Calling all great ideas!

Good morning! Not all my posts from now on will be about COVID-19: in fact, I think it’s high time for some sloth videos and other comforting, inspiring and motivating Costa Rican stories. That’s why I threw together a separate, temporary section on my website to focus entirely on information about how to help Costa Rican communities and organizations during COVID-19. (While health is of course the number one concern, Friday’s post laid out why the economic and social impact on tourism-driven Costa Rica has so many of us scared as well.)

For my boost today, I’d love for all of you to check it out – even if you have your hands full helping out your own community. Why? Because even if you have no time to buy from Costa Rican microbusinesses and your donation dollars are fully tied up elsewhere, I think that all of us who are trying to make a dent in this problem could benefit from hearing about creative things that communities are doing around the globe. So I would love, love, LOVE to hear from you if you have seen cool ideas happening around you and would like to share.

If, on the other hand, you are in Costa Rica or part of a circle that’s as Costa Rica-obsessed as my circle is, please share this page as widely as you can. I’ll be updating it regularly with new information, links and ideas. Here it is: https://katherinestanleyobando.com/costa-rica-and-covid-19/

Keep your ideas and comments coming, and tomorrow I’ll be back with our regularly scheduled programming: another excerpt from “Ticas sin miedo” in keeping with the March theme of unbelievably awesome women. Wishing you the best of health.

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! Each month in 2020 has a monthly theme, and March’s is women’s rights, so browse recent posts for more on this issue.

Do you love a Costa Rican tourism microenterprise? Now’s the time to reach out

Today’s post is a quick preview of forthcoming information about the effect of travel cancellations due to COVID-19 on the social fabric of Costa Rica, but honestly, I’m so worried that I wanted to get something out there as soon as possible!

Do you know and love a Costa Rican enterprise that’s dependent on tourism for survival? A beloved family hotel, a community association, a nonprofit that depends on tourism for donations? It is undoubtedly facing mass cancellations, uncertainty and panic.

I realize, of course, that the economic impact of COVID-19economic impact of COVID-19 is being felt around the world, with many needs calling for our attention; that most everyone is struggling with this on various levels; and that health is, of course, the biggest concern here. However, if you’re stuck at home or otherwise have some bandwidth, do consider reaching out and even making a donation to that small business or cause you love.

I’d LOVE to hear from you if you or someone you know recently had to cancel an upcoming trip to Costa Rica (or postpone a trip you were hoping to book); if you have more information about organizations being hard hit by this situation; or if you have heard or thought of any creative ways entities in CR could mitigate this crisis and encourage support from folks who can’t come right now, but are concerned about Costa Rican communities. More to come! Watch this space.

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! Each month in 2020 has a monthly theme, and March’s is women’s rights, so scroll back through the month to see posts highlighting extraordinary Costa Rican women and organizations working on their behalf. 

Violence in Costa Rican delivery rooms? Not anymore, thanks to brave mothers

A movement created and supported by Costa Rican mothers saying “no” to the mistreatment of women who are giving birth turned a major corner with the approval this week of a bill to penalize obstetric violence.

I first heard the term “obstetric violence” a few years ago and thought, what? Is that a thing? Um, yes. A huge thing. A shocking thing. A 2019 survey in Costa Rica reported by La Nación showed that 35 of 100 women aged 15 to 49 weren’t consulted before medicine was administered to them or a procedure was performed; 12 percent were yelled at or scolded; 5 percent were made to push when it wasn’t called for and 2 percent suffered physical aggression. (Physical aggression. From their caregivers. During childbirth.)

The new law will sanction medical personnel who do any of these things, who perform an unnecessary caesarean or who prevent a woman from having someone accompany her during labor and delivery. Of course, this won’t really be put into place until the Health Ministry creates the regulations to accompany the law, and we all know that isn’t necessarily a speedy process – but progress is progress is progress.

This is amazing. What’s even more inspiring is that women who had suffered and even lost their babies took all that trauma and pain and transformed it into a powerful force for change. Taking a dive into the Alto a la Violencia Obstétrica en Costa Rica Facebook page is a sobering, informative and deeply inspiring experience. It would have been completely understandable for these women not to want to relive their experiences again and again, not to move even further down this rabbit hole by learning more about the atrocities sometimes perpetrated in hospitals. Instead, they powered through. They showed what they are made of. They exemplified the greatest qualities of motherhood.

Some of them are not even called mothers by society. Some of them say “No” when they are asked if they have children, and yet they are the finest mothers of all of us. They are mothers so big-hearted and generous that they have made a difference for hundreds of thousands of babies yet unborn, and women yet to walk through hospital doors.

With a lump in my throat and the deepest admiration, I want to say to these women I have never met: thank you, for all of our kids, and for all of their moms.

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). 

 

 

A flea can bite the bottom of the Pope in Rome

I’m a bit late posting today because I awoke to excruciating, razor-wire pain in my right eye, and finally found an opthamologist who could squeeze me in for an emergency appointment. By the time I stumbled into his office, I couldn’t even open the eye without crying out. He expertly administered “magic” eyedrops that numbed the pain, expertly scrutinized every surface of my eye, then laughed when he finally found the culprit: a tiny speck of eyelash that had somehow splintered, gotten stuck inside my eyelid with its two sharp points facing the eye itself, and scraped my cornea all morning long. “The damage is shocking – but you’ll be ok tomorrow,” he said, contemplating the speck at the end of his tweezers as I sighed in relief and mentally prepared a shrine in his honor where I will now light a candle in gratitude each day.

Costa Rican superstition holds that the first 12 days of the calendar year reflect the weather we can expect for the 12 months of the year. For example, today corresponds to August, which will apparently start out sunny and then turn into foreboding gray. Of course, the weather in Costa Rica, once extremely reliable – months without rain, months with afternoon rainshowers you could practically set your clock by, months with rain throughout the day – is now much less predictable. Different factors converge to make this happen, but the climate crisis is one of them. These are unsettling times in which to live, in which to raise a child.

Perhaps that’s the understatement of this very young year, as war looms and Australia burns.

There’s not much of a boost in here, except to say that if I learned anything this morning, it’s that tiny things can make a big difference. A worm can roll a stone. A bee can sting a bear. A teeny fragment of an eyelash can completely sideline us from life. A little country can make a difference – that’s the idea I’m betting my life on.

The cloudy skies outside my window that I’m contemplating with one eye can’t tell me what August will bring, and no one can tell us what this year will bring. All I can do, at least for today, is be grateful for kindly opthalmologists, and raise my afternoon coffee to uncertain times in which tiny things can change our course completely: for worse, but also for better.

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 68: A glass of ruby-red refreshment

Today’s the first time in 68 days that I haven’t managed to get a Boost out in the morning… it’s been quite a week. Fortunately, the day has 24 hours.

One simple habit I’ve really gotten into this year is drinking unsweetened jamaica, which is iced hibiscus tea. As I’ve noted, I sometimes have a hard time getting myself to drink hot tea, but I could drink agua de jamaica all day. It can prevent hypertension; lower blood pressure and blood sugar levels; and even, so I’ve read, help address pain from menstrual cramps. Best of all, the

The reason it took me so long to become a jamaica converts that when you’re served this popular drink in a soda, or restaurant, it’s often heavily sweetened, and somehow the flavor just never appealed to me. But when my doctor told me to watch my blood pressure earlier this year and I first prepared the drink at home (just steeping dried hibiscus petals in hot water and then icing, as with any tea), I discovered that unsweetened version is delightfully tart, kind of like cranberry juice. I would imagine that you could make a delightful vodka-jamaica cocktail, but I am wandering off topic for Wellness Wednesday.

Plus, its deep red color is just gorgeous, like a jewel, and bright and festive at this time of year.

So on a day so stressful that you don’t write your morning Boost until 6 pm, try a glass of cold hibiscus tea and see if it unspools your knots the way it does mine.

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 25: Tell a friend

Two sloths in a tree in Costa Rica at sunset

As I wrap up this week and round the corner of 25 days, I have a favor to ask. For next week’s Monday Motivation I’m preparing the story of a woman so inspirational that her words have buoyed me through the entire week. I am hoping to share it with as many people as I possibly can come Monday (and I’m pretty pumped about Tuesday, too). If you’ve been digging the Daily Boost and can tell folks about it on your social media, message a friend about it, or simply leave a review or comment, I would deeply appreciate it. Use #costaricadailyboost so I can find you and thank you!

Here’s this week’s roundup for all those weekend catchup readers…

Day 21, Monday Motivation: A peaceful place that’s worth a visit (even just in your imagination).

Day 22, Tuesday Beauty: A happiness hack for your toilet (and a poem you’ve got to read).

Day 23, Wellness Wednesday: A delicious drink with tons of gingery goodness (yes, it’s called Toad Water).

Day 24, Thursday Exploring: The beauty of Limón, and music that can transport you there. 

Bonus: I’ve made good on my Day 18 challenge to myself to churn out lots of little poems. You can check them out here.

Have a great weekend and join me next week – I’m so excited about what I’m getting ready for you!

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

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). 

Day 13: Comfort by the bowlful

Olla de carne, Costa Rica

Do you have a love for a certain dish that is driven more by nostalgia, or by what the dish represents, than the food itself? Costa Rica’s olla de carne is that dish for me, without question. I wouldn’t order it as my final meal on death row, nor would I tell a tourist that they must not leave the country without sampling it. And yet, on a rainy October day like this one, coming home to a pot full of the hearty soup brings me a full-body shiver of delight. There’s just nothing cozier – and I’m from New England, people. I know from cozy.

The love of this dish is contagious, you see. I’ve absorbed many Costa Ricans’ passion for this simple recipe over the years. I’ve known vegetarians who make this their one exception, digging into a diabolically tender morsel of fatty short rib with glee (“because you just can’t not eat olla de carne!”) . I have a husband who will fast in order to be able to eat as much olla de carne as possible from the vat that passes as a soup tureen at El Rancho del Sapito in Coliblanco de Cartago – highly recommended. Put this dish on the menu and eyes will light right up.

There are surely as many recipes as there are Costa Rican home cooks, but the procedure is fairly simple – though I can feel the spirits of great-great-grandmothers scowling down on me in preparation for the the travesties I am surely about to commit. You just cook all of the ingredients in water, starting with a mix of lean beef and short ribs to make a hearty stock, then adding the vegetables, starting with the ones that need the most cooking time. The vegetables and their order of essential-ness are worth a good long conversation, but will include some combination of carrots, yuca, potatoes, green plantain, corn on the cob, tiquisque, onions… (Pause for lightning to strike.) Here’s a recipe in Spanish that I’m fond of because it instructs the reader that this dish is to be eaten “at least once a week,” and one in English from My Tan Feet.

Speaking of lightning, you really, really want to eat this one in the rain. With white rice. And a good chilera. And the spirits of all those great-great-grandmothers. Because with every slurp of olla de carne – “‘coma, coma!” – you can feel them wishing you well.

How do you make olla de carne? What’s your favorite Costa Rican soup? Let me know, quick, before the rainy season ends!

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!

Day 8: The ultimate Costa Rican life hack

I don’t know about you, but after several days spent frenetically following the unfolding events in New York and Washington, DC, I feel the need to reset my brain just a bit with something simple, basic and oh-so-beloved in Costa Rica. And while I learned last week that Coffee Me is here to stay, I did slurp down an alternative liquid just now as a salute to wellness a lo tico: a little té de manzanilla. It’s everywhere on these rainy September days when the entire country seems to have a cold.

I thought that the first few years of motherhood had fully indoctrinated me into the many uses of chamomile in Costa Rican culture. While this is a common herb all over, I happened to learn about it once I lived here, where it’s the national Windex – remember the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” in which the father swears that a little spray of Windex is the solution to just about any problem? You inhale chamomile steam for a cough, powder it to rub on the gums of teething babies, apply it in a compress for just about anything external and drink it for everything else. You are absolutely going to hear about it from your family doctor. It is as essential as rice in the Costa Rican pantry. Yeah, I figured I had a handle on it.

But then this little green volume practically fell into my hand from the used book shelves at the back of the Librería Andante in San Pedro, my new obsession, and I learned that I had no idea. Do you drink chamomile tea on the regular? Did you know that there is a dazzling array of varieties, all ready to be deployed with staggering specificity for different ailments? Did you know that the first word in the name Matricaria chamomilla comes from the Latin – and Spanish, of course – word for womb, because the herb was so renowned for its ability to improve the health of the womb that Hippocrates prescribed it for use during childbirth? (Here’s to giving birth in the 21st century.) Did you know it can give you lovely highlights but also, when mixed with fig leaves, somehow blacken your beard? Did you want to know any of these things?

I doubt I’ll ever make chamomile liquour – there’s a whole chapter – or work a chamomile foot bath into my morning routine. However, I did like learning about how drinking a proper infusion which has taken place over no fewer than 30 minutes, with one spoonful of flowers per cup of water, might calm me on a stressful night more than a teabag would. And “Chamomile: The Plant that Cures 180 Illnesses” (Valter Curzi, translated from the original Italian and printed in Spain in 1982) definitely made me think about the health boosters that are all around me in a country that is bursting with plants, flowers and fruits all year round.

I’ve learned that the things that bring me the most inspiration, like Greta Thunberg or politicians finally standing up for what’s right, also leave me very agitated. A steady diet of passion would leave me too drained for anything more than thumbing through news feeds – and some days, that’s what happens. I am slowly figuring out that I need to approach the highs of life almost as I would the lows, with the knowledge that a reset will be needed. The same practiced eye that notices when my daughter is in the throes of joy so intense that she’ll be a total nightmare once it ends needs to anticipate the same reaction from her mother. I need to arm myselves with little diversions, building blocks of contentment: a familiar pantry herb. A slim used book. Any chance to pause. Any space to pursue the kind of bliss you don’t need to come down from – which for me always involves silence, ideally rain, and the presence or the memory of love.