Hogar Luz

Ah, old photos....  When I lived in Costa Rica back in 1984, I volunteered at a place called Hogar Luz. It was a home for children thrown away by society, most had both physical and mental handicaps.  It was run by a staff of Carmelite Nuns.  They didn't speak English.  I didn't speak Spanish.  Somehow that didn't seem to matter.

 That's me back in '84.  I would have been 23.

World's Best Daddy, Indeed!!

From my first year of teaching in Costa Rica (1984) one of my classes and their "Father's Day" card to me.  What plum silliness and joy!  I was 23, these kids were 14.  Daddy Indeed!

The 12 Most Amazing Places I Have Been

The end of the year just seems to demand the making of lists!  I present my 12 most amazing places that I have ever been in alphabetical order:

 Alps in Winter (by train), Switzerland

 Arches National Park, Utah, United States

 Fundy Bay, New Brunswick, Canada

 Greater Corn Island, Nicaragua

 Jessamine Creek Gorge, Kentucky, Unites States (Yes, that's me on the rock!)

 Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica

 St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

 Sugar Loaf Mountain, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

 Toroko Gorge, Taiwan, Republic of China

 Tortugero National Park, Costa Rica

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

My Own Private Heaven

With thanks to the good folks @ Territorio de Zaguates!

In A Family Way

Working to adopt this beautiful dog from Costa Rica. He is a street rescue stray that I have named Romeo.

Costa Rican Quake - 7.6 - 4 SEPT 12

Happy 4th of July!

Here I am with friends in the ex-pat community of San José, Costa Rica in 1984 celebrating the 4th of July at the US embassy. Alas I only remember the two women to my right, Penny, and Yvonne Fultz. We had blueberry pie eating contests, sack races, patriotic music, even a brief pep talk from the Ambassador. It was cheesy and fun....and ain't that America? Happy 4th everyone!

Haiti in Context

On January 12th the world was held captive to the tragedy of the 7.0 earth- quake in Haiti. It was a major shift of a minor fault line in an impoverished nation. Tens--if not hundreds--of thousands of people died and suffered life altering injuries. But this is not the entire story.

The world is a shacking.

The Washington Post described an incident were upon at the beginning of the temblor students from a Virginia Community College in Haiti on a study mission witnessed women tearing off their clothes and crying out to God in the belief that the quake was the apocalypse. Can you even imagine such abject ignorance? Yet, the world is a shaking.

In the last 30 days there have been several earth quakes that have occurred in the range of 6.0 to 6.9. And another even more powerful 7.1 quake.
December 23 - 6.0 - Indonesia
December 24 - 6.3 - Russia
December 26 - 6.1 - Banda Sea (off the coast of Indonesia)
December 31 - 6.0 - Pacific Arctic Ocean (most quakes occur below the oceans)
January 1 - 6.1 - Mariana Islands
January 3 - 6.6 - Solomon Islands
January 3 - 7.1 - Solomon Islands
January 5 - 6.8 - South Sandwich Islands
January 5 - 6.8 - Solomon Islands
January 5 - 6.0 - Solomon Islands
January 9 - 6.2 - Solomon Islands
January 10 - 6.5 - Pacific of off Northern California
January 14 - 6.0 - Mariana Islands
January 17 - 6.3 - Drake Passage


The World is a shaking.

Haiti shook on January 12th to the toon of 7.0. And then kept shaking....

January 12 - 7.0
January 12 - 5.9 (7 minutes later)
January 12 - 5.5 (12 minutes later)
January 12 - 4.6 (55 minutes later)
January 12 - 5.1 (5 minutes later)
January 12 - 4.8 (15 minutes later)
January 12 - 4.5 (8 minutes later)
January 12 - 4.5 (12 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.8 (36 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.0 (20 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.2 (16 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.6 (6 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.1 (11 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.6 (8 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.3 (8 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.4 (4 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.9 (19 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.4 (2 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.0 (14 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.6 (6 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.7 (9 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.7 (17 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.5 (11 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.6 (23 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.7 (14 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.8 (1 hour & 31 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.2 (16 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.9 (6 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.7 (25 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.6 (35 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.5 (24 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.5 (10 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.0 (1 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.5 (5 hours & 5 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.7 (13 minutes later)
January 13 - 5.3 (2 hours & 2 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.6 (4 hours & 11 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.8 (2 hours & 32 minutes later)
January 13 - 4.9 (55 minutes later)

And that's what life is like in Haiti. The World is a shaking.

I've only been in one earthquake in my life. A 4.5 quake in Costa Rica back in 1984. But it tossed me off of my bed and sent all of the residents of my apartment building screaming and scrambling into the street.

And then on January 20th a 5.9 quake -- a quake on its own, not an aftershock.... The World is a Shaking.

Haiti Moment #1

As the images continue to flood in to our news sources, we are all left wanting to do something for the people of Haiti. It's a tragedy of nearly unimaginable proportions. Hurricane Katrina is our closest benchmark, and yet the death tole in Haiti threatens to easily surpass Katrina by 10, 20, 50, EVEN 100 times.

Today, when I visited my local Giant Supermarket, there was a table set up outside of the door where two women in Caribbean dress and speaking with crisp accents were asking shoppers for food donations for Haiti. I avoided them, because I thought, how are they planning to get this food to Haiti? There is no mechanism for individuals to send this sort of aid to Haiti. I was being truly cynical in my heart. There is such a need. And I feared there are people willing and eager to exploit that need. But why did I think that these women were any part of such a wicked plot? Why weren't they just two people who had to do something to express their desire to help?

I remember when I lived in Costa Rica back in 1984. After school, I would typically go into the heart of San José to retrieve the mail for the other teachers from the United States working at my school. Afterwards, I would often drop into the only McDonald's in the country at the time and grab an hamburgesa con queso, papas fritas, y una coca lite. Eating my lunch while sitting in the store front, I'd watch this pair of filthy little children beg for money and offer to sell us rich people pictures that they had torn from discarded magazines. It broke my heart. Then one day I saw those kids turn to the beaconing of a man in a suit. They responded by running over to a shiny black limosine and jumping into the back seat. It was not a solicitation, but clearly and obviously a call to end their "work" day--an "Oliver Twist" moment, if you will.

Ever since, I've been unwilling to simply accept things like this at their face value. It's hasn't stopped me from being generous. If anything, I'm more generous year in and year out (It grows with my financial capacity and my belief in the need to give to others (I'm not a Republican)--but that's not my point. The point is just exactly how I'm generous, and how I look with such suspicion on supporting random individuals, no matter how worthy the cause.

Healthcare Check Up

Where in the world is it better to get sick than the Imperical nation of the United States of America with its healthcare envied by all those living on the known planet? Hmmm... There are 36 nations with better healthcare? We're 37! in the world? The wealthiest, most powerful, biggest DICK filled nation in the history of the world, and a people cowering on the little Caribbean Island nation of Dominic stand a better chance of seeing a doctor, receiving quality health care?

What's wrong with this picture? I can attest, that as an employee of one of the most successful and wealthy school districts in America, my healthcare is stellar. If I were to loose my job tomorrow--I'd suddenly have bubkis for my plan; emergency rooms, the kindness of strangers, a complete burden on the rest of you working plebes.

I needed healthcare in Italy (#2 ranking) in 1990 for a strepe infection that boiled up on my left calf and got it for all of $4.00 bucks. It cost me even less in Costa Rica (#35 ranking) in 1984 for a remedy sold over the counter to counter-act a fungal skin infection on my face. I've been lucky.

Why should healthcare in the most prosperious and powerful nation on the planet depend on luck or employment? Why should change require politicians beholden to the contributions from contra-indicated interests like pharmasutical conglomerates and Insurance companies to oppose their fiscal masters in favor of their mere constituents? God help us, please....

Costa Rican Memoir #9

manuelantonio
Originally uploaded by Randuwa

It’s summertime, and while I’m not planning an actual trip to the beach this year, I find myself remembering one from many years ago. It’s a new Costa Rican Memoir, the last being offered in the summer of 2005. This one, in particular, is about a trip with my friend “S” (first mentioned in a post here on 16 JULY 2005). The first important thing to know is that S. is a native Costa Rican.

In Costa Rica there are many holidays. Not as many as, say, in France, but more than in the United States. It was the occasion of one of these holidays that precipitated my adventure with S. S. was always eager to show me his country, and I was more than happy to experience it; so when he purposed that we take advantage of the holiday by spending the weekend at a beach on the Pacific Ocean, I was right on board!

In order to get there, we would have to rely on public transportation, and I in my insightful naiveté, suggested that we purchase our bus tickets in advance. S. was simply appalled by this. He explained to me, his ignorant American friend, that obtaining tickets was no big deal. “Right,” thought I, but having been wrong on other occasions for reasons directly blossoming out of my cultural ignorance, I acquiesced. My mistake.

When the day arrived we met at my workplace, Colegia Métodista at the end of my workday (mid-morning) and with backpacks mounted upon our shoulders, headed toward the central bus depot. Arriving, I noticed how crowded the place was, and when S. finally had his turn at the ticket counter, his attempt to purchase our fare turned into an angry discussion with the vender. I approached and assured S. that there was no need to be angry; and in the end we purchased tickets that worked out like this:

1) We boarded a very comfortable luxury bus with service to an exclusive resort. This bus took us to the edge of the central valley where it dropped us off at a place designated as a pick-up site for the bus to Querpos. When we arrived we discovered that we were not the first people to have been sold this bill of goods. There were five hopeful holiday sojourners ahead of us. As we waited, our numbers swelled to more than a dozen, and then OUR bus arrived…

2) Which was a very unglorified, decommissioned Blue Bird school bus. It was clear that there would be no place to sit, and so we found our slots in the aisle, straddled our backpacks, grasped the safety bars above out heads and prepared for a very long trip to the Pacific. If I was ever tempted to feel sorry for myself, such emotions were completely obliterated by the elderly woman standing directly in from of me on the bus. She was all of 5 feet tall, carried a huge bolsa full of items acquired in San José. She flopped it down in the aisle, straddled it, grabbed the safety bars on the backs of the nearest seats, locked her knees like some amazing old mare, and endured the next 4 hours of bumps, jerks, bounces, and turns without any acknowledgement of peril let alone inconvenience. Men, mind you ~ nay, young, healthy, strapping men in the prime of their lives and virility had seats on this bus. But she didn’t. And no one gave a second thought to this: it’s called Machismo ~ and in the summer of 1984, Costa Rican men practiced it with the ease and non-chalance that I devoted to breathing.

As we made our way further and further into the mountains and further and further away from San José, the roads became more decrepit and thus more of a challenge for the school bus. The blessing was that from time to time we stopped and someone on the bus exited; however, most of these stops also permitted someone else to embark. And so it wasn’t until dusk was finally settling upon our journey and we entered the town of San Marcos were enough people left the bus to finally make way for S. and I to have seats.

What a blessing. To finally rest in a seat. As the bus pulled out of San Marcos we both felt so grateful. Barely had we time to savor the moment when the baby in the arms of the woman in the seat behind us convulsed, and then vomited all over S.’s backpack! I swear to you, it was such a bizarre and yet perfect metaphor for poor S’s response to my request that we plan ahead. In my youthful vengeance, I burst into laughter while he exploded into invective and assaulted the poor woman demanding from her a restitution that she was no more able to provide than to comprehend . . . baby’s vomit, get over yourself rich boy!

In the end, S. was left to sop up and swab off his belonging as best he could. The sun had set during the episode, and the bus was headed down the mountain toward the flickering lights of the port of Querpos.

When we finally chugged to a stop, we grabbed our backpacks and headed toward the National Park known as Manuel Antonio. In town, we purchased a loaf of bread and some oranges for breakfast. I had been to Manuel Antonio once before and so I knew that to enter the park you had to cross a shallow stream; however, in the glow of the moonlight, it was clear that the stream was more substantial in it’s width than I recalled. But I assured S. that it was not a big deal, and we should cross the water to enter the park…. Little did I know.

The tide was fully in, and the crossing was a veritable river. As we crossed there was literally a point where we had to hold our backpacks over our heads to keep them dry with water swirling around our armpits. Once on the other side, we found a place on the beach and pitched our tent. We stripped off our clothes and hung them on a line strung between to nearby palms to dry, and thankfully entered the tent for one of the most restful nights of sleep either of us had ever had.

In mid morning, an American ex-pat in park ranger garb visited our site to obtain from us the park fee (15¢ per day). He asked us how and when we arrived and when we told him about crossing the “river” at night, he faded to an even paler shade of white. It seems that at high tide, the little estuary is a favorite feeding zone for sharks – we missed the warning signs.

Fair in is fair out! I had S. on the whole bus booking thing, but now he clearly had me on the shark-infested river crossing. Like what the hell could I say about that? My bad?

The next two days were spent in restful play. We read books in the shade of palms. We swam in the crystal waters of the Pacific Ocean. We slept in my tent in the platonic embrace of friendship. We were so young, so happy, so good to one another. My experiences in Costa Rica back then and more recently in Nicaragua have taught me that men in Latin America are by an' large so much more at ease in their own skins and with one another.

Costa Rican Memoir #8, parts 4 & 5

senorgatoychogito
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

Part 4 "Tarantula"

As the incident with the fire ants would suggest, living in a place that is so different from the one you've grown up in is bound to present you with encounters which you would never have imagined. The house that Mr. K and I shared was built by Costa Rican standards and reflected the needs of shelter in a Mediterranean Climate zone. So the entire place was framed in 2 x 4's, and interior walls were all paneled with thinner planks. Exterior walls were only sided on the exterior leaving the framing exposed on the interior. No insulation, no furnace, no AC....no need. The hottest season (January to March) only sported temperatures in mid to high 80's; and the coldest (October/November) only ever dipped to the mid 50's. So fans and clothing supplied whatever needs comfort might demand.

Two of the walls in my bedroom where exterior. One bore a window with a wide sill. Since the only furniture was a twin bed and a small dresser, I placed a trytich brass picture frame on the window sill -- a short distance from my bed. One night after getting into bed and shutting off the light the picture frame crashed to the floor. Too heavy to do this on it's own, I wondered if in the motion of entering the bed and flipping the switch for the light, I had missed a small earth tremor.

So I immediated reversed my movements and flipped the light switch on again. And what did I discover? A full grown tarantula gingerly making its way along the window sill. Apparently, hindered by the picture frame, it had found a way to remove it as an obsticle.....

The photo is of our neighbor's pets: Senor Gato and Chogito. I include them in this memoir, because without their watchful presence, the infestation of interesting fauna would have doubtlessly been much more interesting and problematic.

part 5 "Frankenstein Shower"

In a home without central air or heat, it's no surprise that there was no hot water tank either. To heat water, you simply placed in on the stove which worked for most things..... The shower was the exception. So to remedy this the water was heated by a coil wrapped around the pipe of the shower head. And this coil had two wires that emerged from the base of the pipe against the wall to a "Frankensteinesque" toggle switch mounted on the wall next to the shower.

The routine? Get naked. Turn on the water flow. Reach over to the toggle switch and pull it down while stepping into the water! And I swear to you, I never got used to this. The only comfort was the knowledge that IF it failed, my death would be amazing and swift.

Costa Rican Memoir #8, part 3

You've heard about the danger of fire ants, but have you ever experienced them? There is no misnomer in their name.

Just outside of rear door of my home in Costa Rica, Mr. K. and I had strung a line to hang our clothes upon after washing. I had used it countless times, and so it was second nature to just trod out there and begins pinning our damp apparel to the line. That is until one day....

I walked outside. Tossed the laundry over the line, piece by piece. Returned to first thing and began to clip it with a pin when all of sudden the first bite occurred. And before I knew what the hell was happening, half a dozen more assaults happened and simultaneously I assessed the situation and began stripping off my pants and screaming! Thank God our home was a private one. So no one saw my frenzied dance and strip tease.

The little guys had taken up resident in our back yard and built a mound without any warning; and that's how they chose to attack me.

Costa Rican Memoir #8, part 2

This home (picture in part 1) was a great place, and I have many fond memories related to my year spent there. On one evening I was in the middle of fixing dinner when the lights when out! Not a common event, but not so rare that it was without any precident, either. After discussing our options amid the candlelight, Mr. K. (My housemate) and I decided to head into the center of San José to find food and distraction.

Reaching the bus stop just outside the alley entrance of our home, we could see that lights were on in most of the city. So without another thought, we caught a bus into the city and had a great dinner followed by a movie. Returning home many hours later, we found both the restoration of electricity and an incredibly irate old man (our neighbor/and literal "housemate").

Many words were exchanged in repairing the damage of our neglect. You see, we had inadvertently failed to turn off the electric stove before leaving. The power returned and the bacon began to cook again, and then burned and then flamed!--filling the house with smell and smoke. Our neighbor called the fire brigade AND our landlord who arrived together. The latter used his master key to open our home, and the former used their skill to dowse the source. By the time that we returned, only the old man was still there.

Stay tuned: part 3, "Fire Ants," part 4, "Tarantula Power," and part 5, "Frankstein Showers" will be posted soon.

Costa Rican Memoir #8, part 1

myhomeincostarica
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

"Home, Sweet, Home"

This was my home when I lived in Costa Rica. This was in Curridabat, a western suburb of San José. The house sits on a "hidden" lot off the street on a hill between a shoe factory and a bus mechanics' yard/garage. The Factory rose on the left side of this photo, and the Bus facility was found on a flat lot beyond, and well below, the right side of the photo. So it found itself on the middle terrace of three on the main road that led from the western highway out of San José to the city center of Curridabat.

You got to our home via an alley that gave no hint of what lay beyond the 12 foot hight metal gates or the little iron door that was our perimeter entrance.

The lot held rich vegetation. A Rosamary bush that reached to a good 10 feet! Trees bearing Papaya, Mango, Lemons, Limes, Oranges, and Grapefruit grew randomly around the edges of the "yard."

The house was divided into two parts. One half was the longtime home of an elderly Costa Rican man and his little dog, Chogito. My roommate, Mr. K. and I lived in the other half. It was basically three rooms. An EL-shaped large Kitchen/Bathroom (washtub and wall shower with NO Privacy), and two private bedrooms. Mine was on the front of the house, shown here--the window is from My bedroom.

More on this soon.

Cosa Rican Memoir #7

hotelmiami
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

Here I sit in the restaurant of the Hotel Miami in Limón, Costa Rica in 1984 on the eve of our Tortuguero adventure. We are about to recieve a simple and lavish feast of "gallo pinto" rice and beans! It sounds plain, but left to the Costa Ricans it's an incredibly delicious dish.

How much simplier life seemed back then. Young and adventerous (as opposed to mature and adventurous!) the trip to get to this place and moment involved a tenuous bus ride and a magnificent train ride from the capital of San José on a holiday wekend when every mode of transportation was both over booked and taxed to it's legal and physical limits! So this photo depicts an event of great respite. The next phase of this strand can be found at (Costa Rican Memoir #2, parts 1-4 in June's archive).

Costa Rican Memoir #6

lamyouthcampcr
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

As I have mentioned before, I am a Christian by choice of my spiritual path. Obviously, NOT a Christian in any orthodox or fundamentalist mode...a Christian more like Jesus!

And while I lived in Costa Rica, my faith found several outlets. One of the most significant was my association with the missionary organization "Latin American Mission" (LAM, for short). I met such wonderful people through them. People from many denominations who were not trapped by their traditions. People with physical limitations that would have defied the "faith" of other organizations, but whose lives and missions were embraced my LAM. I have no idea what they're like these days, so this is NOT an endorsement, just a memoir.

As an available soul, I was invited to participate in a couple of their programs, the most elaborate of which was an extended weekend youth camp. It was held in a very remote valley in which LAM was constructing a retreat center. The main building was being built around an enormous protruding bolder--You know, "upon this rock...." stuff. Yet it was amazing.

There are 3 things that I remember from this experience most vividly:

#1) meeting this incredibly gentle and insightful young man from Cuba (Top Left). Up until then I had many preconceptions about Cuba, Castro, the Revolution, etc. And he taught me to question my understandings of the world and the authority that provided such views to me.

#2) A killer game of capture the flag during which I took a phenomenal fall off of a fallen log, which crossed the rock-strewn stream bisecting the valley. It was nothing short of a miracle that ALL I ended up being was embarrassed and wet!

And #3) the trek out on the afternoon after the camp ended. The vehicles that could drive us down to the site where not able to transport us back out of the steep and treacherous slopes. So we were informed on the morning of the last day that we would be hiking out with all of our equipment. My God, it was one hell of a HOT hike! And foolish me didn't think to cover my head -- my scalp was severely burned by the tropical sun's more intense rays.

This last lesson has led me to be much more committed to hats!

Costa Rican Memoir #5

collegiometodista01
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

Education as a career for me was really an afterthought -- or perhaps an accident based on incidents (random Quote #11). I originally studied to work in the church. And then I actually worked in a church! Oucha Magoucha, the experience did not affirm my beliefs or my talents at the time.

So I switched majors and rushed an elementary education degree as a second major...I may hold the record for hours of courses completed at Asbury College, but I eventually finished with 2 majors and one minor (and a foreign language! -- parle vous française? Neither do I! But I digress....)

And then, in an accidental way, I obtained my first teaching job at Colegio Metodista in Costa Rica. An acquaintance on campus, who had once worked there, heard about my desire to teach overseas, and then suggested that I contact Colegio Metodista to see if there were any openings. I called and was hired over the phone on a Tuesday. I notified my parents about this on the Thursday, and to the amazement of everyone concerned, was bound for Central America on an Eastern Airline flight a little over two weeks later!

As the plane descended toward the airport in Alejuela (entering the magnificent cavity of the central valley out of which most the people in Costa Rica live), I peered down upon a land dulled by drought (a seasonal thing), and stepped off of the flight on February 6, 1984 to the utterly expansive beauty of Costa Rica. At the school, my position included 3 units of 9th grade geography, 9th grade honors English, and 11th grade honors English Literature, (and later, a section of 10th grade regular English was added).

My students were mostly Costa Rican, but included a couple of "Estados Unidensiens", Chinese (from Hong Kong mostly), Canadians, and at least one kid from Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Panama. They were quite fascinated by their young American teacher, and didn't always know what to do with me. At times they rallied around me, and at others they tried to use me for their adolescent sport.

One of the "sportive" moments I remember most vividly was the old "thumb tack on the chair" gag. A class of my 9th graders placed a couple of thumbtacks on my chair in the hopes of solicited an injured and thus hilarious response from me. But as it turned out, I wore my only pair of corduroy jeans to school that day. And after presenting my initial lesson and their writing assignment, I pulled out my chair to sit in it. The action of pulling the chair out vibrated the tacks into the central concave hollow of the seat. And so, when I sat upon them, they all embedded themselves into the triple fold of my jean's central back seam and the hollow of my ass crack. Therefore, I felt nothing.

Well, not exactly "nothing". I soon felt the awed and confused stares of my students and noticed the recriminating glances of conspirators whose perfect plan of attack has ended in inexplicable failure. What could they have been thinking? Does their teacher possessed an iron butt!? (I only wish!)--able to bend steel tacks with a single sit!?

I remember looking up and saying, "What." To which many shoulders shrugged and all resumed their attention upon their assignments. After class the son of a Canadian missionary (and no doubt the master-mind of this nefarious plot) approached me and tried to asked about the general health of my "behind". A line of questioning that quickly led to a complete confession.

Dieu d'éloge pour le velours côtelé

Costa Rican Memoir #4: "House of Light"

hogarluzcostarica
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

I lived in a distant suburb of the capital, San José, called Curridabat. At the time, it was about as far to the west of San José as one could go without leaving the continguous urban sprall. And yet it was also fairly convenient vis a vis the ubiquitious and amazing public bus system.

At some point in my stay, and I honestly don't recall how, I made the acquaintance of a really wonderful young man, Mr. S. Mr. S. was, I guess, about my age (23), and he was well spoken in his English. We would spend time together just enjoying each other's company. It was a purely platonic friendship, and one that have come to realize is all too rare in this life.

Mr. S.'s father headed up an NGO that distributed funds to organizations that offered care to children with special needs. And it was through this that Mr. S. introduced me to the work of a little Carmelite mission, Hogar Luz. Further up the mountain, and further west of even Curridabat, the mission was tucked away off of the main road in a little compound that consisted of living quarters for about half a dozen sisters, and, at the time, ten children. Ranging from age 12 down to infants, these children were among the most severely handicapped, and I can not put too fine a point on this, most fortunate in the country.

We often hear stories about the abysmal state of special education in this nation, but friends, you have no idea how this segment of our human family is treated in nations where resources are scant and understanding scarce. The children of Hogar Luz were living in a virtual Eden.

After my initial visit with my friend, Mr. S., I began making regular treks to Hogar Luz on my own. My Spanish absolutely sucked, but because I was a guest of Mr. S. the sisters permitted me access to their charges. And what ever was going on when I arrived, I just joined right in. Sometimes this meant assisting with feeding the children, sometimes it meant changing diapers. It really didn't matter to me; and frankly, I think that fascinated the nuns. The picture is of me holding one of the most able of all of the children, and it was taken by Mr. S. on a day when we visited together. I recall that we had just spent time with the 2 or 3 older children who were ambulatory playing tag in the little yard. Most of the children were confined to wheel chairs or beds. Of this little boy, I recall that he was often aggressive with the sisters, but really responded well to Mr. S. and me. After spending time in some physical activity, he would become docile and patient. Many of the children bore the physical scars of having been abused by parents and previous care-givers who simply could not accept their disabilities. And given their unique mental abilities, there was just no way to know what psychological scars they carried. It is difficult to remember this...it still makes me cry.

Costa Rican Memoir #3

colegiometodista
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

My position at Colegio Metodista was my first full time teaching job. Trained in elementary/middle school, I was hired there to teach high school (grades 9-11, geography/English), which was a really great experience.

It taught me that it's not the subject or the age that matters, but the people. Information can be found in books, on websites, from many sources. It does not transform individuals as powerfully or as completely as a personal witness -- a caring relationship.

We each hold the potential to rock the worlds of those around us, simply by demonstrating love for one another. This is NOT a religious thing. Anyone can care; and everyone needs to feel cared for.

I recently found a card from my nineth grade geography students which they gave to me on the occasion of "Father's Day" in 1984. Mind you, I was scarcely old enough to be any of their older brothers, and certainly NOT any of their fathers. Here are a couple of the quotes:

"Thank you. You're like a 2nd father to me" ~ S. Jimenez

"Thank you for being such a special friend and a great "Daddy"..." ~ S. Kravitz

"A very happy and special day to you 'Daddy'!" ~ D. Gonzalez