Seasons Greetings

Well, the Christmas traditions in Costa Rica are happening.  Every evening there is a chorus of fireworks going off in the neighborhood. This causes our dogs to slink into the container and tremble under the bed for hours. They are now milking it by sneaking in even when there are no fireworks. Give them an inch and they take a mile!

What to do with all those bananas?

We dried lots of bananas

A huge hand of bananas ripened all at once, inundating us with tasty, sweet little fruit. So I coaxed Ray into making banana muffins and bread. His first. Remember that I have been pretty incapacitated with my broken wrist. In fact, Ray has cooked, cleaned, even dressed me for the past month. 

This little gecko is trying out the banana muffins  

Raquel and Denis's family butchered a 150 to 175 pound pig at the beach across the street last week. I heard a blood curdling scream one morning, and later when we walked to the beach the carcass was hanging upside down being gutted by Rachel's dad. While Denis poured on scalding water Raquel scraped the hairs off the head. Although a bit too much graphic reality for me, I know they will certainly use every single part of that pig which I do admire. Poor pig!

 A few days ago while in Golfito we drove into the jungle so Eli and his brother could cut down lots and lots of huge leaves from a type of heliconia to wrap the Christmas tamales that Eli's wife, Juanita would be making. By the huge number of leaves that they collected I imagined they would be making about 500 tamales. This has become a Christmas tradition that Ray has been sucked into for the last few years- because he’s the driver. A few days later a package from Golfito arrived by the local bus - a bag full of tamales!

The "Leaf Boys" Eli, his brother and Ray

Eli - always barefoot. Eli's ethic background is
Indian (as it is called in CR) He has been barefoot
most of his life. Half by choice and lifestyle, and
the other hand poverty.

This Christmas Ray has been giving out little globes to all the kids we know, with "you've got the whole world in your hands" (in Spanish, of course) written on the package. Actually, a very thoughtful gift, and sanctioned by an ex-teacher, no less. The neighbors' girls also received a large box of "King Kong's corn flakes, as they always ask for cereal when they visit. We had a lot of fun with these gifts.

Christmas Tamales. Gracias Juanita

Gifts included boxes of corn flakes (the girls' 
favorite cereal, and globes

 

Getting Ready for Another Transition

I am preparing my plants so that they are relatively easy to water and care for while I’m gone. I’ve expanded my "nursery" having planted lots of seeds and cuttings, so we’ll see what survives when I get back in March.

Today I took Ray on the "cactus tour." I showed him all of my little cactus cuttings that are now budding little prickly sprouts. I'm hoping he will not only remember where they are, but take good care of them. 

Christmas Day for us was a quiet affair since we were leaving the next day for San Jose, where I was to fly out the next day.

Santa Eli