Birthdays

Eva turned five on August 25, just a few days after arriving  in Costa Rica. She was made to feel very special on her big day at school, where she wore the traditional cape and crown with sentry companions making an arch for her to enter through into her classroom. Then, with all classmates and us in a circle around Eva, her teacher, "Maestra Olga" told the same story that makes me cry everytime I hear it at one of our kids' birthday celebrations at their Waldorf school in Anchorage. It goes like this: a little angel who tells a big angel in heaven above that she would like to go down to earth and find a home with just the right mommy and daddy who will love her.The big angel thinks that would be ok. She glides down on a rainbow and next thing you know, a man and a woman who really wanted a baby find out that the woman is going to have a baby, and her belly gets bigger and bigger until one day, she had Baby Eva, and they were all very happy to have such a beautiful baby girl.

Then, the children all join in singing a happy birthday song, a special candle is lit for the royal birthday child to blow out with a wish. Eva's teacher gave her a little lavendar knit purse she had made for her as her gift, and then all gather to eat a slice of cake, in our case decorated with starfruit. Of all the different kinds of birthday celebrations I still find this beautiful and simple tradition to be the most meaningful and sweet.

Only a few weeks later Zena turned 1 on September 19! We had a family birthday party, and she enjoyed the whipped cream on her cake. Her presents: nesting blocks and a big tub for her to splash in on hot afternoons.

Things Zena does lately: puts a play stethoscope on some part of her head and crawls around making housecalls, loves to look at her kitty cat book and baby book, bites anyone at any random time anywhere on their body, gets giddy splashing in the water whenever she takes a bath, rocks and sings whenever she hears music, tweets on a whistle while she crawls, waves hello and goodbye, methodically scrubs the refridgerator and floor with a baby wipe, and took her first baby step yesterday, Sept. 29.

Nuestra Casa

We lucked out when we found a house to rent up the hill from Turrialba. Although a bit of a drive from town, it is a very nice place and when looking at alternatives (rentals don't come with a stove or fridge or any furniture typically), this place won, as it came furnished and is ensconced in trees and foliage, where bird watching is excellent, and we have but one neighbor visible to the side of us.There are several acres of land below us all down an incline but accessible via a windy trail and full of flowers, lemon trees, bamboo, and beautiful insects. The view is splendid with a panoramic vista of Turrialba, the mountains beyond, and our resident volcano "Turrialba" continually puffing up its white steam--a mere 28 kilometers away by road.



Sabbatical Central



Que vista!



An added bonus was the makeshift beehive one of the owner's workers put up for us. He found it in the dirt behind our house and rescued it from the ants, who were raiding it. The amazing thing is they are tiny little honey bees that don't sting, named "marisecas", and their honey is delicious. Thus, our own resident hive decorating our entryway!

Typically, since we've been here, the days start out sunny and warm and then anywhere between noon and five, a quilt of clouds will envelope us and a rain shower will ensue. The down side of our home is "el porton negro", a huge metal gate that separates us from the outside world, but we have since ventured out and made friends with several neighbors, and Asa and Eva have played with neighbor friends some.

We also have recently employed Rebeca as our housekeeper, daughter of the gardener, Alberto, who lives within 2 minutes walking. She is sweet and attentive with our kids, cooks a big lunch for us everyday, and cleans the house and does laundry. Thus, I am able to write this blog!

Celeste

We were desperate to buy a car, not because we eagerly embrace driving in this country, but because with kids in school and our distance from town, it was clearly going to make life much easier to have one. Plus, we were having to pay $45/ day for our rental car for every extra day we had it over our rental period. After following all our leads and talking with lots of used car salesmen, we were lead to "Dick", an expat from the U.S., Vietnam vet, and chain smoker. He worked as an intermediary between us and a local lawyer, who sold us "Celeste", our sky blue Nissan Sentra--the same kind of car that Tim owned when we first met 16 years ago.

It's a 1997, in decent shape but has already been to the shop and has no air conditioning. For this we paid nearly $6,000! Crazy as it sounds, cars are really expensive here, largely to a whopping import tax placed on any vehicles coming into the country. We're hoping Celeste does her work for us getting up and down the mountain and that we can sell her again upon leaving without too much of a loss. Getting Celeste registered in our name was its own interesting process whereby we sat in the lawyer's office and were read the long document detailing everyone's (even the secretary's) passport and license numbers, former marriages, full names, former names, and other details in a solemn ceremony, betrothing ourselves to our beloved Celeste.

Setting up Camp in Costa Rica

It was a monumental feat to get ourselves packed up, our house ready to rent, and leave the country for our year in Costa Rica, but we did it thanks to so many friends who helped us with kid care, dinners, and interim accommodations, as well as so many other favors--thanks for helping make this possible!

On the road to Turrialba, a town of 27,000 east of San Jose in the central valley...

For the first two nights, we stayed at a lovely little lodge up the hill from Turrialba called the Turialtico. This is the room we stayed in . It had a nice open air restaurant with great views looking down onto Turrialba.

Our first few weeks were working on getting ourselves established in the most basic ways: , telephones, house, car, internet, school, bank account. All of this work required long, hot days dragging poor Zena around from place to place, line to line.   Often during this time of climbing the lower rungs of Maslow's ladder, we ate lunch at a soda (mom and pop eatery) recommended by our friend Rebecca. It quickly became a favorite with generous portions of zesty local food, especially their "casado", a combination of rice, beans, your choice of meat, salad, a side vegetable, and fried plaintains. Eva would sit at the counter and watch telenovelas (soap operas--at least in Spanish) drinking red pop (organic food preferences out the window at the time.)