Borderless Engineers

A couple weeks ago, the Pueblo Naso (literally the Naso Village, the indigenous community in which I work) received an international visit. Half a dozen team members from the Austin, Texas chapter of Engineers Without Borders came for the group`s second visit to the town of Sieykin to continue work on an aqueduct project. Not knowing whether I would be of much use, but wanting to learn more about their project and to see more of the Naso community, I requested permission to pay the group a visit.

I woke up nervous and hours too early the morning of the hike across the mountains from my community to Sieykin. With my ever-wonderful neighbor Jorge guiding and rain threatening, we departed at six a.m. and spent the next three hours sloshing, climbing, sliding, and chatting our way along gentle rivers and eventually up a mountain nick named pela diente,` tooth peeler`. Elda, a farmer with whom I work, explained that mid-climb up the steep tooth peeler, nose breathing gives way to all out panting which in affect reveals one`s pearly whites. Apparently Jorge and I kept too easy of a pace amidst our chatter and picnicking on boiled eggs so that my teeth didn`t honor the mountain`s legacy.

Once in Sieykin, I found my use pasear-ing: visiting folks in their houses, making small talk, and secretly hoping that they would offer some delicious food or drink. Of course the visiting`s purpose was to discuss the team`s project and to collect census and baseline health data, but my participation was mostly limited to small talk. I butchered the Naso language for their amusement, and expanded my knowledge of the tribe`s very intertwined family trees.

Meanwhile, the brave souls of the group went with community guides in search of an adequate water source. As the days of searching through the unforgiving muddy mountainous jungle terrain, this illusive water source soon became known as the “ojo de oro”, the spring of gold. The team collected and analyzed water sources and surveyed possible aqueduct routes and returned battle scarred, mud covered, and inexcusably happy at the end of the day. A great group with a well-executed project. I am looking forward to their next visit, implementation, in May or June 2010.

EWB Austin members making sense of their data

In search of the ojo de oro

Jorge atop pela diente

Feliciano Feliz

I recently have found myself in an unlikely game of courtship. My would-be suitor is Feliciano Feliz. His happy name owes to the fact that he has five girlfriends. Despite his polygymous behavior, Feliciano is pretty progressive. He is not racist. He has brown girlfriends, white girlfriends, and even spotted ones. And he is pretty open minded about what defines female attractiveness. He even has a bearded girlfriend. I have also discoved that Mr. Feliz is not much of a specie-ist either. He and his five girlfriends are goats. In recent visits, I have found myself the recipient of what I can only deduce as overt attempts to seduce me into joining his concubine.

Because the soil in my patio lacks fertility, I often visit Feliciano and his women folk to collect the droppings that fall from their evelated throne to use as fertilizer in my garden beds. I trudge up the hill to their palace in my boots with shovel and buckets in hand. Upon my arrival Señor Feliz comes down to greet me. He stalks, circles, and sniffs my wares. The stalking continues. When he is satisfied that his presence is known to me, he goes about spreading his royal mustiness. Feliciano rears to show his magnificent height. Then he settles his front hooves back on the earth and closes in. I pause from my manure shoveling and politely confront him with my shovel. He backs off a bit, and I take the opportunity to inhale. Assuming that I am just playing hard to get, Feliciano takes an alluring drink of his own urine. I finish filling my buckets and return down the hill with Feliciano trailing. I close the gate on Feliciano and continue down to my house. He calls after me with his best come hither grunts, apparently unwilling to admit defeat. He knows I will back.

Last weekend I stole time away from my farmers and their gardens, to go with some friends from Changuinola to go visit one of their friends in Costa Rica. I enjoyed the luxuries of cool mountain air, warm water, and private transportation. I traded in my one-utinsil-serves-all soup spoon philosophy for place settings which included two pieces of dessert silverware and enough food that required their useage. It was exciting.

coffee farm sidewalk

Costa Rican travel buddies and host Andrey

considering taking up residence under the very large leaves

at an ellusive valcano crater on a very foggy morning

a Costa Rican breakast with Mario and Denisse

my first bell pepper harvest... a sorry case for soil improvement

the garden of my ag promoter Jose with his family amidst the cucumbers

Cuko starring in a battle with a lizard