rainy days and mondays

Me and Karen C, we are driving through the rain. The one radio station here plays American 70's music all the time, an amusing juxtaposition as I slow down to avoid the big bull in the muddy road. I wonder what Karen C would make of all of this, of the kids in their often ill fitting uniforms and the ladies strolling with babies strapped to their chests maya-style.

I end up as I often do in the open air produce market, the only place in town where you can get fresh fruits and vegetables. Today I score some cauliflower which is a rare treat amidst the usual bananas and onions and occasional starfruit. But I need bread and I can't find it so Karen C and I, oh wait she's gotten off the bus and now it's me and Barry G and his brother or two and we are cruising, cruising. I hit three little markets and there's not a loaf to be seen. It's hard to describe, this way of living especially coming from a place where more is always more and there is always more of it. But shopping this way forces one to be sociable, you exchange this and that with folks you run into and the shopkeepers who are used to you by now.

I briefly contemplate making my own bread, but my schedule doesn't allow it and besides, I burn it more often than not so I hit bingo at the last stop and can't believe I'm buying white bread but I'm desperate and that makes me giggle too.

By the time I'm done it's time to get M for lunch, the afternoon break is already here. I pick her up and a neighbor kid and I eavesdrop as I often do on the closing minutes of her class. Time to say our prayers says the teacher. Shut your mouths children and I can't help but laugh, saying shut your mouths doesn't seem acceptable in any setting but somehow right before kindergarten prayers it's especially off limits but not knowing what else to do we drive home and it's still raining but now Donna S has joined our ride. We sing along, or at least I do and almost run over a chicken. Those dudes run really funny. I suppose everyone's just trying to get along.

the ants go marching

I'm cleaning up a few nights ago when J walks over to the verandah and opens the slider. Immediately he leaps back and streams of black ants come piling in covering his feet and crawling up his legs. He slams the door and starts jumping around, expletives abound.

I run over and flip on the outside light and the porch looks as if it's alive, a black swarming mass of moving floor space. Marching ants. Holy shit.

We quickly stomp on all the ants that made it inside and brush them out of J's hair and after some looking around, it appears that the ants are not only on the porch but climbing up the house. We've heard about these things in jungle folklore before, the marching ants come in the millions sweeping through areas eating everything in their wake. Some of our neighbors think they are a good thing because they clean out all the other bugs as they pass, the black swarm comes and goes in a short amount of time.

But I can't quite embrace their calmness. What the fuck is this I say over and over, watching the blackness puddle and swoon like a funhouse mirror gone very wrong. We realize this side of the house is fairly safe but we have no idea what cracks or holes exist in places we cannot see. After a while of sitting in somewhat bizarre stupor it hits me that the right side of the house, where the little buggers are heading, has no such reinforcements. The space between the door and the floor is ample enough for ants to come in riding on each other's backs. In triple. Shit. I say as much to J and so we head over and tentatively open the door and here they come, their blackness swarming towards us. Foolishly, I grab a towel like I was taught to do in those old fire safety movies back in the 70's. I wet it and stick it along the door jam to keep the smoke out. Or in this case, ants. I do this quickly and feel triumphant until the towel seems to slowly start to move. What happens if we can't stop them? Will they slowly overtake our bodies leaving only heaving black mounds of flesh?

Danger Will Robinson. Oh, and holy shit get me out of here.

M is asleep, thankfully and blissfully unaware that we are about to be consumed. J and I go on defense, I am spraying bug spray at the door frame and we are stomping in abandon. Somehow or perhaps it was never meant to be it works and the ants slightly shift course and we see them marching their massive way across the driveway. Our dog comes out of hiding. J looks at me and says you'll have to blog about this one and I laugh. Not until I'm sure we aren't waking up covered in ants I say.

I wake up the next morning ant free and nervously eye the porch. We tell M all about it at breakfast and she's filled with dismay at missing the escapades of the night before. She's a brave one, my kid. I tell a neighbor about it who laughs and says they came through her house a few days ago. Sprinkle water on them next time she says, they don't like the water. Later I come back from taking M to school and from the market and walk out onto the porch when I see them, a marching black wall coming over the lip of the porch from the ground, a good three feet long and about a foot onto the concrete turning it black. Being a secret double agent, I grab the hose and turn it on and let out a screech and a jet spray so powerful it's like washing thick mud off the side of a house, the blackness goes flying backwards onto the grass and I'm going Apocalypse Now on the little fuckers, spraying and spraying until the porch is clean and the fortress is intact. I peer over the edge of the porch and the ground beneath is fully alive, the marching ants are still marching. Several dogs have now taken refuge on my porch and they all look at me expectantly, watch the gringa, she's crazy and I think about spraying them too but I pull myself in check.

After way too much water I finally concede that maybe I've won this round, those little bastards are 0-2 now but I know and they know that they'll win sooner or later, whether it's 2am or when we aren't home, you can't stop nature from running it's course. So I can only hope that they've moved on down the village, making their way far away from here.

In other news we are bracing ourselves for the first real storm of the season, the hurricane to the south of us will bring us rain and I reminisce about last year when the entire village was flooded and I hope that like the ants, the rain will go easy on us too.

tricksters

As many things go here, information regarding Very Important Events is often contradictory and somewhat loose. As Halloween approached, we tried to figure out customs and whatnot so as to allow M to have some sort of holiday while navigating the fact that Things Are Just Done Differently Here. So after several inquiries we thought we had it figured it and headed out to go to a few houses and trick or treat. The first two houses were practice, expat neighbors we know who were more than happy to offer a treat. But then we ventured over to our village friends, with our gorgeous little Dorothy with her dog Toto in tow. (Note to self: no one here has seen the Wizard of Oz).

We were welcomed heartily at our first stop but also with laughing. Oh no, we don't trick or treat till tomorrow night. And Monday night. But not tonight. Today of course was Halloween. Alright then, we shake our heads. Leave it to the gringos to get it wrong. So M is rather disappointed so we figure it can't hurt to see if other folks on on this same page. We stop at a restaurant a friend of ours runs and she being anglo has some candy to share. M now is energized and wants to make more stops so we go to another village friend who reiterates that trick or treating is tomorrow and laughs as we go. As we are heading back home with a rather meager bucket of candy we stop at a ramshackle little store on the off chance one out of three might come through and besides, it's a little tienda so I am pretty sure they have candy no matter the day. There's an old woman in the back and I see her making tortillas. She sees us and smiles and walks up to the front. Que quieres? she says and M says Trick or Treat! Que? So I lift M up and so the woman can see. She smiles and laughs. Quieres dulce? She asks and I smile Por favor. So the woman grabs a couple lollipops and hands them over even though I'm pretty sure that she's also of the This Doesn't Happen Till Tomorrow ilk. The funniest part of it all is a little boy was in the store at the same time, a shilling in hand probably there on an errand from his mom. The woman hands him the lollipops too and he looks in confusion and amazement and runs out the door. I am laughing now and we thank her and walk back outside. We end up calling it a night after that, M is ridiculously understanding about all of it and I've never loved her more.

So tonight, the day after Halloween we've had some visitors and they come in massive, massive amounts. The walk through the village swinging little lanterns going door to door, no bags to hold candy or a costume to be seen but high spirited and joyful just the same. I'd like to think it has more to do with Dia De La Muerta, I've noticed the cemetery across from our house has been bustling today, paying homage to ancestors and lighting candles with candy and costumes secondary if at all.

So as with anything we roll with it and when we shut the door we look at each other and laugh because everything continues to make no sense and be exactly fine all at once.

working the land

I've done a terrible job writing about the actual construction and transformation that's been going on at our land since we moved to the jungle. J spends backbreaking hours and days in the hot sun carefully planning, building, and creating our future home. While this doesn't do it justice, here are a few photos of our recently constructed earth bag structure. The whole thing was done by hand, the door and window frames were handmade, the bags will carefully filled with a mixture of sand and clay. J has spent countless, countless hours on this, not only in the building but in the art of learning how it's done.
While it looks simple, this took forever. Lots of dirt. We found pottery shards during the sifting which was pretty amazing. Earthbags are very heavy and the walls are thick. Thick walls means cooler temperatures. Natural respite from the heat. The round construction means it's not going anywhere. This will be here for a long, long time.
This may look like paint but it's actually a tint applied to the last coat of mud. Once the bags are done the whole building is covered w/ mud and then the final coat has some sort of magical mixture added to it. As you can see, J has spent an incredible amount of time on the details. It's been amazing to watch his passion and persistence unfold in so many ways. Every step of the process was looked at from a environmental lens, what materials are sustainable, what is the least harmful, etc. I am a particular fan of the window flare and the slate at the bottom which while beautiful, serves as a splash guard for those pesky thunderstorms.

We had to hire the roofing work out. Thatch is absolutely an art form, and the guys who did this spent several days cutting, weaving and then tying the leaves. It's an incredible process.

So there she is, our little jungle structure nestled on our little jungle property. We aren't planning to live in it right now for a number of reasons but we eventually might use it for guest lodging. We needed a practice structure before attempting to build any sort of living space and there were countless lessons learned. J's working on a different structure now that this one is finished, which will be the center of the garden. In the meantime we've planted over 50 trees, many of them fruit bearing.

It's a work in progress, but as it's progressed I've watched J become a botanist, an earth father, a laborer and a foreman. It's been a joy to watch his brain work in new ways and he's largely self-taught himself everything as he goes along. And there's no home depots here either. So he's been forced to think creatively and exercise his passion. It's not always easy but it's been amazing to watch. It's been an evolution of our partnership as well, in our former lives we both went off to the workplace, now so much more of our focus (at least when I'm not out of the country) is on meeting our basic daily needs and our land. We've both become more domesticated out of necessity. There is simply too much to do if we want to manage everything that needs to get done. But it feels more honest somehow, more deeply personal and less stressful.

This year has been a lot of things, ever since we took the leap and left our jobs and our lives and moved to the jungle but mainly it's been a year of discovery and of working things through.

thirty nine

i can still taste

the sweetness of that cabin

long ago.

the discovery and blood and cement and the yes

that lit the fire that brought us here.

you, the human that makes it all seem sane

the one who held on even when the road

the road was lonely and long

and good and full of flowers

that one night in the casino

and the one right after we brought our girl home (the year they finally won)

and we

we made this, this life this one is ours

through the mountains of oregon

and florence

and bangkok

and suchitoto

and bayon

and now the jungle

it is you, i cleave here and there and in ways quiet and loud

and sometimes teary and mostly, yes mostly with gratitude

i celebrate you.

happy birthday to j

class

I've been volunteering in M's school this week, an informal sort of thing. As you might imagine school here is mighty different, the rooms are crowded and supplies are nil. The teachers have a lot of kids and few resources to get the job done. I noticed her struggle and offered to come and help. She said OK and told me when to show up but I've yet to see her smile.

So I show up and the room is in a subdued chaos, the teachers here have no problem yelling at the kids, something I'd imagine I'd do too if stuck with this job. She handed me a stack of composition books and asked me to write the homework assignment in each. I dutifully sat at her desk and wrote and wrote while she taught the kids about 1,2 and 3. I watched M on and off and she was in heaven, somehow sitting in this crappy little room with an oh-so-strict teacher and the afternoon heat didn't seem to bother her or maybe she just doesn't know any better. Either way given the circumstances I count these blessings because this is what we've got to work with here.

I came home a bit depressed if she was in the US she'd probably be taking yoga or some shit and you know they'd have A/C and J just looks at me and says it's the sum not the parts that we need to focus on and yet I can't quite find the charm because I can't help but worry about what is best for her and we talk and we realize that while living here school is different and perhaps substandard but she is happy and safe and still learning even if there is a hole in the classroom floor.

So I went back again today, determined to not only volunteer but observe again and I have to admit it was better, the teacher had my work ready for me when I arrived and she was able to finish her lessons without worrying about the paperwork and I got to sit at the front and assign the homework and tease the kids when they came to collect their books. After closing prayer (hi hello there is a lot of jesus going on around here) she looked at me across the room Manana? I say and she nods and even smiles and M and I walk out hand in hand and happy, she's thrilled I show up and I'm thrilled I'm afforded the luxury of coming mid-day to my kid's class and hang out.

I decide I'll come whenever I can, tomorrow and the next and when I'm not running back and forth to the States because that's what this new gig affords me, long stretches at home and some time away, my id and superego and ego might just unite after all.

sideways

I've been sticking rather close to home lately. I've got a gig that requires me to work from home, a blessing that is near indescribable. That and one car and a child whose school schedule has her popping in and out a record 4 times in 6 hours. It's okay though. I feel good. Really good. I've been a stay at home mom type for awhile now and the preciousness of that has yet to grow old.

But today I met some friends for breakfast, my voodoo priestess friend and another. We spent the time talking all things otherworldly, a place I am unafraid of but rarely visit. She's hungry, my friend, she's hungry to shake things up a bit and feeling subdued because few people speak her language even here.

I challenge her over our eggs and beans, I challenge her to do it anyways, to bring us to her land and work her magic. She laments and then comes around but not without asking me to have a role in the ceremony and I laugh, I can't help but laugh because I may be an alright sort of girl but I'm hardly tuned into the otherworld, the one that hums all around and over and under. She's undeterred, my friend and insists so I say okay as long as I can be from the East, I've found some Sufi writings lately I'd want to share. She agrees and works her magic even at the table and apparently the ancestors are on board. We are good to do this thing.

As I drive away I reflect on the past eight months, often spent hot and sweaty and itchy and weird and lately en route and I also think of all the blessings, that until this year I was a working girl who worked all the time and shopped at the box stores and drove to work and turned back around. It's like that here but different, there is a routine to our lives but it's untethered, it's random and frustrating and delicious and third-worldly, and I feel like I know more now, a kind of quiet knowing that things are different everywhere and there is grace in all things. I am slowly becoming less afraid.

I get home in time to watch a neighborhood dog kill an iguana right in front of me. It was a longish sort of battle and it made me want to cry and also want it to be over. I watched the dog turn and wander off, it's great battle over with barely a second glance and I looked at the dead thing and I thought of the cycle of life, of how it goes round and round and that I might not have thought of it this way if I hadn't come all the way down here. It's like I knew and did not know, and that doesn't make one thing better than the other but there's a quiet knowing in it, knowing our time here is short and we have to jump and grab those rings when we can.