Well it’s a fascinating experience: science, poetry and prose; Latin (as Tommy says, botanists love to get together and speak Latin – go to end of blog for a glimpse); referencing his notes quoting thoughts, mostly his own, and proverbs; and, if just the right moment strikes, reciting from a dog-eared book he carries in his pocket, Wayne W. Dyer’s, ‘Pensamientos para una Vida Mejor’. Always spot on.
We talked of the natural world, relative plant nutrients, lunar and solar cycles, observation, understanding, a terrible dream, transformation; often cycling back to the forest and how we learn from it everyday. We are all students just scraping the surface of the natural world.
We spoke of our responsibilities: protecting the forest, processing water and waste, not contaminating. When you live off the grid, you manage all this on your own. Since moving from a house in Ciudad Colon to being off the grid at El Tigre, including no garbage pick-up service, we have reduced our garbage production by over 95%. That was necessity for us but anybody can do it!
Maestro Poveda reminded us of the four R’s:
Re-Use
Recycle
Rechazar (Reject) - Don’t buy/accept stuff that will just end up in a landfill.
Reclamar (Complain - Loudly!) - Don’t let people throw their trash everywhere!
Poveda fills me with such awe. Every challenge comes with an opportunity to grow and learn from it - and to move on. And if you’re moving with Poveda, you’d better take notes quickly because he definitely moves on quickly... (See Latin at the end of the blog for a few more glimpses of hiking with Maestro Poveda and fellow student, Tin).
So what’s this about people throwing garbage everywhere?
Well, I think everybody has a story or ten about garbage. Sometimes you have to, as the Ticos say, ‘Reclamar’.
Here’s a story of, ‘One man’s irresponsible greed being a whole community’s (and the country’s) potential environmental suffering’, expressed very well by Manuel Emilio Morales, Periodista:
“Una Vez Mas, SOS por el Rodeo”,
published in La Nacion, Friday, March 5, 2010.
It’s time we stood up to RECLAMAR. We plan to walk for nature – to fight to maintain a pristine forest, in the face of its proposed destruction by an enormous mega garbage landfill - and we shall do it peacefully and with an open heart. We meet in el Viejo Mercado in Ciudad Colon at 4pm on Saturday, March 13th. And we shall walk as a group to the University for Peace in El Rodeo. Join us, please – walk for the love of a vitally important forest. Donations for our B&B fight will also be gratefully accepted (B&B – Bosque y Botadero; or Beauty & the Beast, if you prefer…).
You can get all the details in the local press, but mark your calendar now!
Dress and prepare for walking 6 km. on the road from Ciudad Colon to El Rodeo. On arrival, there will be a couple of speakers, a show of solidarity, and then buses will be available, at nominal cost, if you want to ride back to Ciudad Colon in comfort, rather than trekking it…
Why should we care about this little forest? The Zona Protectora El Rodeo is vital, pre-montane humid forest, connecting to the Biological Corridor of the Rio Virilla all the way to the Pacific coast. Over recent years, the forest has withstood all that Mother Nature had to throw at it: fires, landslides and earthquakes. After each disaster, the villagers have picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and carried on.
Thus, we shall do so again. See you on March 13th!
My Big Mistake
Over the past few years, botany pals visiting El Tigre all have similar reactions to ‘My Big Mistake’: they recoil from it, look askance at it. Then come the ‘polite’ little remarks, “What lunacy is this! Do you wish to create a Monster Garden? It’s a monstrous palm! It’s not a palm! It’s not a grass! You made a Big Mistake!”
So what did Poveda say? He looked at it and exchanged glances with Tin, who made no comment but just gave the name. However, I wasn’t fast enough to write it down at the time, and was too embarrassed to ask Poveda to repeat it. So I looked it up later in Tropica, 4th Edition, 1992.
This is how Tropica, page 1054 describes ‘My Big Mistake’:
“Pandanus sanderi, F. Pandanaceae: …handsome, very ornamental screw-pine …with age, breaking above the middle and laxly pendant …used as towering clumps of wind-breaks in their native Polynesia.”
I brought one potted plant of Pandanus sanderi from Ciudad Colon when we moved to El Tigre. Now, Armando is a master at reproducing stuff (he took one mangy citronella plant that somebody gave me and reproduced it to hundreds of plants, that we now have planted all over the garden as erosion breaks). So, unfortunately, he took that one potted Pandanus and reproduced that too. Now dozens of them are popping up all over the place and just taking over! They were only planted three years ago but, already, they’ve turned into monsters! I thought it was an ornamental grass and planted it along the drive, amongst other places. However, they just grew and grew – into massive towering clumps of grass atop sprawling, spirally, cavernous root systems that push way up off the ground! And look at what resides in those monstrous mazes: bee hives, Terciopelos, bears! (Well, maybe not bears…).
Luis and Tin told us about the problem, and the very next day, Armando got stung by a bee defending his nest in - you guessed it - a Pandanus…
Luckily, we are in menguante – the waning moon – perfect pruning weather, and Armando has already gone at it. And now, chopped-up Pandanus is making wonderful mulch all around the garden, although Gabi came out to see our pruning and proclaimed that she likes the plant! I think we can spare a plant or two…
And now a few snippets of, ‘Latin with Luis Poveda’ – actually we spoke Latin in Spanish. I have translated a few of the notes I could quickly scrawl as we hiked along. I’ve also ad-libbed a bit here in English. All mistakes are mine: “That Asteraceae with purple flowers is an Onoserys silvatica. I call it the Stimulant Purple Daisy because the roots are reputed to have stimulant properties. Watch the daisy you pick – got to get the right species. Ocotea veraguensis – wonderful fragrance – use the bark for shampoo. Vitex. Apeiba tibourbou – oil extracted from the seeds. Acacia ternifolia (Amor Fino). Ficus costaricensis – sap kills parasites. Justicia macrantha – interesting dyes. Also flowering is, Justicia ovata. Lonchocarpus (probably felipei). Characteristics listed of Celastraceae, Hippocrataceae. Regarding the Malvales Order - Bombacac., Sterculiac., Tiliac. – all now folded into Malvaceae.
Tin and I gasp at this last piece of news! And it just goes on and on. I am lucky if I guess the Family name correctly. Poveda, however, nails not just the Family, but also the Genus and the species! And, if he’s not sure about the species, driven by curiosity, he collects a sample for analysis back at the lab. You have to be quick and take notes before he moves on.
Poveda moves in a higher sphere of mentation – totally open heart, you can feel his joyous spirit. I am still in awe of him, as I was when we first met 12 years ago, then being a complete novice student. Over the years, I have also studied out in the field with Quirico Jimenez, Humberto Jimenez, and other ex-students of Poveda. Even so, after all these year in the tropical world, I am still a novice.
And just as I recover from that fascinating visit, an old friend arrives from the past, from Pennsylvania…
Virginia Derbyshire almost died in a traffic accident three years ago. In fact, they pronounced her dead a number of times just the first night after. But she returned to life - only to die again and then return again. Her doctors called her the Miracle Patient. Broadsided, her body battered and broken, nobody expected her to survive during her months in ICU. But she did survive, underwent numerous surgeries, and then, slowly but surely, made a full recovery. And the next thing you know, Virginia travels from Pennsylvania to Costa Rica, and on her final day of trekking and birding – from Monteverde to Tortuguero – she ends up visiting me, an old friend from years back. And here we are, hiking together all the way down to Tiger Hill and back. Tiger Hill is a strenuous hike even for young, healthy people; not at all appropriate for a 75 year-old woman who’s just come back from the brink… Absolutely no problem! Virginia looks and moves exactly the same as I remember her 15 years ago, when we were naturalist buddies in Pennsylvania. In fact, I was huffing and puffing just to keep up with her! She also still has a keen power of observation - a natural birder. And like Polly, Virginia loves the butterflies. We saw Morphos! Polly was with us in spirit.
And in the middle of this mix of visitors comes walking in Dr. Bob - that's a
story for another time.
Gerald has been in foul temper all this week. His Driving License expires next week. Who cares? Normally, renewal is not a huge deal, but it is this week. Why? Because the Costa Rican government just passed a new traffic law that dramatically increases the penalty for those driving on expired licenses. So now, all those people driving around on expired licenses have suddenly swamped the License Bureau to get renewals – thousands of them! And the system has utterly collapsed from the crowds. If you don’t get in line by 6 am, you won’t get in – the guards closed the gates yesterday at 11am, turning away hundred of people. They all went back today, along with Gerald, who also got turned away yesterday. As he crept along in line, he complained vehemently to the guard about all those people with expired licenses collapsing the system. The guard responded that one guy showed up yesterday with a license expired 23 years ago! That was the record thus far…
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