Generosity that will blow your mind

My husband was watching Channel 7’s midday news on Saturday when he shouted to me, “Come see this!”

I was glad he did. The show was covering a story that took me some time to wrap my head around, thanks in no small part to the biases and preconceptions messing around in my brain. The headline said that indigenous communities in Talamanca, in southeastern Costa Rica, had donated huge amounts of food to professional female soccer players. I kept thinking, “Isn’t it the other way around?”

No. No, it’s not. A group of Talamanca women spent 10 weeks going door to door in their communities, on foot and by boat, to collect more than 10 tons of yuca, plátano, chayote, ayote, chile dulce, culantro coyote, pejibaye, limón, malanga, caña de azúcar, mamón chino, fruta de pan, naranja, toronja, carambola and cacao. And others. But you get the idea.

They donated the food to women soccer players who are having trouble making ends meet during the COVID-19 crisis and who, in many cases, have themselves been voices for solidarity and philanthropy during this difficult time. (Check out this Boost from July.)

“We don’t have much moey, but that’s no reason not to show solidarity and share the little we have with people having a hard time,” community Edith Villanueva told Channel 7. “This country has helped us during our toughest times – during floods and earthquakes and now during the pandemic… so we thought we could show our thanks to Costa Rica by donating part of our harvests.”

Why soccer players? She said they know that these women practice all day long, holding down jobs and studying in many cases, and have been affected economically just like others in Costa Rica.

This isn’t the first time Talamanca’s indigenous communities have taken my breath away with their philanthropic efforts. When Hurricane Otto devastated northern Costa Rica, they gathered food and sent it all the way across the country to help those in need.

Once again, this region is giving us a master class in what it means to stand with others.

All images from Vice President Epsy Campbell’s public Facebook profile.

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; learn how to join my Overwhelmed Writers’ League, every Saturday at 1 pm EST; and please connect with me on Instagram or FacebookTo learn more about how to support Costa Rica during the crisis, visit my COVID-19 section – or for ways to enjoy Costa Rica from afar, visit Virtual Costa Rica.

 

Day 51: A parade for your Costa Rica bucket list

Holiday-wise, November brings some celebrations to Costa Rica from other climes: some people do celebrate Thanksgiving here, whether because of a U.S. relative or just a liking for the idea, and of course, Black Friday rears its ugly head with increasing vigor each year. But November is also the time for the most authentic Costa Rican tradition you can imagine – the Oxcart Parade, which fills the country’s biggest city with the pride of its countryside.

You need to see this spectacle for yourself. In case that’s not imminently feasible, I took lots of photos, as you can see. So did a gaggle of professional photographers, which, in fact, is part of the reason I have never attended this event in 15 years in Costa Rica: it’s across town on a Sunday morning, and I guess I’ve always figured I will see it in the paper the next day, expertly captured by the best. But oh, the sheer volume of cart after painstakingly painted cart, the faces of the impeccably coiffed girls and stoic old ladies riding high in their places of honor, the old man strumming his guitar and making every child on the sidewalk fist-bump him, the kids casually steer enormous bulls through the streets… it was an astonishing thing to witness.

And I probably would have missed it except for the Daily Boost, an entirely made-up obligation. Which taught me something. I kind of hate it when people say that what you put out into the world is what you get back, because even though they would hasten to say they don’t mean that you “earn” illness or injustice, that’s always how the statement hits me. In big ways, the statement is not true, because some people simply do not get what they deserve. But it can be true in small ways. If you love something and talk about it, an announcement in the paper about that very thing will catch your eye in a new way. If you decide that you are supposed to be a person who finds beauty around her, for no other reason than that you said so, you will find yourself in the middle of beauty more often.

So much of life, of what we see or miss, is determined by the tiniest breaths of air that blow us one way or another when we make a decision, when we balance on that tipping point between “meh” and “yes.” When we say out loud what we love and want to see, even if we only say it to ourselves, we make our own breeze. Not gusts of wind. Just the smallest puffs. But at the right moment, they can still change our course.

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 46: The angels hang out at the back of the pack

The writer Annie Lamott describes being skillful at something as being “fast” at it. The thing Lamott is fastest at is putting words together; the same is true for me. The thing I am slowest at is, well, being fast. Ever since I plodded around the soccer field as a high school goalie, I have been exploring the world at a glacial pace. Fifteen miles a week. Two. Thirty. Over the past few years, my running declined to almost nothing at all, but sooner or later I always find myself lacing up my shoes and heading out the door.

I’ve come to realize that if you can find something you’re not good at, but keep finding yourself doing nonetheless, that’s when you should really lean in. That’s what I did over the past eight months. In March, during a period of particularly high stress, I developed an ankle injury so bad that I couldn’t even make it down a supermarket aisle without support. I took to the pool until I could finally run for one minute on a treadmill – a major victory. I kept at it, and yesterday I ran my first half-marathon in more than 15 years.

Boy, was it tough. Here’s what I learned about the hidden benefits of doing something you’re bad at, and doing it with all your might: I learned that only when you are way out of your league, desperate to give up, sucking wind and totally vulnerable – only then are you raw and open enough to notice the angels around you.

Yes, that’s right. I said angels. And if you know me, my use of that word will tell you something about just how tired I was only a third of the way through yesterday’s race.

First, some context: when I first moved to San José, races were meant for Real Runners, meaning that it was hard to find anything under a 10K, and the fields tended to be pretty intimidating. Today, there is a growing diversity of races and you’ll see a lot more runners-in-process, so to speak – but the half-marathon cutoff is still only three hours, and I arrived at the race carrying the phone, charger, snacks and water I would need to finish the distance at a local park by myself if I fell too far behind and ended up lost in a southern San José suburb.

It sure looked like things would go that way, until I was suddenly swept up in a sea of blue. It was a running club from a nearby neighborhood accompanying one of their own in her first-ever half-marathon attempt. One person in particular fell into step with me and announced he would stick with me until the bitter end. This was Marcos, although everyone along the course called him Tío. He was a wiry, gray-haired runner who could probably have run the race in under two hours, but he wasn’t here to do that. He was just out to stretch his legs on a Sunday, show support for his teammate, and keep some poor sadsack from curling up in the fetal position at the side of a busy road.

Only those who have run races they really weren’t ready for and know that sinking feeling of hitting, say, the seven-mile mark and knowing you still have six to go, or the anxiety of expecting any step to be the one that makes your ankle buckle under you, will know just how much it meant to me to be caught up in this jovial group of runners when I had expected to spend the race alone. Other slow, struggling runners came in and out of our orbit, slowing to a walk or finding new energy, sometimes even sharing snippets of their stories. A member of the running club drove along the race course and stopped every couple of miles to take two ice-cold sponges from a cooler and drench us with freezing water, which felt like a welcome shot of adrenaline to the heart. That guy’s wife jumped out of the car at one point when we were traveling through a particularly sketchy area of San José, a neighborhood where drunks were still stumbling out of bars after a long night-turned-morning. She did something I hope no one ever does to me in that neighborhood to me: said “Quick, eat this,” and then shoved something into my mouth. It was a giant sports gummy. “You need sugar,” she said, and then she was gone.

Most of all, it was Tío who saved me. He was such a gentle presence trotting next to me, mile after mile. If I found the energy to say something, he was an appreciative audience; otherwise, we ran in silence. On a downhill, he’d say, “Let’s recover. Let’s shake it out. Let’s loosen up.” On an uphill, he’d say, “Come on, Katherine. We can do it. We’ll make it. Nearly there now.” My chin quivered at one point when I noticed how he always maneuvered himself in between me and any cars on the road, just as my dad used to do on a sidewalk. His steady stream of calmly uttered platitudes also reminded me of my dad. In fact, he escorted me through the race just as Pops would have, if Pops had been a seasoned marathoner. Maybe my brain was a little deprived of oxygen, or maybe there was something loopy in that sports gummy after all, but it was hard not to feel that I had been provided with some kind of divine intervention.

At one point, at a water station, a hopeful race volunteer said to our trailing group, “Are you the last ones?”

“Yes,” said Tío, “but the last shall be first.” I swear a choir burst into song nearby. Or maybe it was just the karaoke machine from the bar across the way.

When you suck at something, but you keep on doing, lean in. Lean way in. When you suck, when you’re last, when you’re out of shape or out of tune or way, way out of your league but you just keep going, that’s when people will help you. The angels hang out at the back of the pack. There, among the slow and struggling, you’ll remember the best possible outcome for any human endeavor. That’s to begin something alone, and to end it in unexpected company – overcome by the kindness of a person who at the starting line was nothing but a stranger.

(Today’s Daily Boost is dedicated to Corramos, the Rio Azul running club.)

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 41: One of the best decisions ever

So governments are very frustrating, but sometimes – usually hundreds of years ago – they really hit the nail on the head. Did you know that Nov. 10 is the Day of the Costa Rican Primary School? Me, neither, but it’s the day when, in 1869, Costa Rica declared primary school to be free and obligatory.

To put this in context, Costa Rica had only been an independent nation for 48 years at that point, and given everything I’ve learned about Costa Rican history, I think this must have been a terribly ambitious declaration. Maybe, like a certain U.S. declaration, the rub was in actually creating access for everyone to this universal right – but at least the declaration makes that quest legally necessary. Costa Rica’s commitment to education has shaped the country’s history for generations, and is one of the reasons I am proud to call this place my home.

Mónica Quesada

I’ve spent a lot of time in Costa Rican elementary schools, but certainly one of my happiest excuses to do so is JumpStart Costa Rica, the academic vacation camps I co-founded and that today are implemented by Peace Corps Volunteers. (There will be a whopping 21 camps this coming January, funded by the Costa USA Foundation, where I now work!) Thanks to the incredible photojournalist Mónica Quesada for these images, taken at camps in elementary schools in San Isidro de León Cortés and (last photo) in Rincón Grande de Pavas, 2014.

Mónica Quesada
Mónica Quesada

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 36: All hail the conquerer, Amy Palmiero-Winters

Endurance athlete Amy Palmiero Winters

Do you have a busy week ahead of you? Me, too. But you know what gives me a little more energy? Keeping in mind that a woman who endured the amputation of one of her legs (and the reconstruction of her other foot!) in her youth just rode her bike through the killer mountains of Costa Rica, tackling one of the toughest adventure races in the world.

The wide-eyed story I saw about Amy Palmiero-Winters in Costa Rica’s newspaper of record, La Nación, over the weekend made it sound as if this might have been her first rodeo. She joked in the interview about having to have words with her sponsor because the race turned out to be much harder than she expected, and I think the journalist took her too seriously. When I Googled her, I discovered that she is an international phenomenon. She’s run gut-wrenching ultramarathons, became the first amputee ever to qualify for the grueling Western States, and, in her free time, pushes wheelchairs for participants in other races, according to the New York Times.

Screenshot from The New York Times

What’s more, that same NYT article tells the story of how – after a car driver skipped a stop sign and hit her motorcycle, but before her left leg was amputated – she ran a marathon in Columbus, Ohio. That’s right. She ran a marathon with one leg atrophied, having been subjected to more than 25 operations. She ran the marathon, and then went in for her amputation.

No wonder she tackled the mountains of Costa Rica, inspiring yet another country with her steely nerve.

Whatever we’ve got on our plates this week: we’ve got this. Just ask Amy.

Want to read omre about the Ruta? I never tire of my friend Jill Replogle’s amazing piece about the Colorado man who literally fell off of the route and spent 30 hours shoeless and lost in the Costa Rican jungle. Check it out here.

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 31: The cure for anything is salt water

These words from one of my favorite writers tend to make me want to dip my toes in the ocean, but recently, I’ve been thinking about the first option she gives us: sweat. The older I get, the more I understand the power of putting your hand to the plough as a solution for what ails you.

These are scary times we live in, politically, environmentally and socially, and sometimes options two and three are the most compelling. It’s a good time to disconnect for a while and take ourselves to the nearest surf, or to indulge in a good cry. But what I discovered in 2017 when I briefly wrote an interview series called Shadow Cabinet was that the people I spoke to who were more engaged with the toughest issues also seemed more cheerful than I was at the time.

I expected to hear stress and fear in their voices. After all, they, unlike me, were actually working on a daily basis with immigrants, or unjustly jailed young people, or frustrated public school parents, or struggling journalists, or the inner workings of democracy. However, I found instead that while they certainly spoke with a sense of urgency, they also radiated optimism and hope. What I learned from the women leaders of Shadow Cabinet was that leaning into the issues that concerned them, they seemed to have helped their mental health, rather than hurting it.

There are probably many reasons why this is the case, but I think the biggest one might be community. We can cry over the injustices of our society alone in our houses, but whenever we roll up our sleeves and really get in there, we will be meeting incredible people who share our stance. We also get up close and personal with the incredible resilience of people who are experiencing injustice, discrimination and oppression.

As we start another week, I share this lesson for myself as well as others. There are so many things I need to learn over and over again, apparently, and this is one of them. When I feel truly overwhelmed by the crisis du jour – climate, constitutional, you take your pick – sometimes the best thing to do might actually be resist the urge to pull back, and to learn more instead. To sweat a little bit, to put in some work in whatever way I can figure out, and to connect, wherever possible.

Failing that, a good cry and a dip in the sea will never, ever hurt.

Have you figured out ways to do this recently? It can really be a struggle, so I’d love to hear any tips you’ve got, or any websites, groups or little online or physical communities you’ve found. I hope you have a happy Monday, or, failing that, a short one.

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 21: There is a castle in the clouds

If you’re reading this bright and early on Monday morning, you’re probably bracing yourself, just as I am. Right? Is at least part of your brain thinking, “Oh, lord. It’s Monday. What fresh hell will be inflicted on us by the time I turn off my computer tonight?”

I hear you. Here’s something that I plan to draw comfort from when those crises roll around. No matter what happens out in the world, there is one place where you can be sure something good will have happened by the end of today. There is a little corner of Costa Rica, hidden away up a long and winding road, where people from all over the world will have spent the day trying to figure out together how to fix the environment, resolve conflicts and promote world peace.

I recently got to spend three days at the University for Peace, and I gotta tell you, it makes me feel better just knowing it’s there. On a hillside where toucans flit from tree to tree, every corner you turn yields a new spot to rest and reflect, the bathrooms are adorned with poetry, and the benches are labeled “BENCH OF DREAMS,” it’s impossible to be cynical. It’s impossible not to be grateful for the foresight of the people who donated this incredible piece of land; the UN General Assembly for establishing this institution; the Executive Education Centre that allows people like me to take a class; and the fresh-faced young people – they might not all be fresh-faced and young, but that was my overwhelming impression – who seek out a degree there. They’re not doing it to become more prosperous, or even more successful, by the traditional standards many of us might employ. They’re doing it to become effective leaders, to make a bigger difference, and to become gentler human beings.

If you live in Costa Rica, head to Ciudad Colón and take a day trip up to the public park next to the university, where you can stroll around and even enjoy a meal at the little restaurant nestled between ponds, Kaninka. The drive up alone is soul-soothing. And if you can’t go in person, try making UPeace – or your favorite lovely spot where future leaders are being educated – your happy place for awhile. Pour yourself a cup of coffee at the university soda, sit down on a Bench of Dreams (because who doesn’t want to sit on a bench of dreams?), smile as a muddy dog or marmalade cat inevitably curls up nearby, and gaze out over the valley below. We are not alone. If we don’t have the strength to think of answers, someone out there is doing it for us – and when they sleep, or give up hope, maybe that’s when we’ll find the energy to take a shift.

May this idea bring you a little peace of mind as a new week begins.

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).