murciélago

I am normally a pretty tough cookie. Things that bother other people- spiders, snakes, mice etc generally do not phase me, unless of course the snake or spider is poisonous. But I have encountered an animal that I have to say sparks a great deal of disgust and loathing in my soul- the murciélago, or bat. I have been forced to cohabitate with these creatures since arriving in Costa Rica. They live in my roof and from the sounds of it, really seem to enjoy it. In my office when the sun shines, I can smell their presence. I suppose that’s the precious delicate scent de murciélago skat. Ancho described it as smelling like dirty feet. In fact, for about three months, Ancho claimed to not smell the nasty smell that was emanating from the office. When he finally conceded to the presence of a strange odor, he explained, “I just thought it was smelly feet, probably my own.” At night the little bastards hiss and squeak and brush their wings against the top of my ceiling. They are, in a word, repulsive. They smell repulsive, they look repulsive, they sound repulsive. They are repulsiveness animalified.
Despite the fact that I have cultivated a hate unlike any other for these animals, I have tried to manage my hatred. Instead of insisting on their quick and precise annihilation, I have replied to my neighbors, “Well, I suppose this is just a fact of living in the country.” They then reply and laugh, “no it’s just your house because of the type of roof that you have.” But they have mice or some other plague that I do not, so I comfort myself with that thought.
I have found ways to live with my unwelcome houseguests. I purchased a fan to conceal the nighttime noise. I bought scented candles and incense to cover the skat odor in my office. I try to ask myself, “what would the Dalai Lama do?” when confronted with an impulse to pay some campesino to rip off the roof and destroy every murciélago , every egg, every trace of my houseguests.
Today, however, my patient, zen approach to the little bastards was tested again. When I walked out in my usual morning fog to fill up the washing machine with water, I did the usual. I turned on the water on my backporch. I picked up the old red hose that I use to fill up the wash tank that sits just outside my bedroom window. I opened up the lid on the water tank of the washer. Felicia had used the washer last and there was a little bit of dirty water left in the bottom. I prepared to rinse it out. As I began spraying the walls and corners of the washer, I noticed what I thought was a large glob of mud in a bottom corner of the washer. Just before I touched the big glob of mud with my hand, I realized that it was not mud, but a living, breathing animal, looking pretty sluggish and out of it. At first, I thought it was a frog, as they like to get into all things wet. But then as my eyes focused I realized that this could not be the body of a frog. I realized one of those little bastards was curled up in my washing machine sleeping off a night’s work of killing bugs and other creatures.
The only silver lining to my tale is that I did not actually touch the little bastard. Instead, I did what any other reasonable person would do. I called Andres and Daniel, my ten and eleven year old neighbors to inspect and remove the bat from my washer. They were all too pleased to take over this duty from me and I was all to pleased to defer to their innate knowledge of all yucky animals to be found in the area. It was Andres, after all, who one day while I ate an early breakfast with Ancho, came in with a handful of tiny eggs explaining, “look murciélago eggs!” Needless to say, I lost my appetite.
So my young neighbors scooped up the little bastard with the stick I use when burning my toilet paper (which is a whole other story in itself). As they batted the murciélago into waking up (they are nocturnal after all), the bat clenched its teeth around the stick and Daniel carried it triumphantly downhill to show his mother, my landlady. As he carried the bat down the hill, it spread out its wings and looked officially even more repulsive than when I found it in the washer. In the washer he looked sort of waterlogged and small. Clinging to the end of a tree branch by his teeth with his wings outreached he looked, well, rather nasty.

Oh Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Finca Organica Harmonia

Armejas
Originally uploaded by ancho and lefty.

I toured an organic farm today just minutes from my house with my friend Andreina. It was truly amazing. 160 different types of plants. Talk about diversity! Quite a switch from the maize, beans, citrus, coffee, bananas, yucca, etc. that is found on the typical finca here. These beauties came out of a beautiful pool of water smack dab in the middle of the gardens. I took home some onions to plant and some chili peppers to eat. It was a nice morning.

Rest In Peace Scrapper

This morning I woke up to news of the death of an old college friend, Scrapper Willoughby. I can't describe what it is like to learn about the death of someone you knew well from another country. It feels unreal from here. I am sad for his mom and dad especially. I can't imagine losing a son or daughter, despite the fact that I am not a parent. Anyhow, for those of you who did not know Scrapper, he was one of the wilder people I knew in my life- liked to party, drove a big old Harley Davidson, was well-tattooed, and generally could have taken better care of himself. One day he came to Berea when I lived there alone and was really pretty lonely. He took me on an incredible motorcycle ride on his Harley up in the mountains south of Berea. I just remember the beautiful views and the loud roar of the engine. At one point when I was living in Lexington I remember he told me that he wanted to start exercising more, so I said I would come out to Winchester and walk with him a couple of times to get him into the motions. I don't think my motivational attempt took. Anyway, I had the good fortune to see him right before I left for Costa Rica at a holiday party. He had recently returned from a trip to New Zealand and had many wild stories to tell. Scrapper's politics drove me nuts. We disagreed a lot about what language was appropriate and inappropriate, among other things. But, I guess because he was so different from most anyone I knew at Centre, he always helped me identify who I was, because I was constantly asking myself, wait a minute do I agree with this dude? And often, the answer would be- no absolutely not! But the great thing about having a friend like Scrapper was that it did not really matter if you agreed or not. He would still call me sweetie, or darling, or some other term of endearment to make me recognize that although we were very different kinds of folks there was a kernel of sameness in us. I think he made a lot of people feel like that. That's it. Rest in Peace Scrapper Willoughby, you crazy redneck you.

The kindness of people who are no longer strangers

Today I conducted two interviews each with married folks. They went pretty well, especially the last one where I got fed a miniature hamburger and played zoological bingo with their two kids. People generally will talk to me about anything for some reason, and I suppose that’s a good trait to have as an anthropologist. Plus, everyone is feeling sorry for me because Ancho left, so my suffering makes me even more human and less foreign somehow.
Last night I went to an hour-long recitation of the rosary for a man who died on Sunday. Here, people assemble in the home of a family member of neighbor of the deceased and recite the rosary for nine days after the death. Since I am not Catholic and do not say the rosary in English much less in Spanish, the experience was more sensory than anything else- One woman had gone through this so many times that her voice carried a sort of stacato chanting not unlike a Buddhist monk... but she could have just as easily been my grandmother in her skirt, tennis shoes and blouse, with her gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. Nevertheless, when it got down to the praying she was a PROFESSIONAL. On the flip side, there was the little girl walking around eating a bag of chips and sort of looking at all of us like “what in the hell do you think you all are doing anyway?”
We all faced an altar comprised of days old flowers, one marriage photo of the deceased, and two white candles perched in big old wide-mouthed bamboo poles. Above the altar Jesus was depicted in a boldly colored tapestry of blues, reds, and browns. In the scene, Jesus points to his chest that holds his heart surrounded by thorns. Jesus points to his heart as if to say, “remember folks, it’s about the love.” In the background of the tapestry four cherubs float over an ancient desert city landscape.
After many prayers and sitting and standing, the recitation ended and coffee and sweet bread was served. Although I was definitely a fish out of water I have to say it’s quite a fitting way to say goodbye to someone. Nine continuous days of intense prayer every night with people from your community. Seems better than our fly by night, get that dead person buried and done with already attitude. (He was buried several days ago, but the services continue, I mean).
Now, you may ask yourself, how does Lefty get an invitation to such an event? Well, I did not know the deceased, so that has nothing to do with it. Basically all that happened was this: on my daily walk around “the vuelta” one of my friends told me I should come with her to a nearby house because it would be educational for me. This is just another example of how people here are ridiculously helpful to me in my studies. One man here who makes guaro (contraband liquor) even told me I could take photos of his still if I wanted. He calls it his “private work,” but everyone in the community knows he is one of the local distillers. When Ancho and I went to witness his “private work” his wife sent us away with a mountainous tortilla and egg creation wrapped in banana leaves. This is another thing- in addition to giving me great research opportunities people here like to feed me- since Ancho has left my stock has gone up greatly, the idea being that because I am lonely I should simply eat more. So in the past four days I have received the following gifts of food:
A jar of freshly made ceviche
A bowl of soup made with a big fishead from the sea
6 freshly picked limes
2 oranges
1 muffin and 3 mini sweet rolls
A lunch of grilled pork, cabbage salad, and boiled green bananas
The above mentioned miniature hamburger
A shot of Bailey’s Irish creme
An entire loaf of bread
Several glasses of fresca (no not the coca cola product, but fresh lime juice, sugar, and water)

Luckily, I am walking everyday and have no pressing appetite for food. Thus far, I have not really been into the bread. The fish items were awesome. Ancho, should you read this, Rosivel puts a little ginger ale in her ceviche at the very end, after all the other regular stuff goes in. She says it cooks the fish faster. Just thought you might like to give it a shot.
The other example of ridiculous concern for my well-being exhibited by my neighbors is that two different women came to my house and asked if I needed someone else to sleep in the house with me. Everyone thinks I should be afraid of sleeping alone in a house, although if you ever visited here, you would see that it is in fact one of the safer places to sleep in the world. The town is tiny and I am right between two houses who are good neighbors. So anyway, although I am alone and without Ancho I am not too lonely. I can always go play zoological bingo with Rosivel’s kids or go down and talk to Abuela about life before running water and electricity.
So anyway, perhaps this will give you all a little bit better idea about what life is like here in the campo. I can’t really write about my studies yet because they sit right on the front of my brain and I only write about them in my personal fieldnotes, but maybe one day you will all read about them in some mediocre publication that I create in order to keep a job at some institution of higher education. Happy Spring to everyone in Kentucky!

Boquete Panama

Boquete Panama
Originally uploaded by ancho and lefty.

Boquete was a great place to walk around- pretty, rocky rivers and nice, cool weather. It was a good way to update my visa and also spend time with Ancho before he returned to Gringoland.

Ancho in a pastoral scene

Ancho in a pastoral scene
Originally uploaded by ancho and lefty.

On our hike around Volcan Baru, Ancho and I stumbled upon a most lovely pastoral scene of sheep and wild, beautiful white lilies.

Noriega Dreaming

Here we are in Panama, trying to outwit the immigration officials of Costa Rica. We arrived with little fanfare, and with the help of Joel, our Panamanian border crossing specialist, brought ourselves and Bessie, the toyota that can really do it all, into a lovely area of Panama known as the highlands. We are staying in Boquete, Panama. Which is a very cute little town and we have a fantastic room. I, Lefty, like Panama- the roads are good and travel is easy. The dollar is the currency. I feel like I am in Gatlinburg, only it´s much better than that. There is no dollywood and it´s much cleaner. Tomorrow we are climbing up to Panama´s highest peak called Volcan Baru. Ancho´s mom, Lily, left us yesterday. We dropped her at aeropuerto Juan Santamaria and headed south down the Panamerican Highway. The drive at first was fantastic, climbing up and up towards the highest point on the Panamerican Highway at jsut over 10,000 feet. Then the drive got really slow and painful as we putted along behind semis going very slowly and spewing exhaust. Yucky. Eventually we made our way to San Isidro General and after San Isidro the road was much better with less traffic. It was my first time in this part of Costa Rica and I really liked it. We stayed in a little town on the highway and had the best Chinese Food here yet. Of course, because our last and first experience with Chinese was so horrible, this was actually only the second shot at Chinese. The electricity went out as our meal was ready and we ate by candlelight... tres romantique! This issue with utilities has been keeping our lives interesting. This past weekend in Acosta was the weekend of infrequent water... at least Ancho´s Mom got a taste of authentic rural living. As I worried about whether my sister had made reservations at the hoity toity restaurant in Lexington, Kentucky for Mother´s Day, Ancho´s Mom noted that I was being rather ridiculous considering I was sitting in rural Costa Rica with no water and a backache as well. Sometimes I worry about the strangest things down here. Anyway, at least I am still keeping hold of that notable neurotocism that runs in the family. Ancho returns to Bath County in a week. Everyone batten down the hatches and protect any Sierra Nevada you may have. I am convinced that after four months without good beer he will spend the first week of his time at home on a good beer binge. Keep an eye on him, will you?

Love to all,
Ancho and Lefty