Today, after saying goodbye to my host mom Alba, I took a taxi to meet up with some other students in San Jose that were going to the same city. After asking for directions a few times, we found our bus stop and then got on the bus and after about 15 minutes, it left for Acosta (our destination city). It was an awkward bus ride because people kept getting picked up and I had a suitcase and backpack to try to fit somewhere and the overhead compartments were too tiny for anything... but after an hour and some scenic mountain driving (going up for quite a ways and then down again) we made it to the town. Some guy, whose name was'y even mentioned at the time, asked if we were "the students" and then took us to some little park near by. Our families (or someone from the family) were waiting and after a short little welcoming to Acosta, we split up.
My host dad has a cool offbrand? Jeep with like seats that are up against the sides of the car in the back instead of facing the front.. so that was cool. We made our way up a paved road, stopped for a little grocery store, and then kept on going. The paved road soon became dirt/rock and we continued climbing up. Every now and then we'd slow down and they'd let me marvel at the awesome view from the mountain. And after 15 minutes of climbing, with some downward parts too, I kept thinking with every road that veered off, "This must be it!" I mean it's a one lane road- how far away can the house be after all? well, after probably 30 minutes driving up the mountain, we finally arrived at a quaint well-painted little house, which happened to be theirs.
The house is really nice and I found out later that the neighbors that span for about a quarter of a mile down the road are all relatives. The property, which actually extends (as I was also told) all the way down the mountain, has been through 3 or 4 generations of the Arias family... it's pretty awesome.
After talking with random relatives for a while, a typical tico lunch, and then some more chatting with my host mother and father about politics, materialism and history, Felipe invited me to go feed the pig.
He told me I should put on better shoes for the hike so I don't get my tennis shoes dirty so I put on some rain boots that I am borrowing from LASP. Before leaving he grabbed his machete and tied it to his waist, gave me some really fat species of banana to carry for the pig, and then he grabbed a big old bag of pig food (seemed like corn meal or something). As we made our way down a steep dirt road in between mostly sugar cane crops, we got to a cool clearing with a big Guanacaste tree sitting right in the middle. The Guanacaste is the national tree and it's really awesome- big ol' trunk with super thick branches that extend mostly horizontal. It seemed like he wanted to rest from carrying the pig food so we went towards the tree and he, using the pig food as a pillow, lay his head back while laying down on a really thick/long stump or wood or something. I guess it was probably a tree trunk but it was laying horizontal... Anyways, he gave me a little log to use and I went and sat in the tree while he laid on the log thing. The view from where we are at is cool because we are on the side of the mountain so we pretty much just sat there for an hour, talking every now and then about living simply, nature, life, etc., and enjoying the scenery.
After some rest, we kept walking and got to the little pig pen. The pig started squealing when he heard people and we began dropping in the weird shaped bananas for the pig and he absolutely snarfed them down. When I was talking in the tree, I mentioned to Felipe that I don't like killing animals but that I like to eat them.. I also mentioned that it was a really naive opinion to be for "good treatment of animals" when I am not the one that has to kill them. Anyway, as I was watching this pig snarf down chubby bananas and his powdery yellow stuff, I was struggling with this thought about how I would totally be willing to eat the pig but I don't know if I could intentionally kill it without feeling really bad. At this moment, I decided that if I can hardly kill a pig and keep a clear conscience, if I wanted to eat pig really bad, maybe I will have more respect and honor for the animal whose life I am ending to sustain my own. All I know is that when we are separated from the labor and pain that go into things, we typically are left conscience free. Example: buying things from wal-mart without thinking about the sweat shops full of poorly paid workers that in essence are the reason we can buy things so cheaply in the first place. Yeah, we (myself included) don't like to think about that stuff because it reminds us that we often make ourselves forget certain facts of life if they mean that we are going to be uncomfortable or have to change something that we don't feel like changing.
We left the pig and walked down the path a little more and then went and sat down again off to the side, with another cool view. We chilled for about 15 minutes and he told me about some of the animals while we sat.. evidently there are lots of toucans around these parts which is neat! As we made our way back up, we checked on Mr. Pig and then grabbed some really sweet tasting manadrins (essentially clementines?) from one of the handful of trees along the path. We walked back through the oxen "field" (even though the angle is steep I guess it's technically a field) and Felipe fed the 2 guys some mandarins while I legitimately feared of a death by ox mauling. I told him that they scare me and I stood in between him and the oxen for the whole duration that we were near them.. they are seriously gigantic.
After dinner time, the family watched some Mr. Bean secret agent movie I've never heard of. It had Spanish voice dubs and they laughed hysterically more than a few times. What can I say, it was actually a pretty funny movie.
I'm not sure what's in store for me tomorrow but I think it involves cleaning a manure/compost area near Mr. Pig and also preparing for the rain season to begin (I'm told it hasn't rained once this season).
I'm definitely going to try to get pictures over the next few weeks and probably won't have this big of a blog post to make in quite some time.. but we shall see.
Thanks!
this is amazing!!
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