Roads turn to rivers

The rainy season has begun. In general for the campo this is a fantastic because all the farms are getting a lot of water, we had a dry season so everyone is really excited and hopefully this will help to have better cacao in the next season. Also, the side crops, such as the avocado trees, are getting nicely watered, so I’m excited. The rain also means that everyone (minus me because I don’t have a system set up) now has all their rain water tanks filled up, so people don’t have to spend a lot of time looking for water, which is great. However, rain also means that a lot of my meetings are canceled because people don’t really leave their house when it rains…And I found out if it rains hard enough it starts to enter my house, but that’s fine because it doesn’t flood, it’s just a pool of water that I sweep out. Luckily it doesn’t have much effect on my rustic floor, it probably makes it better. Haha.

Tuesday was an especially rainy day. It was a combination of relaxing because I was just in my house listening to the rain on my zinc roof and doing whatever I wanted, and depressing because I was stuck alone in my house for the whole day. Then one of my doñas came by to see how I was doing, and we hung out on my “porch” watching her son play in the rain formed river, it was pretty amusing. I would call it the campo version of Raging Waters for all you in San Jose.

Then we went on a stroll through the neighborhood to see all the chaos of the water, and that water was flowing! Rivers and ponds throughout the road. Then we found another doña and three of us along with a few kids went to one of the best mango trees and ate to our hearts content. We were drenched from head to toe but definitely a memorable and enjoyable afternoon.

Where both of my flip flops broke and sank into the mud
This use to be a tiny stream, and then the rains came down
Two of my favorite doñas enjoying the rain -

So one of my biggest problems in my site is that most of the groups struggle just to meet, not to have successful meeting, just to get people to the location and meet. So this Saturday I had a general community meeting to talk about how this was a negative situation that the community had to change. I would say it went really well. Not only did we talk about the need to meet and have a bunch of mini pep talks about the importance of the community groups (lots of if we aren’t meeting, we aren’t in anything and we will never get anywhere). We also talked about a lot of the problems that are currently going on in the community. The rain is beating up the road and making it almost impassable, most of the street lights have burnt out and the mayor still hasn’t replaced them, about half the community doesn’t have a dependent water source, the mayor hasn’t provided any money that was promised from the budget (and last year they never received anything), and also they are starting to charge the community for trash pick up. In a country in which most people just burn their trash or just leave it wherever and don’t worry about where it goes or becomes deposited, forcing people that are worrying about making ends meet to pay to get it picked up is not a step in the right direction. Anyways those from the community that attended the meeting and talked about these issues (and a few others), and were able to make a list of the most important needs and also come up with multiple plans of attack to resolve the problem. I was really proud of them, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they will continue with this motivation to keep meeting and working together. Vamos a ver

This is dulce de cajuil. It sort of looks like tiny cooked up brains, but it tastes delicious! My neighbor is start to send me food almost every day, normal it is dinner or lunch, but this Saturday it was a dulce, lucky me (and everyone that has stopped by to visit)!

I’m also making progress on starting a literacy project in my community. We were able to find an organization that is starting to give support to literacy classes (funding for books, training, help for the instructors, etc). So currently gathering the details about everyone motivated to take the course. I believe I mentioned this before, but literacy is a huge problem here, and not just in the adults but the youth, a lot of people around my age, went to school a few years and just got nothing about out of it, so it’s really exciting that they are coming up and saying that they would like to learn now. Hopefully they will be able to maintain the motivation through the course and really learn how to read and write.

Some of the doñas getting their hair ready to celebrate Mother's Day

My next door neighbor has been in town for the last 3 weeks with heart problems, she just came back on Saturday, and wow did I miss her! I visit her almost every day and call out to her every time I pass by, which is a lot. I've already visited her 4 times and also hung out with her 8 year old grandson Sunday night, who had also been gone with her (we had a race, I fell, it was funny. He also enjoyed my music which was exciting). I also get my water from her and do laundry at her house, so it is nice to have her back to talk to and visit. It was also great to see everyone in the community rush to visit her this weekend, it was brought up by everyone I saw. And you could tell she was so happy to be back in our community and with all her friends. She kept going on about how it doesn't matter how sick she is, she wants to be at home so she call call out and know everyone passing by, and sit on her front porch enjoying her campo. I'm definitely glad to have her back in my life :)

This is her with one of her many visitors

Me, my vecina and some of her friends