Coping With Copey
Today was evidence of some of the
glaring challenges of living in Costa Rica. I awoke when the
electricity hiccuped and shut off my VPAP machine. Little did I know
that small electrical skip-jump-hop also meant that the telephone and
internet died suddenly in the tiny town of Copey.
I've been here a week today and I have
to admit it hasn't been as easy and charming as I fantasized in my
frenzied rush to remodel the house and get here. Copey is lovely, a
tiny town of tin-roofed ramshackle houses painted a fantastical array
of pastel pinks, blues, yellows and every other shade suitable for
the grand Victorian homes in San Franciso. It sits in a valley,
surrounded by mountains so steep that the clouds obscure the mountain
tops. There's a beautifully landscaped community soccer field, an
antique Catholic church wearing peeling yellow paint the same shade
as butter, there are terraced apple orchards on the mountain slopes
and even farm animals on those tilted meadows.
Most of the locals I've met seem to be
very nice, if devoid of much English. I am forced to use more Spanish
than I anticipated every single day. There's a small store, the
contents of which would not be out of place in an American 7-11. We
stop there daily for fruit juice and snacks as we wander the town on
foot since our car is being shipped overseas right now. There's one
nice restaurant we visit daily for freshly squeezed local apple
juice, that is when it's actually open and not on the distinctive
Tico Time.
Tico Time is a tricky thing. It means
that people here don't always stick with posted times, preferring to
operate their lives and businesses when they feel like it instead of
on schedule.
Stray dogs wander the streets and it's
not unusual to see roaming cows, chickens, horses and the rare cat.
The streets are rutted and patched, but still nowhere near as awful
as those leading up into the mountains out of town. We took a
treacherous ride with a local teacher twice upon twisting, winding
roads filled with potholes up into the mountain communities in the
clouds to judge at school spelling bees.
Twice now Jim and I have judged at
local community school spelling bees on the grand round leading to
the area spelling champ and we're slated to judge the regional and
finals at the end of next month. The spelling bees have been a lot
more fun that I anticipated, smiling school children wearing a grand
array of elaborate hairstyles and pretty starched uniforms. We're
both treated like celebrities at these things, asked to get up and
speak about our lives briefly before being given beautiful gift
baskets stuffed with local fruits, candy and houseplants.
Jim has been teaching his classes
religiously, sometimes for long hours. I usually come with him to the
school, sitting in another part of the lone classroom working on
posting for No Longer Quivering since the english language school has
the strongest internet connection in town.
We're going to Santa Maria today, a
much bigger town, to convert dollars to colones, make a bank deposit
and for me to get a few extras we need in our tiny apartment in the
local guesthouse. That means a bus ride up over these mountains over
hairpin curves, steep dropoffs into the valley and past a beautiful
waterfall.
The apartment isn't much. It's bare
bones, one medium sized room with a closet, a bed, a nightstand and a
desk. We do have a private bath, with what I always laughingly refer
to as the 'Suicide Shower', one of those Latin American horror shows
with electrical wires affixed to the showerhead so that if you time
it exactly right you might get a few minutes of lukewarm water
instead of bone-chilling icy needles pouring onto you.
And it's cold here at night. Very cold,
like maybe in the 40s or 50s degree range. We sleep under a pile of
blankets, six or so, huddling together like little puppies trying to
steal each others body heat to stay warm. I didn't bring enough warm
clothing since my only experiences with Costa Rica is the tropical
heat, so I'm wearing my lone pair of jeans, unwashed, every single
day with my lone sweater.
The food here has been a continuing
problem for me, our landlady, who also fixes all our meals, has no
idea about nutrition and carbs. Since having all those bouts of MRSA
and having to find ways to control my blood sugar flares I've been
vigilant in what I eat. I did well our last trip here, but had much
more control over what we were eating and were eating clean, no
processes foods. Our landlady is all processed foods and uber-carbs.
I saw the family and noticed that everyone is pretty large, figured
out quickly that it's the way they eat. I had to have several
conversations with her about what I need to keep well.
She tries, but it's been frustrating
when you explain to her more than once that you cannot have french
fries, noodles, beans and rice all at the same time and she
immediately serves you soup containing a sliver of chicken, two types
of noodles, potatoes and rice at the same time. This family is eating
meals that are comprised of perhaps 90 percent carbs! I see this as
the terrible eating habits of America infiltrating another culture.
It kind of shocks me how incredibly bad
for you most of the food here is. Our guesthouse host also runs a
bakery, a soda (small snack bar) and has apple orchards plus avocado
orchards here, yet she virtually never serves us anything like
avocado, apples or bread. I've had a few bad reactions to some of the
processed things, like something she served one night that tasted
like strawberry flavored Nestle Quik powder.
I have had a number of things when I go
out and about I've never had before, like fresh passion fruit, the
best fried fish ever, raw sugar cane juice, every type of juice
imaginable. Some of the fruit I have back at our apartment are things
I don't even know the name for. So the food here isn't entirely bad,
there are some great things to eat, just not where we're staying.
I'm still struggling with my asthma
because of the high altitudes and the fact that it has literally
rained for days here. The rains are affecting my moods, it's
depressing and since the house and nowhere else has anything like
heaters or air conditioning when it rains here for hours on end
everything you own is quite damp. I've had underwear that's been
washed and hanging to dry for three days now in the shower. Speaking
of which, the bathroom is constructed of all corrugated plastic
panels, sort of a sturdy version of those huge political signs that
sprout on American lawns during voting season.
But this is just temporary. There is
light at the end of the tunnel, we leave for a few weeks on Monday,
going to house hunt near the beach. It will be warm, there will be
better meals and I can wear the pile of thin cotton beach dresses and
shorts I packed. When we get back to Copey it will be only for a week
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