Our day of rest

Today we wound through the mountains, and then walked down a long track that buses and vans fear to tread, to reach a sugar cane plantation. There we learned how to make brown sugar the old fashion way, to wit: Hook two very large draft animals to a long, stout pole to turn two opposing cyclinders that squeeze every last drop of sugar water from stalks of sugar cane. Pour the results into a very large wok-like container over a hot fire to boil down and caramelize the sugar water into a brown, syrupy mass. Pour this into a long, wodden trough and spread it back and forth with a wodden paddle to both cool and beat some air into it. This converts the tarry syrup into a semi-solid paste, which you put into something that looks like a long, wodden muffin tin to create conical blocks of brown sugar. The result was muy sabroso, which means just what you think it means.

This day of fun and edification is a prelude to five days of labor to come. On Friday we made a very good start to our various projects. On Friday we suffered a bit from our lack of knowledge about how to turn a pile of rocks into a viable retaining wall, and the difficulty of digging post holes through rocks, tin cans, and household detrius such as toy telephones. It was hard work. Now I have an inkling of what it means to be a brasero. Despite the frustration, we remain happy about the real value of what we are trying to do, and are determined to attack these obstacles with full force tomorrow morning.

This experience is turning out to be truly rich and satisfying. Gail is a quite amazing person, with a clear vision of how to meet the needs of her disadvantaged clients in solid, practical ways. She is one of the best multi-taskers I have every seen, every day the focus of a net of communications the keeps her many, many concurrent projects on track and making progress. All the youth, and the adult participants, are facing all the new experiences and inevitable issues of travel and social work with enviable patience and endurance.

In short, we are all well, and on track to come home much the richer for our experiences here in Costa Rica.