Our Norfolk Pine Had to Come Down!

It was so sad to have to remove this magnificent tree from the yard next to David and Gianni's apartment, but we need to make space for another building there.

This was a very tall Norfolk Pine which was beginning to tower twice the height as the house itself. We contracted an old fellow "Guicho" who took the whole thing down by himself! He trimmed off the branches, as shown around the base of the tree below, then climbed almost to the very top to take that section down (with a machete!).

Ayyam-i-Ha Celebration

This year we repeated a fun event to celebrate Ayyam-i-Ha (Intercalary Days, or days of preparation for the Baha'i month of fasting, which is turn ends with the New Year's celebration). The event was a game of gift exchanging. What makes it a game is that each participant brings a wrapped gift (supposedly something they would like to have themselves) and these are placed in the center of the circle of friends. Numbers are chosen from a basket (as being explained by Margie and Julie below). Then number one opens any gift on the table. The second number can take any other gift on the table and, if not opening it, can exchange it for the first person's gift. Same goes for the 3rd and all the rest. This becomes pretty crazy as the more attractive gifts become evident. One gift can make the rounds many times before the last person chooses.
There were many guests, who are investigating the Faith, participating as well as most of the local Baha'i Community.
Stateside visitor, Charlynn Stevens, Gianni and David:

Three guests who were playing this game for the first time (Luis Alonzo, Stefani and Luis' sister, Sandri):Here's lucky number one, Betsy, who's a friend of Amanda Matamoros. Lucky because at the end of the game, as the first person to start (and not having the opportunity to exchange her gift) she gets to choose any of all the gifts to conclude the game !

So Much Going On!

This past week I haven't posted anything. Sorry about that! We've been up to our ears in visits, Baha'i activities (see next post) and preparations for our April trip to the States (which means making itineraries, updating our Will, fixing up the house, etc.).

One of our most recent visitors is Fawny Ruhf. She was here as a child about ten years ago with her dad and a bunch of folks, so it was terrific to see her all grown up. She's staying at Jaleh's place in town but came over for dinner and to hang out. Charlynn had promised us a Thai meal and here's a shot of us all getting ready to dive in. (I caught Jaleh in mid-blink--sorry.)

Feria de Naranja (Orange Fair in town)

For the past two weeks our little town has been pretty much blocked off by this big event. A multitude of local and outside visitors come to check out the concession stands, arts & crafts displays, herbal remedies stands and music. David was invited to play with a few local fellows who've been practicing up a storm at his studio next door to us. The band, "Custica" played a number of pieces and gathered a huge crowd.
Here's Gianni filming the whole show, with Jessie Gingold noticing my snapping this from behind a tree (and alerting Julie).
Just above my head where all these huge gourds!
And this sculpture is positioned under one of the branches:A closer look at the sculpture. Our town is becoming quite artistically significant, to our delight.Darren behind Laura (Gianni's sister) and Julie:
Julie and I made the rounds to see what was on exhibit and ran into Jaleh:

Another nice devotional gathering at Doña Blanca's

I mentioned that Cherlynn is here in CR getting some extensive dental work done. Poor lady has been trying to recuperate for a few days now, scarcely eating anything (no solids--mostly soups), but she wanted to join us today at the devotional in Palmichal de Acosta. Maribel Morales, Alan Pringle and Rafa Apolinar joined us as well. With Blanca is Veronica, her daughter, and Viviana, her grand-daughter.

New Restaurant

We just discovered a new place to take friends here in town: La Bonanza. It's very close to where we live and run by a Dutch family who've been in town for about 15 years. They decided to turn their home into a very attractive restaurant (bar too, unfortunately) with a loft and open-beam construction, and way above town so there's a great view at night. (They build a new house next door and have a pool and fountains as a divider between the two.)

Dick Hicks invited us out, so how could we refuse? Here he's greeting me with a "fajita" (tortilla wrapping a guacamole sauce, tasty chicken and many other things which you can spoon out of wooden bowls and put together yourself).

I had a delicious tomato-vegie soup with home-made muffins. All very yummy. We highly recommend this place!This was a decorative ceramic piece in front of the men's-room mirror:

Season for the Flowering Trees of Costa Rica

Here are a few shots of the trees we're starting to see this summer. (Some are from last year, but just to give you an idea about how gorgeous they are.) This is my favorite, the "golden shower":

Then there are so many of these fig trees which put down a zillion roots.
And the infamous "strangler fig". This thing starts spouting from the crotch of a tree, when a bird ingests the seed and drops it there. Once the roots touch the soil they become practically unstoppable and leave the poor host tree unable to expand, so it eventually dies.Here's what'll happen if you leave some machinery around too long!

Local Teaching Campaign

Our little Baha'i Community got together for breakfast to discuss our latest plans for helping our town grow spiritually. We discussed working with children and pre-youth in town, plus how best to get parents and friends involved.Auxiliary Board members, Munirih Rosales and Ronny Brenes (3rd and 4th from left), were assisting us by sharing other community's challenges and successes, and planting some of their ideas.
A young woman, Marcela Lemus from El Salvador, arrived directly from the airport to spend part of the morning with us (on left below). She'll be studying at the university here and living with Munirih.Here's Margie Diaz, Mike Robles, new Assembly member, Eliza Latouch, and Alan Pringle
Some of the other friends attending (Julie, Lilia Ericks, Mari Morales, Egitan Robles and Munirih):

Unexpected Visitors

Our dear "Tica" friend, Helen Mirkovich, arrived for a few week's visit with her husband, Daniel Kohm, from their home in Alberta, Canada, and we invited them out for coffee and cake yesterday.

Helen's sister-in-law, "Piki", who is a Baha'i from the island of Chira (in the Puntarenas Bay) brought her daughter, Valeria. She's due to have a baby anytime in the next few days and said that she wanted to get out of the house for a break from so much waiting around for this baby to come!
Dick Hicks joined us, and Cherlynn Stevens, who is a Baha'i from Maryland, as well. Cherlynn is visiting CR for the second time and has been getting some serious dental work done. She'll be staying with us until the end of the month.

Here's Helen, in white, showing some photos of their great visit to the Arenal volcano (they got some great pictures of it in action) to Cherlynn. Dick's at the end and Piki next to him on the right. Daniel is looking at the camera (like saying, what are you up to, dude?). Daniel's a biker (Harleys). We happen to know that he takes very good care of "our" Helen. I understand that he has a dental laboratory in Canada and, I'm sure, works very hard so that Auxiliary Board member, Helen, can travel all around the Northwest Territories to assist with the Faith's needs.
Here's Helen, Daniel and Piki at the picnic table. It was almost dark when they left and we all had a great time hanging out.
Later in the day, Gianni showed up from work. Here's a shot of her with Julie and Cherlynn. I wanted to get a before-and-after photo of Gianni's baby bump.
Gianni and David do not want to know if it's a boy or a girl (we all suspect a boy), but Piki knows that her baby is a boy. It was a very great surprise for Gianni to learn that Piki and Eddie have chosen the same name that she and David would like to give their child if it's a boy: Tristan.
Here's Valeria with her uncle Daniel:
Valeria with her aunt Helen and her mom, Piki:She's almost too big for this tree swing:

New Friends

We've been without Internet for about five days, due to some phone lines down on our road, so I wasn't able to do any posts until now. A few days ago we had Amy and David Hoffman over for dinner. David is a teacher at the University for Peace here in town. We heard about them through a Baha'i friend who lives across the street from their place in town. Amy is, we hear, a very talented artist and crafts-person.

Also, for dinner, to our great delight were the rarely seen, Anne and Parviz Ighani. Julie was able to button-hole Annie, while I caught up with a million things from Parviz after dinner.

And with us, as well, was our dear (lonely) brother, Dick Hicks. (Poor fellow is without his second half! Brenda is taking care of the grandchildren in the States for a few months.)

All in all, we had a very unusual and educational evening with all these people. (It must have been a successful gathering because we kept talking until 11pm, and that's very unusual for us!)

Thank you each and all for a great get-together!

The Passing of Phil Lucas!

This shocking news just came from a friend who knew that I was very close to Phil.

Our dear friend apparently was not able to survive a triple coronary bypass surgery. (We were told that he died immediately afterwards.)
I've been trying, actually for months, to connect with Phil since Julie and I will be in the area near Issaquah, Washington where he was living with his family and we wanted to pass by for a visit.

I first met Phil, who was part Mexican American and part Choctaw, at the original Bosch Baha'i School, called then "Geyserville" in those days. He and I, and a young artist fellow named, Larry Jordan, drove up to the Yukon Territory on the first Baha'i Youth Project outside of the Continental U.S. It was a "trip" in more ways than one. Phil was a true entertainer and was a very intense person with amazing talents. Larry and I hoped that some of Phil's dynamism would rub off on us, and we learned so much about life and spirituality from him.

Our journey started out (in my old '57 Chevy pickup) with a round of Tablet of Ahmads and a promise among the three of us that we would dedicate 24 hours a day for the next 6 weeks (duration of the project) to the Faith. That we would keep an eye on each other to see that none of us would become distracted (by girls or anything else--hey, we were all single!) from our teaching goal.

That decision was key to the amazing successes we experienced. Not only did we put the roof on, and a new brick floor in, the Baha'i Institute on a lake near Whitehorse (which was the original goal of the project) but we also traveled to the most amazing Baha'i Summer School in Juneau, Alaska. People arrived there from some of the most remote parts of Alaska, so we were able to meet Alaskan Native Baha'is and pioneers who attended, as well. People were so totally united anyway, but with Phil's entertaining skills and marvelously animating songs (some written during the trip), the place was totally rocking! The unity and excitement was palpable.

After the week-long Summer School we were sent back to the Yukon to finish our project, and to travel teach over a vast area of the wilderness there (with hundreds of miles between villages sometimes), and then visited the coastal islands for more teaching. We were flown to some islands in a Baha'i's personal airplane, had a radio interview (Phil being the main attraction--Larry and I were terrified and inexperienced in that stuff) and finally returned home via an ocean-going ferry (with the truck on board). We disembarked, I think, at Ketchikan and drove back to California from there, our lives completely transformed...

To see Phil in action, check out the following video of a talk he gave in 1990:

<http://youtube.com/watch?v=2RDJdGwfH24>

For those who knew Phil, condolences can be sent to the following address:
Lucas Family
c/o Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Issaquah
PO Box 743
Issaquah, WA 98027

Arrival of Kathleen Stone and Grant Neie

We've been anticipating the arrival of Kathleen Stone, an old friend who visited us last in the mid 80's. She and her husband, Grant, spend all afternoon with us. They are considering CR as a possible future retirement home. Kathleen, who wants to be able to serve as a Baha'i pioneer, is trying to work out a nice balance with her husband who's supportive of the Faith but is also hoping to continue his passion as a world-class surfer!

We had a delightful time getting to know them both. (Well, I spent more time speaking with Grant, while Julie was with Kathleen.)

I really clicked with Grant, who is employed as a nurse, but is also an expert in Reiki (he applied his healing technique to me while relating a very interesting history of the origins of Reiki). Grant searches for spiritual richness through meditation and practice of what he believes.
He graciously gifted us with the latest body surfing goodie: a body board which was developed by Bruce Blumenfeld in coordination with Tom Morey, the world famous inventor of the Boogie board. It's called the Wave Skater


Thank you so much for this and for your visit. Hopefully, we'll be seeing you guys again soon.

Reflection Gathering-6th Cycle

Reflection garherings are always falling on Sundays, so we have to squeeze in our Devotionals beforehand. This week Maribel brought a ton of her sobrinos to the Dev. and then took them all to the Charles Wolcott Institute for the big event afterwards.
Two cuties who are Mari's sister's daughters
Aileen McCoy with Reflection Coordinator, Daniel Mora, and Aux. Board member, Munirih Rosales:
There was a call for cantantes, so this group came forward (the words to the song were being projected on a screen behind them).
Mike Robles has always been our main chorus leader:Lots of singing, and animated singers in the crowd:
There was a little song sharing during a break. Below, a recent Baha'i arrival from Washington State, Tiara Stevens, who's here to study Spanish and meet the Baha'i friends:
Andres, with novia, Roya, and Tiara:

Julie made tons of tuna sandwiches to share with our community during the lunch break. Here with Melissa Angulo (who's moved to Santa Ana to take care of her sick mom).Some of the crown for picnic lunch:
Viviana, Doña Blanca and Dick Hicks: