Marcos y familia

We've been at Finca Qujiote for over a week now and we've been having a blast! Over the past few days we've been spending a lot of time with Marcos and his family collecting fruit from around la finca and improving our Español. Marcos speaks almost no English, so there's been a lot of cherades going on, and for the most part we're understanding one another. As a bonus, Lucia (the German girl whom recently arrived at the farm) knows some Spanish and even more English so we've got some what of a translator! In any case we're having a lot of fun together.

On Thursday I had inquired as to where I might find a fruit I had recently tried, pejibaye. Pejibaye is, as I now know, both a nearby city as well as a fruit. After we ha a laugh about the confusion, Marcos said, "mañana". Friday afternoon we meet with Marcos and his sons Waner and Michael to go pejibaye hunting. As I have come to find out this was not as easy as I had assumed. Pejibaye is the fruit of the spiny palm which tends to be both extremely spiny (similar to a cactus) and tall as all hell (hell being between 60-80 feet tall). Mind boggling, I know. One may think that there was a specialized tool used to attain the magical fruit. Nope. Marcos simply brought a few long (about 40' long) cane plants, then borrowed my newly aquired machete to chop down a forked branch from a nearby tree to create a hook then wrapped them together with an old bike tire - volia! A really long and wobbly vaudeville-esque cane.

After some breakage, repairs, spines in hands, a bit of hiking, pit stops for cacao fruit and sugar cane, and about 3 hours in the rain we returned with around 50lbs of fruit! Marcos invited us to his house to show us how to prepare the fruit by boiling it for an hour and half in a pressure cooker, peeling, halving, pitting, and adding a dollop of mayo or butter(it's a savory peanut like food). Ginnie added some fresh lime juice and I discovered that hot sauce, plain yogurt and German chocolate work really well!

Today following our trip to Turrialba, including la faira, a soda-small restaurant- and the feed store for a new pair of rubber boots (I had torn mine sometime while pejibaye hunting) we met back up with Marcos for naranja (orange) and limón (lemon) gathering. The citrus was much simpler than the pejibaye, but just as fun. We collected sweet oranges, sweet lemons, tangarines and sour oranges. Upon our return back to Casa de Gienne (Marco's house is nextdoor) we decided to take a short hike to go swimming in the the river and invited Marcos and his family along, they all came and had a great time.

On our way "home" (the Volunteer house, where we are staying) after dinner with Gienne, Marcos stoped us and invited us in for cervesas (beers) and a Costa Rican Liquor (I'll have to get back on the name as I don't recall it at the moment). We had lots of laughs and got to practice our cross cultural communication skills. A fantastic end to a fun day.

At the farm!

Getting through customs was a breeze. A very time consuming breeze. The shock didn't set in until we got in the first cab to the bus station. The talk was fast and muddy; annunciation and pronunciation, as I quickly realized, is very different. This coupled with having to use a new currency made our travel to the finca (farm)a bit less than smooth than I had hoped. Thankfully everyone was very understanding - a wonderful part of Tico culture - a man at the bus station even gave me an extra couple cents to get me through purchasing the fair more expediently.

After the long and extremely bumpy and woozy ride through the mountain road at high speeds, we arrived in Turrialba, a decent size city, a short drive to Finca Qujiote. The concessions at the bus station are similar to that of a convince store, our selection was limited to say the least. I attempted to get agua mineral con gas (mineral water with gas or club soda) to calm our stomachs. The woman at the counter was perplexed and handed me a 7up. So that's what I got. I also got some pan (bread) with a light queso(cheese) sprinkling - similar to asigio fococia.

The money is really different here, "a mil" is what we call a thousand and everything is in Spanish and often times affixed with an extra suffix. Needless to say it was tricky to pick up, but with each purchase the transaction has been a bit easier to understand than the last.

We've been at the farm now for 4 days and most of our time has been spent bonding with Gennie (the owner) and eating. We're all getting along really well and have had a great time. On Sabado (Saturday) we went to la faria (farmers market) for some food and to check out town, which was really cool. Over the past 2 days we've been working on finishing up the volunteer house so that we can start staying there along with some new volunteers whom are expected to arrive this week.

First day of work

Yesterday, Ginnee took us down to the Saturday market. It was a typical farmers market but exciting to have to try in buy food. We got cheap coconuts and so tamarind, which neither Jason or myself have had yet, among other typical things like tomatoes, watermelon, zucchini, etc.
Today we get to start working on the guest house. There is one other volunteer here right now but she is leaving on Wednesday. The guest house has 3 bedrooms. Today we will be putting up a ceiling to keep out the bugs and finishing one of the bathrooms. I'm hoping to do some painting on the walls while we stay in it. There is another girl from Germany coming tomorrow afternoon. So we'll all be staying in the guest house hopefully.

We have arrived!

We made it! October 15^th at 11:37am Costa Rica time our plane had landed. We immediately made our way to the end of the line of immigration. That took us about an hour to get through. Lucky for us we had a rather talkative funny older man that was there with his wife. He told us he come down to Costa Rica for cheap dental care...who would have thought?? Everyone at the airport spoke English so it made getting started really easy. We had to take a cab to the bus station...oh and the stories about the driving down here are true! I keep thinking we were going to run over people or side swipe another cab. At one point we weren't in a lane, we were actually in between two lanes of traffic! At the bus stop we had to et bus tickets to Tarrialba, a two hour journey. We had a very nice gentleman behind us in line who didn't speak any English but helped us order our tickets and show us how much money we need to hand the cashier. I can't believe that I didn't think about how car sick I get sometimes. I sure the bus ride out of the city and central valley was beautiful but I was pretty much curled into a ball as the bus weaved around pedestrians and other vehicles on the small winding uneven mountain roads. I kept my head close to the window the entire ride.

Once in Tarrialba we set out to find a taxi with 4WD and another bumpy ride into the mountains. We got a bit lost because there are more than two villages in this area, though each village is only one family or just 2 or 3 families. The roads are all rocky and there are small rivers running through the roads. After asking a few locals for Senora Ginnee we finally made it!!

Ginnee was outside and welcomed us in! She feed us some delicious pumpkin curry soup. After finding out we were vegetarians she was a little disappointed. She told us that they had some negative vegetarian experience, mostly that they usually just eat junk. Jason and I promised to change her mind.

We spent the night opening up to each other and sharing stories.

Ginnee has showed us this amazing video about building beautiful houses out of dirt and a few more very cheap materials. They are call Earth Bag homes. It's incredible. Reminds me of low impact houses. I want to live in a hobbit home. Can I live in a hobbit home??? Please, ok. Not yet, but when I'm ready to have a home.

Today we got to meet some Ticos, Mira, Marcos, and Wayer. They help around the farm to make some extra money. It's great the Ginnee and her husband can provide these jobs for some of their neighbors. I hope to get to know them better and improve my Spanish. By the way, I'm already feeling like I'm picking up on it. I can kinda figure out what some people are talking about if they are speaking slow enough.

Jason and I then explored the farm. We walked down to the river and Ginnee took us on a ride the ...golf cart...thing to the end of the road. She explained to us where some beautiful hikes we could go on and where we could go swimming.

Last night Ginnee pointed out to us the volcano. The lava was flowing down the side of it. It looked like a far away mountain city that was light up from the house. The lava was glowing so brightly. I unfortunatly was unable to capture a picture of it but I will continue to try. Also, the lighting bugs come out after dark (which is at 5pm). So there are little dancing stars in all of the windows.

Ginnee's husband and daughter are in Florida collecting the rest of their possessions. They should be back in the next two weeks. That will be exciting to meet them. Jason and I already feel very welcomed and at home here.