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The 4:30 Wake up call has morphed from blaring tone, to quiet sighs and hunger calls. There is no rush, no pressure. If we leave or stay inside all day, it is all okay. Looking up from dinner, we se the manifestation of our state of mind, suspended from a broken limb just outside the window. We stare and share in a moment that will become once again rare when work resumes anew. For now, we sleep and eat and enjoy life in the canopy.
The family is whole. After rough times with Sandra's mother and extended family, we have been starved for extra-nuclear proliferation. Now that my mother and sister are here, we are learning what it is to call on grandma and the auntie Greist for support and love. This is what the holidays should be about.
I extend the happiest of holiday seasons to all readers and hope that you find joy and peace within your families and friends as we have.
Here are the Greist family singers together again after too much time.
Here's yet another example of how translation screws with phoitography. Saying "queso" just doesn't cut it!
The rainy season here in Monteverde lasts forever. We frequently find ourselves cut off from the world (and birthing clinics) due to fallen trees, downed power lines and heavy mudslides. One of the most frequent and ongoing environmental dialogues I maintain with my students centers around practical everyday tangible ways that humans impact their surroundings. In Monteverde, deforestation and the ensuing erosion of the mountain are two of the most obvious. This year in addition to the experiments we do in class to understand the role of roots in topsoil preservation, I decided to document week by week the changes in landscape in the deforested hot spots around town.
The owners of the future mall property have started looking at me funny when I show up to photograph their mud patch, so I made the executive decision to focus in on a future restaurant site. The restaurant is one of the most popular in Monteverde and sits right on the main road. It is one of very few options on the Eastern undeveloped side of town, and for this reason is nearly always full, even in low season. The owners however decided that the restaurant should have a better view or something, so the bought a tract of forested land and stripped it, in hopes of making a new road that would lead up to the new restaurant site. Here's how the land looked after it was cleared:
The slope in the foreground is to be the driveway leading up to the hilltop restaurant.
Here is the same site after one week of rainy season weather.
...And after three weeks of rain:
As of this posting, seven weeks have passed, but I cannot offer new photos because the heavy earth movers were brought back up the mountain to flatten everything out again last week. Still, the process has begun anew and the rivers are again a deep brown, filled with nutrient rich topsoil, freed by yet another roadside attraction.
Here are a couple of miscellaneous photos from other sites around town.
The forest soundscape has augmented . A year ago I awoke each dawn to the calls of flight and forage. The silence that faded with the passing of night was mine alone. The rustle of leaves and sheets, primal and labored, told a story now forgotten. Dawn has a new song. It is a song sung by new lungs seeking voice. It is a song sung by tired eyes to whom the canopy of leaves are but a smatter of impossibly distant green. The jungle is ours now. We must discover it, fill it with our song; fill it with our early morning silence.
We've had over two weeks with Cedro now, so we'd better know what we're doing, right? I mean, that's more on-site training than Wendy's employees get! The baby is still wonderful and growing exponentially. I can hardly believe it. I'm gonna guess he's already twice his birthweight!
The lessons have been dense and numerous thus far. As expected, the baby is really not all that interested in me. Sandra's job is truly much harder. I basically handle meals, laundry, homework with Bismark, and hold the baby while Sandra showers and freshens up - oh, and during the day I go out to win bread. The late night feedings and early mornig feedings and mid day feedings and evening feedings are all her. We share diaper changing responsibility technically, but by default she does way more of that than I do. It just goes with the feeding. I prepare food, she manufactures it. That´'s harder.
Cedro is amazingly adept at pooping, but always - ALWAYS manages to reserve a little for just after a diaper change. We snap the Happy Heiny shut and he looks us in the eye (and I swear he smirks) and lets fly. He also waits stealthily until the moment he is uncovered to pee. Thus, clothing, blankets, diapers and more diapers need to be washed daily, if not hourly. Yep, kids are bad for the environment, I always knew it! Even with bio soap and our own limestone filtration/railwater collection, they just plow through more resources than an Alaskan governor.
The best thing is the faces. He has an incredible range of expressions, from the unbearably cute (yawns, lip sucking, gazing) to the alarming (passing gas and pooping always look like choking to paranoid parents) to the downright bizarre (eyes rolling up as sleep rolls in, trying desperately to nurse my shoulder). I love the faces.
All in all, we're getting sleep when we can, I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to bond with my stepson, and we all continue to line the floor with eggshells whenever Sandra makes it out of the baby zone for more than a few minutes. Life is grand.
More pics when bandwidth allows.
We were recently blessed here on the mountain by the presence of a fellow novo collegian, Eben Kirksey. Eben and I shared many a green potluck back in the day in Sarasota, and more than once jumped off the roof of Turk's cap house into the tepid waters of the whirlpool below. Eben contacted me through the New College Networking site, and told me he was gearing up for two years of Central American research for an upcoming book. Eben's been in Indonesia and Europe and has publised in many periodicals. His book is fascinating, and his presence was refreshing here in the Zone. I'm sure our paths will cross again, as he might even be back in December to do some writing here. I always love to see old and new friends, and with the baby, it's better if you come to Monteverde. It's worth the trip....
Minutes after being born.
Leaving the Liberia Hospital.
this was taken this afternoon. The bunny suit was a gift from Karmen. He is our little conejito!
there is no feeling, no celestial miracle that can surpass in splendor one simple exhalation - the sigh of a newborn as he lies prone on my chest in the morning sun.
At 8:02 this morning, after a relatively easy (at least easy for ME) six hour labor, Cedro Yoann Greist Salazar popped into the outside world! He and his mom are both doing well and they are currently recouperating in the recovery room. He came out hungry as hell and started nursing right away. He weighs in a just about 3 kilos (or about six and a half pounds for those keeping score at home). and measures nearly 50 cm. His nails are already long, and his hair is a gorgeous jet black. I will post photos and full story soon! I think because everything went so smooothly with the birth that we'll be out of the hospital by tomorrow, and back in Monteverde by Monday afternoon! the roads just may be dry enough by this point to allow us passage.
Sandra's water broke at 9:00 last night, just hours after we arrived back in Liberia. She was in the birthing room by 9:30, and was feeling the first labor pains by 2 am. By 7:30 she was at 10 cm, and that's when they let me enter. By the time I was scrubbed up and dressed, Cedro was already crowning. Three big pushes later, his whole head popped out and it took about 1.2 seconds for the rest of hime to follow. He was washed and nursing by his ten minute anniversary. Incredible.
A million thanks to all of you who wrote and called and commented and supported us with your love during this time of transition! We love you!
More photos, stories, love poems, songs, lullabies, sonnets and general expressions of fatherly bliss to come soon!
Who's Cedro's daddy? I am!
The baby sits quietly and waits. We can only hope that he does not feel as we do, nervous and preoccupied. Sandra passed the 40 week mark and her due date yesterday. Any day now...
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