Haleh shoma chetoreh?

While here in Costa Rica, I have been steadily improving my Spanish.  I would estimate that I can now speak with the proficiency of a precocious 4 year old with some knowledge of specialized agricultural vocabulary.  I knew when I signed up that I would get the chance to learn the language of old España.  What I didn't know was that I would also get a chance to learn some Farsi phrases.  My friend Michelle's family are Persian Oklohomans (globalization=real, QED), and she's been teaching me various simple phrases, such as "How are you?" (Haleh shoma chetoreh?) and "Your father is a dog," (Pedar sag).  It's a fun language to speak, with lots of guttural "h" sounds.  In other worldly news, I met a British woman at the bar last night who arrived in Monteverde a week ago after a month working at a Honduran orphanage.  After several years working as a criminal lawyer in London, she grew disillusioned with her job, quit it and has been backpacking in Central America since.  It was inspiring to talk to someone brave enough to take the time and effort to take a serious re-evaluation break and search for a new path.

This is a picture of the hydroponic greenhouse where I am currently working/experimenting.  It's in a montane pine forest and from the top of the slope you can look out over the treetops to the Gulf of Nicoya.  In all honesty, the experiment has a kind of hurry up and wait feel to it, so we have lots of time to do other things around and for the greenhouse.  On the first day, we resaturated the volcanic rock substrate for the beds we are using for our experiment.  Then, we measured and counted the leaves on 260 lettuce seedlings before planting them.  Each one has a gridded identity (e.g. K4) so we can track progress in lettuce grown with synthetic fertilizer and lettuce grown with a 1:1 mix of synthetics and organic worm waste.  While we wait for them to grow, we are keeping busy by translating the garden's webpage into English, making informative signs for the 22 different plants Orlando is currently growing, and clearing the beds of the roots of already harvested lettuce.

One of the benefits of my internship at Hídroponicas de Monteverde is delicious fresh produce to bring home.  I have started a few mornings with a delicious lettuce leaf full of cherry tomatoes (yum).  I got some lettuce and rosemary to bring home today because I am cooking dinner for my host family on Sunday.  I am planning on making mushroom risotto to be eaten in lettuce wrap form (hooray for finger food) and rosemary olive oil bread (all the bread here is flat or Wonder-type sandwich fog, so my mouth is watering at the thought of a hefty loaf).

Tonight we are headed to a nearby Reserve in order to take a night hike and observe different types of mammals.  A focus of the night will be bats, or murciélagos, which we will be netting and studying up close.  Unfortunately, we will be missing the TexMex Fiesta at Bar Amigos, which includes (among other things) un toro mecánico and live music by a band that goes by the name of Los Alegres Veteranos (the happy veterans).  Qué lástima! (what a shame).

I have been researching common vegetables in the processes of creating signage for Orlando's greenhouse and have learned many novel pieces of trivia.  For example:

1) spinach originated in Persia
2) a famous British officer, Field Marshal Montgomery, coined an obscure euphemism for visiting prostitutes: "Well lads, we have two days leave.  Best take care if you plan to take favours in the beet fields."
3) Mint captures free testosterone in the bloodstream, so it is sometimes used to treat hirsutism in women

Well, as Tigger would say, TTFN.