Day 2

One of the head cooks in the restaurant of Vista del Valle approached me today and invited me to join her in the kitchen. I immediately accepted and ended up spending the entire afternoon chopping onions and peppers and chicken and talking and laughing with all the women working. Something I admire about the people of Central America is their ability to have a good time, no matter what they happen to be doing. It was also an excellent opportunity to practice my Spanish and I discovered with delight that I can understand a great deal of what was being said. In fact it became a joke in the kitchen that "Raquel puede entender mucho espanol, cuidado." And the chef (the only man in the kitchen) began joking that even the American in his kitchen is a woman and pretended to be disgruntled by his lack of male allies.

I spent the evening at a barbeque with a group of men from around the world who are involved in environmental conservation. It was fascinating to learn about the background of each person. One gentleman was from northern California and has begun purchasing property to reforest with redwood trees. Another from California owns several vineyards and is interested in beginning sustainable tourism projects. And yet another is a native Costa Rican, who graduated from Harvard and returned to Costa Rica as the head of distribution for Coca-Cola. After retiring from this position he began leading tours through Costa Rica and is growing and distributing a type of bamboo that once treated can be used as a building material because it has strength equivalent to steel.