Mission assessment

"Are you going back?" is the question on many people's lips, now that we're back and looking back at the accomplishments and setbacks of our journey. I know I have a fairly clear picture of what I'd like to do, and what I will be setting in motion in the following months, but feel it necessary to take stock, to reconfirm some of the original vision, and establish a broader sense of what can and cannot be done.

The goal I'd set out for myself at the beginning of this trip was to find a way to do some community gardening in Costa Rica. During the planning stage, I found that there were many hitches in communicating with the people in Costa Rica. That those people I talked with didn't know me from Adam, and that that, at least for the first trip, we wouldn't be able to do much in the way of hands-on work.

Then, I found Del Mar Academy. With a concrete plan to work with real people on real land, I was excited to formulate a plan. There were many things to think about, soil building, a seed source, a water source and containment method, money to tackle whatever building needed to be done (finding out while down there, exactly what building does need to be done), organizing of people and what they would like to focus on in terms of growing arrangements. Because they are a fairly well-off private school, my concern was that we would be refocusing in the wrong direction. Del Mar is an environmental school, so their understanding of the needs for such a project is there. They also had plans to have a children's garden anyway. So the plan was to build a pilot project (the land and people being a good running start) for the people of Nosara to use as a model for other gardens that we would later build when I found land and interested parties.

Finding a large source of funding became important. Then, just before leaving, it became apparent that it wasn't going to happen, at least until I went down and assessed the culture, found an actual garden site and method of making it happen. (This is not to discount all of the generous donations that we obtained. Some of that has been put to use, and some will when things get up and running.)

The questionable decision I made to house ourselves in a not-luxury-not-very-basic house, came after some thought about sharing the experience and space with my friends and family (whoever would like to join us). Of course, the people who did come helped tremendously, but the fact of the matter is, the calendar did not fill, hence housing was a bigger expense than I'd hoped for.

It took us a full week to get our bearings, the culture being different, our jet-lag and temperature change (-30 to 35 C! A 65 degree Celcius difference!) even more so. Banking, food and keeping cool were the 3 most important things and they took all the energy that we had. Getting around was a bit of a shock. The bicycle rentals were far more costly than I'd budgeted for (budget-$40/week/bike. Actual $10/day/bike), walking anywhere took great amounts of time, and taking a cab was far too costly (to downtown Nosara it cost $20) Internet costs went up 8X since I sourced the cost. Eventually, we became friends with the source of our internet and found he was willing to give us a deal, at only 4X the budgeted amount. Food, both in restaurants and at the grocery store was tremendously expensive. I'd found sites on the internet who'd said otherwise, so our budget there was maxed.

All of these things sound fairly negative, but bear with me, the good stuff will come.

When we did get it together enough to call Del Mar, we found that they were in a state of emergency. The owner who I'd been in contact with is pregnant, the dump, only a short distance from both her house and the school was on fire and the smoke was effecting her family. They decided to leave Nosara and take refuge in San Jose. We could still meet with the principal the following week if they hadn't decided to shut the school.

We had our first long distance bike trip, taking the beach instead of the dusty road. The trip was grueling for all. It took 2 hours instead of 1. Hot and tired, we had a good meeting with the gardener and principal. The site looked good, the gardener was on the same page and excited for the project.

I started my research by going to local gardens, taken by the manager of the house rental office, Javier (would become a good friend). Dona Anna's (a Tica) was the first garden to see. The roofing was of particular interest to me, as it soon became apparent that this would be one of the larger costs to building a garden. Her watering system is good too. It needs a pump, tho, because the water has to be pumped up the hill, then the gravity used to disperse it to the two greenhouses. Her current one either doesn't work, or doesn't work well. she also needs hands on help, her workers come and go, leaving her to cope with a large garden by herself. Apparently, this is typical. There are interested foreigners, but they are not consistent.

The next garden tour was of Sheri's. Sheri is an ex pat from Hawaii. Her garden is lovely, and well cared for. Also contained under 2 roofs (called greenhouses, but not our idea of a conventional greenhouse). The challenges, Sheri tells me, of gardening in Nosara are 1) the altitude, 2) the heat, 3) the intensity of the rains, when they come; they will literally wipe out a garden, 4) insects; she'd had enough of these attacking her crops that she was unable to sell as she did the prior year, making it a totally non-viable source of income. We spoke of many different avenues she could attempt, including a charging for a tour to her garden and the falls, and a little meal as we had done, It was a very beautiful trip. Of course, practicalities can get in the way. Her close friend, Robin, who we also became friends with, set this meeting up and very desperately wished for her friend to succeed. I'm still working on how I can help her.

The house rental is in the middle of what is now known as "Projecto Americano" (a change made during our stay there, on the Nosara map) became apparent during this and a couple of other trips up to Nosara Proper. Projecto Americano is a fairly tourist oriented area, catering to the Yoga Institute's students, who spend a month at a time learning to become teachers, and the surfing industry. Nosara Proper houses locals, predominantly, many of whom take buses, motor bikes and bicycles down to Projecto Americano to work in the tourist trade. For a while, I wished that we had found a place up in Nosara Proper, but know that there was little communication about the where abouts of everything, not for the lack of my trying. Now, because I was able to gather so much information and learn about the mixed american-Costa Rican culture, I am glad we were where we were.

At about week 3, I learned of the Harmony Hotel, which is just down the road from where we stayed. The Harmony is working on obtaining their 5 leaf program. This is like the 5 star program where hotels can be rated by an outside source, only instead of being rated for their luxuriousness, the 5 star program rates hotels for their environmental sustainability. I had 3 tours with various staff members, all of whom explained different aspects of the hotel's environmental conscientiousness. One gave me a quick tour, showing me their food garden, where they hope to raise awareness, as well as subsidize their restaurant's food needs, and then their grounds, which are in need of an overhaul to replace the original owner's selection of non-indigenous plantings. During this tour (dubbed the sustainability tour, that can be taken at 8 am every morning), I was also shown the potting shed, where the internal workings of the gardening are performed. There was a huge worm bed, made of concrete. It stands 3' tall, about 15' long and 4' wide. The worms are shaded by shade cloth, named "saran" in Spanish; we know it as green shade cloth. This cloth is peeled back to reveal about 8" of beautiful, black soil, produced by millions of red wiggler worms. Instead of using newspaper for bedding (a place for the worms to hide when they are not eating, away from food), they bury the garden's waste greens and the restaurant's scraps in strips, leaving a strip beside each food strip bear. The hotel has a chipper to chip thicker garden material to compost in a pile, and also another pile to accept anything acidic, like citrus peel, which the worms don't like.

The second tour was lead by the gardener, Don Constantino (Tino, for short). At this point, I spoke little Spanish, and Don Tino had no English. I was able to present my questions throughout his tour in a way that he understood tho. This communication was of extreme interest to me, as it was gardener to gardener. I learned much about what can be grown, how they are tackling challenges as they come, and received confirmation that soil building was of extreme importance here. I'd noted that the ground is very compacted, and has a predominantly clay base, something that is difficult to ammend. It's often recommended that if one has clay soil, the whole mess should be taken out and replaced with good, well balanced soil, comprised of silt, sand, hummus and clay.

The third tour was with the manager of Harmony. A woman! This progressive thinking in an otherwise machismo country (not entirely, as they have been changing rapidly over the past 30 years with the influx of Gringo influence) impressed me. Angie told me of Harmony's many attempts to make itself available to outside sources as a teaching facility, as well as building the best system for such a business to be sustainable. I hope to reconnect with all 3 of these people. They are very dedicated to their cause and may very well be a great source of information for growing tropical food.

The one month mark brought huge amount of frustration in that the hands-on portion of our trip was pulled out from under me. I'd spent considerable time trying to arrange meetings, finding ways that gardening would work for Del Mar's particular set of circumstances. The meetings produced interest from a select few from the environmental committee at the school. Understandably, the parents of the school are taxed, time-wise, just as all parents are, so it wasn't a huge surprise that altho these few were very engaged, they weren't able to do it all. They put out a message to all parents (frankly, I thought this should have been done prior to their agreeing to the project) asking about interest. They received back a big NADA. I gathered myself together, told them that I'd be glad to help them with resources for their children's garden, which they still plan to put in, but I would be refocusing my attention toward my original goal, community gardening. The few that had attempted to make the project work were very apologetic, and asked if I'd 1) do a soil test on the garden site, and 2) advise the homeowners of a few of the school owners, that live in a gated community with a communal space, about how to approach the usage of that space. I was glad to have done that much.

The kids and I ventured over to "the other side", which is on the other side of a point to the East of where we stayed. There was to be a large group of children, attending a summer program called Escualita (meaning little school) cared for by a group of volunteers. We had loads of fun, and in the end, gained a good contact; Saskia, who is interested in taking part in a community garden. She is responsible for getting the Escualita going, and so is a promising connection.

It was right around the 4th week that I met Don Carlos, a 70+ man of great personality. After hearing of his extensive experience of gardening, architectural design and art, I felt it most appropriate to assign the "Don" in front of his name; a sign of respect. Don Carlos' English is fairly good, but it took a little convincing to express that my project was not for profit, He told me that I was to be careful, that people of Costa Rica are jealous, and will steal the idea. I explained that this would mean success to the project, at which point I think I won his friendship. A spiritual man, he'd spent many years working for the government, building children's parks, beautiful spaces and housing for the poor with gardens. He's now the head gardener for the Cafe de Paris, where my family and I spent time using the internet for the duration of our stay (another reason why it was good to be in the area we were, up in Nosara Proper, the access to internet is sparce). Don Carlos spent much time mulling over the challenges I face, and during his off hours, would talk with me about different approaches. It's because of these talks that I have a fairly clear picture of what will work and what won't.

Throughout my time there, I regularly bumped into a young fellow, by the name of Juan Carlos. An artist in photography, teacher at Del Mar Academy. He is a Mexican fellow, that is very community oriented. One of his projects is that he's put together an Art society and holds shows regularly for local talent. Juan Carlos took interest in the garden. We will remain in contact, as he is fairly well-connected in the community.

At this point, much of my time was spent networking (it's come to my attention that the meaning of this word has morphed into a rather corporate one. My meaning is a more organic one; connecting with people, sharing information, gathering names and resources). I met many people who added, in whatever small way, to my vision of how the Costa Rican gardening world might look. One man, an ex pat Canadian, who we met at the grocery store and struck up a conversation taught me that there are people in Nosara and Ostional that are indeed interested in joining a garden, because they had been involved in CSAs or something similar in Canada. This meeting made my eyes open to other like-minded people in the area, and allowed me to see the potential for other possibilities, such as a CSA. A CSA would allow an experienced Tico to live on the property, giving him/her employment, allowing for the project to managed past the initial set-up, promoting food production as a way of living in Costa Rica. It was a very good happenstance, meeting Trevor.

Another fellow I met, was at Robin's Ice cream (her open air store proved to be an excellent place, for internet usage, for networking, and for very good coffee). This fellow, who lives in northern California, and was in Nosara on his honeymoon, has a website that is a resource for tropical plant growing, specifically, food plants. By the way, these are a couple of the people I recommended going on Eduardo's tour.

I met several people who attended the Yoga Institute's teaching course. Many of these people were interested in what I propose to do, a few of them giving me their contact information so that I can let them know when things are up and running, because they'd like to participate.

Meeting Ganca and Gunther was very exciting. This was the first tangible offer for land, that was offered by the owner. They have 42 acres of very wild land. Unfortunately, getting onto the land to assess the soil, and check out the space didn't come to fruition. The couple had bought the land 7 years ago. It had been cleared years before that, and they payed to have it cleared again. It's inaccessable as is, and so I will have to wait 1-2 years before gaining access to the land, when they clear it again. I hope, in the mean time to retain communication with them, so that we can discuss some permaculture methodology to their clearing. Because it will be so long a time before we can go ahead on their land, Ganca recommended that I speak with their friend Michael, who's been thinking about farming food in Nosara for years.

Interestingly, a new friend, Wantana, held a dinner party to which the kids and I were invited, as was Michael. Michael and I put our heads together and swiftly agreed that there is much parallel thinking between us, that there is a project in the making. Because he and Deborah, his partner, are expats with a B &B in the Projecto Americano area, they have found quite a few connections pertaining to food production. Their interest to practice permaculture on their B & B land, and to make it a showcase is something we discussed I'd be involved in as well. There are several people who are looking to get into food production; one is a business man who grows flowers (very community minded), another a Tico who has been to Earth University http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj3qLmMmmWA and owns an organic restaurant, but can't find enough produce, another person is a Pastor, who wishes to help his parishioners by providing a space to grow their own food. Michael and I continue communicate now.

Wantana is a special lady. She's Thai, has a home in the US and one in Nosara. She claims that she is not a big people person, yet I feel very much like I have been collected by her. While at her home on one of our many visits, Wantana showed me her garden full of potted plants and ones in beds that are for her Ayurvedic practice. Growing food for medicinal purposes has been one of the ideas that I'd bounced around before coming.

I met a fellow by the name of Ryan, who is a permaculture designer. This is a very exciting time for him, as he's had work recently that paid him for consultation. I hope to maintain contact with Ryan.

There is an organic market in Projecto Americano. The two vegetable providers to this market are Tico. There are other organic food producers; pork, fish, eggs, and chicken. That there is very high demand for these things is key to the success of anyone trying to eek out a living in the industry. There are not strict guidlines in Costa Rica, but there is an interest. One of the farms that supplies vegetables is Albin's family farms. Unfortunately, we were unable to get to his farm to see his production, but were told that we could, if we gave enough notice, come for a meal ($4.00 american/person)! It's an hour away on bad roads, so perhaps next time. His production is very high. Albin grows things that are difficult to be grown at the low altitude (sea level) of Nosara. Harmony Hotel's manager told me that they made several attempts to entice Albin into selling them their whole lot. I want to ask him if he is unwilling because he receives such good business from the market, or if it is like many other market growers that he feels dedicated to his customers.

Our visit to the Hernandez farm, both times, allowed us to have a peek into the culture, as well as see what farm life is like in Costa Rica. It was extremely good to see that strong family values exist, and that although they don't have a lot, they are good people, trying to make a living from good, wholesome food. The types of food that will grow there are limited due, in part, to the heat and rain. They grow the standard, coffee, corn, beans, soy beans, sugar cane, chickens and milk beeves. This family became our friends, and I hope to be blessed with their company again.

Despite the constant reminders that the human state is to be lazy, and that the mainstream would not want to participate in anything that requires manual labour, especially in that heat, there was enough response to the concept that I take heart. The understanding of all people, Gringos and Ticos alike, that we need to reconnect to the land, take part in our own survival, and teach the same to the kids was very apparent throughout our trip. I feel confident that the land and the people will come together, with a little coaxing.

Things I learned:
~I chose the best time to plant; December, January. The rains start to come in May, after which there is less and less sun.
~Seeds are scarce in Nosara. We are used to buying them in packages everywhere here. This is not necessarily the best thing, as seeds should be planted according to specific location. The closest source for seeds in Nosara is Nicoya. Trading with locals is the best route, since these plants are already proven hardy to the area.
~ Transportation around Nosara is a must.
~Nosarians are good people, hard workers (despite what they say about themselves) and are trying very hard to reach their own version of modern ideal. There is a fairly good understanding of where their food comes from because they are not many generations away from having lived on the farm, or even producing their own meat and vegetables in their city yards, but they are like N. Americans in that they know that it is easier to get your food from the store (Only seemingly because most people spend their days on the treadmill of life and work).
~The idea of community gardening mightn't work on it's own in Costa Rica. If a viable work project is built, much like the Monteverde project in central Costa Rica http://www.monteverdetours.com/volunteer_oportunites.htm it might well work.
~An average wage of a Tico is $2.00/hour. A good, respectable job might pay $4.00/hour.
~Many Ticos are learning to speak English, and many are choosing to remain in their own language, despite the stubbornness of most Gringos, who go to this land, expecting English speaking service.
~Costa Rica does not have an army. They choose instead to arm their citizens with education. Their literacy rate is 98%, one of the highest of the 3rd world countries. (altho, Costa Rica might be dubbed a second world country, due to it's infrastructure)
~My kids amazed me both with their mature attitudes and generosity, and with their capacity to learn the really hard, but good lessons in life.
~My husband realized he missed out big-time on this trip and has agreed to come with, next time *smiles*
~Going on this trip has helped me to realize that I very much would like to find my way back to the local food production world again.


Thank you very much for all of your support. It's been a comfort, knowing we had an audience of people we know and love, and perhaps a few interested spectators outside that circle. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.


Oh, and the answer is a resounding YES! we are going back. Keep you posted....