This week was all about settling in. My husband still has his 40 hour a week job while we are here so we aren’t able to do the touristy stuff all the time, and we wouldn’t want to anyways. We also had our first rainstorms this week, which kept us closer to home. Our days generally look something like this:
6am:
Wake up because Ace, our 22 month old, is up (dang it!). I make breakfast and clean up the kitchen while Julian works. This is also my time to listen to NPR, so this week/year that has meant a lot of yelling at the radio about our bigoted president who has a giant shithole where his heart should be. (If you somehow missed the news, Trump referred to Haiti and some African countries as “shitholes” and proceeded to ask why we don’t have more immigrants from countries like Norway. This is RACISM.) The United States is still my home and I don’t believe in just ‘checking out’ of politics completely while we are here. We have a responsibility to stay informed and engaged; it’s checked out people that got our country in this mess (VOTE!!!).
10:20am:
Catch the bus to town. We are all becoming pros at traveling via bus and I really want to do this more when we return to the states, it’s so much better for the environment. Why did I ever feel so intimidated by it? (Yuck, my privilege is showing.) We still get stares when we board the bus, not in an unfriendly way but more out of surprise. We have only seen one other white person on the bus, which is astounding to me since there are so many gringos in this neighborhood.
Our excursions this week included going to the city pool, the library, the language school to sign me up for Spanish classes, farmer’s market, and about a zillion shopping trips. There is a lot to be said about the ease and efficiency of the huge supermarkets in the states. On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said about how money is dispersed to so many small, family owned shops here. I’m not going to lie, I have definitely missed my big health food store in California. However, I would still take the little store model any day over the giant corporate stores of the States, it more closely aligns with my values. I’m going to shop more like this when I get back to the states, there is a small Mexican market down the street from us that I want to support.
I love the way traveling makes me reassess my life at home and see those areas that I need to change.
12:30:
Head back home for lunch and Ace’s nap. While Ace sleeps Julian works and Josie and I usually do some school-like activities. This week the things we studied and discussed were Spanish, entitlement, writing numbers, reading, math, and art.
3:30ish:
Ace wakes up and we have outdoor play time or go on a walk up to the local bakery to get fresh bread. We also might play music, have a dance party, and/or do chores.
5:30ish:
Make dinner, clean up, put the kids to bed.
7:30pm:
Parent free-time! Woohoo! This week free time has been kinda stressful though. We don’t know what we are doing for the three months after this one and it is a complicated puzzle fitting all the pieces together regarding where we want to go, when we need to go out of the country (then come back) for visa renewals, what other country we should go to, when visitors are coming, where we will stay in at least 7(!) different locations, what route we should take to maximize the very expensive car rentals, if we can get our daughter into a school for a while, etc., etc.
I know, I know, these are all good problems to have, and they are also stressful. Tracking all the details and dates and locations in the evening is made more difficult by my mold allergies reaching a tipping point and giving me a throbbing headache. Oof. Mold is a reality in CR and our house is no exception. If you have a severe allergy to mold I’m not sure how you could stay here, or any tropical country for that matter.
Julian is working during most of this time. The flexibility of his work is so, so awesome, it means we actually get to do some activities together in the day. Yay! However, sometimes it feels like he is working all day because he literally starts at 6am and ends at 11pm. In reality there are fun breaks in there, but it’s an interesting dynamic to consider if you’re thinking of working abroad and doing the worldschooling thing.
11:30:
Go to bed.
That’s the weekdays. Plus there’s La Feria on Fridays that are a highlight of the week. So. Much. Fruit. Yummmmmm.
The weekends are for bigger explorations and adventures. This weekend we went to Bosque Del Nino, a forest reserve at the base of Poas Volcano. You need a car to get there but thankfully earlier in the week we befriended Rodolfo, an incredibly kind taxi driver who ended up living just down the street from us. Rodolfo had given us his phone number and was happy to drive us up the gravel roads to the forest entrance. He actually wanted to drive us for free but we insisted on paying him. When he drove us home at the end of the day he made sure to show us his house and invited us over for coffee anytime. The kindness I have encountered from strangers when traveling is profound and wonderfully restorative.
We are going to make him cookies :)
At the trail head there was an unexpected surprise, a trampoline the kids could play on!
The forest itself was gorgeous, as pretty much any natural outdoor space is in Costa Rica. The trail was a challenging path straight up the mountain, our calves burned and we were breathing hard within five minutes (that might also have something to do with how out of shape we are…maybe…). We went through four different types of forest ecosystems in less than two miles, that’s how steep the climb was. I was grateful Ace was in our Osprey hiking pack and that Josie, at five years old, is so much stronger and capable than she was just a year ago. I don’t think she could have done this hike when she was four. In the middle of the main loop trail there is a smaller, less maintained, side trail that ends at a stunning waterfall.
There were some sketchy points in the waterfall trail that made me nervous for Josie’s safety, but part of raising a girl to be empowered is about letting her take appropriate risks. Studies of gender bias have shown parents are much more likely to let boys take physical risks than girls. She gets to be in charge of her body, she knows her capabilities, and if at any point she had said she didn’t feel safe we would have stopped without question. When Josie was two and climbing on a playground structure in a way that made me nervous, a friend taught me to ask the question, “do you feel safe?” Such a simple question but a total game changer. From a very young age Josie has learned to listen to her body and learned that her own instincts about what she can and can’t do are more important than what anyone else says (including me!). At the end of the hike she got to feel the accomplishment of conquering a tough trail!
On Sunday we had planned to go to a zoo that rescues injured animals, rehabilitates, and releases the animals. My kind of zoo! Perhaps the only one I don’t feel ethically torn about. A powerful windstorm moved in overnight though and we decided to postpone the trip until next weekend. Oh, the luxury of slow travel!
If you want to see more pics and follow along in real time you can find us on Instagram, @organicallygrowing.
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