A Bit About Costa Rica

Costa Rica is as lush as its advertising. The hills are covered with thick green grass growing in tufts. The trees are varied, sometimes dotting, sometimes covering the hills. There are valleys so deeply cut into the landscape that seeing the rivers that run through them is impossible from the roadways that transverse them. All of this is just like the pictures. Costa Rica is a postcard.

Driving through the country is not a postcard. Most of the roads are unmarked and they all lead to San Jose. The problem is that no roads lead out of San Jose. Even if you try to leave on the street through which you entered, it will become a one way road (No hay paso) and the road running parallel to it turns out not be parallel after all.

San Jose itself has all of the drawbacks and almost none of the charms that other cities poses. The streets are narrow and unnamed. The pedestrians swarm across the roadways, or worse, walk along the edge of the road either due to lack of sidewalks or lack of desire to utilize them.

This is also true on the larger Routes through the country. A typical larger route, Ruta 27 for example, has 2 lanes divided by a yellow line. The yellow line marks the center of the roadway. It no in way means that each direction gets half of said road. It means that if you want to pass someone this is how far to one side of the car in front of you need to get to see if you can cut them off or if you will risk a head-on collision. From what I can tell, risking a head-on collision is just part of a normal day. There are slow lanes on the uphill sections of roads. These are to be considered good opportunities to pass on the right.

There are bus stops on all the major roads. People gather at these shelters to wait for the buses which crisscross the country or to sell fruit, or car parts, or pirated DVDs. People think nothing of walking along the edges of the roadway (which vary from about 3 feet wide to 6 feet wide). They walk their dogs, push their strollers, or watch their small children pick up rocks from the edge of the road.

The speed limit on large roads is 80kph maximo (about 50mph) and 40kph minimo (about 20mph). The fines for speeding can be as high as $500US. At least that’s what I’ve hear; I have no intention of testing this information. Effectively this means a trip that would take about an hour in the US takes about 1.5 to 2 hours in Costa Rica. Luckily, the scenery is amazing (except in San Jose).

It also seems to be mandatory that at least one in every 40 cars must be burning oil and on every road there must be no fewer than 5 turismos (tourist buses or vans) for every 100 cars. These must say TURISMO in funky writing reminiscent of the 1970s.

Have I mention the vacas (cows)? The hillsides are dotted with them. The cows here have perfected the art of the vertical ascent. They stand in defiance of gravity at impossible angles serenely gazing on the tufts of lush green grass. The chickens have not yet mastered this feat. They peck and run along the edges of every road. So far, none have attempted to end their lives under the wheels of the car, but I fear that it is just a matter of time.

Parking the car back at the rental house is no less of a challenge. The house is near the bottom of a gently graded steep hill. The driveway is a 70% inclined at 90degrees to the parking spot in front of the house. There is a low stone wall at one side which prevents the neighbor’s front yard from sliding into our driveway. In order to park, you need to swing wide into the left-hand side of the street and turn precisely between the wall and the iron fence in front of the rest of the yard. Once you are aligned, it is simply a matter of flooring the gas so the car climbs the incline into the yard and then applying the brakes in time to prevent opening the front door with the car. You have about 10 feet in which to accomplish this. Bonus points are awarded for doing this without making a loud screeching noise.

Once that’s accomplished, we’re home. Alas, the house is a topic for another entry.

(Oh, and don’t worry. Photos will follow once we get better internet here.)

A little bit of what we've been up to lately

We've been busy lately. Ethan decided that he wanted to cut his hair. We went to a hair stylist downtown.


Ethan and Esther looked at lots of styles.
He picked one out and the stylist was happy to get to work. Even after the first big cut, Ethan was pleased with his decision.Ethan was totally pleased with his decision!

We also ate some MREs we've had since Katrina. Those things don't ever go bad.


We also had Backwards Day when we eat all the meals i reverse of the typical order and the food is all made from sweets. For dessert/breakfast we had starter pots (chocolate cupcakes).



For dinner/lunch we had hamburgers and fries (made from sweet biscuits and chocolate brownies).


We haven't done breakfast/dinner yet because Ryan got strep throat, but I know it'll be great. (No spoilers.)

There's nothing wrong with having fun

I was talking with a customer at a show this past weekend and the subject of TV came up. I told some amusing story about Ryan and his love of WWII documentaries. The woman commented, "At least he isn't playing video games all day." I smiled, and she left. Her comment, however, stayed with me.

I thought about what she said. I thought I should have told her that Ethan spends a great deal of time playing games on the computer. I thought I should have told her that there is nothing wrong with playing video games all day. There is nothing wrong with watching TV all day. There is value in everything, but society doesn't seem to think there is value in children using these things for entertainment, or learning, or fun. Mostly, though, I wondered why I was thinking about her at all.

I know that my guys are happy. I know they are learning and growing. I know that computers, TV, and video games are tools people to get things we need and like. Still, I felt that I ought to have said these things. Part of that is my desire to share how wonderful Unschooling is for us. Part of it is my own to justify myself and my life to other people. The former is something I think is something worth keeping. The latter is something I am learning to let go.

People have a right to learn and live in ways that make sense to them. That is what the first was about. It stemmed from a belief I have always had. Many times, other people try to enforce their views of what constitutes the best ways to live and learn on other people, especially children.

Both of my sons have gotten a great deal from TV and computers. First and foremost, they have gotten enjoyment from them. Electronics have made them smile and laugh. Not incidentally, they have both learned a great deal from their electronics. I think they have learned more from TV and computers because they enjoy using them. They aren't forced to watch things that are educational. They watch what they want and take away insights from what they see. I'm glad they can spend their days watching TV and playing video games if that's what they want to do.

I wish my customer could get as much out of TV and games as my guys do. If she did, I bet she'd have a lot of things to think about instead of focusing on what other people are doing.

Katrina

I avoided the 5th anniversary hoopla about Katrina. I avoid most coverage of Katrina. I don't often think about it except the sort of once-removed way of wanting the house to sell. Jo brought up an article from the Tampa Times that her mother cut out for us. It was one of those 5th anniversary articles. I had no intention of reading it.

It ended up on top of the bathroom reading pile. It was one of those articles: "Unbowed, Unbroken". I put it down. The lead photo was one of a woman pushing her elderly mother in a wheel chair through the flood water. I picked it up again. I read the short blips about the musician, the hero, the children. I remembered why I don't read things about Katrina. Instead of really dealing with the issues, the media sets up archetypes to represent what it wants to find in the story of flood.

I don't see myself or my family in these stories. They are like myths meant to teach something but not meant to be lived in day-to-day life. I live in a very daily world. I do the laundry, pay the bills, and hang out with my children. I don't dwell on the flood. I know that I survived it and that it made a demarcation line in my life: Before the Katrina/After the Katrina. Before Katrina, I thought I would stay in New Orleans. After Katrina, I knew that wasn't going to happen. It wasn't that it was impossible. I could have gone back, figured out a way to make a living, and gone on with my life. I didn't do that because it was too unstable and unsettling for Ethan and Ryan.

New Orleans became a place that would always be associated with danger. What if it happened again? What if the patched levees didn't hold? How could feel safe? No place is really safe. Life involves risk. Those are cliches. I fall back on them when I try to understand my world in a context that makes some sense. Katrina did not make sense. The hurricane itself did very little damage to our house. The flood was what hurt it. The water flowed into the spaces of lives we try to keep warm and dry. It made Ethan worry about the heavy rain in springtime and made Ryan want everything recreated exactly the way had been in New Orleans. It made me think that having a land-line would somehow signal the return of normalcy.

We never returned to that version of normal. We moved passed being "the hurricane family" and have become something new. Katrina is still here. When people ask how long we've lived in Connecticut or what brought us here, Katrina reappears. I might not mention it. I might gloss over it, but in my head, it comes back. The sequence of events that led up to up, the summer full of hurricanes, the evacuation, Florida, buying this house, trying to reproduce the way things were in New Orleans, the friends that have scattered across the country, and a hundred vignettes of things that happened dance through my brain even if my mouth is saying, "We came up from New Orleans and decided to settled in Connecticut."

I read the article and put it back on the top of the reading pile. I tried to calm the swirl of thoughts. I want the house to sell. I want the comfort of being able to say, "Well, now that the house is sold Katrina is finally over." I know that selling the house is just another event, it won't erase what happened, but I want to be one more step removed from water that lives in the back of my mind.

Kids Deserve Better

I've been thinking for days about how to write about the current rash of suicides by young people who were GLBTQ or who were accused of being GLBTQ. Many people have talked publicly about how bullying contributed to these deaths. Many people. both straight and queer have said "It gets better. Just hang on." In fact, this seems to be the preferred answer to the problem. If queer kids can just get through those tough tween and teen years, then life will improve. They will find community and acceptance. They will grow into happy adults. After all, they have their whole lives ahead of them.

I find this answer unsatisfactory, distasteful, and wrong. How can we expect people who are told throughout their youth that they are less then everyone else to grow into adults who can suddenly find joy in themselves and their own sexuality? How is it fair that we ask queer kids to "just hang on"? Doesn't every child, and every adult for that matter, deserve to be accepted for who s/he is and deserve a life that is satisfying, even joyful, no matter his/her age, or race, or gender identity, or sexual orientation, or first language, or any other of a laundry list of differences perceived or inherent?

We, as a society, are responsible for their deaths just as much as the kids who bullied them. Is it fair of President Obama to say that gay marriage is an issue that is best left up to the states and that "don't ask, don't tell" ought to be repealed by Congress and that he intends to appeal the legal decision striking down a failed policy? What message is he sending to queer kids? Why aren't people across the country asking our president to stand up for our children?

Queer kids are being failed at school, at home, in their neighborhoods, and in the country at large. As a queer teenager, I knew that I could never go home to my parents and tell them the abuses I suffered. I knew that whatever happened at school or in the neighborhood, I was on my own. If parents, teachers, neighbors, all people who come in contact with queer kids treated them with respect, there would be places for kids to talk and to get advice and help. As it stands now, kids are left to figure things out and cope as best as they can until that magical moment when it "gets better".

What hope are we offering them that it really gets better beyond the pointless assurance that it will? Kids aren't stupid. They see the president saying that he won't help them. They hear their teachers framing issues in terms of straight relationships. They read the textbooks, the teen literature, the adult literature in which they just don't appear. They know the song proclaiming "I kissed a girl and I liked it" is controversial because the singer is female. They see people on the street and in the news holding up signs that read: "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve" or "Fags: Get AIDS and Die!" They know that who they are is at odds with who society wants them to be and they know that no amount of time will make them any more acceptable to a society that sees queers as less than.

GLBTQ kids deserve better. All kids deserve better. They deserve a society that says "It will get better because we are committed to making it better." Sadly, they have a society that prefers platitudes to action and that would rather put the blame on other kids than on itself.

What have you guys been doing?!

We've been doing lots of fun stuff lately. I guess that's one reason I have so neglected this blog. Of course we've been in lots of water. In August we met Faith, Easy, Malila, and Zola at Riis Park in Brooklyn.

Sitting in chairs: Esther & Malila

Sitting on a Towel: Ryan & Easy

Ethan had a really great time talking with Malila.At the end of August, we went to the Northeast Unschooling Conference in Massachusetts. We hung out with friends.

Drue and Ethan

We got tattoos.

We laughed...a lot!

Drue (Standing) Declan (Pointing) Ethan (Sitting) Ryan (Standing on a chair)

We even played some of our favorite board games.

We had sleepovers and even slept at some of them!

Ryan (Left bed) Amory (Sleeping bag next the right bed)
Doran (Right bed) Ethan (Sleeping bag in the foreground)

We tried out new pools like the one at the newly opened Shoreline Y.

Mimi, Ethan, and Doran

We had a visit from Aunt Kathie.

We tried out chocolate fondue. Doran wasn't as fond of it as everyone else. He enjoyed eating the fruit without dipping it.

Ryan, Ethan, Amory, & Doran

We went to Madison Square Park in NYC and then went to see the King Tut exhibit.

Ryan asked to have his picture taken on top of the tire swing structure.

Ethan on the tire swing.

For my birthday, Ethan made me chocolate brownies! He and Ryan lit the candles. Afterward Ryan had a blast re-lighting a candle and blowing it out until it became nothing more than a stub.

We've been having amazing sunsets here lately. This is one we saw from the top of East Rock.

East Rock has been Ryan's favorite place lately. He loves building cities in the sand pit and being buried up to his neck.

So, that's a little of what has occupied out time lately. Now it's time for me to go play with Ryan.

So much has been happening that I hardly have time to enjoy it all! Ethan turned 10 in May and this month Ryan turned 7. Mimi made him a Light Saber cake.

He lit the candles himself.


We ate pizza at Pepe's and Ryan got Silly Banz from Ethan.

Ethan got his first stripe on his blue belt in Kung Fu, and we've been to the beach, and hiking, and playgroups. Today we painted with popsicle sticks.

Life is good and full and just living it right now seems to take up every waking moment. I think this is the best thing really: Living without having to stop, going to sleep, waking up and starting all over again.