A Taste of Home

Yesterday, Deb got to try on her new teeth. She has been making do with temps; temporary teeth good enough for now. But they are loosely connected to her posts, and have been shifting around when she eats. She had a fitting of her permanent teeth. Fitting teeth is careful work that has to be right. Since we are flying out Saturday, we don't have a lot of time to come back and get any adjustments. But she has had the final products fitted for the first time. We hope to have her permanent teeth in place late Wednesday.
We both were so happy about her teeth that we decided to try the T.G.I.F. here in San Jose. Frankly, we both wanted a taste of food from home. We weren't disappointed. The look of a TGIF is there, with junk nailed on the wall. Except for the waitress only speaking Spanish, it was pretty much the way we expected. We were seated outside, on the terrace. I had a big old burger and fries, with real ketchup. Deb had fried shrimp, with fries. We were happy kids.
Deb started a conversation with a woman, Samra, and her sixteen year old son, Emir. She had moved to Costa Rica a few months ago, from Lebanon. She is married to an American who works for an international NGO. She was born and raised in Sarajevo, Bosnia where she met her husband.
"The stupidest thing I ever did, was walking down sniper alley. They could kill me, or cripple me, but they couldn't make me run."
We asked about schooling and Emir talked about going to an international school in Beirut. "They're all so racist." he said, "And so open about it. Most of the kids were Lebanese and they all had dual citizenship. I don't know why, they despised everyone else."
Her grandparents religious backgrounds were Greek Orthodox, Muslim, Roman Catholic. Her father was an atheist. She said that it was confusing growing up but eventually found her own Christian faith. She invited us to come to their apartment and sample some Georgian brandy someone had given her. She didn't drink it herself. We were both interested in learning more about her and her life so we went with her.
She lives in a large apartment building, surrounded by a high wall, and a guard who opens the gate for the taxi. Emir tapped in the security code so that we could get in the front door. We walked up one flight of stairs to her apartment. We were impressed with the size and layout of her apartment and with the view from her many large windows. She opened a new bottle of brandy from Georgia, the country, not the state, and we had a drink. In the few months she has been there, she has worked to put her imprint  on her home for her and her family. She has accumulated little things from their travels. She has a Persian rug from Lebanon, little elephants from Sri Lankar, and terracotta figures from Hong Kong. She showed us family photos, some very old, of her parents, grandparents, and pictures of them in Bosnia.
Then, she talked about a quilt she wanted to make, and showed photos of quilts she made for others, and how she has to do things quickly before she loses interest. Her husband says she is like a bullet, put your hand in the way and she'll shoot right through it. She wanted to do a cathedral window quilt otherwise known as stained-glass window quilt. I had done one for my sister and her husband as a wedding gift 27 years ago. Samra was confused on the directions in her quilt book. I read the directions and it was confusing. I asked her for a square of fabric, which she tookfrom her armoire full of fabrics. I showed her how to make the squares, and how to place the pieces. Here were the two of us from such disparate backgrounds, sharing the experience of quilting.  I did tell her that this type of quilt takes a lot of time, and the shortcuts I learned, hoping this would help her with her impatience.
We visited for awhile, then decided it was time to call a taxi, so she did, and said it wasn't a legal taxi, but that she'd used him before and he was a good guy. Turns out that he was.

Rainy Day

We are in the beginning of the rainy season, which means we usually get an hour or two of rain every day. It has been dry for the last couple of days, but now we are making up for lost time.

Back to the dentist's office, and waiting. Most of my time is spent waiting while painful things happen to Deb. I don't want to trade places with her, but I do get bored. Fortunately,today was only impressions, and fitting of temp teeth. While her permanent teeth are being made, Deb will be wearing a set of temporary teeth for the next few days.

We pass the time by introducing ourselves to other patients. One older couple, Eddy and Norma, originally came from Cuba. Norma still breaks into Spanish when she isn't thinking about it. Eddy says, "English, Norma, English." and Norma gives him an impatient look that means that she knows, quit bothering her. Norma is the one supporting Eddy, as he gets dental work done. Eddy is waiting patiently while Norma frets that they have forgotten him. Then she is concerned that he won't get the good doctor. "Don't worry, Norma," Eddy pats her leg. "They know what they are doing."
He turns to me, "I am the one who is easy going. She frets about everything."
"Well someone has to take care of this." Norma says, "You don't worry about anything."
Eddy just pats her leg fondly.
As we talk, Eddy mentions that he was captured by the Cubans and rode to prison in a semi-trailer along with 150 other men, packed in like sardines. "Thirty or forty of them died. I rode to prison, sitting on a dead man."

Two other guys are also from Cuba. One of them was part of an evacuation that brought children and left their parents behind. He was seventeen when he set foot in America. They kept offering him welfare, and charity, but he just wanted to get a job and earn his own way.

Deb is having a tired day. We both have found that we come to a point where the constant stress of being in a different country seems to catch up with you. Today was that day. We both are feeling tired. Deb napped for three hours in the middle of the day, which she never does.

Some Sight Seeing

Deb woke up Tuesday morning feeling a little better. She had kept taking pain meds during the night and that helped her sleep better. Once we were up and breakfasted, she felt ready to do something.
We decided to visit a wood worker who does artistic boxes from tropical woods. His work is beautiful.
Check out his site at: Biesanz Wood Working
And he has been working to re-forest Costa Rica. We looked up his address on the internet and went to the front desk to get a taxi.
Taking a taxi to a shop seems pretty simple. (Insert mocking laughter) Unless you are in San Jose. It seems that streets are unmarked, buildings don't have numbers displayed, and even taxi drivers call for directions. According to legend many directions refer to landmarks that have disappeared over the years, but all of the locals know where they used to be.
We got three different addresses for this place, all of them ended with something like, 'then drive 500 meters past the old church...' The distance ranged from 300 to 800 meters, and the actual church sat at a five way intersection.
But we got there.
The place has a nice front room filled with displays of beautiful wood working. I wanted to touch everything because it was so beautiful. Then we were offered a tour of the back lot, which had been an old dump. They have reforested it with tropical and medicinal plants. Just out the back door, they have a slice of rainforest . They have specimens of a wide variety of plants including a spiny palm tree. Our guide explained that the fruit of this tree is only found in Costa Rica and he likes it very much. He was very concerned when I got close to it. I spotted a huge spider and wanted a picture. As I maneuvered around the tree, he was really worried that I might brush up against the spines. I believe that the spines have barbs on them, and I would have had a trip to the hospital to get them out. But no harm done. Then we got a tour of the work shop.
I have read about techniques of making boxes and green turned bowls. But they have raised this to a new level. They have a room filled with partially turned blanks that are curing, waiting to be turned into finished bowls. Some of these are more than ten years old. In addition, they make boxes and other things all out of tropical wood. They are careful to only use fallen wood, because so many species of hard wood have been depleted. They handed us a piece of ironwood so that we could feel the density of wood that doesn't float. The workshop is a place where production of wood objects occurs. It was dusty and filled with ugly powerful machines, and pieces of wood going from chunks to finished silky smooth items. I loved it.
We bought ourselves a couple of little items. They will be shipped for us, and we are anticipating getting them next week, at home.
Deb had another session at the dentist that afternoon.