Juan Carlos

HOOOOEEE! Sometimes the path I'm on seems crystal clear, and well laid out. Yesterday the path was bumpy, and hot, but seeing as we were on bikes, bringing to the house a lot more food than we could've had we walked the long way to the store, that's ok. I was busy, relating to my sister, who loves the bicycle, riding with the wind in my hair (what little there is left), congratulating myself on such efficiency, when literally, Juan Carlos crossed our path.

Lindsay (yes, I've given up the cub names. if for no other reason that my audience is most likely people who know us), Juan Carlos and I came to a stop, greeted and I asked about the path to left, if it would take us closer to home than the one we were on. I didn't recognize Juan Carlos from our visit to Del Mar, but as we spoke, it became apparent that he recognized us so he stopped to chat.

Turns out, he's the art teacher at Del Mar (oh my). AND, he works at the Harmony Hotel, the hotel at the end of the path of which we spoke. "This is a good hotel" he says, grinning in the same manner that Raineer did when telling me about Cafe de Paris. Wow, these people really believe in job-security thru casual promotion of their place of employment! I teased him a little about this, and he told me that I shouldn't "worry, if a place I work is crap, I tell people don't go there, it's crap". Ha.

I ask if there's a garden. Yes! AND he will act as an interpreter (this is something I found a bit frustrating at La Guardinia Tropicale yesterday...our visit ended up being 5 minutes long. I'll do a little blog on that) between myself and the gardener. I explained that our intention is to establish a garden that would benefit the locals. Face lighting, Juan Carlos tells me about the place he's renting that has a lot of land. It's for sale, but the owner wants 600 000 for it and it's worth 200 000. He thinks it won't sell, and even if it does (uh oh) the new owners would surely love to have the garden on it. I know a lot of generous people, but I've also heard of a lot of Community gardens getting the boot because a new owner wants to build.

Very exciting, this. We're on week, what? 3, and there are locals interested. Well, I found out thru Javier that Juan Carlos is Mexican, but don't know that this makes a lot of difference. He wants do good things. I'm not convinced that the land he's renting is the best idea, both because of the risk of it selling, but also because of the proximity. Certainly, it's located close to where we are now, but not to where the majority of the families live that work down here, close to the beach and tourist place.

Someone I met this morning who's staying at the Harmony, who is from New York, said she thought that Harmony might actually have space to donate. Either way, the interest to get something started here has been established. step one, check.

The other cool thing about Juan Carlos is the art part. He's involved in Nosara Art, an has married the surf culture with local art. The last show he had was for a fellow who's a surf board expert (art, waxing...don't laugh, I don't know what you have to do with a surf board to make them ready to go!). He had 6 boards showing.

Also, Juan Carlos is an art teacher for La Esualita, a program that provides local children, who's parents are working in the tourism industry during this, their summer holiday, to have a day program. The kids are learning photography. I read in the paper that the program was looking for donations to help them buy cameras. 150 kids!

I have a little more talking with Juan Carlos to do!