today.

Best way to start the morning: David Bowie and oatmeal with cinnamon, freshly ground nutmeg, and bananas from our farm.

I haven’t written much because the owner of the farm was here for a couple days. He covered for us while we were on vacation, but there was still a two day overlap. Oh MY GOD. He is one of the most intense, eccentric, unusual, bizarre people I’ve ever met. I wish I could adequately explain, but no amount of description nor recollection will do him justice. He’s an older white guy who lives in Florida but grew up in Boston. He has a thick accent and long hair – textbook definition of a crazy hippy. Every thirty minutes or so, he breaks out in a rhyme (think: oompa loompa-style meter and vernacular without being set to music). These rhymes were on a variety of topics and most of them were improvised. Some of his favorite subjects included: the Vietnam war, farming, fast food, Liz and I, Bill Clinton, Tantra, Sexuality, Republicans, Buddha, and Vida the cat. Yes. This is real. I don’t really think I’m adequately conveying his level of insanity, so you will just have to take my word for it. He never once attempted to speak Spanish. Every time he talked to a local or one of our workers, He would just yell loudly in English. Once in awhile he’d just add an “O” to the end of a word. Oh, another hilarious thing  he said: “Be careful about those ants. Those bastards hurt like hell. You think they’re biting you? Well. You’re wrong. They’re pissing acid all over you, and not the good kind.” He also told us about the 1001 erogenous zones on a woman’s body, and proceeded to rub the inside of our palms with the tips of his fingers. Then, he told us the story of Buddha and somehow tied it in with how he’s been married four times and has three children – all from different women. I will have to leave it at that. He brought a massive amount of weed with him and he was basically high the entire time he was at the farm. The last night before he left, he rolled an enormous joint (reference: Ron Jeremy’s penis) and smoked with us. I’m not really much of a smoker, so needless to say, afterword I couldn’t even differentiate between up and down. According to him, this was “the finest shit in Costa Rica”. I have never been that high before. Well, we talked about politics for a few hours…actually, that’s incorrect. Liz and I listened to him ramble about politics for a few hours. He basically ended up telling us his life story.

Now for something completely different. Rather than present more banal accounts of my day-to-day, I’ve decided to compile a list.

Things I’ve Learned in Costa Rica (including, but not limited to)

How to:

Wield a machete

Harvest bananas

Plant seeds

Milk a cow

Identify poisonous snakes

Make bread from scratch

Harvest eggs

Identify edible plants in the wild

Kill a scorpion

(this list does not include the many intangible life lessons that have been forced upon me by this place)