Happy Birthday Noah!

Today is our son Noah's birthday. He would be 13. We have not seen or held him since he was one. Twelve years have passed since the day we celebrated his first and only birthday. Twelve years since his brother and sisters helped him blow out one candle on a cupcake. Twelve long years yet some day soon twenty two years will have gone by. Tempis Fugit.

*

Today Hannah is flying here for two weeks and we are all so excited to see her! She turned 20, as I blogged, a month ago and we will bake her a cake and eat chicken, again, as Bella points out often. After Hannah leaves we will only have one week left of our life here in Costa Rica. School gets out June 5 and we are now trying to put the brakes on the clock, which keeps its own pace. We have met so many great people here and do not want to say goodbye. Second and third thoughts cloud every daily event.

*

Saturday I completed my scuba course! This time dolphins escorted us on the way out, leaping into the air and landing with a happy splash, and the mighty Pacific was as calm as a lake - perfect diving conditions. After swallowing a few moments of Panic - Remembered, I managed to concentrate on Hannah, the instructor, and not on the fear rising from my belly as I descended. "Do this for Noah and Jonah," I said to myself as the day fell in between their two birthdays and I found myself busy looking at nudibranchs in the clear and incredibly blue water around us. We completed my original dream of diving as a family, Andy, Christiana and I, and saw some very cool creatures - blue tunicates, moral and jeweled moray eels, a white tipped shark, a seahorse, spiny lobster, a spotted eagle ray, blue and red sea stars, octopus, and a fabulous assortment of fish including moorish idols, rainbow parrots, king angels, and my favorite bright blue juvenile damsels. It was fun, as it is supposed to be, and I am looking forward to going again before we leave.

*

Yesterday we went to Agam's 4th birthday party. (photo) Agam is Bella's Israeli friend and we admire her beautiful family. Agam's brother Afik and sister Ella are at CDSG with the other kids. We had a delicious spread of middle eastern food and I loved listening to them sing Happy Birthday in Hebrew and carry Agam around in her little chair in celebration with another song. It was a fabulous cross-cultural event with people speaking Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, and English that i heard. One of the things I love about being here and will miss greatly!

*

But the most meaningful encounter I had was meeting Candy, a stately, red-headed woman from South Africa who has lived here for many years now with her Argentinian husband. She has a beautiful family with one daughter, the youngest, and three older brothers. I could not help noticing, as always, that one of her sons was named Noah and was almost the age of our Noah. We started talking with the usual conversation here, which is where are you from, where do you live, where do your kids go to school, how long have you been here, but were interrupted.

*

A little while later I was in the pool and she sought me out to ask about my family. Forever after I buried my sons this is a conversation I tend to avoid. Usually to no avail. What is the correct answer to "How many children do you have?" when the conversation is casual. How many times can you answer "five," when the correct answer is "seven," to avoid the inevitable but negate your son's existences? It is always a quandary for me. Candy pressed on. I noticed a slight belly on her tall, lithe frame and wondered if she were pregnant and if that was where we were headed. I wish that were so. As the conversation unfolded her need was revealed as she told me she had lost her second daughter, her fifth child, the week before Christmas.

*

Candy and her husband, a doctor in Sta Cruz, live purposely in this country and in the bush for purity and peace. They don't believe in vaccinations and she never even uses Baygon, the lethal spray people here use like room freshener to battle nature in thir homes. But their neighbor rented out his land to a large scale rice farmer who has been spraying chemicals on his fields and they have been the unwitting recipients of his overspray, which has landed on them, their house, and their land. She was poisoned along with the rice pests and her baby died six months in utero. Their plants withered and their cows and six horses died, one of which also aborted her foal.

*

This is a sad tale of environmental degradation and its human and inhumane consequences. We feed ourselves at our own peril. This farmer is within his rights here in the third world to spray his chemicals which have been banned in the US for safety and health consequences but are still manufactured by our homegrown wealthy chemical giants and sold to countries like this one instead. It is wrong. It is a crime. It is legal. And the results are tragic. In Nicaragua generations of cane workers are dying of kidney failure from chemical poisoning in the fields they must work to survive. Here in the land of eco-everything they use more agricultural chemicals than anywhere else in Central America, says one statistic. Bananas, rice, sugar cane, pineapple, melons - all brought to you by the good grace and giant bank accounts of chemicals that can kill you. Eat up! Perhaps it is best to stick with cheeseburgers in paradise.

*

Tonight we will skip the rice and eat cake in celebration of the births of Hannah and Noah. And I will think about this sweet baby girl who was whisked away from the weeping eyes and pain-wracked body of her mother by well-meaning but ignorant nurses before she could be properly adored and memorized. Her name is Makeba and she is buried on her family's land in Costa Rica. Next door the plows are tilling the soil after the first rains in preparation for planting the new rice crop. She is named for Miriam Makeba who sang about Mama Africa for the last time in November of last year. Baby Makeba's song was silenced before it began, drowned by the sounds of a crop duster wiping her life from our planet while her family's tears water her grave.

*

K3

Happy Moth-ers Day!

Here's a special moth and a bad pun for all you moms out there on moth-ers day! Andy found it in Uvita a few weeks ago. And, a butterfly on Bella, of course. One of the nice things about living here is that we have two mother's days! Costa Rica celebrates on August 15 so we arrived to that unexpected holiday last summer. As a staunchly Catholic country, they have chosen this holy day of obligation - the Assumption of Mary - as the day to honor their Mothers. This is believed to be the day when Mary was assumed into heaven - body and soul - on the 40th day after her death and is one of the essential beliefs of the Catholic faith - that the Blessed Virgin Mary's body was not allowed to corrupt nor to lie in a tomb, a symbol of the promise Jesus gave that we will all be received into paradise. Here in Costa Rica on August 15 mothers prepare to receive tv's and appliances, the mark of true appreciation for mom in this culture.
*

I am not Catholic, but there's your lesson for the day anyway. I am Metholic, having been raised both Methodist and Catholic all my life. I have always admired the Catholic faith for its unique reverence for Mary, the mother of God. I know about the BV's heavenly birthday because we buried our son Noah twelve years ago on August 15, unaware that here in Costa Rica mom's were busy cleaning out the old refrigerator in preparation for the new one. Noah was not assumed, as far as we know. He was cremated and we planted him around the planet instead. But he is remembered by me on Mother's Day, whatever day it falls on, as well as every other day.

*

I had a great Mom's day yesterday. A bunch of families from the school descended on the new JW Marriott hotel near Tamarindo where we spent Saturday night. We enjoyed each other's company in the huge pool, took long beach walks, slept in their comfy beds, relaxed in the bathtub and the hot tub, and ate way too many french fries. They have a great kid's club and the little kids had 20 or 30 friends to play with. The big kids chose not to join us as their friends were in a fashion show in Tamarindo Saturday night at a club, but not a kid's club. They were modeling retro clothing from all the way back in the '90's! You know you're old when... I could have given them all kinds of things from that decade as I believe I am still wearing them! So that pretty much dates my wardrobe. I may even have something from the '80's, before most of my kids were even born!

*

Friday afternoon we took the teacher's on an appreciation sunset cruise to mark the end of the school year. We sailed on a large catamaran with an open bar and pretty good guacamole to Playa Huevos, which probably was not named for chicken eggs. As soon as we dropped anchor we strapped on our snorkel gear and headed over to the shoreline. There we spent a good hour or more with Kim and Diver Dan Baldwin, two of the school's science teacher's exraordinaire, while they found creature after creature for us to examine. We played with a beautiful purple and orange sea star, a pencil urchin, a very cool arrow crab with a bright yellow mouth and were entertained by a spiny brittle star which undulated all around our hands. Underwater we found a jeweled moray eel hanging with a scorpion fish, lots of bright blue juvenile damsels, a few dainty butterfly fish, a hawkfish, and I followed a lovely spotted eagle ray. It was a great day spent with the fun faculty and great parents we have met here. We will miss them all.

*

Well, I hope all you moths and mothers had a great day yesterday. If not, August is coming.

*

K3

*

PS My blog is being featured this week in Travelblogs.com! Welcome all you travel blogs readers, enjoy! Thanks Eric! And congratulations on your new baby and to your wife on her first Mother's Day!!

Happy Birthday Micah!

Micah is 16, it's official. For two days now... He can't drive here in Costa Rica yet, but he can drink! Yes, you can drink before you can drive. Just not in quick succession, you should wait a year or two. Here he is in a rare appearance with clothes on before a school dance. The jacket did not even make it out the car door.

*

It is the rainy season again here, though a much friendlier version than October. The air has become heavy and the mornings are sunny but the clouds build all day and the thunder threatens in the distance by sunset, alternating with the howlers who like to sing at dusk and dawn. The lightning shows have been great entertainment and the rain usually follows, clearing the air for sleeping.

*

On Micah's big day Wednesday we picked the kids up from school after sports and headed to Tamarindo. It was humid and overcast all day. Micah wanted to eat at Mama's Deli and we sat at a table on the beach as the day drew to a close. I should mention here that Mama is the Mama of Geronimo, Bella's first boyfriend who was present and showing off for her with his friends in their boxers. Clothing is kept at a minimum here in the tropics, which makes it a lovely place for a 16 year old boy. Even I, after 7 kids, have brought my belly out of hiding and put it back in the public domain, for better or worse. Even a lined bathing suit has too much fabric for comfort!

*

Christiana and Micah went for a run down the beach and Bella and I walked in the water. We converged back at the table for drinks and a salad when suddenly the bright orange sun dropped below the clouds and melted into the ocean. Too bad I didn't have my camera, but if you've seen one sunset, you know... With the end of the sun the mosquitoes descended so we decided to move to a table under cover off the ground. As we were eating our pasta the skies opened up and it started pouring rain which was heavenly! Fiesta! Fortunately we did not leave the cake out in the rain, ahem, and we sang Feliz Cumpleanos with a chorus of falling agua and ate cake with a cool mist on our skin.

*

Someday soon I may live to regret singing the praises of rain, but after so many months without

even one cloud in the blue sky it is a refreshing change of pace. That is human nature, is it not? We always seem to desire that which we do not have, be it weather or food or that someone special in our lives. I am not sure why it is our nature to be discontent and we struggle all our lives to overcome that with various prescriptions for counting our blessings. But it is. Start counting when you forget. But don't count your blessings before they hatch!

*

Back to one of my blessings, Micah. He has had a great year here at the Country Day School as a sophomore. Next year he will return to St. Georges, which granted him only year's absence, and he is excited to switch back from being a Pirate to a Dragon once more. He will be in the dreaded Junior year and that might be tougher than usual following a year in the tropics. He is a smart boy, though, and if he applies himself he should do fine. He has had near perfect grades this year and his Spanish has improved greatly. He is swimming now, which warms my heart to see, as well as playing basketball. For his birthday all he wants to do is rent a Yet Sky, which is what they advertise of the beach for waverunners, so on Mothers Day he and his friends will be speeding thru the turquoise waters of Playa Conchal below us here. We rented them one other time at Easter when our friends were visiting. I took one ride with Andy and it gave me an instant headache. He should enjoy these things while he is still young.

*

I labored for two days with Micah, the primogenitor, to convince him to enter this world and he is still not one who rushes into new situations. He has always liked to know what the plan is beforehand and has stood back and observed before deciding to enter into new situations or not while his big sisters sallied forth. He loves music of all kinds, including from the Broadway musicals we have seen. He has learned a lot about history this year with Mr. Berey who had them do very creative assignments such as making a CD of songs that represented different historical events, planning an entire trip around the world given certain parameters, and reenacting WW2 battles on the beach. He aced Chemistry thanks to the enthusiasm of Mrs. Baldwin and had a very insightful year in English with Miss Brigin who encouraged them all to EMBRACE their education. Indeed.

*

As Mother's Day approaches I am thankful, indeed, for my many blessings. Happy Birthday Micah, and many more...

*

K3

Labor Day

Well, we had yet another Costa Rican excuse to go to the beach this past long weekend - Labor Day. It appears that on May 1 while we were dancing around the May Poles of our youth with images of flowers and flowing skirts in our heads and Ring around the Rosie on our voices, much of the rest of the world had morphed the pagan rite of Spring into a celebration of workers (trabajadors) and the advent of labor unions.

*

So we joined them all at the beach after only a half day of school on Thursday. On Friday Isaiah had a birthday pool party to attend and we whiled away the afternoon playing Scrabble with friends while the kids swam. Micah went to his friend's ranch for the weekend and rode on an intense water slide, shot a pistol, and watched a cow give birth. Saturday I took Isaiah and Bella to a new Marriott with a large group of our friends from school to play in their enormous pool on the beach while Christiana took her SAT's. And Sunday we had our final open water dives scheduled for our scuba certification.

*

After a day of blessed cloudiness on Saturday night it rained for the first time since early November, if you don't count one brief and spontaneous shower we had a month or so ago... We have rarely even seen one cloud in the sky since the deluge of the rainy season ended around my birthday last year. But after the hottest of days and the building of heat and clouds for the past two weeks, the skies finally opened up with a full performance of thunder and lightning and the power went out and the unfamiliar smell of wet dust and dirt filled our nostrils while our ferocious guard dog, Duncan, cowered inside at our feet. After recovering from the initial shock of falling agua, we quickly scurried about shutting car windows, moving furniture, picking clothes off the line, then pinched ourselves and settled down to play cards by candlelight and head lamps.

*

We have avoided using the global warming machines in our house, air conditioning, for most of our 8 months or so here but the past few weeks have found us holed up inside feeling guilty for suddenly cancelling out on our outdoor living while the cooling machines hummed away and ruined the future of the planet for the sake of our short term comfort. It was just too hot to think and the sweat dripped off even my fingertips as I typed. One day the week before last I think I hit the apex of the heat when I shut myself in my bedroom with my laptop and 100 Years Of Solitude, finally able to think only with the refreshing electric coolness blowing over me. With the rain, the temperatures have thankfully dropped and the howlers are happy to have freshly rinsed meals after wearing their teeth down by chewing on leaves coated with road dust for months now.

*

Sunday when we awoke it was still cloudy and sprinkling but we set off bright and early to dive anyway. Andy had taken sea sickness medication, luckily, as it was rough with large swells as soon as we hit open water. Our destination was the Catalina Islands, about 30 minutes or so off the coast. All year we have been looking at this group of big rocks sticking up in the ocean and now, at last, we were to see them up close and personal. Like everything on and in the sea, they looked closer than they were and one clearly could not kayak out to them, as some guest or other had once inquired. We arrived at the 2 largest islands and prepared ourselves to step off the boat. Both are major bird rookeries but interestingly only one is covered in cactus while the other had nothing but scrubby grass, causing much speculation as to why.

*

The waves were crashing on the rocks when we entered the water and split up into 3 groups of divers. Andy, Christiana and I were in a group of 6 with 2 friends and Julian, one of our instructors. As soon as we got in the water the boat backed away, a little close for comfort with the swells it was riding and I found it difficult to kick away from it which scared me. We started our descent into the blue water and were making our way down to the bottom when the instructor signalled us to surface. "Where are Andy and Christiana?" he asked the three of us in his Argentinian accent. "They were right below us," we answered, but there was nothing but fish and water now visible from the surface when we looked down with our masks. "We will descend a little and look for them," he said. We descended about half way but saw no black wetsuited bodies anywhere and he signalled for us to surface. They had vanished into the blue. Another group was off away from us and he called to them to ask if they had seen them but they said no. He got very annoyed, finally calling to the boat to return to look for their bubbles while we drifted rapidly away from where we lost them and I started to panic, realizing how quickly they could disappear in that vast ocean with its quixotic currents.

*

By the time the boat signaled to us that they spotted their heads surfacing off in the distance maybe 10 minutes later an eternity had passed for me. My insides had turned into their own little private shipwreck. When we were all reunited as a group again they said they had followed the other group by mistake. I decided I was feeling too sick and could not do this dive, swimming through the rough seas to the boat instead to recover. I had instant running belly, not easy with 2 wetsuits and a bathing suit and one head with no toilet paper onboard. Soon we spotted Andy's head bobbing on the surface again and picked him up; he could not get his ears to clear on the second descent. So he and I sat the dive out on the boat and rocked in the swells and I felt progressively more awful. I was relieved once everyone was back onboard and we were motoring over to the Sombreros, a couple of pinnacle shaped rocks (photo), for our second dive. They all cheerfully ate cookies while I struggled to get ahold of myself.

*

Once we arrived and geared up again I was really fighting with myself to go. On the outside I appeared ready but inside I was running away. My stomach was in spasms and my weight belt was digging into it. I nodded and stepped off the edge of the boat when it was my turn, having chosen Christiana as my partner this time. Swimming over to our group I held her hand but was struggling to maintain my buoyancy in spite of inflating my BC. I felt like I could not move easily and I could not breathe. I told Julian that I didn't think my regulator was functioning properly as I sucked hard on it with little results. He tried it quickly and said it was fine.

*

We started our descent and my panic rose quickly. I let go of Christiana who patted my hand reassuringly and began to go deeper but I could not breathe and I felt incredibly heavy and unable to ascend. I forgot all about clearing my ears while I struggled, which is usually all I am focusing on. Julian kept signaling me to come down and I gave him the thumbs up, meaning I am going up. He shook his head no and signalled me to look at him but that made me panic even more. I put some air in my BC, a no-no, with him shaking his head no, but that was the only way I could make any progress up to the surface. I have to say this was one of the most awful feelings I have ever had. I felt like I was going to suffocate and sink into a watery grave below.

*

I managed to surface with him behind me and I told him I was not going to do this dive either. Christiana and the group were waiting for him and I did not want them to get separated again so he signalled for the boat to return. I told him to go, I would make it to the boat just fine, happy to be back in the world of ambient air breathers. After climbing onboard I found out my weight belt had 17 pounds instead of the 10 I usually use, so that explained some of my inability to move freely or surface with an additional extra one fifth of my body weight strapped on. But more than anything I was left with an excruciating feeling of panic that I have been trying to reckon with ever since. It was the first time in my life I was uncomfortable in the water, which is usually my favorite place to be. I was the last person I was worried about as I was the only one doing a recertification. With echoes of my younger voice in my head bravely extolling the pleasures of scuba diving, I wondered: Was it age? Hormones? Fear? A sudden attack of claustrophobia? The weather?

*

Everyone surfaced with happy tales of eels and nudibranchs and one small shark. On the way back to the marina we were accompanied by a school of dolphins, sleek and speedy on our bow wake. But my day was shot. We went to breakfast with everyone tho my stomach was still very upset. Christiana and I walked home along the beach - me wearing a hat, sunglasses, 2 long-sleeved lycra shirts and a pair of long sweatpants as I was still chilled - the most clothing I have worn in 8 months here by far! I looked like one of those people who can not have any sun exposure but somehow had a tan underneath. The day remained overcast and I did not warm up until we were almost home, a couple miles later. We lay on the couch, exhausted, talking about colleges for Christiana while watching The Phantom of the Opera, a welcome lazy gray Sunday afternoon for us all.

*

Today is Monday, a new day. The sun is shining again and I am still trying to shake this lingering knot in my gut, the place I hold my anxiety. I am sure I will strap on my gear eventually but for now I am in no great hurry to face my fears for the sake of looking at a few fish. Maybe it will be better for me to dive alone without the worry of my family down there with me, like it used to be in the carefree days of my youth. Maybe a sunny, calm day is what I need. When I climbed onboard the boat after quitting the first dive, one of the crew said to me, "I am glad I am not a Mom. When my Mom is worried she says her feet ache." I nodded, sympathetically. For us Moms, every day is Labor Day.

*

K3