Admiring the ocean, and other ways to pay attention

Posted on by stanleyobando

As someone who grew up in cold climates, I still find the idea of taking the beach for granted to be a little bit strange. There’s a part of me that is incredulous every time my toes hit the sand. However, 15 years in Costa Rica has also allowed me to glimpse what it’s like when the beach is just a short trip away – or, for some, a part of every single day.

This past Monday, the first day in months that coastal residents could access the beach (from 5 to 8 am, weekdays only), I saw a lot of posts from around the country expressing the pure joy that families, surfers, and others felt when they were finally reunited with the ocean. “We’ll never take this for granted again,” many wrote.

When I asked earlier this week what readers would like to see during the four final months of this year of the Daily Boost, a couple of people said, “Please share mouthwatering beach and travel scenes so we can daydream about the future.” Here’s one such, a particularly delectable shot by Cris Young showing a point between Puerto Viejo and Manzanillo on the Caribbean coast. At the moment, it’s almost as distant a dream for me, in San José, as for someone a plane flight or two away.

We gaze at it, thinking to ourselves, we’ll never take it for granted again. Almost as soon as the words pass through our brain, we hope that they are true. We also wonder what they actually mean. For me, at least, part of what they mean is that I will pay more attention to the people who have now dipped their toes in the ocean again, those who notice its health and illnesses, those who have been telling us for years how to take better care of it.

One of the many words that keeps coming up for me during this crisis is “attention.” In Spanish, you “put” it. In English, you “pay” it, which I think is even more powerful. During these weeks when focusing our own attention is sometimes like chasing a swarm of flies around a room, we have come to understand how valuable our attention truly is. We notice the golden coins clinking by, sometimes in ways that matter, sometimes in silly ways. We have started, perhaps, to notice more often where we spend it, and how important that is.

Maybe that’s a start. Wishing you a safe weekend, and some happy dreams of warm waters.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! If you want to learn more about how to support Costa Rica during the crisis, visit my COVID-19 section, updated regularly – or for ways to enjoy Costa Rica from afar, visit Virtual Costa Rica.

Day 27: A quest for the lost tapes of a music legend

Posted on by stanleyobando

My husband and I were strolling through the Costa Rican Caribbean town of Cahuita years ago when we spotted an unmistakable figure: music legend Walter Gavitt Ferguson, just sitting on his front porch. Costa Ricans tend to take close encounters with national heroes in stride – natural enough, in a country of five million – but I was practically struck dumb in the presence of this person whose voice had enchanted me for years. My fussing was out of place in the southern Caribbean, where conversations are mellow and steps are slow. It’s not a landscape that lends itself to big egos or dramatic scenes.

That’s why it’s so easy to imagine that don Walter, during the 70s, 80s and 90s, simply gave away or sold one-of-a-kind cassette tapes of his original recording sessions to tourists and music lovers. He never made copies for himself: he simply sent his work out into the world, one priceless plastic case at a time. In 2017, his youngest son, Peck, and world music aficionado Niels Werdenberg teamed up to ask the world to return the favor. Send a long-lost Ferguson tape to them, and they’ll compile the work into a digital archive, preserving Ferguson’s work for new generations.

By don Walter’s 100th birthday earlier this year, the Walter Gavitt Ferguson Tape Hunt had already rescued more than 60 original songs from tapes sent in by music lovers around the world. However, they estimate there are still many dozens of songs out there, undiscovered – and don Walter has forgotten much of his repertoire, making the missing tapes a crucial piece of the puzzle.

From walterferguson-tapehunt.mozello.com/

Want to help? You can: simply by sharing the story. You never know who might see your post. It might just come to the attention of another music lover out there whose memories, like mine, hold a lazy Cahuita afternoon and a brush with a legend. That person may even have a cassette stashed in a drawer that is just waiting to share the treasure within: that warm, wry smile of a voice, soaked in sun and rough with sea salt, traveling the world, ever dreaming of Limón.

Read more: http://walterferguson-tapehunt.mozello.com/join/. Many thanks to my old friend and massive Ferguson fan Tammy Zibners, who saw that I mentioned don Walter in a Daily Boost last week and tagged the Tape Hunt so I could learn about this amazing project. And here’s a little taste of that voice:

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

 

 

Day 24: Heaven is October in Limón

Posted on by stanleyobando

Ahhhhhh. Will you look at that?

Come October in San José, everyone’s thoughts turn to the Costa Rican Caribbean. Or they should. As rain soaks the rest of the country, the province of Limón often experiences lovely weather. And because it’s the off season, you’ll often find empty beaches.

It’s impossible to overstate the beauty of this province, especially the nooks and crannies of its coast. If you aren’t there today, then get your boost through the music of Walter Ferguson, the revered Calypso king from Cahuita on the southern Caribbean coast (you can find plenty to sample on YouTube, Spotify and other spots on the web). His gentle voice brings a smile to your face even as he skewers social wrongs. If you’re stuck in an office, on a clogged highway or inside your head today, take a listen.

Photo by Simon Dannhauer via Shutterstock.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

 

Day 23: The toad water of your dreams

Posted on by stanleyobando

If I had to choose one food to take to a desert island, it’d be an avocado. If I had to choose one to replace half of my medicine cabinet, it’d probably be ginger. Hot, cold, candied, pickled, grated or trying unsuccessfully to blend in at the edges of a jam or sauce – I’ve seen time and time again how ginger can cut through a woolly throat, clear everything out and just generally do you all kinds of good.

That’s why I’m obsessed with agua de sapo, a drink I love at any time of the year but that comes to my mind particularly in October, for two reasons. One is that this is one of the most beautiful times of year in Costa Rica’s Caribbean, the region that has created much of Costa Rica’s most delicious food, including this drink. And another is that the heavy rains in other parts of the country mean that you find yourself reaching for the ginger. A potent mix of ginger, lemon and tapa dulce, or unrefined whole cane sugar, a good agua de sapo should widen your eyes a little bit with that first spicy sip.

I’ve never made it at home, and no, I was not sufficiently organized to try it out before writing this post – you’ve probably realized this by now, but I generally need to write myself into doing things, which is why this project exists – but I will do it and report back. I found a few different recipes online including the news that most people cook it to dissolve the sugar, while others just whack it all in a blender, but the one that made the most sense to me is the one below. It makes a massive amount, but I have a feeling that frozen cubes of agua de sapo would be delightful to have on hand – to cool down a Moscow mule or a ginger beer or ginger ale, or added to a smoothie or juice where you would use ginger.

Have you made agua de sapo? Does thinking about Costa Rican Caribbean food make you drool? Let me know.

Here’s the recipe from Cocina Costarricense:

1 gallon of water
1 tapa de dulce (apparently this can be found as “panela” in other countries – and I would think you should be able to substitute brown sugar. I’m not sure how much loose sugar you’d want to add, but I assume less is more, as you can always add more sugar to the warm mixture at the end.
250 g fresh ginger
1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

Peel, chop and crush the ginger; chop the tapa de dulce into chunks. Add both to 1 liter of water and boil until the sugar is completely dissolved. Cool and strain, then add the lime juice and serve iced.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter).