The Sea is a Salty One

This has really been one hideously terrible week! Another round dealing with the government over importing out possessions combined with worrying about my husband's mind. Things took a loop into crazytown mere hours after my last post. Once Jim got back he wanted to walk back to that same store I had just visited. I agree to go because I'd forgotten to poke my head into the souvenir stand in that same shopping center that sells yarn so I could pick up a few skeins to crochet up a few more wash clothes. We set out on foot to the farther away store, about a mile. Jim got to talking to the guy in the store working the Moneygram counter (leading to further crazy doings a bit later), while I got my yarn and a bottle of Costa Rican chocolate/coffee/cream liquor to give Jim for his birthday on Sunday. As we left the shopping center it was twilight, and it turned nightmarish for me. Let me back up, about four weeks ago I was driving hear San Jose, near Escazu, when I suddenly los...

... go out in the midday sun. I just got back from walking to the grocery store, the far one and holy crap my sweat has sweat has sweat. I was trying to sneak away while Jim wasn't here so I could find some inexpensive little geegaw he's like for his birthday in two days. Plus, I'm out of butter, and meat. No Southerner can live without butter (and mayonnaise if that Paula Deen is to be believed) I'd take butter over mayo any day of the week. Going to the grocery store makes me glad my late father is not here. He had a thing about mayo that came from his great aunt Gloria making him eat sandwiches with too much mayo, and that mayo brand was Hellmans. He hated Hellmans like Trump hates Hillary. Hellmans is the only mayo brand available from the States here. He would die, or throw a fit to end all fits by Southern men. He also had an excessive love of mayo, making a scene if a family marrying, burying or other mass gathering of our Cajun clan happened. If mayo was n...

We've moved into the big house, but haven't been doing much. I've been felled by a cold that moved into my chest, spending most of my time horizontal either in the bedroom reading or laying on the sofa watching one of two television stations out of Miami when I'm not watching HBO. I've slept most of the last three days with the exception of yesterday morn when I staggered out to the nearby grocery store to get milk and juice. Our internet is down too until they show up to set up the new connection and equipment. Like I've stated before everything in Costa Rica takes three times longer and it three times more expensive than in the US. I'd also run through my box of hard-won Kleenex with all the nose-blowing and coughing I've been doing. Getting Kleenex in CR isn't always easy either. The only reason I ended up with a box is that I was driving the nice Chinese man in the grocery store in Santa Maria nuts for it. I'd asked him twice a week ...

My updates have been so sporadic this last month because I'm insanely busy here and I'm stuck in a sort of down mood. Damn gringos! That's a big part of the bummer for me here. The Monday night almost two weeks ago that I updated from was the beginning of my 'damn gringos' phase. Remember the last time I updated Jim and I were rushing about like the Keystone Kops, tripping over each other trying to figure out who we could bum a car off of to go fetch Jim's replacement from the airport. His replacement found her way to the person that was supposed to meet her and transport her up to the guesthouse before we could finish contacting folks to get to the airport. She arrived very late, after 10 pm, in a farming community that goes to bed at 8pm. She showed up, we all welcomed her before the landlord showed her the her bedroom, and we all shuffled off to our beds and piles of warm blankets. She seemed quite nice on first glance. The next morning ...

We had a long frustrating ride from Tamarindo to San Jose to catch our bus back to Copey. A word of caution using the GPS in Costa Rica. It does not always work right, sometimes has outdated data or cannot pick up the right place you want to go. We had a time with it on Thursday night when the people at Adobe car rental programmed in we wanted to go to the Tamarindo Condos in Escazu. We were seriously delayed getting on the road towards Guanacaste. On the way back it kept malfunction whenever we asked for the closest gas station, twice trying to send us down a dirt road or a residential area a couple of miles away from the local gas station. It refused to take the programming to get us back to the car rental place so we ended up pulled off the highway in Escazu (yet again) with me crying and mashing buttons like a monkey on speed while Jim rotated between yelling and yelling into the phone at the rental car place. This is all after I hit one of those car-swallowing pothole on a m...

I've barely written here this last month for a couple of reasons. I would still be whining copiously about the food situation at the guesthouse and ain't nobody got time for that. I have no wish to keep harping on the situation. Secondly, unless something is actually happening, like the trip to Nicaragua, or the church burning down, it's pretty mundane, and sometimes, quite frankly a bit of a downer. Get up, eat breakfast that is either pancakes, toasted bread and jam or sweet rolls. Go down to the school to use the only decent internet. Come back around noon and eat either rice and beans, or some festival of unhealthy, take a nap because you're stunned by the carbs. Afternoon - raining profusely - either go back up to the school to work on something, huddle under the covers because you are cold and watch a movie on the lap top, or take the bus into town to try and get the pile of paperwork at the bank finished linking our American bank, our Costa Rican bank, our brok...

I'm not sure if you've seen the Akira Kurosawa film 'Rashomon', but it fits my memories, recent events in my personal life and the ugliness going on with the White Supremacy riot in Charlottesvill. Here's how Wikipedia describes the film, "The film is known for a plot device that involves various characters providing subjective, alternative, self-serving and contradictory versions of the same incident." I've had a great deal of time today to ponder why it is that two or more different people can look at the same thing and come up with vastly different explanations. I made the discovery yesterday that not only am I allergic to hearts of palm and some types of palm oil, I'm also very allergic to palm being burned, the fumes that is. Our landlord decided to make a vast quantity of tamales and her tamale recipe calls for using seared palm leaves. She spent much of yesterday evening waving green palm leaves over the outdoor tile oven in the back o...

In three short weeks we're going to be leaving this place for the warmer and sunny climes of the Tamarindo area of Costa Rica. The school has already recruited a replacement for Jim, who will have stayed more than a month more than he originally contracted for. I wish I could contact this person and let them know all the things I had to learn the hard way in the last almost two months here. The school admin is not very good about helping people acclimate to the area, which is a shame. When we lived in Germany I worked for the USO doing just that, helping the wives settle in quickly, and providing information on everything from bus routes and costs to shopping, dealing with the utility company and navigating in a very different society. The lady replacing my husband is older, recently widowed and leaving the U.S. to teach here just to do something different while dealing with her grief. I'm worried for this unknown woman. This place is incredibly beautiful, at least in the...

Tonight the Catholic church in Copey, Costa Rica burned to the ground. Jim and I were sleeping when we started hearing panicked voices, screeching tires and shouts. For once I am very thankful that the walls here are paper thin. I got up to see what was going on, thinking it might be a drunken fight spilling over from the local bar, the Kamakiri. We've been warned to stay away from the town's sole bar because of the occasional drunken fisticuffs. But the church was on fire, the church right across the street from our host family. This is what I saw when I got up.  We grabbed our passports and wallets, plus I grabbed my great grandmother's jewelry and asthma meds and we ran! It's over now. Took 30 minutes for the fire department to get here and there wasn't much they could do besides wet down the roofs of nearby buildings, like the high school and our house.

Kind of a very sucky day today. Jim and I had a yelling knock down drag out disagreement in the streets of Copey. Why? I think it was a couple of factors. First, by this evening it's pretty obvious that we're both trying to fight off a cold or virus. We both have hair triggers when we're not feeling well. Secondly, I heard from the company shipping our car that the pickup date and delivery date has been pushed back yet again. Jim is demanding I cancel the delivery, get a refund and use someone else. I'm pretty much refusing, but I am getting a third round of quotes just to shut him up. The company I'm using is one of the biggest and they ship all over the world, good rep and the most reasonable. There went the entire morning. Why the delay? I didn't have one of the documents they needed and had to order it from DVM, a title stating the fact that the car was fully paid for. When I finally got the right document and scheduled the pickup there was some miscom...

I have learned a lesson that translates from the Deep South of American to Costa Rica is that in small towns everyone knows your business, making it their business too. It's no secret to anyone that reads here that I have struggled with the host family we were placed with. The mother does not understand 'Hand wash only' so I bought detergent and a drying rack. She serves piles of carbs, which for me and my borderline sugar levels is not a good thing. I've spoken to her repeatedly and it has done no good. If the food is not 85% carbs, it's processed or over-salted.  The food situation has been dire, to the point where I now keep fresh fruits and veggies in my room along with canned tuna, crackers I can eat, cheese and protein bars. I can't have all those carbs. I cannot have very salty foods because it causes breast pain where I've had surgery in the past. I cannot have lots of processed things because many times the preservatives throw me right int...

I was about to whine and cry about everything that has gone haywire, but I'm learning that I must be much more flexible. I was when I was a young Army wife, packing up and moving, sometimes internationally, on a regular basis. What happened is that I got a panicked email from the company shipping our household goods wanting to know why we could not be reached at any of our phone numbers. Our things were in San Jose and we needed to pick an import specialist to deal with the inspection, import duties, etc, etc. I've run into a number of difficulties. It's very hard to reach me because we're living in a town literally surrounded by mountains on all sides and there is exactly one spot in the village I can get more than one cell phone tower. But, we're dealing with it. Picked someone to help out and they are doing their thing right now. I'm miffed that it looks like the government of Costa Rica is seizing three of my boxes because they contain otc drugs and ph...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. And so it holds true for me. When I last blogged Jim and I were at a resort in Arenal and on our way towards the beaches of Tamarindo, Playa Grande, Playa Hermosa, Manuel Antonio, and Matapalo. Quick rundown before I head into the goat rodeo of this last week since I've returned. Warning: If you ever consider moving to Costa Rica be forewarned that every single thing you do to achieve that goal will take three times longer and three times more money that you are told. I have almost completely demolished my money market account in this dream of Jim's just getting everything done, from the house remodel to shipping our belongings and now just trying to get everything past customs. It's an expensive travail to get here. That's not even counting the thousands we're going to have to lay out to pay for residency. NO ONE tells you this. I researched all of this thoroughly, read books about moving here, talking to pil...

This morning we very sadly had to leave the paradise behind at Playa Marsella, Nicaragua, leave the beautiful beach and the lovely cabina for a return to Costa Rica with renewed 90 day visas to stay in country. We took a last long look at the beach as we packed up and made our way down to the waiting taxi. On the way back to town to catch the Tica Bus we both clearly saw that the area was lovely, no lurking French robbers on motorbikes, no dumped trash or anything else negative, at least until we came to the obstacle in the road, two large dogs merrily screwing and refusing to move over for our taxi. There were fields of horses, cattle, the occasional mule-drawn cart containing a farmer and lots of lovely countryside. Even the river we'd forded three days before had trickled back down to nothing. We made it to town and caught that bourgeois Tica Bus, with the wifi and air conditioning. Because we had to leave so early we didn't get breakfast at the hotel and by the time we ...