Pura Vida, Pumas, and Living in the Mist

Whenever you move somewhere new, you have the incredible opportunity to experience strange and novel things.  This past weekend was the region's first-ever strawberry festival and ADE hosted a dessert-making competition, an eating competition, and a "strawberry war" (think paintball with rotten strawberries as ammunition) to raise money for the school.  It was really cool to see so many people from the community making food, selling trinkets, and having a great time.  The people here have rough, unglamorous lives, but still manage to celebrate living in the moment, express gratitude for all they have, and share themselves fully with others -- an attitude known in Costa Rica as "pura vida."

On Doing Good

Why am I here?  Why are all the staff members and interns of ADE here?  Is it because we see people we can help?  Or is it because we want to bring to fruition an image we have of ourselves as being good, helpful people?

I was recently reminded of an experience I had while raising money for the Democratic National Committee back in 2004.  When I got to one of the doors, the woman who answered asked me, “would you like to know why I’m voting for George Bush?”  I said “yes,” so she brought me into her house and showed me of a picture of her cousin, who was serving in Iraq.  She told me that he was liberating people and that Bush was doing good work overseas.  As she clung to her belief that her cousin was risking his life for something valuable, might she have prevented herself from seeing what was really going on?

It strikes me now, as I’m witnessing “development” work, that the same thing can happen in humanitarian efforts.  If people need very badly to believe they are doing something “good,” they may miss what’s actually going on around them and what affect they are actually having.  Put another way, if the only way we derive happiness is by fulfilling an image of ourselves as “good,” “helpful,” “selfless,” or “Christian,” we may fail to recognize when we are actually doing harm.  We may need so strongly to believe we are good, that we prevent ourselves from recognizing our own shortcomings and the sometimes negative effects of our work.  We may also make ourselves miserable.

I think we are all vulnerable to this possibility.  And I seek to constantly remind myself that our beliefs can either liberate us or make us slaves to our own minds.  And that the best way to help others is to seek true happiness and peace in our own hearts.

Losing Weight

Physically, I am losing weight, which is a bit bizarre because I'm eating a lot.  Is it the altitude?  But this post goes much deeper than that.  Mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, I feel like I am shedding a lot of the angst and hassle and pressure of modern life.

When I first got here, I was so annoyed by how simple my life is, and by how much of each day is completely beyond my control.  Slowly, as I have settled into this life, I have come to see the beauty and freedom of living so simply.  I don't have a mirror, so I don't put on makeup.  It's really cold in our house, so I just pile on whatever clothes are in front of me - completely mismatched and looking insane.  But I just don't care about how I look.  Not having a mirror, I don't even know how I look.

Green

I couldn't have come to a place more different than London.  Everything I see around me is the green and brown of nature..instead of the gray of cement and black of smoke and pavement and lights and lights and lights.  When I looked outside my window last night, everything was black; sky melted into earth until lightening burst forth every few minutes.  Everything smells different...fresh air, mingled with the smell of the old wood of the house, mixed with dog, and cow pastures, and mold from the ever-hanging mist.  No more cars and greasy Chinese food and cigarette smoke.  Church is different - loud, emotional, overflowing; not quiet, meditative.  The food is different..rice, beans, soup, tortillas, eggs, strawberries...in place of dark chocolate and crepes and sandwiches.