Bridges & More: The Last Newsletter

Although not published until today, the following newsletter was begun in September.

Bridges & More Newsletter # 16 September 25, 2009

My usual plastic chair on the side stoop of the casita has been vacant for over two weeks now. Here in the U.S. the mornings are getting chilly and the light has taken on a golden cast. It’s hard here to remember the water-saturated heat of Costa Rica’s overcast wet-season days.

In San Josecito this year’s rains bring a lot less hardship: yes, I’m talking about bridges! Three new bridges have been built in one short year: the Isidro Nunez Bridge and the Puente Santa Lucia are complete, and the main public bridge across the road that runs from San Josecito to San Isidro is almost done.

Isidro Nunez and his family have dreamed of a bridge for many years. The engineering challenges and the length of the bridge made it prohibitively expensive, and the family’s devotion to traditional farming methods yielded nothing in the way of extra cash. Isidro’s stormy face was witness to his growing agitation as he and Ester grew older, less able to navigate the steep, muddy roads and tattered precarious foot bridge they’d relied on for twenty-three years. Three of their daughters and two of their sons hiked the distance daily to get to school and jobs, but dona Ester grew increasingly isolated in their tiny farmhouse, daily cooking and tending to her flowers.

Danilo Nunez spoke to me once of his feelings of helplessness as he walked his mother down the road across the flimsy hammock bridge, and witnessed the pain in her face and the frequent stops she had to make to recover her composure. First the possibility, then concrete plans for the bridge began to unfold. Bridges & More donated the first $7000, and then found someone who would provide a loan for the rest. Danilo was there at every step of the process. He worked each day with the engineer and his crew as the bridge began to take shape. His brother Geovany and father Isidro also worked when they could.

When I arrived in mid August, the bridge was almost finished: it still lacked the side-guards, because costs had exceeded expectations and they were unable to finish. But the bridge is a reality, and though I found it a little scary to cross it (it’s way high up over the rushing river, very narrow, and the panels move under the wheels of your car!) I can attest that IT WORKS!

A story from Ademar (Enrique) Nunez illustrates dire need for a main road bridge: Ademar’s wife Marion, mother of three, was taken very ill with cholecystitis. The rains had begun and were falling hard as the family maneuvered her down to the river. The crossing required three Nunez brothers: Luis carried Marion, holding her above the rushing waters. The other two held onto Luis to keep him from being washed away. They made it across, but they might not have!

October 7, 2009

Well, I’m back from whatever it was I was doing while I wasn’t finishing this letter. I suppose, after the success of the bridges, the next most pressing thing to report is that this is the final newsletter for Bridges & More. The board met on September 23, and we all agreed that the purposes for which the organization had been formed have been met. I’m not a publicity/fundraiser type of person, and this aspect of operations has always been agonizing to me. Furthermore, the administrative tasks involved in running a non-profit are time consuming, and I worry that I’m not doing them correctly. We’ve never been in a position to hire professionals—accountants, lawyers, etc. I only just discovered in the process of dissolving the corporation that the reports I’ve been filing every year to the state are not sufficient, and that I was supposed to have registered and filed far more detailed yearly reports to the state attorney general’s office. So to dissolve the corporation I had first to register it, file four years worth of reports, and then file an additional petition for dissolution. It involved a lot of internet research, phone calls, wasted paper, and pulling my hair out!

Now, the reason we formed in the first place: San Josecito is changing, growing, flourishing. The church is nearly finished, and is now being used for mass and liturgies. Although Bridges & More never did succeed in getting the Costa Rican equivalent of non-profit status for the community group Puentes y Mas, we paid the legal fees for the formation of another non-profit, the San Josecito Development Association. We provided the opportunity for various residents to try their hands at small business ventures, and though none of them really panned out, I think it was a valuable experience for those who participated, and gave them a new sense of possibility for what might be undertaken in the future. I think in some ways we helped unite the community to work together on common problems, and to value the precious natural resources that bless the valley we live in. I’m hoping this awareness informs future decisions as the challenges of further development continue.

As to the individual stories I’ve reported over the years: Milena Nunez graduated from high school and is working in a restaurant in Dominical. Her hopes to study art at a university level continue to be just that: hopes. I hope with her. Marion (who got carried across the river) nearly died in surgery on her gallbladder, and the doctors had to work for three hours to restore her. The operation wasn’t completed, so she returned a week later to try again, and this time the operation was successful. She’s fine now. Little Pamela Duarte made a miraculous recovery after the doctors had given her up for dead: the nurses encouraged Ronny and Beatriz, who went to the doctors and asked for one final procedure that had not been tried. It worked. This tiny being struggled so hard for her life, we all look forward to seeing how she lives it, and what it is she wants so badly to get done here! Look for a photo of her below. At risk of political commentary, I must stress that either she would have died or her family would have been bankrupted under our own system of health care.

Finally, I want to thank all of you who have encouraged me and contributed to the efforts of the past four years. I am very grateful: for your help, for the experience, and for the richness of community I’ve experienced as a result of our efforts.. Best wishes always to all---

Elizabeth

Pamelita de los Angeles Duarte Picado

All Three Bridges in One Year!

Bridges & More has contributed extensively to the Isidro Nunez Bridge, and more modestly to the Puente Santa Lucia. The Nunez brothers were the driving force behind the Puente Santa Lucia: below Ademar stands on the edge looking happy!

Building the Isidro Nunez Bridge

Below, plucky Milena can't wait for the panels.

Isidro watches as Danilo begins

the first crossing.

It looks even narrower

when you're driving it.

Below: The church is almost complete, and is now being used for masses and liturgies,and
the bridge on the Main road of San Josecito, was almost finished when I left there in early August.

A Quick Update from Stateside

Hi all,
Just talked to friends in Costa Rica, and here's the latest:

The Isidro Nunez Bridge is almost finished.

The Municipality has finally started building the bridge for the main road passage over the Morete (I really started to think it would never happen!), and in so doing has provided work for at least one San Josecito neighbor, Ademar (or Enrique) Nunez.

Pamela is still hospitalized, but is making good progress. She had the operation to re-unite her intestine last week and did just fine, continues to improve.

Last, but not least, my friend Hector asked me to tell everyone about the property that his family has decided to put on the market. This is 3 hectares (about 7.5 acres) 1 hour south of San Jose. It is a cooler climate than our steamy San Josecito, with mountain views, a river running on one border, lots of fruit trees and coffee plants, two springs, three natural pools, a main house and a cabin/restaurant, and a lake with tilapia. I've been to the area and it's lovely! If I weren't so darned land poor right now I'd buy it myself! They're asking $170,000.

Also worth mentioning, Isidro Nunez needs to sell a lot or a small "farm" area in San Josecito to pay off the bridge loan.

Please contact me if either possibility interests you!

I'm going back to CR in August and will get some pictures of the land to post.
Till then, happy summer,
Elizabeth

Costa Rican Insects

I'm home again, having fun editing pictures. Insects in Costa Rica are amazing. Below find:
1: Mantis
2: Bee on Orchid
3: Damsel Fly
4. Carbunco

New Babies--an update on Pamela and Colmillo

5/20/09 A Quick Update on the Last Newsletter

This is primarily for those of you who sent prayers or good energy to little Pamela de Los Angeles Duarte Picado: since the day of the last letter (5/12) Pamelita has made a complete turn-around. She went through two more operations, the final one lasting 5 hours. The doctors said nothing more could be done for her. Now intestines which appeared to be dead are healthy again. She recently was removed from the oxygen supports, so Beatriz can be with her all the time now. And in a couple days she will taste mother’s milk for the first time. The doctors are calling it a miracle. Ronny and I talked today. He says the family is ecstatic and very grateful, and asked me to thank everyone who prayed in whatever manner, and in particular to thank Robin and Catherine for their kind email.

I have no photos of little Pamela to put on the blog, but a week ago another baby was rescued from the road here in San Josecito: a 2-day-old zaino, or collared peccary. Alvin Nunez and I were on our way to Cortez to take care of some business, and when he saw the baby Alvin yelled for me to stop, and proceeded to chase the little thing. He asked me if I had a towel, because even the littlest baby peccaries are ferocious and have razor-like teethe. He threw the towel over it and we took it back to my house. Since then Alvin has taken it to his house and has been trying to get it to bottle-feed, but it doesn’t want the bottle. It will suck at mangoes, and now has begun to eat bananas, but for this baby too survival was pretty iffy. I bought it some vitamins and specially formulated milk yesterday in San Isidro. When it’s out of its cage now it follows Alvin as though he were its mother. I wanted to call it Dulcinera after the character in “Man from LaMancha,” but they’ve been calling it Colmillo, which means “tusk,” and it already answers to this name. I’ll try to get Colmillo’s photos on the blog soon: (http://bridgesnmore.blogspot.com/).

The date for my departure is arriving quickly. I hope to get at least a small taste of spring, which is all we get on Cape Cod in any case.
Pura Vida,
Elizabeth

Now May 21--last night Beatriz and Pamela were featured in a sort of miracle story on Channel 13!

Bridges & More Newsletter # 15

Here's Sadie. Below Bravo stares malevolently from the overhead kitchen beam.

Matilda Warthog (below) has found a place in my heart, while El Bandito (right) is calling on me to expand my horizons.

May 12, 2009

Hello from San Josecito de Uvita. The rains have started, the river is again robust, but the heat is still intense. The humidity is such that, even when the sun is out, I wonder how the air can hold it. I’m trying to keep sweat off the computer as I write.

First: a retraction: I called the noisy guaco a collared forest falcon. They look similar, but they’re different: the guaco is the laughing falcon.

Since I last wrote construction has begun on two bridges: both privately initiated. The Guillermo Nunez family has to negotiate two branches of the river to get to their home. The second branch, the one that’s not on the main road, is finally getting a bridge that will accommodate small cars. It’s a family initiative, and the work of Luis Nunez, who is a talented welder, has made the project possible. Bridges & More contributed $700 to this bridge.

The bridge to the Isidro Nunez farm has to span a much wider and deeper canyon, so has required professional engineers and a lot more funding. It too is progressing nicely. Bridges & More contributed $7000 to the I. Nunez Bridge. The reason for the large discrepancy in the amounts was that I heard nothing about the intentions to build the G. Nunez bridge until after we’d already given away almost all our money to the I. Nunez project. I’ve got photos of both bridges and I’ll post them on the blog.

Meanwhile the bridge that the municipality was supposed to have finished before the rainy season is in limbo because the Emergency Commission has undergone an emergency purging after the extent of its corruption was revealed. So, it’s the same old story the citizens have been getting for years: the funds are there, everything is ready to begin your bridge, but we wait only for (fill-in-the-blank) to be (approved-cleared up-attended to-WHATEVER!).

Here on the road things are changing. Property further down from where I live, near the school, has been chopped into little lots and much building is going on. The road, which underwent great improvements last year with installation of culverts and reinforcements to get rid of the necessity to drive through lots of creeks, is now suffering from lack of funds and is in danger of collapsing at one of the culvert sites where the money ran out before the project was finished, and is almost impassible during heavy rains at other sites. I feel like I’ve done what I can, and from now on will smile and give my money each year, and let others worry about it. I still have Matilda Warthog, who can get through just about anything!

After a very difficult pregnancy Beatiz Picado (and Ronny Duarte) gave birth by C-section to Pamela de los Angeles Duarte Picado at 7 months. Since Pamela’s birth complications have arisen and she has been operated on four times in the last two weeks. Today, after the doctors said she had no chance, she rallied, and they are going to operate again. Those of you who pray, please keep her in your prayers. And those who don’t please send light and good thoughts to all the family (Beatriz, Ronny, Fabiola, Samanta, and Pamela) who have been through great worry and displacement due to B’s need to be always near a hospital. I recently found their little dog wandering skinny and homeless, full of torcelos (larvae from Bot Flies that hatch in the flesh and devour it). He’s at the vet until his infections clear up, and I’ll bring him back to my house to stay at least until I leave at the end of May.

Speaking of dogs, my ferocious cat Bravo has had to adjust to a rambunctious puppy who arrived one night badly in need of food, affection, and a flea bath. She has stayed, been spayed, named (Sadie), and drives me crazy on a daily basis by being underfoot, jumping up, gnawing on everything, and just generally being a puppy. She appears to be half hound, half German Shepherd, and is very sweet natured. Alvin Nunez, my full-time worker, will watch her when I am not here. Who will watch Bravo is more of a problem, as Ticos all seem to be either allergic to or not fond of cats. You don’t see many around, and I think they’re mostly killed by dogs, owls, or larger cats such as ocelots and pumas. Anyway, Bravo has survived thanks to his fierce nature (Sadie though young already possesses a myriad of scars on her snout!), and is also rather sweet in his own grumpy way. Find Sadie and Bravo on the blog as well.

My car problems are at least temporarily solved: today I have two clean functioning cars in the garage that Alvin just expanded. I am knocking on wood as I write this, but the problematic Geo Tracker I bought has been traded back to the dealership for a smart little two-door bright red Tracker. It needed brakes, tires and a new timing belt, but hey, it’s got personality. I’ll put pictures of Matilda Warthog and the new guy (El Bandito) on the blog too.

Our most recent activity should have happened last week: a workshop for parents about the benefits of reading to their kids. We had a professor/author lined up months in advance and he seemed keen on doing it. Then I got an email cancelling his attendance. In spite of this, a small children’s library has been started at the school and the children are checking out books to take home at night for their parents to read to them.

San Josecito had a large crop of visitors from Cape Cod recently. Tom Fettig and Kristin Knowles have their house here, and they visited with their two recently adopted children Jack and Sasha, and also brought along my friends Karyn Morris and Ken Horton. Additionally Stefanie Matfield from the Cape also visited for a week. The pristine river behind my house was a big hit. Ken has promised to return and help me work on Matilda Warthog (I was going to sell her, but we’ve had a reconciliation and we’re both working on our issues), and Karyn has offered to do one fundraiser a year for Bridges & More.

I should mention that Karyn’s offer came in the wake of my telling her that I felt Bridges & More has accomplished a lot of what it set out to do, and that I am tired and thinking about dissolving the non-profit. It’s too much for me to try to do the field work here and the corporate and fund-raising work at home. I’m getting old enough to be confused at any rate, and having business and commitments in two countries is impossibly complicated. So Karyn’s offer is much appreciated, but I’m still not decided on just what I’ll do.

Best wishes to all for a lovely spring,

Pura Vida,
Elizabeth

Those Bridges are Finally Getting Built!

The larger of the two projects, the Isidro Nunez Bridge, is scheduled to be finished by the time the rains really get going. Isidro and family had almost given up on staying on their farm, so the bridge comes just in time.
At right, engineer Guillermo Zuniga; Below two shots from two consecutive weeks.

Below, the Guillermo Nunez Bridge, the smaller of the two current projects.

Estiben Nunez will attend school more regularly with the construction of this bridge
and the one the municipality has promised.

Newsletter # 14 January 2009

At a small party: divng for sweets from the Pinata

With great help from the Roots and Shoots club at the Lighthouse Charter School and from friends of all stripes we had a truly enjoyable fundraising evening last November, with homemade tortillas and taco fixings, and games for children, a viewing of the movie from Cavu, Nuestras Aguas, Nuestra Vida, which features some of the folks here in San Josecito that I write about regularly. Attendance was a little low, and we made more tacos and fun than we made money, but I’m happy with the results. The children played so well together, and there was so little arguing and whining, that I was reminded of the Tico family gatherings!

I’d meant to write long before now—it’s well over a month since I arrived on 10 December. The weather has changed from comfortably cool, sometimes rainy, sometimes sunny to hot dry summer; then with the earthquake two weeks ago it changed again to hot, overcast, and sometimes rainy. Everyone awaits the “puro verano” (or pure summer) with its clean blue skies and hot beach weather, some with anticipation for the picnics and swimming, others because their beans are ready to harvest and they need clear weather to lay them out in the sun to dry. Well, the cicadas seem to think it’s summer, shrilling so powerfully and insistently that it’s hard to make oneself heard above them; and Luis Nunez said the army of ants that arrived yesterday morning to march for hours through and around my house herald true summer. But this morning the guaco (collared forest falcon) announced loudly and insistently that rain is coming. It’s hard to know who to believe here in Costa Rica.

With room for family variations, Christmas was celebrated by all with days of feasting, visiting, fireworks, karaoke, gift exchanges, and dancing. Presents are exchanged on Christmas Eve, after an afternoon of hanging around talking, playing games, and cooking. The meal having been eaten, everyone gathers in one place, and one of the family elders addresses the crowd (yes, families here are crowds!) with welcome, with gratitude for another year together, with special welcome for visitors (such as dona Eliza), and finally with a formal prayer, sometimes quite lengthy. Then family members take turns distributing presents, and the recipient is subjected to chants of, “Abrelo, abrelo, abrelo,” (open it) while he or she does just that. The gift then has to be held high for everyone to see amidst whistles and cheers, or in the case of underwear or negligees, whistles and catcalls. It makes for a long night, especially when the fireworks, karaoke and dancing get going and the guaro (distilled sugar cane juice) starts flowing. I usually make my excuses sometime around 9 pm, get in Matilda Warthog, my old landcruiser, and head for the upper reaches of the village where my little house stands quiet and all alone above the river. But the celebrations don’t end there: they just keep going until January 1st is history and whatever weekend comes next has passed. Then, finally, it’s back to business as usual.

This year I was asked to attend a number of birthday celebrations, as well as the first communion Fabiola Duarte and Demaris Nunez. What seemed to me like a very long church ritual in the morning was followed by a birthday party for Fabiola’s little sister Samanta (turned 5) in the afternoon. Birthdays parties last forever here, with hours of games for the children, small snacks of chips & beans, Jello, sausage slices, “frescos,” etc. brought out and passed around at intervals. When finally the pinata is introduced, you know that presents, ice cream and cake will follow within the next couple of hours! The kids take turns with the stick, and a fair amount of whacking usually has to take place before the tough paper mache donkey (or Dora, or Spongebob Squarepants,or…) breaks open to drop the candies and peanuts that everyone (including grandmas) makes a dive for, children piling on one another to get to the sweets, confetti sparkling in their hair. The photo above is of a very small group--it gets wilder the more people there are!

Since the arrival of the 2009 I’ve been mostly trying to keep my head above water with personal business. My dear Matilda Warthog has once again spent two weeks in the shop and had her transmission replaced for the second time since I bought her 4 years ago. Much as I love her, she now sports a “Se Vende” sign in her rear window, and I recently went up to San Jose to buy a newer car—this time a ’96 Geo Tracker 4-wheel-drive. It’s a lot easier to drive and I love the air conditioning, power steering, and softer ride (Matilda drives like a tank). But it feels a little as though an era ia coming to an end.

I’m sitting out on my side porch enjoying the first day I’ve had at home in weeks. The forest falcon has begun calling loudly again, a soprano “Gua-co, Gua-co, Gua-co,” and a nearby toucan competes with equal racket, “Tweetle-EET-de-DEET-de-DEET.” Cicadas shrill, the river noise below is constant. The cat sleeps on the green table Milena painted with butterflies and heliconias. A blue morphos butterfly lands nearby, its huge, slowly moving iridescent wings flashing now violet, now lapis lazuli in the bright sun. A tanager flashes red, a flycatcher yellow. I am endlessly amazed and entertained by nature at such close quarters. The people who live here take it for granted, don’t even look up when the roaring howler monkeys compete for attention in a nearby tree. Some seem to think the river with its rich supply of shrimp and fish is impervious to abuse, and we have already had two instances of river-poisoning this year. I was bathing in the river January 2 when I found a single dead shrimp. That night Alvin showed up practically in tears with a whole bucketful of dead shrimp, and my skin began to itch. It itched for two weeks. Someone had a good meal of shrimp, and kilometers of river now start all over again with just a few tiny brave survivors that have come down from the streams to repopulate.

On a happier note, I was able to get a loan to offer to don Isidro Nunez to build the bridge his family needs to be able to remain in San Josecito. When I initially told him I had the money to lend him and he could begin the procedures to start the bridge, he went silent and looked very serious. When he finally spoke it was to say, “I’m frightened!” He could not seem to believe that something this good could happen after so many years of struggle and disappointment. But the next time I saw him the fear had given way to smiles, and the sight of the usually surly don Isidro smiling is something to behold! Bridges & More is donating $7000 to the bridge, and the remainder will be built with the loan, which will be paid back when don Isidro is able to sell a lot on his property.

Crossing the River to the Isidro Nunez farm in

is not too hard in the dry season

Stunts on the Current Nunez bridge

Additionally, it appears that the other bridge—the one on the public road where it meets the river—is going to go forward, paid for and built by the municipality. I’m a little like don Isidro here, afraid to believe it until I actually see the heavy equipment and cables being hauled in! But it looks promising. And new neighbors from the north continue to build houses here in San Josecito. Everything is changing, the road gets busier, we have more visitors to the river, and down below Uvita (a one-corner two-cow town when I arrived four years ago) is mushrooming into the commercial center of the south Pacific. I hate going down there now—it’s loud and the traffic is scary because the big Costanera highway continues to roar through it as though this section were not filled with turning cars, stray dogs, children, pedestrians, and campesinos on horseback.

I’m looking at the possibility of setting up a system of walkie-talkie communication from along the road to help with the river vigilance. Folks here are angry about the poisoning and eager to catch the perpetrators in the act—it will require two witnesses to the act itself to make a case against anyone.

January is vacation month for the school children. When they start back I’m hoping I’ll have time to help get a read-aloud program started, along with a small library of children’s literature and a workshop for parents on the benefits of reading to their children. Meanwhile a two-day festival is being planned to raise money to finish the church, and to pay off debts from the phenomenal work that was done on the road to eliminate the creeks we were daily driving through before last winter. A whole lot of structural work was done, with materials largely supplied by the municipality and labor supplied and paid for by the village. The road surface is already in need of more work after the winter rains, but we can’t really start that until we pay off the debts we owe. If everyone would give it wouldn’t be too expensive for anyone, but as always there are those who want to own a piece of paradise without having to give anything in return!

Of the loans we’ve given, there have been mixed results: Guiselle’s chickens are producing eggs that I buy every week, but she has lost a lot of hens to the tayra, or talamunco, a large black creature from the weasel family. I’d thought the hens were going to be enclosed—that was the plan—but Alvin said something about their being too fat to all fit in the enclosure. I should get up there to take a look at it, but like I said, I’ve been pretty busy. Beatriz has not gotten back to her huerta since the hurricane damage the winter before last because she and Ronny have been too busy trying to raise money for the church, and because her pregnancy with their third child is complicated and requires no strenuous activity. Alvin’s investment in a calf to raise was followed by a huge drop in the cost of cows, so he’s waiting for the price of beef to go up again.

Well, this is getting long and you must be getting bored. I’ll put a few more pictures on the site ( http://bridgesnmore.blogspot.com/ ). There are lots of things I’d like to add, so maybe I should plan to do more blog postings so there’s not so much to say all at one time! For now though, I’m off to wash Matilda Warthog and adjust her idle down a bit. Following that, I’ve promised myself a dip in the river—it’s a great day to sun on the rocks.

Pura Vida!
Elizabeth