Advertisement
Published: August 5th 2008
For those of you who have been enjoying our blog these past 11 months, our apologies for being so delinquent in writing anything new recently. We are still here in Costa Rica (in case you thought our lack of updates meant we had gone home early and hadn't told anyone). But we are now in our final month of our year-long sabbatical. We will be returning to Minnesota the first week of September, almost 1 year to the day from when we got here. It will be a bittersweet departure, to be sure.
Anyway, without further ado, here is a recap of our adventures from the past few months. You might want to get a refill on your beverage before continuing - it's a bit long.
Visitors: Nancy's family (mother, father, sister, niece and nephew) were here for a combined total of 17 days. Click
here to read Nancy's summary of the fun adventures we had with them back in May. In addition, we welcomed Nancy's Aunt Jean from Ohio for a week in mid-July that included visiting San Jose museums, working at the clinic (Jean is a retired nurse), a sightseeing tour to a coffee plantation and La
Paz waterfall (and a clouded over Poas Volcano), dinner at a mountaintop restaurant overlooking the lights of the city with traditional Costa Rican dancing, and a 2-day trip to the Pacific coast. We took her to the always popular Manuel Antonio National Park where the highlight was seeing a whole bunch of monkeys plus a 3-toed sloth on the ground, which then scaled up a tree......very, very, very slowly. She even went on a zipline canopy tour with Kyle and had a blast. It was a real treat to show her around as our final visitor from the States. She also got to attend the FIMRC going-away barbecue for Christian (see below) and meet the many friends we have made through the clinic.
New Friends: Thanks to a contact from Nancy's father, we also connected with a family from Minneapolis (the Bartholomays) who spent several weeks here in Costa Rica - renting an apartment just a few miles from us. The father is doing a 3-month exchange helping out the Central American headquarters of Habitat for Humanity and his wife, son, and daughters came down to play. Our boys and their girls really hit it off - swimming, picnics,
going to Kung Fu Panda (in Spanish), and having 2 sleep-overs. As proof of the nice bond that formed between our 2 families, Kyle asked one night, "Can we still get together and play with them even after we get back to Minnesota?" Yes, Kyle, we can!
Fourth of July: We had a wonderful fiesta with over 20 of our friends - expat and Tico - coming over for a barbecue. Because of the risks of doing anything outside in afternoon during the rainy season, we set everything up in our open-air garage. Steve grilled hot dogs and BBQ chicken, American tunes played from iPod speakers, and people feasted on potato salad and other potluck items, all topped off with root beer floats (we had to go to several stores before finding A&W root beer!). One of our friends even brought two professional-grade firework shells which we launched from our yard - so we even had some big booms and bright lights to celebrate Independence Day.
Clinic Life: We have been busy at the clinic, consistently seeing about 15 patients every morning, and doing health education programs for the children at the soup kitchen 2 afternoons a week.
The volunteers continue to impress us with their enthusiasm and helpful spirit. We figured out that we have had about 250 volunteers come through since we arrived last September, ranging from high school students to practicing nurses and doctors, and everything in between. In addition to seeing patients, we have also been repainting and reorganizing the clinic rooms. And, with Christian leaving in August to do a 5-year anesthesiology residency in Israel, we will be helping to transition the clinic into the hands of Vladimir, a young Costa Rican doctor trained in Cuba. He seems like an excellent fit for the clinic; he and Dayan will make a great team.
Steve has just about completed the creation of an electronic database of the 1750 patient records, which will be useful for FIMRC to do analysis, planning, and grant writing and stand as a good backup to the paper files - just in case! Nancy continues to be able to operate independently in the exam room with very little translation assistance needed; she particularly enjoys the opportunity to do some hands-on teaching of the volunteers, many of whom are pre-med undergrads who have never had a direct patient experience (no
HIPPAA regulations down here to get in the way!)
School and Home Life: Kyle and Sam continue to flourish at their school - performing well on their myriad of exams, making strong friendships, and enjoying extracurriculars such as art and sports. Of course, they would rather play on the Wii or with the neighbor kids than doing their homework, but what can you do. Kyle has continued to enjoy playing soccer with his team; they even earned a medal for "winning" a regional indoor tournament (it helps when none of the other towns fielded a team!). Sam regularly finds new ways to get dirty and also likes playing with our neighbor/landlord kids - it has really strengthened his Spanish.
Nancy ran in an 11.6K (7 miles) race from San Jose to Santa Ana, which included 2 huge hills. She was excited to finish in under an hour, finishing in the middle of the pack of 1100 who ran the race. It was a fun part of her training for the Twin Cities marathon in October.
Steve and Nancy also managed to get out for a cultural experience - we attended the presentation (in Spanish of course) of
a series of 15 little plays written and acted by University of Costa Rica students. Our connection was that the husband of the clinic's psychologist is a theater professor and these were his students. The underlying theme through all of them was "addiction" - but not to drugs or alcohol. It included things like cell phones, love, video games, shopping, and cars. We were proud of ourselves that we could understand about 75% of what was being said; and many of the skits were hilarious. It reminded us that we need to take more advantage of living so close to several universities back home and attend these types of events in the future.
Another different type of "cultural" experience was when Steve had to take our car in for its annual inspection. This is much more than just emissions; they literally run the car through the equivalent of a stress test. They have various machines that diagnose the quality of the car's breaks, shock absorbers, etc. They also shake the car while a guy in a bay underneath checks for leaks. It was incredible; apparently 40% of all cars fail on the first go-around and then have to get
the problems fixed and bring the car back in for a re-test. Given the poor condition of many of the cars we see everyday on the road, there is clearly some monkey business going on for those vehicles to get their annual stickers. Anyway, our little CRV passed with flying colors!
Three Trips: Since our last blog post, we have taken 3 overnite trips (in addition to the Manuel Antonio trip with Aunt Jean - but since we have already written about that place before, we will spare you the details).
The first was a weekend trip to Dayan's family finca - not exactly a farm, more like a little place on the edge of a cloud forest. On our way there, we went to see Guayabo - the main pre-Colombian ruins in Costa Rica. Unknowingly taking the more challenging of the two routes up to the archaeological site, we endured a final hour of bone-jarring road before reaching the place (and discovering that there is a much easier way to get there!). The site itself was interesting, with old stone mounds and roads indicating the foundations of an ancient village (estimated to have been occupied as much
as 3000 years ago and then abandoned mysteriously 1500 year ago). Following that educational stop (and a much smoother ride down the mountain), we next explored the working gardens of CATIE (Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion y Ensenanza) - a world-famous tropical agriculture research station. Not surprisingly, the boys were not exactly thrilled with that choice and wanted to know when we were going to eat. So, we splurged and had lunch at the very swanky Casa Turire Hotel - which looks like a plantation house, with rooms going for about $200 a night. Of course, our accommodations that night were much more rustic (and much easier on our wallet) - bunk beds at the finca. It was great and the finca is a beautiful place, with a little river running through the property and forested mountains rising up from either side. The next morning, we got up early and did some serious hiking in Tapanti National Park. The boys were real troupers - especially given the lack of interesting wildlife. They did enjoy throwing big rocks into the wide, boulder-strewn river. 3 hours later we were home and finishing schoolwork for the next day.
The second trip was
a much bigger excursion - a 5-day adventure down to the southwest corner of the country. We began by driving about 5 hours, including over one stretch of highway that had been washed out from Tropical Storm Alma a few months ago - there are still sections that are reduced to one lane and where they don't let people drive at night. We arrived in the town of Ojochal - where we stayed at a beautiful bed & breakfast called Disquis, named after the indigenous people from that region. We had a cool cabin with a little kitchen located on spectacular grounds, with a far off view of the Pacific Ocean. Toucans, hawks, and other birds would arrive every morning while we ate breakfast and the boys spent a few hours a day in the pool. We went to the beach for some boogie boarding, too - but the big highlights of the trip were two boat tours: one to Corcovado National Park and the other a tour of mangrove swamps.
The Corcovado trip was spectacular - following an hour-plus boat ride that included having to "surf" the waves as we went from the river to the ocean, spotting
a little pod of dolphins, and admiring the largely untouched beauty of this place, we arrived at the ranger station on the beach. From there we hiked through the jungle - spotting monkeys, cool insects, hermit crabs, and birds. But the big thrill was seeing about 15 scarlet macaws - Kyle had been longing to see them in the wild and boy did they put on a show. Squawking, soaring through the air, eating almonds, preening each other, etc. Kyle was in heaven (and the rest of us had fun, too). Then it was back to the ranger station for our tour-provided lunch while we watched pelicans diving in the waves. On the return boat trip, the guide pointed out a crocodile on the river bank and - to Sam's delight - a boa constrictor hanging from a tree. Needless to say, it was one of the highlights of our year.
The next morning we and a Tico couple boarded a small boat for a close-up tour of the mangroves. The mangrove trees are very interesting - each with dozens of roots/vines that reach into the water, making them look almost like spiders. They also use special techniques to
"sweat out" all the salt in the water as they live in areas where the sea comes into fresh water rivers. We saw lots of sea birds, a few crocodiles, and just some overall pretty scenery.
Our final big trip - again to the Pacific coast, but much further north to a town called Nosara - took place this past weekend. It began with a brutal 6 and 1/2 hour drive, which included several dead-stops due to broken down semis blocking the road and a washed-out section that reduced the road to 1 lane, causing a 2+ mile backup in each direction. We also had to navigate through the regional capital of Nicoya on the day of their big parade celebrating the region's annexation into Costa Rica over 100 years ago. And, to top it off, the last hour is on an unpaved road full of huge potholes. But, we were rewarded with a spectacular sunset (and ice-cold drinks!) from the deck of our hotel (Lagarta Lodge) overlooking the coastline.
The next few days were filled with hikes through the nature preserve that bordered the hotel property, a boat tour for Kyle and Steve, more hours in the
hotel pool, and playing at the beach. At the beach, there was a blow-hole that at the midpoint between high and low tide would regularly shoot a blast of water 20 feet in the air - great fun when you stand under it (unfortunately, it was one of the few times we did not have our camera with us). There is also a family of howler monkeys (including 6 new babies) that live around the area of the hotel so we were regularly entertained by their climbing around above our room, throwing down half-eaten fruit, and of course the males howling at each other to show who's boss. There were also gigantic iguanas that would come out to sun themselves right in front of our patio, with Sam wondering if our little Sandia back home will ever get that big. And of course the nightly sunsets from our room's porch would help bring a beautiful close to each day.
Bringing Our Sabbatical to A Close: Over the past 11 months, we have been blessed with good health, great friends, and fantastic adventures. As we prepare to return home, we are hopeful that our good luck will continue. In the
weeks ahead, we need to sell the car and a few other items we don't plan to bring home, get the boys through their 2nd trimester exams (which end 4 days before we leave!), transition our pet turtle, parakeet, and iguana to their new homes, say tearful goodbyes to our many friends here, and of course pack for the flight home.
It is unlikely that we will post another blog entry before we leave. So, we just wanted to say thank you for reading and for the notes of encouragement that we have received. We have definitely enjoyed sharing our story and pictures with all of you and hope they have given you a sense of what this adventure has been like for us. We have learned so much about ourselves, grown in many ways both individually and as a family, and will undoubtedly bring a different perspective and approach to our lives when we get back to the States. We heartily endorse the idea of doing some kind of "family sabbatical" and would be happy to offer any advice/insights to anyone interested in doing one.
Take care and Pura Vida!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.095s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0416s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ruth
non-member comment
congratulations
Congratulations on your successful sabbatical! Our kids are now 34 - 42 years of age, and still look back on our time in Belgium as a highlight of their childhoods. We continue to be amazed at little things that come up and remind us of happy results of our year. We all learned so many different things about the world and about ourselves. I wonder what Kyle and Sam will comment on when they get home. Our three all noticed that the kitchen table and bathroom countertops were lower than they remembered. :-) I know it was not as easy as the blog makes one think. You are a strong family. Welcome home. Ruth