to get some of that nonsense out of the way.  

Sometimes you just have to sit things out and hope that whatever sadness you carry at that moment will pass.  Crystal was better after a bone crushing hug, but I could still tell she was not her best today.