30/10/09

I am currently writing this extract in one of the most obscure and unique settings. It is 10 o’clock at night at the moment. Now, bearing in mind that we normally go to sleep at 7.30 and wake up at 4, this is pretty much the middle of the night. Around me I can hear the soft pats of water dropping from the leaves of the trees, and the sound of the crickets chirping, whilst above me lays only sky. Sky and a solitary moon that is so bright that you can barely see any stars around it. I am sitting outside on the bench at the end of a very good day.

For me it’s been a day of cooking actually.
This morning I was assigned to the gardens and after breakfast found myself down the valley clearing the trail down to the waterfall. So it was a very pleasant morning. Nata and Deven did, however, play an evil trick on me. In the three hours spent clearing the trail I managed to clear an area of… 5 meters!!! Just in case you don’t know, that is ridiculously small amount. The reason was, that I had a couple of rocks in the place I was wanting to clear. Ok a couple, is a giant understatement, and having to dig through rocks with a shovel is a slow and laborious process. Firstly though, I need to explain something to you about working with rocks. There are different stages, or frames of mind that you go through when trying to clear rocks. You have the first stage, the ‘sure I’ll do it’ stage. This is where you are assigned an area and you don’t really mind which bit it is. This can shortly be followed by the ‘I can do it’ stage. This is where you become more motivated to do the task and start setting yourself goals. It then starts to get a little tricky and you get a little tired of trying to move some particularly difficult ones. This triggers the ‘Wouldn’t turn down some help’ stage. Personally, I tend to stay in this stage for most of my time. I’m not too bothered about asking for help and don’t feel my ‘image’ (which isn’t great by the way) being dented much when I do so. This is the stage where you start to think in your mind, ‘it would be nice if somebody would offer me a little bit of help’ and if they do you would naturally accept it. And then you have the final stage. I don’t tend to get to this 4th stage very often, remaining in the 3rd for most of the time. This stage is known as the ‘I WILL SUCCEED IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO’ stage. This is where you have gone too far to just leave it and, to accept help from anybody would be like allowing somebody to take the reward for your hard work.

So as you can imagine, working on a 5m stretch for 3 hrs, had pushed me to such a degree that I had gone all the way to even into the last stage. I had worked too hard to stop then, but there was just one big rock left sticking out of the trail and I was determined to see it deflated. So I called to the others to tell them I wanted to go up and get the pick axe, to which Nata replied, “but we are leaving in 15 minutes”. As I had said, “I will succeed if it’s the last thing I do” so after shouting, ‘I don’t really care’ back at them, I hurried back up the trail to find a pick from under the restaurant. I remember thinking, ‘should I tell them to leave the rock?’ but then I thought ‘no, they would never do that’. If they wanted to mess me around and go up just as I came down I would simply take the walkie-talkie and finish the job alone. Anyway they wouldn’t be that mean would they, surely they must understand that I was in the 4th stage. So when I was coming to the last bend before the rock and heard the sound of shovels on rock, my heart sunk. I rounded the corner to see a small piece of rock left standing where the rock had once been with two young men standing by it laughing. B@$%5£!. Well I have to admit I cursed more than I have done in the last 2 months all together and it took me a while to see the funny side. To be honest, the fact that I had thought they might do that suggested that I may have come up with the same idea if one of those guys had gone to get the pick. Either way, that section and much more was completed and to a high standard, so all in all, a good days work.

It was after this that I found out from Susie that we were going to have another buffet dinner in the evening as there were so few people up in the community today. On this occasion it was Susie who suggested contributing something so I told here the epic stories of the last occasion.

It turns out Susie used to be a baker and she and her ex-husband used to run a little bakery. Now working in a little bakery, like the ones they had at the Belgium coast, has always been something I’ve wanted to do. So baking a big loaf of bread seemed fitting (the fact that bread was one of the foods I miss eating the most here, obviously had nothing to do with it). So I now have a new recipe that I have called the ‘1,2,3 Bread’, which is based on the standard way of making loaves in bakeries.

Anyway we made the loaf and I have written down the recipe so I can show it to you guys when I get back.

So, after that Ema asked me if I wanted to help making the fudge. Before he had even got the last 2 letters out, I had already agreed. Devon and Ema got everything ready and they seemed to know exactly what to do, so to say I helped, actually meant I handed them the peanuts and raisons, as well as ‘helped’ lick out the bowl. Hey I’m not complaining.

And then later on that day I was in the kitchen helping Christina making these roasted chopped potatoes with spices on. The help required with this was less of licking the bowl and more of pealing, mixing and adding more ingredients, so much more like actual helping.

6/10/09 The trip to the Continental Divide

Early on Saturday we prepared our rucksacks for a two night stay up in the hut half way up to the continental divide. The group consisted of Devon, Melissa, Ema and me led by Eugo.

Once we had packed the group equipment, like food, we set off on our little adventure. Now I can tell you, walking in a group of 5 is so much faster than walking in a group of 12 plus teachers and leaders. What took us 3 hrs last time was achieved in close to 1½ hrs! But the walk was beautiful. The forest is home to so many beautiful plants and animals, especially by the stream that I found myself very busy with the camera.

The walk was also a lot easier than I remembered it despite carrying all the vegetables, but it was nice surprise and allowed me to enjoy the views and sights much more.
When we were walking along the track before the last climb we began to hear the sound of blanches shaking and the calls of some creature. I soon discovered this to be the sound of white face capuchin monkeys feeding on the huge fig trees. It was wonderful to see the little creatures jump from branch to branch. One seemed very interested in its new audience and sat there staring at us for a while, which was the perfect opportunity to dig into our bags for our cameras. Unfortunately, my camera either loved the look of the leaves around it or was convinced that that was what I wanted to look at, so I found it hard to focus on the actual monkey. Also with it being a good 20m away, the pictures weren’t brilliant but hopefully this image should give you an idea.

The last ascent is very steep and would have been fairly challenging if I had been thinking about it. However, the ‘path’ was guarded by wild raspberries! So if anyone was to ask me about a certain section of the ascent I would only be able to tell them how good that section was for the fruit. Either way, they tasted great and as I said I so absorbed in devouring them that I didn’t even notice we had been climbing a very steep section for over half and hour.

We arrived pretty early so after lunch we set to work on some of the jobs we were there to do. Waxing the floor was interesting and my trousers now have some interesting red patterns on them where I wasn’t careful enough.
But the other job was clearing out the ‘thunder box’. For those of you who are not familiar with that term, it’s the ‘long drop’ or bog. I’m sure you currently have images of disgusting smelling, fly cover piles of … well you know… doo doo. Well, I certainly did and I am not going to lie and say I was very enthused about the sound of that job.
So when the sight of very good compost reached my eyes I was mightily relieved. The last group had been there 3 months ago and it had decomposed very nicely.

And then, we cooked, but more importantly made fudge. Eugenio’s mum had owned a restaurant and her fudge recipe had made it famous in the local area. So much so that old people still go to the shop (now owned by Eugo’s sister) go get the famous fudge that they used to eat in their youth. But seriously, when you taste it, you understand exactly why it became famous! It is the most delicious fudge I have ever tasted the recipe is so simple that I will be using it to pay for my university fees (as well as filling my belly on regular occasions he he).

After a good nights sleep I woke up to the most amazing view. You could actually see the Pacific Ocean from the window. The sight was both wonderful and humbling.
This view proved to be the best view of the ocean as it was very cloudy on top of the actual Divide but the walk up was great. We saw so many different organisms and I obviously had to take loads of pictures. But the most amazing animal we saw as the Resplendent Quetzal. Unfortunately I was carrying the rucksack at that time and I couldn’t get my camera out. I think Eugo got some good photos but I’m not sure. Either way, look it up on the internet, ‘Resplendent Quetzal’ it is sometimes considered the worlds most beautiful bird. But yes, very few people go up there so they are not used to ‘being afraid of humans’ so they hung around much longer than you would expect.

Anyway, when we were at the top of the Continental Divide we sat and lay around for about an hour. It was really interesting because if was so peaceful and calm and the cloud was really starting to come in then. I’m not sure if it was this, and it reminding me of hiking, but I started to think of Abbotsholme. I have never properly dealt with leaving Abbotsholme, emotionally. I had been so relieved that I could finally rest. Either way I have never felt that I have managed to properly deal with it. But up there, when I was thinking about everything I had done at Abbotsholme, I got quite emotional and even felt my eyes well up because although I don’t miss it in a way that I want to go back, I do miss the fact that it was my security and home for 7 yrs. It was a bizarre moment but I think that this experience is doing exactly what I intended it to do, allow me to process things I haven’t been able to do whilst at school and get myself both physically and mentally ready for the next stage of my life.

Oh yeah something else I must add. Every now and then Eugo will announce, ‘this may be a new species, because I have never seen this before’. I believe that Durika may have discovered 50 new species of organisms so some of the picture I have taken may be some of the first pictures of that species.
But anyway, we were just going to collect some water from the local spring when I spotted it. It was the most beautiful creature, a type of moth I think. It had red and black wings with a metallic blue shoulders and head. Underneath, it was striped with metallic blue and black stripes. And to my surprise as Eugo began snapping shots off with his camera, he announced his great phrase, ‘this may be a new species!!!’ If that’s the case I found a new species!!! And today when we were walking back towards Durika, I spotted another one! Either that or it was the same one, but this time I had my camera ready. So it is possible that these are some of the first photos of this species. If its not a new species I would appreciate it if nobody told me so that I can live on thinking that there was a possibility of finding a new species, he he. Thanks.

Well, the whole experience was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was very different from what we normally get up to and it was good to break up the routine a little. But I must say this was a particularly special way to break up the routine.

16/10/09

Ok, there is something I have to tell you. The 15th September is Costa Rica’s Independence Day, and with the Costa Rican’s being so patriotic, it’s a really big deal!

So when we were told that there was going to be a ‘bring-and-share’ buffet, I immediately thought, “brilliant! That means more food!” Devon on the other hand, being much more mature, quick thinking, and less driven by the idea of consuming food, said, “why don’t we make something as well?”
It sounded like a great idea, and as we could both cook at a reasonable standard, it wasn’t as if we were doing the impossible. So yesterday, after lunch, we went to Eugenio and asked for a cook book to find our ‘piece de la resistance’!
It may well have been in there, but we shall never know because it was in Spanish.

After struggling to decipher the ingredients from the babble, we wisely chose to ask Patri if she had any English cook books, and to our surprise and delight, she did!

Overwhelmed by excitement (and relief at no longer having to attempt to read Spanish) we began to search through the pages for anything that sounded interesting.
It was at that fateful moment when one of us exclaimed, “Ah, look, they even have zucchini bread!” at which Patri wrinkled her nose in an very good imitation of Dad when doing the washing up in dirty water, and said, “bread with zucchini in it?”

And so the challenge had been laid down, and zucchini bread it was.

Now, just a little advice for those of you who are planning to cook for others; at all possible costs, avoid using someone else’s kitchen! Because you can guarantee something will go wrong.

The recipe was simple and we only had to sacrifice the nuts. Patri (laughing at us in exasperation whilst she was doing it) provided us with the ingredients and utensils, and so it began.
And to my great surprise, very little went wrong. I mean all we had done was pour the zucchini juices down a sink that turned out to be not connected and ended up pouring zucchini juices all over the pots and pans in the cupboard bellow. But that wasn’t that bad! All we had to do was rub butter onto the walls of the tin with some flour and it could go in the oven.
Patri picked up the bag of white flour we had used, opened it, frowned and then put it back. My heart sank at this moment and I said, “Patri, why did you put the four back?” to which she answered, “That’s not flour its milk powder”!!!

When I had opened the bag earlier I thought that the flour didn’t look anything like flour. It was almost yellow and grainy. So I had asked Patri if it was flour and she had told me in a very sarcastic tone, “No of course its not!” So deciding it was just weird Costa Rican flour I continued.

So this was going to be interesting, we were going to be providing the community with cake. Now considering that Everybody had wrinkled their noses at the sound of zucchini in their cake, you can imagine what would happen with milk as well!

But fear not my friends, for we had a plan. A plan so cunning, so zealous and brilliant that it had no faults… we would bake another one and I would eat the first. I the end we make three, the good one, the milky one and the combination-of-the-two one.

It turns out; You Can Make Zucchini Bread With Milk!!! It was alright, in fact, it was pretty good actually, so much so that I was only able to steal 2 slices for today’s snacking, as the rest had been eaten! Haha

The whole experience was a great laugh, and it was a new experience for me to have an independence day and realise how important it is to them. That’s the disadvantage of being the conquering nation, you don’t have another excuse to celebrate and eat more food!