Settling in in Heredia

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Well, things have been pretty slow since we’ve moved in - school for the kids doesn’t start until Jan 30 or later, depending on what school we choose. So most days have been Dara’s homeschool in the mornings followed by an outing to the playground or errands around town in the afternoon. The kids have really been great. Remember those old family vacations when you were young - a week or two on the road with no one but your sister to play with (or no one but your brother - if you have more than one brother or sister or if you never took a family vacation, try to imagine what it would be like) and having to share a room with her? Well, that is what it has been like for the past month or more. The kids have really been great (I know I’m repeating myself). Of course they have their moments - but not more often nor worse than back home - and outside of those, they play well together, they look after each other and they have adjusted very well to sharing a room (and a small room at that - just enough room to walk between the beds).

I think a few hours of Dara’s homeschool is very effective for teaching. Naturally, Ari fights tooth and nail against doing any work, but once he starts, he really gets into it and stops complaining (especially the math). The other day he wrote a nice journal entry about the world’s worst magician (just a made up story - nothing we’ve seen in Costa Rica. Dad, don’t go on again about having him write a blog - it is painful to watch him typing just an e-mail). Of course, Dara’s homeschool is pretty wearing on Dara, too. I think we are all (even the kids, although Ari will not admit it) looking forward to the kids going to school (more on that in a bit).

We found a little art store that offers classes. (Since there is no “Yellow Pages” and signs vary from huge to nonexistent, most stores, schools and other places are found by walking by them or word of mouth - and we don’t know that many mouths, yet.) So the kids spent one morning in art “class.” That stoked their already burning artistic flames. That afternoon they came home, busted out the sidewalk chalk and next thing we know the walk leading to our front door was covered with chalk. I hope the neighbors don’t mind.

Speaking of signs and stumbling upon stores, an interesting thing to observe is the complete lack of zoning regulations. If you want to open a store, you just open it. If you want to hang a sign, you just hang it. If the building on the corner wants to paint a billboard on the side of the building, no problem. As we mentioned in an earlier entry, many houses have a little driveway/courtyard in front. There are plenty of times, as you walk down the street, people have just set up a little counter in their courtyard or garage and sell ice cream or rent videos or whatever. Could you imagine the uproar if all of a sudden your neighbor turned their garage into a video store or painted a billboard on the side of their house?

Oh, and Eliana is really into playing Hangman. Since she only knows how to spell Ellie, Eliana and Ari, it is not too much of a challenge to guess what word she is playing. But, it is a good way to get her to practice writing her letters. We, of course, always make it through pretty much the entire alphabet before finally arriving at the correct letters for her chosen word. And, well, she is so cute that just about everything she does is just adorable (but, of course, I am biased - but all Ticos are really taken by her blonde hair and blue eyes. We should sign her up with a modeling agency.).

Also, the kids are picking up Spanish words and phrases here and there and are using them more and more each day. Ari said something funny today when Dara asked him if he thought Mikey might want to play Uno - he said “Not now Mom, and they probably call it ‘One’ here.” Get it? Pretty clever!

We were going to go to the Poas Volcano the other day, but since it was rainy and cloudy (yes, not everyday is perfect weather - most days are sunny in the high 70’s, but not quite everyday), we postponed it. We did go to the zoo -- it is very nice -- lots of birds and monkeys. The cages are big and full of jungle flora, which makes it very enjoyable for walking around. An unexpected surprise, as we were walking down a path, we almost stepped on a good-sized iguana that was sunning himself. Also there was a howler monkey on the loose (we aren’t sure if he escaped or if he isn’t usually in a cage) that stopped to eat on a tree hanging right over our heads.

Our New Year’s Eve wasn’t very eventful. We went out to dinner at the Chinese restaurant around the corner. It wasn’t very good - I don’t think we’ll be going back there. On the way home we stopped by our local fireworks store (someone had turned their garage into a makeshift store to take advantage of the holiday rush) and got a few exploding things and some sparklers. Woo-hoo! Ari thought it was very cool to shoot off fireworks - I know that when I was 7, I would have loved to shoot off fireworks. I think we were all asleep by 9:30, despite all the private fireworks going off all around.

New Year’s Day, on the other hand, was quite an event. We had baked chocolate chip cookies the day before (actually chocolate chunk cookies - actual chocolate chips are hard to come by here and the ones we did see were very expensive) so on New Year’s Day we went to deliver them and introduce ourselves to our neighbors. The first two apartments we visited were the ones that each have a young couple in them. I don’t think they really knew what to make of us - I’m pretty sure it is not standard Tico practice to just knock on your neighbor’s door to introduce yourself, especially not with cookies. With them we just exchanged standard pleasantries as they kind of just stood there with deer-in-the-headlights kind of looks on their faces.

The last apartment, however, was a little different. That is home to Miguel, Laura and Mikey (actually Miguel III), a 5-year-old little boy. They invited us in to sit down - something neither of the others did. Miguel speaks English pretty well and we had a nice time chatting with them. They have lived there for only a few months and have had little contact with the neighbors. I think they were happy to have another family living near them. Again, the kids turned into fast friends - they checked out Mikey’s turtle and other toys and generally ran around like crazy.

A little later in the day, Dara was on her way out and ran into Miguel at the top of the steps that lead down to the garage. (Quick aside: our apartments are up on a hill, with a grassy area/courtyard-like place in front. At the far side of this are steps that lead down to the garage and you go out to the street through the garage. Naturally, in security-conscious Costa Rica, you need a key to get into and out of the garage, plus there is a locked gate you need to navigate to get from the garage to the steps. With an obvious lack of foresight, in order to unlock the gate, you need to reach through the gate to insert your key because the wall blocks the keyhole on one side. Then there is the lock on the door to the apartment, as well as bars on the windows and barbed wire over the top of the garage. But no, we don’t feel like we are living in a prison. It just adds a couple minutes each time you want to go in or out - especially since the kids really like taking the keys and unlocking and locking. And since they usually argue about who gets to do which one and who had the last turn and who got to do more than the other, coming and going is always a bit of a production.) As they got to talking, it came up that it was my birthday. As soon as he heard that, Miguel said we had to have a party. He quickly went up and knocked on the other two doors and said “Neighbors, party tonight!” The other neighbors just nodded their heads and said ok, as if this was just a regular occurrence - which, based on our earlier conversation, we knew it wasn’t.

So, that evening around 7:30, everyone came over and we had a pot-luck dinner kind of party. It was funny -- no details had been discussed really, Miguel had just said people will bring things. We didn’t really know what to expect, especially since we didn’t really understand if Miguel meant that people would bring things for themselves to eat (like a picnic get together) or if it would be more pot luck, sharing style. We hadn’t even set a time. Well, we just went with the flow and it seemed that everyone else kind of winged it, too. Anyway, we had a very nice time. The kids - all 3 of them -- ran around crazy (they had gotten their faces painted by Dara earlier in the day) while the adults sat around and chatted. It was just like a cocktail party back home, except Dara had trouble following the conversation. It does seem that all the neighbors speak a little English and one, who works for a local company that runs a call center for Chase Bank, is fluent. One neighbor who has lived here for about 3 years (and her husband moved in with her just after they got married about a year ago - their anniversary is coming up, we’ll have to remind the party planner), works for a Costa Rican non-profit organization that builds houses for the poor. It sounds a lot like a local Habitat for Humanity. And as you would expect, we all had chocolate birthday cake (made by Dara and the kids) with chocolate icing for dessert.

By the way, Miguel has 2 jobs - as a local radio DJ and he also works for his father’s company: a private bill delivery service. Since the mail is so unreliable, there are private companies that deliver the bills. Even so, it is your responsibility (as in the US) to make sure you pay your bill, whether you get it or not. You can pay your bills in lots of places (like most supermarkets) but there are always long lines outside the offices of the phone and electric companies. I guess people go there to get there bills and pay.

That’s all for now - more next time about the schools (I think we finally have it sorted out) and instead of just hanging around looking for ways to kill time around here, I think we are going to go to the beach for a while (maybe a week or so) and do some touristy stuff.

By the way, I have been contacting old customers and talking with my new suppliers to try to get things going again in the flower world. I don’t have any orders yet, but I hope to soon.

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Photos

Happy New Year!
Happy New Year and Best Wishes to all our friends and family around the world!!

Sidewalk artists at work
The kids used up all of our chalk coloring in the entire walkway. It's gorgeous! Behind Ellie are the steps going down to the garage.

Iguana underfoot
We almost stepped on this guy on a path at the zoo. We guessed he came to visit his friends.

Howler overhead
This guy was busy throwing branches down onto peoples' heads as they walked by.

Scarlet Macaw
This beautiful bird flies free around the zoo.

Ocelot
What a beautiful cat... he walked right up to the fence for us.

The birthday party
Here's Mark at his impromptu birthday party with Ellie and Mikey. Happy Birthday, Mark!

Our new neighbors
Here are our wonderful new neighbors who took time out to celebrate Mark's birthday on the first day they met him!

Comments

[Barbara & Hal]

Impromptu Shops
We know exactly what it's like to have a nearby garage or sidewalk suddenly become a shop! We live in the Mission District of San Francisco! Mark, is that how you're going to sell flowers? Go for it!