This fabulous documentary movie from Brazil present hundreds of ways to deal with the “Nature Deficit Syndrome” of modern children, particularly city kids around the world. Available on Netflix and other streaming services for free with English Subtitles though the audio is a mix of Portuguese, Spanish and English. Beautifully filmed and Life-changing for the whole world! It shows how NATURE is what the world needs now! 🙂 I RECOMMEND!
Nature is a tool to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves.
A Dakar, Senegal Mosque Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean — Photographed while in The Gambia & Senegal, 1999-2002.
A few readers know or remember that I once live in The Gambia, West Africa for three years with many experiences recorded on this same website found by following my AFRICA Travel Page links or going directly to pages for The Gambia and Senegal. I made both of the above photos in Dakar, Senegal.
I got one of my first shocks the first month there when I told the guards that it looked like a rain storm was coming from the north, even though it was “The Dry Season.” They laughed at me and explained that the first month of dry season was called Harmattan and was when the sand and dust from the Sahara Desert blew south and west and that we would soon be covered in dust and sand, thus close your windows. I closed them and it did not help much with everything in the little apartment covered in dust or sand. Incidentally, some years that same Harmattan blows part of the Sahara Desert all the way across the Atlantic to Costa Rica. Really! 🙂
In Costa Rica it is not called “Harmattan,” but we have a similar experience any time from late December to mid-March when the wind blows almost constantly and everything is dusty. It is not as heavy as West Africa, but it is for a longer period of time with just dust, not desert sand (usually)! It is worse if one of the volcanoes is erupting and we get the gray to black volcano soot like I’ve had a few times from Volcán Turrialba. 🙂
Thus when another WordPress Blogger posted this Poem by Danusha Lameris, I saved it to share right now during our “mini-harmattan” or windy weather or dusty season, none of which are titles Costa Rica brags about for our “Dry Season” (most popular tourist time). And incidentally, this years winds seem to be stronger and at night much cooler than the previous 6 Dry Seasons for me here. Now North Americans wouldn’t consider the low 60’s Fahrenheit cold, but that’s a “two-blanket night” here! 🙂
Today, February 8, 2021, is the first time students will be in the physical school buildings in almost a year, having closed last March because of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Primary School – Los Angeles
Some schools will offer the option of a “hybrid plan” mixing in-person with online school, fewer days in-person. And the many students who have no internet access for online school will be prioritized for in-person classes and parents who are not comfortable with in-person school for their kids can continue online schooling.
Those in the physical school buildings must wear masks and desks will be 1.8 meters apart, with hand-washing and other precautions in place. Read more details in theEnglish-language Tico Times article. Or readers here in Costa Rica can get questions answered on the Spanish language Education Ministry’s Coronavirus Website.
High School – Colegio Liceo
All photos are my older file photos from earlier years. The feature photo as header of page is of Escuela Central, the largest and main primary school, K-6. The kids in costumes are at Los Angeles Primary School and the teens at bottom are at Colegio Liceo, the university-prep public high school.
This past school year will have a major impact on several generations of students around the world with so many poorer students unable to participate in online education. Much work and prayer needs to go into helping these students around the world to “catch up” or fit in with the more affluent. And Costa Rica will do it well, always being a leader in education.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”
You North Americans think you are crazy about American Football, you should see some of the Ticos get excited about their REAL FUTBOL (soccer) team. Liga Deportiva Alajuelensesurvived a late scare to beat Saprissa, 3-2, and win the 2021 CONCACAF League. This is like the “Super Bowl” of Costa Rica!
Atenas only has high school football but we are in Alajuela Province, thus that is “our” team! No. I have not suddenly become a football fan! I wasn’t in the states and not here, BUT I am a fan of my local people and many of them, especially young men, are big fans. And this was so important because we (underdogs) beat the “big” team from San Jose! 🙂 They are arrogant, big city bosses who needed to lose a game! And they lost more than one! 🙂 And to show my support I chose my Banco Nacional credit card colors in the colors of Liga, our team!
One of my new favorite lodges in Costa Rica is El Silencio Lodge at Bajos del Toro in my own province of Alajuela, north of San Ramon in the cloud forest mountains where there are many waterfalls. I was there last September and as I frequently do, I made a little 7X7 inch photo book about my experiences there, sending them a copy plus one each of my general birds and butterflies books for their other guests to enjoy. When the owner came down from San Jose and saw the books he was so impressed that he told the staff to offer me two free nights in this luxury lodge.
Well, of course I accepted the offer and will add-on two more nights at my cost for a great 5-day visit the middle of February! 🙂 If you want to see a free electronic preview of the book online, click the title here:El Silencio, Touching Souls, inspired by a quote from Mother Teresa:
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.
Yeah! I know, it seems that I like every tree! And maybe I do, but this one by the cow pasture in front of my house is special I think because of its shape. Though that one little tree to its left sort of takes away from the shape 🙂 it’s still a neat tree!
The Featured Photo above is the broad look from the cow pasture with that tiny sliver of roof on the far left edge of photo being my house on the hill. The tree is the one in center of above photo to the left of the 3 big houses. And below is a closer view.
Big Green Tree by the Pasture.
“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.”
The #1 best country to retire in according to International Living Magazine (Again!)
The #1 best country to visit or vacation inaccording to National Geographic for 2021.
The highest inoculation rate against Covid -19 virus in Latin America with goal of every adult in the country!
“Rumor” is that Costa Rica may host the 2022 Miss Universe Contest. A new convention center in San Jose makes things like this more likely, though final decision not made yet.
FOR ME? It is the Best Place to Experience NATURE!
Hotel Savegre is a much different hotel than I remember it from my 2009 visit when it was a long row of rooms like an old-fashion motel stuck in the forest with a separate building for the office and restaurant. Then there were gardens in front with lots of hummingbird feeders and a few little trails into the forest. Today, no feeders! Just natural flowers and other plants to attract the birds.
Restaurant on the left and lobby-office on the right.
Today it is a new, modern, 4-star hotel that I still think should be called a “mountain lodge,” but that was not the vision of these first pioneers in this little mountain resort community. And one of their adult sons was my birding guide this time! It is the largest Hotel-Spa-Nature Reserve in San Gerardo de Dota and is a big attraction to both tourists and Ticos from the cities wanting to get away. In fact, the weekend part of my time there on this trip was totally booked, every room! And I estimate at least 80% local Costa Ricans, called Ticos here.
Below is a gallery of what shots I got of the hotel. The rooms are now in groups of 2 to 4 around gardens with at least one garden table and chairs for each 2 or 4 rooms. It is rustic-modern, very comfortable, with a heater in every room, that is needed, especially at night! And Wifi in each room that was not working in my room, so I just used the public areas for Wifi. And a modern fireplace in every section of the restaurant which I guess burns something like butane? The food is as good as I’ve had anywhere, not exactly “gourmet” which would sound pretentious (not them), but is just high-quality food, very well-prepared with a large assortment of choices.
Here’s a few of my photos of the facilities you can CLICK to enlarge somewhat or for the full-sized images go to my The Hotel Gallery in the bigger Trip Gallery which is now completed:
Join thousands of others around the world on February 12-15, 2021, on any one of those days, and count how many birds you see in your backyard to help science with another statistic! 🙂 Read about it on the Great Backyard Bird Count Website and/or get motivated with their short little video below:
I’ve been watching, counting and photographing birds my whole adult life. See my BIRDS Gallery for some of the photos of more than 500 species from 10 different countries with the most in Costa Rica of course! 🙂
One of the many wonderful things about Hotel Savegre is the huge piece of property it sits on in a mixture of primary and secondary forest – the “secondary” parts being where early farmers cleared land that has now been “re-forested” as has a large portion of Costa Rica as farming methods have improved and are becoming less destructive of the natural environment. The guide in some of the photos is Marino Chacon, a son of the man and woman who pioneered this first hotel/lodge in the truly amazing hills of San Gerardo de Dota. His parents are pictured on one of the trail signs included below in my two collections. CLICK image in first gallery to enlarge, which you can’t do in the second one as a slideshow.
