Chicken Poo and Unabashed Cats

Nature really weaves into everyday life here... In fact, chickens got in the other day and pooped on my floor. The same day I think a monkey peed on me. Fortunately, nature is kind sometimes.. Here, air conditioning units are open doors and windows and fand. So, walls only kind of distinguish between outside and in, letting the sounds--clicking birds, chirping geckos, and howling monkeys--smells--brush-burning, cow manure--and little (and big) bugs (see picture) of nature in. And right now, an enormous lizard is clanging around on my roof.

Likewise, life spills out onto the yard, where everyone lounges in a turmoil of hammocks, pig pens, and mango trees. See the horse picture below.

Finally, nature makes an ostentatious show in public. Dogs (and more dogs) sleep on the sidewalk and road. In several restaurants, a cat has climbed onto the table where I am sitting and made my books and paper into a cozy table-top bed.

For good measure, here's Tomato Frog (he hangs out in the tomato planter).

Distant cousins

The people of Guanacaste and the South are definitely distant cousins. Everybody smiles to say hello. Everybody earnestly helps the lost traveller. And walking out on the rural highways near where I live, you'll find cowboy boots, tractors and lots of dried cow patties.

And by george it's hot. Even with the dry gusts in this season, heat is like a gravity that drags you to the nearest hammock.

Qué Pasa, Mufasa?

As I write I'm fighting off attacks... From Allan!

A Rosales he is, the fiercest family in all the land, and deadly with a knife and a mango.

Allan's dad is my good friend René, who works at my farm and is the local soccer-playing, James Dean. We exchange language lessons--Spanish for me, English for him--and so now with Real Madrid match playing we're yelling in Spanglish at his TV for good practice. We've got hot coffee, a tradition that endures despite impossible heat, and mangos from the neighbor's tree. You could say I am getting used to Costa Rica. And after two months I've figured out what I'm doing here. A few things have become normal-ish:

I tend to a garden and whatever sundry wood-chopping, burning or manure-collecting I've got to do, while, so as not to betray my granola-of-the-earth forbears, wearing a bandana and learning about ecological sustainability. I learn a little Spanish every day. At the local elementary school, I volunteer in English classes and, despite what some of you know about my appellative preferences, the kids call me "Dani!" I'm learning how exciting it is to study outside of school. I'm teaching myself tai ji. I'm weilding a machete. I'm making friends!

All together, this is my gap year between high school and college, the subject of this blog. Posts and stories won't be particularly coordinated, but I'll post the interesting things and interesting pictures.. Like this one! (may or may not appear in proper place bc i have only an iphone)

More on my mango-weilding foe to come..

*aka a farm. Watch out for fancy eco-jargon!