Thursday, January 18, 2007
Dinner in the woods
Yesterday, I took a yoga class at the Quaker school.
On the way there, we stopped at a soda (food stand) in the forest. Turns out it´s run by the grandparents of Nicole. She´s 14, and one of Hermelinda´s grandaughters, so we´ve met before. She introduced me to her grandfather, Marvin, who is one of the original Quakers to settle in Monteverde after he was jailed in Alabama for refusing to serve in the military. He´s over 80 now. There was no power at the soda, so we couldn´t eat, but that was just as well, because we had to get to yoga. This spot is an excellent one for bird watching, so we sat for a while at one of the tables, checking out for hummingbirds and swallows and orioles.
The school is close to the Monteverde reserve, and the room, the same one where they hold weekly meetings, has big windows and is surrounded by trees. While we were doing yoga, a bird called, I think, a trogan, (it´s bright blue and green on top with an orangey yellow belly) watched us from just outside the window.
It´s been raining and, of course, windy, all week long. After yoga, we walked in the rain to Gwen´s house. To get there, you have to leave the road, walk across a field and follow a path into the woods. It was Gwen and her son, Tayoga (8), who are here for 6 months; Kenna, retired, from Canada, a former teacher I think, and Kerri, from Montanna, recently divorced, on her way to Belize after a few weeks of Spanish class to teach women there to make jewelry from paper.
The lights went out (happens everywhere here, sometimes a couple times a day), so we made spaghetti in the dark. Gwen just moved in, and only had one pot to cook in, which meant sauce first, spaghetti second. The kitchen flooded when we did the dishes, so we finished them in the bathroom sink. Three birds flew into the window while we were eating. We killed some spiders, talked about bedbugs, and saw a giant possum climbing across the eaves just outside Gwen´s door. A typical evening in Monteverde. But this morning I realized it was the first evening I´ve spent speaking English since I arrived. It was nice to be able to say exactly what I was thinking. Usually, I´m breaking down thoughts into simple bits I can manage in Spanish.
In other news: I am reading the first Harry Potter book in Spanish. This was the only thing I could find in the bookstore that I had a chance of understanding. It will probably take me 6 months to read, but I´m plugging away, a few pages at a time.
On the way there, we stopped at a soda (food stand) in the forest. Turns out it´s run by the grandparents of Nicole. She´s 14, and one of Hermelinda´s grandaughters, so we´ve met before. She introduced me to her grandfather, Marvin, who is one of the original Quakers to settle in Monteverde after he was jailed in Alabama for refusing to serve in the military. He´s over 80 now. There was no power at the soda, so we couldn´t eat, but that was just as well, because we had to get to yoga. This spot is an excellent one for bird watching, so we sat for a while at one of the tables, checking out for hummingbirds and swallows and orioles.
The school is close to the Monteverde reserve, and the room, the same one where they hold weekly meetings, has big windows and is surrounded by trees. While we were doing yoga, a bird called, I think, a trogan, (it´s bright blue and green on top with an orangey yellow belly) watched us from just outside the window.
It´s been raining and, of course, windy, all week long. After yoga, we walked in the rain to Gwen´s house. To get there, you have to leave the road, walk across a field and follow a path into the woods. It was Gwen and her son, Tayoga (8), who are here for 6 months; Kenna, retired, from Canada, a former teacher I think, and Kerri, from Montanna, recently divorced, on her way to Belize after a few weeks of Spanish class to teach women there to make jewelry from paper.
The lights went out (happens everywhere here, sometimes a couple times a day), so we made spaghetti in the dark. Gwen just moved in, and only had one pot to cook in, which meant sauce first, spaghetti second. The kitchen flooded when we did the dishes, so we finished them in the bathroom sink. Three birds flew into the window while we were eating. We killed some spiders, talked about bedbugs, and saw a giant possum climbing across the eaves just outside Gwen´s door. A typical evening in Monteverde. But this morning I realized it was the first evening I´ve spent speaking English since I arrived. It was nice to be able to say exactly what I was thinking. Usually, I´m breaking down thoughts into simple bits I can manage in Spanish.
In other news: I am reading the first Harry Potter book in Spanish. This was the only thing I could find in the bookstore that I had a chance of understanding. It will probably take me 6 months to read, but I´m plugging away, a few pages at a time.
# posted by Anne @ 12:49 PM 
