Food, Fantasies, and Friends Capitulo 6

From my earlier descriptions of our site, one can see that things were never ideally perfect, however our bond as a group is what kept us together.  We all helped each other out through the adjustment period and made sure that everyone saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  None of us had a choice; as things started to break down, we had to depend on each other for a


lot of everyday necessities.  By the time that Heidi had arrived, that familial bond had been developed between myself and my three female roomies.  Within a period of a few short days we had already measured each other up, noticed the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in the pack and made things work.  Honestly it took some effort from us all, but it turned out perfect.  With the arrival of Heidi is where the scales started to tip...

Friendship and trust were the keys to one's survival here.  We were isolated, alone and disconnected from the modern world; teamwork is a concept we all openly accepted and did our best to embrace.  What came to be my one week experience with her seemed to put a strain on everyone over the passing few days.  Honestly I don't think that she was ever ready for the "culture shock" of the island and all that came with it; that part is understandable, because hell, we all went through that same phase.  The difference is that we were all able to see the good in everything and with that, overcome any fears or trepidations we had buried within ourselves.

Those first three days were a bit brutal with her for the sole reason that we did our best giving her positive reinforcement essentially any time we had with her whether alone or in a group.  After that three day trial however, patience was starting to wear thin, and her complete sense of disconnect wasn't helping.  Don't get me wrong, I along with the rest of the roomies, wished that we could all jive together and sing kumbayah while playing twenty rounds of UNO, but not everyone is built for this experience.  That's fine.  With her though, it was brutal. 

As her stay with us progressed, it was the first time I had felt any tension and stress within our family; the need to constantly hold her hand through the transitioning drained us all mentally while picking up her shifts patrolling the beach or the hatchery depleted what was left of us physically.  We were always there for each other, because we cared about one another and it showed by our everyday interactions.  What looked like an extra pair of hands to help with the place, turned to be an extra load of weight that we later seemed to want distance from; that's what eventually happened.

The scariest part to me wasn't the fact that distance seemed to be created between her and the pack, but that we were somehow stepping away from each other.  The shadow of negativity that never seemed to leave Heidi, felt like it was slowly starting to overshadow our group completely.  She was the elephant in the room, whether she was present or not, and that's what became dangerous.  When some one's presence can wield so much energy but in such an awkward way, something has to be done.  Yet there lays the problem: nothing could be done.  We were all together for the X amount of time that we were all designated to be on the island; granted one could always leave sooner than their planned exit date, but no one had that intention on their mind.  So we did the best we could with the cards we were dealt.

Come Sunday night of the 20th, somewhere in the area of 2am after a grueling night patrol, Heidi and I are heading back to our base camp, when THUNK!  Heidi screams and I just freeze for a second, not knowing what had just happened.  "That's it!!  I'm getting a boat in the morning and getting out of here!" She screamed, me still bewildered and teetering on the point of exhaustion, struggled to figure out what had just happened.  At the moment of her yelp, she apparently had stubbed her toe against a tree root.  Mind you, this late in the game, we had all stubbed our toes on any one of the million things on that piece of land possible; as for myself, my feet were so swollen that nothing phased me.  With the very little light being offered by my headlamp, noting that I there was too much cloud coverage to recharge my batteries earlier that day, we both saw that it was indeed a head on toe stubbing in progress; again though, painful, but nothing to really cry home about. 


True to her word though, that next morning while relaxing after our garden shift with the two new additions, a boat showed up and whisked her away.  It was odd because by this point my three other comrades had left and were replaced with two new ones, and yet I remember their departures being much more heart wrenching than this one.  We all said our goodbyes and waved her adieu from our earthen dock and that was it. 

She brought with her some laughter, yet was never able to fully embrace the energy of the island and of the people who tried so hard to help her see the good in it all.  While seeing her boat putter off into the river horizon, I sat there wishing her well on her journey with hopes that she would be able to embrace all her other traveling experiences with a more open and positive heart... to this day I still do. 

Food, Fantasies, and Friends Fifth Edition

Our new cadet was a bit taken aback by the mustiness and rustic nature of our digs, but she seemed to take it all in stride.  After giving her a few moments to let it all sink in, we were off for her tour of the whole island!  By this time I had become the new tour coordinator seeing that I could bounce in between languages and make sure everyone was able to communicate with each other; the last person that you would want to be given a tour by however, would be me.  I showed her everything and introduced her to everyone!  By the end of our whirlwind two hour adventure, I had shown her the good, the bad and the ugly.  The way I see it is, why bother not giving someone a truly realistic view of their surroundings and what they're getting themselves into?  Mission accomplished!

By the time I was done showing Heidi everything, she set off to explore and we all went back to our daily regimen.  Rice, beans, yucca.  Rice, beans, yucca.  Just like our entertainment and socializing had its staples, so did our meals.  These three ingredients were what kept us fed for the most part; some days we'd have thin pancakes, and others perhaps a noodle concoction, but for the most part it was rice, beans and yucca.  I was in heaven while everyone else had started to enjoy the grub as well, and as the days went on, the food became more and more interesting.  Cue our annoying rooster!

Like I've mentioned before in other posts, our food for the most part was organic and home grown from the garden; how Turi made such great meals with so little will always astound me.  At the end of the first week, tensions had started to rise amongst a few at the garden; our real coordinator was slacking in helping us if at all and Turi, besides being angered by Mauricio's lack of help, was also annoyed because of our ever disappearing poultry.  Unfortunately, we had no Rottweiler or a solid and secured fence line, so anyone and everyone could come and go as they pleased; that lack of security interestingly enough though is what connected us more with the neighborhood.  We still  locked the hut every time we left as a precaution.



So with this small air of insecurity and strife in the midst, I present to you the Caper of the Canoodling Cock!

It all started with the subtle disappearance of a chicken or two from our chicken coup, or so it was thought.  Turi at this point had reached a point of extreme annoyance; we could only offer as much help as we were able to, being that our good intentions highly surpassed our gardening abilities.  Mauricio was supposed to be the one who helped run the place efficiently, yet as the first week ended, we started to realize that it would mostly fall on us.  So Turi grabbed two of the neighborhood guys and myself for a mission to find this feisty fiend, all the while believing that the bird had been stolen; unfortunately with some of the distrust that developed around our side of the island, that wariness could be completely understandable.

We ended up going about a quarter of a mile down the road to a neighbor's house with news that the rooster had been spotted there.  Something I learned that struck me as really interesting though is the fact that instead of knocking on people's door to ask to be let in, everyone asked for permission from their gates or boundary markers.  You NEVER went into someones yard unannounced or without asking for permission; if no one was out front, you'd yell to get there attention, but no matter what, you never walked on their land without them approving first.  It seemed very old fashioned to me, but at the same time, I love the fact that even though many lived without much, they still respected each other and their land.  Human decency is such a beautiful thing, and confusing... but I'll get to that in another post.

Before I get to the the cock chase, I must say that this one particular neighbor had a beautiful home!!  Solid bamboo fencing, beautiful yard, big house with GLASS windows.  I had later come to find out that she was not only the representative of the island to the surrounding communities, but that she had also initiated the push to get this one little remote piece of land recognized by the neighboring towns; just with doing that, this madame deserved the utmost respect, and it was shown to her as we all took one step past her bamboo barricade.

 Most of the homes had access to the river's edge or the beach and this domicile was no different; in the back of her property, sitting calmly within the swamp was our rooster!  He apparently had created another family of chickens behind the backs of his other feathery females... this didn't bode too well with Turi.  Deeper into the swamp we all went, mud getting thick and deep, everyone trying to step on branches or rocks to stay afloat of the sludge.  I follow behind Turi as he lightly skips over the mud pits, years of experience under his belt, and then comes me, the out of town Brontosaurus.  I step on a rock and SQUISH!!!  Both my legs sink into the mud and God knows whatever else was hidden in all of that mess.  I let out a squeal and just powered my way out one slushy step at a time!  I wasn't so turned off about the mud as I was worried about what other creatures laid in there.  Oddly enough though, with my feet being as swollen and beat up as they were, the mud felt surprisingly great and refreshing.  It was that same squawk of mine that sent the rooster running and us going home bird less.  As with everything else, Turi's insurmountable optimism peeked its head and he told us not to worry, that the bird would be caught later that day.

Come the morning of the end of the first week, and we were presented with our prize: the adulterous rooster was held for all to see by Turi during breakfast!  The look on his face showed just how happy and vindicated he was with capturing this bird.  We applauded him and then continued with our meal; the end of that week was leaving us a bit beat up. 

At this point we were in full work mode, working two blocks of two hours in the garden and then up to ten hours in the other camp, plus having to help maintain our volunteer family together that starting to tear alittle at the seams; ripples were finally being felt in paradise and we had to work very hard not to let it conquer us all.

One weapon we had though that always seemed to get us through things was laughter, and at no other point during our meals did we laugh so hard than that following lunch, when we were presented with the remains of our adventurous rooster in a stew.  Some laughed out of horror seeing legs sticking out of their bowls while others laughed just out of instinct, needless to say, Turi told us that we would never be awoken again by our chronologically confused ex-comrade; it made the meal that much sweeter.

Food, Fantasies, and Friends Chapter Four

Rum, coconuts and UNO.... that was a party for us.  I use the term "party" very loosely, but it would probably be better if I said "get together."  We only had three of these little throw downs, but they were completely worth it.  The garden was on the other far end of the island, therefore we were quite isolated from the rest of the volunteers; Mauricio and the surrounding neighbors helped to make us feel that we were part of the community and cared about by having these little soirees at Mauricio's house.


 Our first party consisted of Jessica, Jennifer, Mauricio, two or three of his neighbors and myself.  We all met out at his dinner table and passed the night laughing and playing cards.  From an alcoholic's point of view, there was very little to offer aside from these small bottles of rum; for about 5,000 colones (roughly $10), we could get two bottles of rum and some warm beers that were bought somewhere on the island, which remained a mystery for some time.  It wasn't much, but again, it was something.  The best (or worst) part of it all was that the rum was consumed in shots; we had nothing to mix it with, so down the hatch it would go.  It was such a memorable night because that was the first moment that we all let ourselves go and just enjoyed each others company; it was these moments that helped create that sense of bond that we all needed to fight against those first few days of isolation.

The next morning though was a mess.  Being hungover, while working in pure heat and humidity was rough enough, but we had to deal with the aftermath of our mystery guests.  Who were these people you may ask?  Costa Rican survivalists.  Now let me be clear, I love meeting new people while on adventures, I get the good fortune to come across a whole slew of travelers from every walk of life; however, there's always one group that will always annoy me: the inconsiderate backpacker.  How you can be so self absorbed and yet backpack is beyond me.  In my eyes, one HAS to be considerate of others when going on these journeys, because those fellow backpackers you stumble upon can either make your stay memorable or a living hell; unfortunately, these folks wrecked the place in less than 24hrs.  They came, pillaged and left a smoldering infrastructure in their wake.

I know I may be sounding a bit dramatic, but like I've said before, we had very little staying in the garden; one of the few things we had going for us was our very basic water pipe system.  It essentially consisted of a gas powered generator that would have to be cranked whenever the water in the well was no more; one simple crank from the generator and water would come to a balance again and the heavens once again would sing.  When these survivalists left, they not only dried out our well, but mysteriously, our generator  broke; we then had to hand  pump the water from the well to the rest of the hut.  Granted, getting the water to pump wasn't such as hassle.... at first.  We'd start each with 25 pumps or so, so we could all take a quick shower and brush our teeth; yet as the days passed and heat increased, we had to pump substantially more, multiple times a day.  In the end though, no one said this was going to be a walk in the park, and this water debacle surely highlighted that point for us all.

The day of the water system breakage would go down in infamy: that was the first day I had my "First World" breakdown.  It was already rough dealing with this intense hangover mixed with the heat and work... I couldn't even take a shower to cool down.  The ocean water offered little solace due to the sun baking it in her rays; since we were already pumping whatever little water we had in the well for basic uses, there wasn't any to drink.  I remember that after doing my rounds at the pump, I gave it about fifty or so pumps in hopes of getting a nice cold shower, I run back to the hut, grab my towel and galloped to my liquid paradise.  What followed came to be one of the funniest moments for me while at the hut and one that my roomies would never let me live down....  "Fuuuuuucccckkkkk!!! " I screamed.  "Fuck this bullshit!  I need some fucking water!"  I barge out of the shower almost forgetting my towel, through our bathroom curtain/partition, quickly put on whatever clothes I have around, all the while my three roomates are looking at me like I'm crazy.  "What the hell's wrong with you?" Carol chirped at me.  "I'm too hungover for this shit!  I'm going to the compound for some fucking working water!" With that said, I stampeded out of the hut, no towel or man bag in tow and proceeded to trample down the path to the compound.

My mind was set on one thing: a shower!  Once I arrived at the ranch, I asked everyone if someone had a towel that I could borrow, being fully prepared to air dry after showering if necessary.  Fortunately someone was able to lend me a small piece of parchment for my hungover soul; I felt vindicated!!  I headed to that shower, cloth in hand, grabbed the sink soap and gloriously enjoyed my cold rain.  When I got back to the hut, I was greeted with laughs and a good healthy dose of mockery... it had finally happened: after almost a week of being on site, I had cracked.  I look back at it now and still laugh about it; I love backpacking and go with a mindset that anything can happen and usually does, but this one particular day I had had it, and it was served right back at me in healthier doses.

Even though I felt like I had slain some kind of dragon or something after that cold shower, it gave me a true dose of humility.  All of us at one point or another while on the island reached a breaking point; I can't speak for everyone else, but it was from these lowest moments of frustration that came the greatest sense of humility.  In the States we joke around about our "first world problems."  "Oh my $6 double slim, extra soy macchiato didn't come out right."  "My Iphone battery dies too soon" or "My wifi range is very limited."  We have a right to gripe and be frustrated about things.... we do.  However, how many of us say, "my bed has ants in it."  "We have no water."  "My lights don't turn on!  Oh wait, do I even have a light bulb?"   We truly don't realize how good we have it until we're placed somewhere that has nothing in comparison.  Had the compound not had running water it would have sucked, yes... but in the end, all I would've had to do is pump, and pump some more for our own well to bless us.  At that very moment, my frustration had hit its peak and I didn't want to work to get the water rolling; it was there the whole time, I just didn't WANT to put the effort in it anymore for it to function... It was one of the most humbling moments of my time there; everyone got there jabs in on me for it, well deserved I know, but I really learned an important lesson about gratitude that hungover and humid day.

As the first week was nearing its end, we all had become adjusted and hardened enough to handle and accept anything thrown our way.  Five days into my stay I felt like part of the cast of "Orange is the New Black,"  I had gone through all the stages of my cycle of acceptance and had come out stronger than I was when I first arrived... I think we all did; we were the veterans of the cell block.  It wasn't until that sixth day when our newest recruit had stepped foot on the island shore, from the look in her eyes, I could already tell how much I had evolved. By this point, I had become the pseudo coordinator/orientation leader; I shook her hand, bid her welcome and showed her the hut... all the while, bets were being placed.