May 30, 2014

Our house is about 6 weeks from completion. Plastering should be completed next week and painting started. Our builder prefers to plaster the inside drywall and put a special paint on to combat the mold and humidity from living in the tropics. He uses a greenboard where ever moisture is present, like in bathrooms and outside where water will splash up on the house, he uses cement board. Everything gets plastered over. Even our basement block has plaster, much more than we expected.

This is a sloth near our house, it was in a tree between the rental house and our new house. A worker told us that he has seen sloths here in Serenity about 6 times so far. But spotting sloths is very hard since they don't move very fast and blend in with nature. John would have missed it had it not been pointed out to him. He rushed home to get me and we got pictures. (Still no sloth crossing the road though.)

At a party someone brought Ceviche de Banano (green banana ceviche). Most common is ceviche made with fish. But this was a vegan ceviche and it was very tasty. So I asked Aldemar to find out who made it and could I get the recipe. He brought his sister Cecelia over and she taught me how to make Ceviche de Banano. This is a picture of us working in the kitchen. Aldemar stayed to translate and then I helped his niece with her English homework. It turned out to be a very interesting Sunday afternoon.

 

 

We mostly eat outside and have found it helpful to cook some things outside on the porch.  Here I am making pancakes on a Sunday morning.  At our new house we will have a kitchenette on our veranda so cooking out there will be easy.

Two weeks ago when we went to San Isidro many of the roads were closed in preparation for a parade celebrating Saint Isidore, patron saint of farmers. While at the bank sirens were blaring with a fire truck leading the procession right by the bank. Painted ox carts being pulled by decorated Brahma bulls were common along with horses, carriages, children with carts filled with produce, floats of agriculture displays, everyone dressed in traditional colorful clothing and more. This is a picture of one of ox carts and bulls. Costa Ricans love their parades, celebrations and holidays.

And finally but not least, as we were driving through a mountain neighborhood a pair of Scarlet Macaws came swooping down to our car and circling it. It was an amazing site. Normally we only see them high in the sky flying in pairs like 2 stunt planes, swooping, spiraling and making quite a spectacle; and sometimes in trees. The colors right in front of our windshield were vivid and the birds huge!! We got out of the car and a lady from nearby house came out to try to talk to us about the birds. Unfortunately she only spoke Spanish and our Spanish is very limited. It seems that she feeds them because one landed on a frame crossing her sidewalk to her front door. It allowed us to get near and take many pictures. As this one hammed it up for the camera the other stayed nearby calling from a tree along with many toucans flying back and forth. I've got to get back to this lady and find out how she attracts both macaws and toucans; somehow finding a way to converse with her. Oh how I wish we knew more Spanish! We are trying but our old brains keep forgetting all that they try to teach us!