Inundated 💦💦💦

#3 | The storm continues

My intention is for this to be a weekly newsletter but I had to put all my energy into surviving life lately so there was no time to write. The storm just keeps going.

Ben’s mom flew in at the beginning of last week. He had warned her that October is not a great month for a visit, that it is rainy season. But when she was making her plans we did not know it would be a rainy season like this.

Ben left the day before his mom was due to arrive so he could take some meetings in San Jose. Usually it is about a four hour drive, but it took him much longer than usual to get there because he had to drive along the coast. Our usual route through the mountains was closed due to a massive landslide. You can see it in the video here.

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When I realized what a hard time Ben was having getting to San Jose I had a moment where I thought I should call his mom and let her know how crazy it is here, but I stopped myself. How bad would it sound to call my mother-in-law and tell her not to come? We all wanted to see her. She was bringing her new friend with her for the first time too, and we all wanted to meet him.

I knew the drive from the airport to the farm would be longer than usual this time, but as the afternoon wore on the ETA kept getting pushed back further and further until they finally pulled into the driveway at 1:13am after a twelve hour journey. They were blocked by a landslide outside San Jose, and then flooding on the coast where they had to sit in the car and wait for the waters to recede.

The worst part of the journey was that after they got through all the flooding and were crossing the mountains from the coast to our farm, sometime after midnight, they hit a slippery spot and did a 180 on the road and ended up off the road facing the other direction, twice.

I was so worried about them out there on the road I didn’t sleep a wink before they got home, and once they arrived it was hard for me to settle down and rest.

The next night at about 3am Ben woke me up to tell me he had a terrible pain in his lower right abdomen. We got up and monitored it, and decided that the pain was so bad, and the location so near the appendix, that he better go to the hospital. Fortunately, his mom was with us and was able to take him, otherwise I would have had to pack up the kids, lock up the farm (if that’s possible), and get us all there myself.

Fortunately, it wasn’t his appendix, it was a kidney stone, and Ben and his mom were back before 10am. But not without getting pulled over by a police officer while driving from the hospital to the radiology lab. At least they didn’t get a ticket.

Ben was pretty out of commission for a while. 

I did my best to keep everyone fed and do the bare minimum to keep up with work. 

Lia, our two-year-old, then decided to stop sleeping. Very abruptly she started skipping her naps during the day and waking up in the middle of the night with requests to eat, play, and watch puppies on the tablet. We only just figured out yesterday that she must be getting her back molars. For a few days it was perplexing to watch her completely transform from a usually sweet, fun toddler to a screaming, clingy one. Now that I know what is going on I can handle it a bit better, and I am so deeply tired that it’s hard to keep my emotions in check.

I really wanted Ben’s mom and her friend to have some fun while they were here. We had an idea that we could all go to the coast for a day or two, go to the ocean, see the monkeys, swim in a pool, etc. But with the dangerous driving and the fact that we can’t all fit into one car (nor do we ever leave the farm completely alone so even if we took two cars we would have to find someone to watch the farm for the time we were gone) there was just no energy behind the idea. I would have spearheaded the effort but moments after talking about it started my period, so my motivation flew out the window.

Ben decided (after I asked him) to take everyone to town so they could eat at a restaurant and I could have some time to myself. As luck would have it the moment they got in the car the rain started coming down hard again and they had to brave flooded roads to get to the restaurant. When they got there it was closed for a private party. Of course.

The next day my Uncle John died. It was not a surprise, and still so sad. He was a big part of my childhood and it got me thinking about all the birthday parties, and summer hang-outs with my family in Maine when I was a kid. Nostalgia.

We survived a few more days. One of the hardest parts for me is not my own discomfort, but having to witness everyone else’s discomfort. Ben’s mom and her friend stayed in our cabin which was not designed with 70 year-olds in mind. The stairs leading up to it are tall and every time I would see them climbing them I would have to look away for fear they would fall. They actually both did fall in the muddy, tall grass between our house and the cabin at different times. 

Walking outside is risky these days. The mud is so slick in some places. Ben has been having Pedro, our farmhand, put cement pavers down in different places that are the most dangerous. The lack of sun and difficulty getting around outside means we all have a bit of cabin fever. When the sun does come out we try to soak it up, and then it goes away again. In fact, it just started raining again right now.

Ben’s mom and her friend went back to San Jose on Wednesday and the drive went surprisingly well. It only took four hours. They spent the night in a hotel and I thought they were in the clear, but then yesterday after they arrived at the airport I got a message that they’d left a cellphone in the shuttle from the hotel. There was a moment where I was on the phone with Ben’s mom, and Ben was on the phone with the shuttle driver, and there was only a short space between them at the airport, but security would not let either of them through to the other side. So the phone will have to get mailed back to the States.

Writing all this down is helpful. Sharing the struggles of daily life makes them more bearable. There have been several moments of beauty in the midst of all of this.

1. The last day that Ben’s mom was here we were cooking in the kitchen and playing some music from the 70s (like Marvin Gaye and The Commodores) and I turned around to see this. It was a moment of relaxed, normalcy. No emergency was going on. It wasn’t raining into the kitchen sideways. It was pleasant, and warm, and we were making good food. There was a chess game and a Cheshire cat.

   

2. The next day I put Lia and Ian in the car and we drove down to the pulperia (little grocery store) in a village nearby to get a treat. On the way we saw a rainbow. This photo doesn’t do it justice. We felt like we could touch it and it made us all happy. Lia sang the rainbow song from Peppa Pig.

   

3. We were spoiled with fruit while Ben’s parents were here. On Thursday last week I drove them and the kids to the weekly farmer’s market and Harold spent almost a hundred bucks on grapes, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, watermelons, papaya, mangoes, momochinos, mangosteens and more. We usually eat a fair amount of fruit but we never spend $20 on grapes the way Harold did. So that was nice, and fun, and healthy. Thank you Harold.

   

   A big bowl of momochinos or mamones. In English they’re called lychees. It’s definitely their season now and I’m loving them. Dr. Suess on the outside and sweet, juiciness on the inside.

We are actually very lucky to be living on a mountaintop during this rainy season. There are a lot of people who live on the coast who have lost so much; their homes, their clothes, their businesses. Most of the disaster relief is being done on the ground. Here’s a link to Costa Ballena Disaster Relief if you would like to learn more about how to help. I will be dropping off clothes as soon as I can.

In my next post I’m going to show you around our kitchen. I want to show you how we get our eggs and what we do with our compost. Hopefully there’s time for that soon.

Love,

Sri