Joanna Biggar's Blog

I mentioned I thought I might be coming down with something to the last doctor I saw, the international health guy who gave me a typhoid shot, an official do’s and don’ts list for Costa Rica, and a precautionary prescription for antibiotics in case I came down with the bug. I did, and am taking the pills, feel like I’m underwater, but am doing “swimmingly” well, considering. The list for dos and don’ts was hilarious in its way: don’t drink the water, don’t eat any fruits or veggies or salsa or anything with milk in it etc., and you have to wonder where these people live. Have they actually been anywhere? Certainly not to the old Gold Coast where you learn the delights of chlorine-washed salad and filtered water etc.

And Costa Rica? Truly civilized in the best sense and hardly dangerous. I mean I’ll not go tripping in the high grass, so unlikely to find a fer de lance. But you have to wonder at a country, as the NYT did last week, that abolished all armies in 1948 and has dedicated itself to investing in education. What kind of country could that be?

Meanwhile, in my altered state, much enhanced by the wild, hurricane-sounding winds that blow ceaselessly in January (but no storm, no rain attached), I am enjoying this exotic, richly sensual experience. By last night all the students, with the exception of Thanasis the Greek poet, who will be our travel companion, had arrived, and lenny’s wife Joan served an amazing curry dinner to twenty or more people at several tables fully set with silver and linens, some on the verandah. In addition to the students, some of their expatriot friends came, and I was again in that small world within a world that is so familiar. Now to vary that, Linda and I have moved from our airy airie to the bottom floor of a house across the street, where we will stay the rest of the week. It belongs to a very nice young Costa Rican family with young children. They speak no English, so a taste of Doug’s immersion experience, but less exhausting.

He will remain in San Jose until Sat., the last day of the workshop, then come here and sleep on the couch for a night until there is a room available for us to share by Sunday. I’m afraid he will not like the pack of dogs that rule this roost and are everywhere, but like other  dog-phobics here, he’ll get over it. They’re very melllow and the worst offense is being licked to death.

We just had our first workshop — Linda’s — and it went very well. Students alive and lively, including three expats who are joining us. One just won some kind of Faulkner award for a novel he’s not yet published??

So my darlings, must run. To lunch and then a venture to a nearby butterfly garden.