Category: Costa Rica

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15th of September Post 2: BANDS!

Though the volume made you think there were more, there were only 4 full-size bands in the parade and they were mostly drums, since there are few teachers or classes for other instruments. They were scattered throughout the parade with several small ensembles in-between, like 3 to 8 persons with multiple instruments.  There were more flag bearers than band members. Bands are bandas in Spanish.

Banda Escuela de Musica is a community band for all ages (child-adult) that meets, learns and practices after school.
It includes my Spanish teacher, his son and son’s nanny, and another friend. I help raise money for their Panama trip.
Notice, like others, they are now all drums except for 2 saxophones and 3 xylophones called marimbas here.

I like their spiffy uniform shirts
which they are wanting to replace with “real” uniforms sometime.
It is a community activity requiring donated money not easily obtained.

It is an after-school, community music school that teaches how to read music,
how to play other instruments when they can be obtained, and the band will
add more instruments over time as they can. It could become big in Atenas. 

Banda de Colegio San Rafael is a suburban high school smaller than Liceo
but sharper looking uniforms. All drums because of lack of music teachers.

Ticos teens like to dress sharp and appreciate cool hats!

Banda de Colegio Liceo is the largest from the largest school with golf shirts
as uniforms and again mostly drums because of few music teachers. 
All drummers are cool and since nearly all of the band are drummers . . .
Boy! My band director would never have allowed sunglasses!  🙂
So maybe this is why Ticos are the happiest people on earth!?
They are followed by and overshadowed by the largest troop of flag bearers in the parade, also a part of Colegio Liceo.
More flag photos tomorrow! 

By now you may have learned that high schools are called “Colegio” in Spanish in Costa Rica. If not, that is your new Spanish word for today!   🙂

Unknown school with 8 boys on drums – what I was calling an “ensemble.”

Escuela Central Elementary School
As with the others, mostly drums with a few marimbas (xylophones);
smaller and less organized than high school bands.

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Lanterns Parade – desfile de linternas

The night before the Independence Day Celebration the children march in a parade with decorated lanterns that have now become elaborate works of art in some cases. With hovering Moms, it was a confusing mess and then the parade didn’t march down the street where I was waiting, but the other side of the park. So I grabbed a few shots as they dispersed and one on my way to town. Hope I do better tomorrow for the big parade with bands and flags!

As I walked to town I passed this family of 3 kids with their lanterns.
The kids all met at Escuela Central to start the parade, so I went to Central Park.

Many of the girls had “doll lanterns” (light inside) in traditional dress.
The boys had old fashion lanterns or oxcart lanterns mostly.

Several just waited for the parade
holding their lanterns. 
Some were held high and others in their hands.
And some of the kids wore traditional clothing
making it colorful, though a confusing crowd of people
mostly parents hovering around their kids.

And no one ever seems to know the parade route in advance so you can get a good place to see. There were a hundred or more of us on the west side of the park waiting and they marched only on the east and north side! Grrrr!

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Preparing for 15 September

Escuela Central older students prepare for Independence Day Parade

This is the primary school and these were learning to march with flag poles (sans flags) which will be part of how their school participates in the 15 September Independence Day Parade. This morning at the same school the band was practice marching in this same place but I couldn’t stop, running late for my class. All the high school bands are preparing too as I can hear their drummers and we have a community band that will also participate in the parade next Tuesday morning.

On the night before there will be a lights parade with prizes given for the best decorated lanterns.

Hoy aprendo verbos saber y conocer en Aprendo Español en Atenas. 

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Tour de Atenas? And Bingo!

Some of the hundreds of bikes going by my house for more than an hour today.

I’m not sure what it is, but they don’t act like they are racing but rather completing a tour. For 30 minutes it was almost bumper to bumper bikes then the stragglers continued for an hour or two more. Participants are mostly Tico or local people with a few expats included. You see these large groups of spandex-clad bikers occasionally around here, usually on weekends and even out on the highways and rural roads. While during the week bikers are working people with baskets making deliveries or just getting to work, etc. Neither the town’s narrow streets or the narrow highways are safe for casual or transportation lone bikers, plus we are all hills which makes it difficult as well as dangerous. It is rare to see children biking the streets and neither kids nor teens bike to school. They all walk to school! Like me! 🙂 As much as I like biking, I think I will still to walking and maybe live longer.

After church online in Nashville I went to the Catholic church for another Bingo experience with other Su Espacio Spanish students. This time more students came, two tables full! A lot of fun. I report with photos in my new Español blog Aprendo Español en Atenas, titled Bingo a los números de práctica and I’m getting better with my numbers in spanish!

My table of 7 was one of two tables of students from Su Espacio this time.
Me and David are missing from the photo of this table.

Tico food and drinks are available for sale and this time I ate a big piece of pineapple cornbread with a Pepsi. Nope, I’m not doing without my sugar fixes here! Dulce is the name for sweets here.  🙂

They just call the numbers (No B-16, N-23 like in states) and we have a bowl of corn kernals on the table to mark our numbers. Susan was the only one of our group (1st on left above) who had a winning card but there were two winners and one prize. There was a drawing and she lost the draw. But the prizes are nothing to write home about!

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Labeling My Wildlife Photos

Some of the books I use plus the internet now.

Before the Yorkin Trip I had four books specifically for Costa Rica wildlife (in above photo) and the bird book, A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica, was the best of those (seen in above photo by Stiles & Skutch, 1989). I am now replacing it with a 2014 book by one of the members of the birding club I just joined, Robert Dean, The Birds of Costa Rica, A Field Guide. It is obviously more up to date and has more birds. This is the second edition of his book. I’ve ordered it from Amazon.com and it should be here by next week via Miami.

Our birding guide for the club and my first club trip, Pat O’Donnell, also recommends an app (he co-authored) which I got for both my phone and Kindle called “Costa Rica Birds – Field Guide” which is available from most app stores or directly from the producers at BirdingFieldGuides.com  It is very good with lots of photos of all the birds of Costa Rica and a filter to help you label your bird photo. I may end up using it more than the book. We’ll see! With my Kindle Fire I have gone to almost all electronic books anyway.

The Panama bird book (in first photo)is very good, more recent than my first Costa Rica book, and can be used as a backup for identification. We almost have the same birds with a few exceptions. It is our southern birds and their northern birds that overlap. Likewise our northern birds overlap with Nicaragua.

The Costa Rica butterfly book in the top photo is very limited, so I also use the U.S. National Audubon Society guide (glad I kept it!). The only more thorough butterfly book for Costa Rica I’ve found is a college textbook for $80+ and I haven’t gone that far yet! Plus it is probably more technical than I want. I just want images to help me identify my photos.

The internet is good for some creatures, but not all. I still have unidentified butterflies and birds in my photo collection! I have also joined some websites or online organizations to help with birding and bird identification, but not a lot of help yet. So please know that when I label something “Unidentified,” it is not because I didn’t try!   🙂

Likewise I have one book on Costa Rica plants and it is about as limited as the butterfly book. So plants are sometimes even more difficult to label and I’m learning that the common Spanish names and English names are not simply translations of each other. Maybe I should go with the Latin!  🙂

Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.
~Wernher von Braun

——
“Costa Rica Extra” Sports Tidbits:

Was Recreational Ziplining Really Invented in Costa Rica? Yes indeeeed! No data on whitewater rafting which is also big here.

The most popular sport in the little farm town of Atenas is el voleibol (volleyball) with one high school the national champion most years! We have a park with a beach volleyball court, all sand! I don’t know how it ranks in popularity in the country of Costa Rica, but is definitely popular, especially on the two coasts along with surfing there.

Though el futbol (soccer) is the most popular spectator sport in Costa Rica, el beisbol (baseball) is a close second as is el practicar surf (surfing) and el ciclismo (cycling) where we were just ranked high in the El Tour de Francia. And Costa Rica has the Latin American Champion Surfista (surfer) almost every year!

The happiest people on earth love their sports and recreation and smart gringos avoid driving to the beach on weekends when the highways are literally packed bumper to bumper with Ticos at the beaches! Pura Vida!
——

Heraclitus

“Time is a game played beautifully by children.” 
― Heraclitus, Fragments



Bill Watterson

“Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.” 
― Bill Watterson
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RAIN in the Garden!

Has the “Rainy Season” really started now? Afternoon rain for 2 days in a row! 🙂

Rain dripping off a Guarumo leaf.

Wet Palmetto leaf in my garden.

Wet Heliconia leaves in my garden. Camera doesn’t show rain, just wet!
My miniature rainforest in the rain; habitat of birds, butterflies, frogs, & lizards.
But you can’t see the rain in the photo.  🙂   Believe me. It is raining!
Babies!
My pride and joy, rare Maraca Plant (Shampoo Ginger), has 4 new sprouts!
Snapped this as rain stopped and I finished post. See ground cover filling in?
My garden is one of the best things about this house and done from scratch!
With a rare plant to boot! It came from being nice to the gardeners.  🙂

“Open up, heavens, and rain.
    Clouds, pour out buckets of my goodness!
Loosen up, earth, and bloom salvation;
    sprout right living.
    I, God, generate all this.”
Isaiah 45:8
The Message


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Fork-tailed Emerald Hummingbird

Back to my garden . . .

Fork-tailed Emerald Hummingbird
In my garden, Roca Verde house, Atenas, Costa Rica

This is my second time to photograph this species in my garden. Both times the light is not good for a clear and colorful photo. He/she is an iridescent green all over except for the dark, forked tail. The first time was no better.  What I need is sunlight shining directly on the bird!  🙂

SPANISH LANGUAGE UPDATE
My progress has been so very slow. ¡Aprendo poco a poco español! (I learn Spanish little by little.) Is what I say to some people. So I have joined a second class that meets only once a week at the little evangelical church I have attended some, Iglesia Biblical. It provides a text book and workbook for homework and it is too early to see if it will help me learn faster, though every effort is of some value! What I need most is to just talk more in Spanish, ignoring the embarrassment of doing it wrong. That is what David Castillo at Su Espacio is trying to get me to do. We are down to just two in his class right now, so it is almost like tutoring. I also try to do one little activity each day on duolingo.com which is a great free language learning site! And I just ordered another CD-based course. So I’m trying! ¡Pero es difícil! (But it is difficult!) Or slow! David suggested I do this blog in Spanish, but that would leave too many of you out, so I won’t. Maybe a separate blog in Spanish?
DROUGHT
This has been one of the driest “Rainy Seasons” on record for the Central Valley and I have to water my garden and new trees every other day. Everyone says the rain should really come in September and October. We’ll see! It is cloudy and thundering right now, but that often means little or nothing!

The only exception to the drought has been the Caribbean side of the country and a few places in the north. It rained every day we were at Yorkin. The northwest or Guanacaste  area is always the driest part of the country and it is even drier this year. It is really hard on farmers!

 Time flies, but not backwards, like a hummingbird can.
(-:


Good night from Atenas, Costa Rica! The little bit of rain passed fast and gave us fog. Pura Vida!
View from my balcony of course!


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Textures of the Rain Forest

While along the Yorkin River in a Bribri indigenous people village I captured several shots of the forest & its textures.
East of Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

 

All photos made by Charlie Doggett at the Casa de las Mujeres Yorkin

 

 

 

 
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
 
Frank Lloyd Wright

 

 

 

Gustave Flaubert

“I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.” 
― Gustave Flaubert, November

 

 

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Shots of Birding Club Members

Though my focus is always on nature, I did make a few shots of the 18 club members on trip.

Pat is our club birding guide and very good at finding birds!
He is from states but married to a Tica with CR children now!

“Now are you sure everything is in a waterproof bag?

Our feet were wet before we ever got to canoe.

Dugout canoes with outboard motors on the rear and traditional pole in front.

Right outside our thatched roof housing we find many birds!
At least once we didn’t have to wade the stream!

There are about a hundred members of the “Birding Club of Costa Rica” with expats possibly being in the majority (or at least were for this trip). Each and every person is so nice and very interesting with people like my roommate who still works for the World Bank, another retired from the United Nations, and another who sold his software company to Steve Jobs and built a home in Costa Rica. Then there’s the writer and the fun Dutch couple, the author of the latest Costa Rica birding book and so many many more to get acquainted with! I look forward to it!

The only meeting is an annual business meeting with everything else being field trips to find birds. And a cool Christmas Party they tell me! I never made time for a birding club in the states, so this is going to be fun! I’ve already bought the club T-shirt!  🙂
“I think the most important quality in a birdwatcher is a willingness to stand quietly and see what comes. Our everyday lives obscure a truth about existence – that at the heart of everything there lies a stillness and a light.” 
― Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Memoir