Fearless Ticas: Mirna, the trailblazing doctor

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In my year of daily posting about Costa Rica (I’m nearly to the six-month mark!) I’ve often used Tuesdays to feature books, authors and bookstores. This month, in honor of International Women’s Day, I’ll focus all my Tuesdays on highlights from a single book: “Ticas sin Miedo” (“Fearless Ticas”), which I wrote about last week.

Today, meet Mirna Román Rodríguez, Costa Rica’s first Ngöbe doctor. Growing up in the small indigenous village of Altos de San Antonio near the Panamanian border, she says in “Ticas sin Medio” that somehow, “inside of me an idea was born. I thought: I have to study. I have to leave here. I have to show that an indigenous woman can do it.”

After graduating from a one-room elementary schoolhouse of only 10 students, she walked 15 kilometers along a lonely path to the nearest high school, a nearly three-hour journey each way. She would rise at 3 a.m. to get to school by 7. However, she says in the book that her cultural adaptation was much harder than the hours of walking: she suffered constant taunts and only made one friend, in tenth grade, whom she treasures to this day. She also had to significantly improve her Spanish, her second language.

University studies in San José and then Cuba followed, and she earned her medical degree in 2013. She hopes to become an OBGYN and, most importantly, serve the Ngöbe indigenous community.

“Doctor,” she says, “is a word that makes me feel complete.”

Excerpted and translated from “Ticas sin Medio,” a Kickstarter-funded project published by Dina Rodríguez Montero and illustrated by Vicky Ramos Quesada. Learn more 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! 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. 

Natural beauty and sloth love to brighten cold February days

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I think that the gorgeous art of Vivan Víquez is perfect for February, whether you’re in the tropics or you’ve got icicles on your eyebrows.

Here in Costa Rica, the sun is out and kids are rushing back to school; traffic increases and the pace of life, so spare and light in January, starts to intensify. City-dwellers who escaped to the country during the holidays risk losing touch once more with the natural wonders we saw. This makes February the perfect time to find reminders of nature, flora and fauna to keep our mind on the outside world, even if we’re spending more time at our desks.

In the places where I grew up, of course, February is very different, and very cold. Part of me will always think of February as a bit of a slog. Winter is getting a bit old, night comes quickly and summer seems a long way off. At times like that, a bright spot of tropical color and Valentine’s Day red is always welcome.

So wherever you are, you should follow Vivian, a 25-year-old artist from San Carlos in northern Costa Rica. She told me that it was in San Carlos that “my enjoyment over nature started; most of my life has been spent in green spaces. I love animals. If I hadn’t studied art, I would probably be a biologist or veterinarian.”

That passion shows the artwork she showcases through her project Corteza Ilustración CR. The projected started when she challenged herself to paint 100 Costa Rican birds. By now she’s painted more than 200 birds, sometimes more than four watercolors per day, and she hopes to illustrate at least some members of every one of Costa Rica’s wildlife families.

Why? “I want Corteza to help make species more visible and educate the public,” she said.

I plan to acquire some of Víquez’s work in the near future, but until then, her posts nearly always bring  a smile to my face or an “ooh” to my lips. Check her out on Instagram. You’ll be charmed and comforted, guaranteed.

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). 

Which books moved you most in the 20-teens?

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I know. It’s a tough one.

Costa Rican: I’ve never been able to forget “Única mirando al mar,” the poignant tale of a lonely old man who literally puts himself into the trash and ends up living among the inhabitants of the Rio Azul trash dump not far from my home. It’s since been covered with unnaturally green grass, but the inequality Fernando Contreras Castro portrayed has grown fiercer and fiercer since the book was published.

Other: So, so many. I mean, this was the decade in which I finally read “El Quijote,” finishing it over a solo dinner in San Pedro, crying over the final chapter, eight months pregnant. Things trended much lighter and less challenging after my daughter’s birth; there have been a lot of mystery series, albeit very good ones. I hope to wade back into bigger waves in the 20s.

On this New Year’s Eve, as firecrackers pop all over the Central Valley, I’ll be vowing to read much more in the year ahead. May the coming decade be full of quiet page-turning, luscious browsing, and recommendations swapped among friends.

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 67: Artistry in the home

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Today’s Boost is a little ode to the Costa Rican portal. Growing up, we would have a small manger scene, or crèche, on a shelf: a tiny Jesus, kings, sheep, parents. Isn’t it nuts when Mary is standing, by the way, or kneeling ramrod straight? If I just gave birth in a barn after riding on a donkey all day – to a baby who, in a nativity scene, is inevitably the size of a two-year-old – I am LYING on that straw, thank you very much. And probably muttering at the ceiling, because I’d have a few comments for God at that point.

But I digress.

The point is, I’ll never forget the first time I walked into my mother-in-law’s living room in Costa Rica and saw her Christmas portal, or pasito, taking up almost half of the space. Make room in your heart for Jesus? In Costa Rica they see our trite saying and raise us by making room in their houses. Lots of room. Sometimes it’s enough room for an actual woman to have an actual divine baby in there.

The creativity is fun to watch. Markets and stores sell straw and other materials for their construction, along with, of course, the figures, which are supposed to be handed down on the mother’s side. An article in La Nación explained that one reason the portales are usually built on the floor is that traditionally, local fruits and cypress and other natural elements were used. Events that happened during the past year would sometimes be represented. Truly, the sky is the limit.

Here’s hoping that no matter what your religion or end-of-year traditions, this season provides a chance for you to make something – serious or silly, something that will last or something that will be gone tomorrow. Just something to get our creative juices flowing and take our minds off the day-to-day. Something like a portal, that fleeting, yearly chance to build something all your own on the living room floor.

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 62: A bookstore stop for your summer park walk

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One of the best possible ways to spend a long, breezy San José afternoon in December is to wander through the city’s prettiest parks, nestled together just east of the city center: Parque Nacional, Parque Morazan and especially Parque España. And now there’s a delightful spot to stop, browse and read amidst the green.

Librería Duluoz is just off the Parque España’s northeast corner, across a narrow street from the beautiful Casa Amarilla. On a recent visit, I could have plopped down in the cozy, inviting kids’ section for hours. The English-language selection is limited, but readers of Spanish will be in heaven, and honestly, it’s worth a visit just for its gorgeous location. Robust feminist and LGBTQ sections and more provide a chance to take in the scope of the country’s and region’s progressive authors, and independent publishers are the stars of the show.

I’m glad Librería Duluoz has joined Librería Andante on the extremely nascent independent bookstore crawl I started as part of the Daily Boost. Do you have other favorites I should visit? Tell me all about them! And don’t forget to enter my Costa Rican holiday care package giveaway!holiday care package giveaway!

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 57: Is December the most honest month?

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I miss the four seasons I grew up with. I especially love a crisp autumn day, a serene winter morning, a long summer evening. But if we’re doing a strict month-on-month analysis, I’m really not sure what could beat December in Costa Rica.

Did you see the series finale of “Downton Abbey,” where Lady Edith gets married and everyone else falls in love, brings forth new life, dances in slow motion or gazes lovingly at someone or something? That’s what it’s like. Sunny afternoons. Cool breezes that tousle your hair. Christmas. Festivals everywhere you look. School vacation. The aguinaldo, or Christmas bonus worth a full month’s salary. The whole country sort of swoons at once. Adults act like kids, fidgeting in their swivel chairs, gazing out the window at the delectably tempting sunny afternoons, trying to think of a reason to have some more rompope.

Still, as someone who grew up in New England, it took me a while to get used to a warm Christmas. In today’s piece over at my @poemsondemand account on Instagram, I decided to tackle a prompt I made up myself: explaining why December has such a unique and consistent feel even if you spend it in a climate and a culture so different from the one you grew up in. The answer I came up with? No matter where you are, December is the point of the year when you realize you’ve run out of time – and arbitrary as that milestone may be, it makes us throw our hands up and let go of expectations. As a result, I ended up wondering whether December, for all its festivities and excitement, might actually be the most honest of months. What do you think? (Do you have a poem topic to assign to me, seasonal or otherwise? The trickier or more random, the better. Help support my new addiction.)

No matter where December finds you this year, I wish you a month full of light.

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 52: One butterfly hour at a time

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Good morning! Today I’m all out of words, so in honor of Tuesday Beauty, here is the most gorgeous thing I can think of. Whenever I spot it, usually through the trees, it really does take my breath away. It’s one of the world’s largest butterflies and certainly one of the most spectacular, thanks to the microscopic, light-reflecting scales on its wings.

According to the Rainforest Alliance, it lives for only 115 days. Math isn’t my strong suit, but after a little Post-It scribbling I’ve concluded that an hour for us is about 13 seconds for a Blue Morpho butterfly.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes at this time of year I get a little overwhelmed by everything that’s coming down the pike, especially the reckoning of the year past and the future planning I always feel compelled to do. Maybe it’d be better if I took thing one Blue Morpho hour at a time.

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

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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 22: Finally, a happiness hack for your toilet

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Should every toilet in the world have a poem posted in front of it, to enrich those stolen moments in a hectic day? The answer, my friends, is yes. Yes they should. Are your toilets so adorned? What are you waiting for? Break out your favorites, draw odd looks from your family and colleagues, and create a little respite for yourself every so often.

That’s really the extent of this hack. However, I hope you’ll read “Purple,” the poem that got me thinking about this: I found it posted in a bathroom at the University for Peace through the Global Poetry Project. It’s a humdinger (so is “Blue,” referenced below) now printed out and stuck on my daughter’s bathroom wall, as our own “reminder to lay yourself open and sparkle.”

Purple, by Katharine Zaun

After Carl Phillips’ “Blue” 

As in the skin of plums,
purple-black falling from the tree
in our backyard. Teardrops
heavy with ripeness,
branches like lashes
letting go. Theirs is the midnight
glow of the cosmos. A swirl of dark
that signals history, or destiny.
Inside, a red purple that matched my blood,
and I ate greedily, consuming myself.
I haven’t found any like them since.

This is the purple-blue
of violets, the same as the suede
cowboy boots my aunt gave me
at seven; crushed fabric
a luscious embodiment of little girl dreams. A duplicate mood
found in the geometric middle
of a geode that sat on my shelf
at twelve and sparkled; a reminder
to lay yourself open and sparkle.

In that room, a painting
by another aunt
with a purple the color of kings
and forgiveness – a likely combination.
The women around me
forever granting forgiveness,
not forgetting.
This is the man-made purple
that leans no closer
to red than to blue; the one I avoid in favor
of deep purple daydreams of plums and the cosmos.

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).