Cedro's perfect dream

singing in the aguacero

    I live in the Cloud Forest.  As in, forest in the clouds.  We have a rainy season that lasts from roughly May through December (yay, January through April!).  October is always invariably the worst.  Trade Winds from the Pacific push onshore and moisture is shuffled over the Pacific plains to the Tilaran mountains.  Clouds inch their way up the steep slopes, using natural warm updrafts to usher themselves along.  However, when they reach us here in Monteverde, the cold mountain air, along with prevailing winds from the East hold the clouds in stasis, and they unload the lion's share of their bulk into our nutrient rich soil. 
I arrived back in Costa Rica for the present school year in July.  It's been raining more or less steadily since.  We've had a few sunny days, and have been able to enjoy many outdoor recesses during breaks in the rain, but this month especially has been hard. 
    I miss the sun.  I battle mold, mildew, and vitamin D deficiency daily.  I write a lot, and put enormous chunks of time into my teaching.  I collect Spanish and hold it as if it were the towel that will soak up all the leaks in the shell of my house. 
    Just as the innuits have over thirty words for snow, ticos have over twenty words for rain.  I don't know them all, but the ones I've managed to stow away for use on a wet afternoon are as follows:
Pelos del gato: tiny floating droplets of moisture that kiss the skin and glisten on eyelashes. 
llovizna: gently falling mist, like walking through a cloud (which we do all the time)
lloviznando: a slightly stronger mist, usually precedes rain.
brisa:  singular drops, slow but steady
garuando: a light, consistent rain
pelos del chancho: light rain, accompanied by large drops from trees and epiphytes.
lluvia:  steady rain
aguacero: a long, strong thunderstorm
temporal:  a tropical thunderstorm with warm rain
tormenta: strong thunderstorm with high wind
chubazco: a sudden thunderstorm that appears while it is still sunny.  These usually come and go in a matter of minutes.
cereno:  a night blanket of moisture that falls from passing clouds.  The effect is rather like dew.
rocío:  The only way to translate this on is "heavy falling dew".
solizna:  a brilliant mist that blows in while the sun is still shining.

Suffice it to say, I've gotten to know tormentas, temporales, aguaceros, garuandos, and regular old lluvia very well over the last few months.  We are enduring the worst rainy season in 90 years here.  As  mentioned above, I haven't seen the sun in 17 days and counting.  I am not currently at school, because the roads are impassable.  There is no way in or out of town as there have been several major mudslides.  Some people can still get through in smaller vehicles, but all bus services are suspended.  Costa Rica's Pacific coast beaches are all closed, and much of the lowlands are flooded.  Here in the mountains, there is little danger of flooding, but mud slides are common and dangerous.  It is pretty certain that there will be no school at all this week.  yesterday, I got a group of teachers and students together and we went mud sliding in the fields behind the Monteverde Friends' School.  Much fun was had by all. 

Anybody have a dryer I can use?
How about one of those sun lamps?

Reservation, Contamination, Resolution

    The weather worn Environmental Education teacher, who is a seasoned farmer and naturalist, stood before the class of quietly skeptical sixth grade students and scrawled probing questions across the board.  "I just want to see what you already know" he tells them, "this is not a test."  The words are heard clearly by all, yet some of the students clearly receive them as they would a doctor's thinly veiled assurance that "you'll barely feel this..."

1) What are three systems plants have in place for reproduction?

2) What are some of the main pollution problems Monteverde faces today?

3) How can we protect the biodiversity of our area?

4) What are some of the main causes of erosion in our city?

5) What is an environmental footprint?

    The students bend their heads and brains, writing thoughtfully for twenty minutes or so.  Much has been said at staff meetings and in passing conversation, about the cloudiness of our school's environmental vision.  There has been trash found in the woods, faucets have been left carelessly open, the recycling program has sat stagnant while the municipality wrings its hands and tables motion after motion, and more and more students are bringing in snacks in small disposable  packages.  Many blame administration for the lag.  Some blame the increased emphasis on standardized Ministerio testing.  Others blame teachers for lack of Eco-vigilence.  A few even go so far as to blame Canada. 
    Walking the campus, I am forced to agree that our mountain top paradise certainly still finds itself a distant eagle's cry away from the unified front we aim for, standing up to defend the Earth from the reckless scars humans seem bound and determined to scratch into her skin.  There are groans from some students when they are marched out to the pastures to plant more secondary forest.  There is indeed a certain air of rebellion in each plastic juice bottle and Bioland granola bar wrapper that gets carelessly offered up like an impious offering at the altar of ancient roots. 
    However, I remain convinced that these are but fractional cuts in a vision that is intact.  As my sixth graders write, I think about how four third graders sacrificed two precious recess periods so they could meticulously clean the altar and display it's impurities at a community meeting, employing the best elements of collective worship: guilt and shame.  I think about the way over half of my students used their persuasive essay assignments to write about river contamination, water purity, indigenous rights, and the threats posed to our health and safety by trash burning and open pit garbage dumps.  I think about the pride I saw in many students last year, when the first barrels of student made bio-diesel were emptied into our school bus fleet. 

    All hands fly skyward when Milton opens the floor for discussion.  "Plants reproduce through seeds, cuttings, and bulbs." offers one of the girls.  "When hotels and families burn their garbage and when the cheese factory dumps its grey water into the Monteverde river, causing problems for the people of Guacimal." says another boy when the second question is broached.  "Exactly." says Milton, "Not to mention the effects on local flora and fauna."  Fourteen heads bob in agreement.  They notice that it is 9:30 and time for snack/recess.  The students tell Milton that they'd rather stay a couple of extra minutes and finish the conversation.  Where else does that happen?

    After seeing pictures of the open dump in Puntarenas, the students decided to get involved in the fight to bring organized recycling back to Monteverde and to our school. 
In response to the erosion question, all were in agreement that deforestation is the main culprit, but one student raised his hand and said "The main cause of erosion is rain, and we're not going to try to stop that, are we?  I think that might be a bad idea."       
    Just before going outside to eat, I noticed one boy who'd not participated in the lesson (orally) and who seemed to be only doodling in his notebook.  I wandered over to take a look, and saw that he'd made an elaborate outline of a bare footprint, the borders filled in by pictures of taxis, a school bus, a bag of steaming garbage, a propane tank, a cow complete with excrement, a woman smoking a cigarette, and a small, teary eyed boy in the center, sitting cross legged and dreaming of a tall higueron tree.  To those who say we're not having an impact, I say "Look more closely and listen..."

Easy like Sunday Evening

"Hey, did you catch the game last night?" 

"No, I don't have a TV."

"So, what did you do then?"

"Well, I was going to cook some vegetable soup, but I noticed that a tiny semi-transparent tree frog was clinging to the bag of groceries I brought home.  I didn't even see it until I was unloading the broccoli. The frog jumped onto my hand and we passed some moments staring at each other.  I took some pictures of it and then put it on a leaf outside.  It seemed to give a little sigh of relief when it felt the leaf's cool exterior on it's feet and belly."

"Oh.  Hey, Brett Favre had two interceptions, but the Pack pulled it off on a long fumble return late in the third quarter."

"Sweet. It was then as I turned to head back inside, that I noticed the wolf spider on my umbrella.  It was dragging a bloated egg sack behind it, which was slowly cracking open.  I watched and waited, barely breathing, while about 200 baby spiders emerged and forayed off towards unknown porch corners.  The mother seemed exhausted, but satisfied with her role in giving the wheel another tiny rotation."




"I had spicy cheese dip and Brand name nacho chips."

"I bet that was really tasty, man."

"It was, oh it was..."

"Touchdown."

Yes, we have some bananas

A forest is a far cry from ocean.  The variations in flora, the rich layers of canopy and understory hiding mystery upon mystery within the silvery cup of bromeliads or behind down-turned leaves.  Yet I stare now at an ocean of trees, uniform, broken only by slight differences in altitude and maturity.  Tiny waves in a sea of green.   To say that this is an ocean is and injustice to oceans, for they certainly hold deep secrets.  The breadth of life within their waters leaves the human imagination coughing and spluttering in its wake, but to look at it from above, who would ever know? 
    I am neither above or within this ocean.  I am an observer, permitted only to watch and photograph, but not touch with hand or word, the complex ecosystem that is the Chiquita banana plantation in Siqiuerres, Costa Rica.  The eye greets nothing but banana trees.  They are planted into mounds, reminiscent of Native burial sites, with deep drainage trenches separating the tightly woven communities.  I catch myself wondering if they feud or play king of the mountain, but I know they care little for this, as they would hardly be wont to copy the games of their keepers. 
    The trees are weak, many tied upright.  The maze of ropes and blue bags covering the unripe bunches gives a circus like hue to the oceanic horizon.  The blue bags allow water (and spiders) to run freely among the fruits, but prevent the sun from ripening one half of the bunch before the other matures, as it would if left unabated.   If the bananas see yellow to early, the company sees less green. 
    The trees produce one bunch every six months, and the whole tree is cut when the bunch is ready to be picked.  The banana tree is really just a sprouting mass of leaves, flower and fruit that shoots up from an interconnected network of roots.  Cut one down, and it simply sends up another in its place.   It is more akin to cutting the arm off a sea star than chopping down a tree. 
The same square foot of soil can therefore be expected to produce a bunch containing up to one hundred forty bananas twice per year.  They are cultivated at different times to ensure a constant flow of fruit. 
    The crop dusters fly over the ocean once a month, spraying a mixture of phosphorous, pesticides and fungicides.  The workers are required to stay in their homes the whole day while the planes work their magic.  They are given a generous twelve hours notice before a spraying.  The spray must stay on the leaves and fruits for a whole day before it takes effect.  If it rains during that day, the trenches fill and all the hard work of the pilots is lost into the Caribbean.  They must try again, and hope for a break in the storms. 
    When flower falls from the bunch, they are hand picked and hung from a pulley zip line that carries them a la deep water current down the corridors over the trenches to the processing plant.  A row of men work with sharpened scrapers to divvy up the green bunch into sixes, sevens and eights.  The mini bunches are thrown into a water and chemical bath where the other chemicals are removed.  Study has found that water alone cannot remove the pesticides (she swallowed the spider to catch the fly...)
    The bananas are then sorted by a line of women (the gender separation here was yet another mystery of the deep - perhaps the Custeau society can get a grant to study this further).  Any fruits that are spotless and smooth are sent floating on for bagging and packing.  Any that are split, have spots, or other imperfections are thrown up to a conveyor belt and loaded onto a truck bound for the Gerber factory in the next town.  I guess babies don't care as much about esthetics. 
    The bananas float onward.  They are sprayed one final time, removed from the tanks, and packed tightly into plastic crates.  They are then bagged, boxed and loaded in giant plastic trays, ready for the semis that will take them to Limon, where they will board a boat, never once given the chance to glimpse the real ocean.  From there, they arrive in Louisiana or Galveston and are dispersed with far more efficiency than mother nature could have ever pre-planned.

 
    The workers work six ten-hour days per week, and make about 400 dollars per month (this is about average for unskilled labor in Costa Rica).  They live in factory provided bunk style housing (some who have seniority or large factories can apply to live in small houses separate from the bunks), keep bank accounts at the Chiquita run branch of the National Bank,  and are allowed 15 days of vacation per year.  They are on the Caja, meaning the company pays into the state run health care system, and are given regular check-ups for diseases caused by exposure to pesticides and fungicides.  From what I was able to gather, the situation at the Dole plantations is pretty much identical.  
   

The trenches remain a major environmental disaster (I was told directly NOT to photograph them, but I can tell you, they were an UGLY sight).  There is much pressure from environmental groups to control and purify chemical infused runoff, but it seems that Chiquita is not interested, surprisingly enough.  The only recourse seems to be legal, and with the Central American Free Trade Agreement Referendum pending (see next post), it does not look like anything is going to change in that area anytime soon.  So come, one and all, and enjoy the clear crystalline waters of the Northern Caribbean coast!  It will change your life!  And here, have a banana! 

Buy local and organic when you can, buy organic when you can't.    

Tearing the baby from my brain

It's done.  I finished my novel, Erosion.  I have to admit, no matter what future is in store for it, I'm proud.  Phew.  Now I can refocus on school and song-writing, and maybe even get some sleep somewhere in there....