As I am out running, on a day that I am sure is hotter than even hell, I analyze the wildlife in Costa Rica (CR). I wonder what the ratio is of animals per square inch might be, a billion times over that of where I live.
At first glance, things just seem green. But now that I have been here for a few days, I have begun to realize that the Costa Rican animal kingdom reminds me of my high school biology class: I would look at a drop of water with the naked eye and there seemed to be no life, and then from a microscope, I saw an entire ecosystem. An entire Darwinistic world with two types of animals: predators or prey. Under every leaf, around every corner, along every tree, there is something. Crawling, slithering, hunting, flying, or sleeping. To start, there are an enormous number of bugs, of which I have started my doctoral thesis about how to classify them. (I am sure CR is an entomologist dream world!)
For me, the classifications are in four distinct categories: good, bad, I am not quite sure, and the butterflies.The bad ones are mainly in two subcategories: roaches, which can go from small to the size of a small bird, and mosquitos. The mosquitos are especially worrisome because they carry dengi fever, a sickness that starts with a splitting headache and progresses to a trip to the hospital. And so I douse myself in plenty of repellent, blended well with sunscreen and sweat. (Yes, sweat….. a constant sweat that I can only escape for 5 minutes every day after my cold shower.) Of the good bugs, well, these are mainly things that look like trees and branches. They don’t seem to be in a hurry.
Most of them aren’t that big, well, in CR terms, but others … I am waiting to see one that resembles not a leaf or a branch, but possibly an entire tree or at least a branch. I put them in the same terms as butterflies, which come in amazing colors and shapes: interesting, beautiful, and friendly.And finally, there are the bugs that I am not sure about. These worry me the most, because I can never decide how they are going to behave. Does it jump? Does it fly? And most importantly does it bite or sting? These range from big to small, and come in amazing shapes and sizes… and one can never tell or know quite what to expect. The bugs here though support an amazing number of other animals. There are geccos (one that crawled across me the other day at the Inernet café), iguanas (who seem to be fearless and slowly move out of your way when you see one), bats, and birds. The birds range from lots of small brightly colored birds, to parrots, to huge frigates that fly very high, to vultures, all combined with a variety of water birds. We also have monkeys that play just outside of our class, they have white faces and black bodies and are quite the source of entertainment. And there are crocodiles, although I haven’t spent much time looking for them and quite frankly am not that excited to see one.
As I run, with the sweat steaming off my body, I think through the many great CR animal stories. I laugh about each of them…. The running of the bullsAfter two days, I was just beginning to feel a tad bit more at ease with my family, the food, the buses, and insanity of constantly trying to struggle through Spanish. I was sitting at diner, when I heard an engine that was obviously straining from some incredible load. It was a truck, like a mini pickup truck, that had a sort of trailer built on top. The trailer was made of wood that looked like it drifted up on the beach. And on top of that, were two of the biggest Brahma bulls that I have ever seen. I could hear the wood just creeking from the massive weight of these bulls. Kids continued to play soccer and my CR mother seemed to have little concern. If I new a little more Spanish, I would have asked how on earth did they get those two big animals on the top of such a small truck. And really, didn’t anybody mind that these animals were right in the middle of the neighborhood. I was not at all sad when I hear the truck engine start again, a loud roar, and then watched the truck lunge forward. For now, I guess I should just be happy that the driftwood has continued to hold. How, I am not sure. Fumido! Fumido!
My CR mother speaks no English and that is exactly the point of my staying in her house. In fact, nobody speaks English which presents a new set of challenges in life. I am sure, my ability in charades has greatly improved in a few days … as I have learned to express myself with great hand gestures. But still, I try to communicate with my butchered Spanish. And my CR mother tries to repeat herself enough times, in enough ways, with enough hand motions so that I might understand. We have had some amazing conversations, of which I think that I might possibly understand. But there is nobody there to confirm and so I pretend that I have understood everything. In the end, very little is THAT important. What time is diner? When is breakfast? When you wash my clothes, don’t put them in the dryer? More rice and beans? Why my favorite. But there was one word that was certainly missing from my vocabulary: Fumido. Yesterday, I was having quite the breakthrough morning. I made it through breakfast and managed to avoid being served rice and beans, but rather got just fruit. Perfect. And after, my mother and I had a great discussion about each of the kids in her family, about here concerns with the teenage girl being too wild. And her son, who is away at school, not finishing because he misses Quepos, and of her other son being too lazy like her husband. After that, we had a discussion on clothes. She showed me her favorite top, a sort of running bra that was pretty old and shredded, and she told me that she was sad because it was getting too old. And then she went through my clothes (there is no such thing as private possessions here in CR, she just goes through my stuff all the time) and pulled out one of the tops that I have with me and told me that she thought it was just beautiful. I laughed and told her that really she could have it. (Of which my new favorite saying now is, Me ropas es su ropas. Meaning my clothes are your clothes.) She was beyond excited and instantly gave me a big kiss. And then she decided to show me her exercise equipment so that I wouldn’t have to hike to the gym, something that is like a rolling pin that you can use in the kitchen to do pushups with. Then she went on to teach me how to dance.
She put on loud latin music and was showing me how to do hip movements when suddenly I heard this noise … it sounded like a motorcyle that hadn’t been tuned up. This greatly excited Beleida who started yelling at me, “FUMIDO! FUMIDO! FUMIDO!I had no idea what she was worried about so I just stood there. She ran into the kitchen and grabbed the food she was making for diner. She shoved it all in the refrigerator. I wasn’t quite what sure what was happening but I decided to grab my backpack, money and passport might be a good thing to have. And I started heading out the front door … but it was TOOOOOO late. Fumido had arrived … In walked a man with what looked like a leaf blower on his back that was spraying a cloudy pesticide. He waved at me and screamed, “Hola.” The fumes were simply awful and I started to cough. I ran out into the street with Beleida, trying to recover. “Gads,” I thought, “that was awful.” It was time for me to leave for school and I decided that I really didn’t want to go back in the house. So I hiked into town to catch the bus for school. Town looked like it was on fire, with FUMIDO being performed in lots of buildings. This of course stirred up an entire bug community that was not remotely happy and while typically late morning is a lazy time for the animal kingdom, the sidewalks were just crawling with the BAD types of bugs.
Later that evening I went to a birthday party and was standing on a porch, looking off into the jungle. I thought to myself, “Wow, that’s weird, this is the first time the mosquitos really haven’t bothered me. Hmmm…I wonder why?” And then I remembered FUMIDO and sort of laughed. While I might die from lung poisoning from god only knows what they put in the pesticide, but at least I won’t get dengi fever. Well, at least not from last night. The Spider Café… My new best friend at the school is an ER doctor from Maryland. I say that because I tell that if I get sick, she’s going to take care of me until they put me on a flight back to the US. And because I get her opinion on things does she think I can really drink the Coke that was just poured over ice cubes or can I have fish for diner. Amy is terrific and she has a great sense of humor. But there is one small problem with Amy: she is incredibly afraid of bugs. I am not quite sure how she convinced herself that CR was a good idea, possibly she is trying to address her own phobias, but I am impressed that she is here. Amy and I found a great little Internet café the beach. They were playing English reggae and the computers were on a nice shady patio so we were all excited about that.
We decided to spend a few minutes online, write home and read the news … and get our little taste of America for the day. I think we have been there for about 45 minutes; I was fully engrossed in reading the CNN news, when I brushed my knees up against the underside of the table. And I felt this web, a massive spider web that seemed to almost capture my entire knee. I just sat there sort of paralyzed with fear. I slowly pulled my knee out of the sticky mess and I quietly asked Amy if she was ready to go. I never did look under the table … I was just too afraid of what was crawling underneath it, but I can tell you now that I am a bit more cautious of outdoor cafes. Actually, of tables in general ….. as for Amy, I should have never told her. We laugh about the Spider café, but I am sure she now thinks twice about the tables.
