Day 0 Helena, Montana April 30, 2010 As Jodie Foster kept saying in Contact, I’m good to go. I have been outfitting and provisioning in Helena, Montana since Tuesday night. Bob (the carrier, not, alas, the cat) arrived in perfect tick from Philadelphia thanks to Jill. I now have everything I really need. Yesterday there […]
Jane Kansas
Posted inNews + Opinion
DEN vs JED
Denver International Airport 3PM in DEN, waiting for flight to SLC and then HLN. A little strange to be surround by English—on the TV, the woman talking at the bar, the bartender, the signs. It makes things feel a little more crowded; Spanish, when it didn’t directly apply to me—someone talking to me, the name […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Chen Xiao
Super El Diamante is the corner store closest to Condominios Mana. It’s actually much bigger than a Canadian corner store, but that’s what it is to me; the big grocery stores are in the center of town. Evening walks to the store, just three or four minutes, show the most beautiful skies I see here […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Marco Vinicio Arroyo Marin
The storefront It seems strange me to have a tailor, but in Alajuela I do. I found Marco by chance, walking home one day, managed to remember where he was and began taking things in—shirts to be shortened, shorts to be hemmed, and finally, my Bimbo shirt, to be hemmed up and have the sleeves […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The Sphinxes of Dulce Nombre
The Four Sphinxes of Dulce Nombre North of Alajuela and north of Zooave, south of La Garita, Dulce Nombre is a small community with a school, some churches, a corner store and a community soccer field. On the end of the field by the sidewalk are concrete benches under trees, giant concrete soccer balls, and […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Orchids
I took a bus north and west out of Alajuela, to La Garita, an area of nices homes spread out along the road, and restaurants celebrating all things corn. I walked a dusty broiling mile uphill to get to the Botanical Orchid Garden. A notice in The Tico Times, the weekly english language newspaper here […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Two Feet Over
I asked why bodies are buried above ground here and didn’t get an answer I could understand. There is not a high water table as there is in New Orleans, where bodies are interred above ground. I did find out that the places above ground are rented by the year; if someone misses a payment […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Clouds from both sides
3:30pm April 18, 2010 The clouds in Costa Rica are fantastic, and I am so sorry that I, along with Joni Mitchell, don’t know clouds at all. But just now an amazing front has come over and brought cold air (!). The sky is so dark I have had to turn on lights. Usually the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
To Market, To Market….
In Alajuela, there is a central market open six days a week, with foods of all kinds, but the Farmers’ Market is on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, and it’s terrific. Folks load up shopping carts of produce. There are about 550 colones in a dollar.
Posted inNews + Opinion
Kansas made in Costa Rica
I tell ya. I am back in Alajuela, Costa Rica. Norval and Mike return to Halifax early tomorrow. Today I am walking along, close to the condo. It’s really hot and I have just slogged up a hill, so I am walking slowly. A guy is sitting on a low wall. He is smoking. He […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Hot Time in Bocas
I have a lucky afternoon. We imagine postcard-perfect moments come more often when we are away from the usual, but really, even in various versions of paradise, they don’t show up at every turn. In the morning I shuffle around Bocas Town, slowed and bowed by a tremendous hot humidity. I don’t notice the sky […]
